BENTLEY and RELATED FAMILIES

Chapter 6: Samuel BENTLEY (c1835-c1894)

August 27 1849 was a big day for the Bentley family, for three baptisms took place in St Philip’s church, Birmingham. Samuel was baptised at the age of fourteen, his sister Caroline at the age of twelve and his cousin Samuel, son of William, at the age of fifteen. Why these three should all a have been baptised together is a mystery. Perhaps they were due to be confirmed when it was realised that they had not already been baptised, or maybe a new, rather zealous, priest took over at St Philip’s and took it up on himself to ‘round-up’ his wayward flock.

It is possible that the Samuel cousins were quite close, for both started out as brass dressers and both went on to become gas fitters, although the Samuel under consideration did not travel as widely.

Samuel married Eliza Woodford on 12 August 1860 at St Peter and St Paul’s church, Aston. Eliza’s siblings William and Mary Ann witnessed the marriage. Eliza was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, in 1838. Throughout the 1880s and in to the 1890s Eliza’s family lived next door at 12 Thomas Street, from where her father his boot and shoemaking business.

In later years Samuel became a provisions dealer and grocer. He lived with his family ‘over the shop’, at 14 Thomas Street in Aston throughout the 1860s, 70s, and 80s. By 1881 his sons, Sidney and John James, had become a gas worker and ginger beer salesman respectively; both still lived at home. The grocery business apparently folded, for by 1891 Samuel was a general labourer, living with his wife and two youngest children, tram driver Percy and Kate.

Samuel BENTLEY b.c1835 d.1893 m.>Eliza WOODFORD (Chapter 12)

….Sidney BENTLEY b.c1862

….John James BENTLEY b.1863 d.1909 (Chapter 7)

….Louis\Lewis BENTLEY b.c1865

….Percy BENTLEY b.c1874 d.>1891

....Eliza/Kate b.c1880 d.>1901