MY FAMILY HERO
Jane Sherwood celebrates Charlie Plant, who spent his early years in the workhouse but built a happy life for his family
Charlie Plant made a good life for himself despite years in a workhouse
Jane Sherwood’s two great uncles came home safe from the horrors of the First World War. But it is their father, Charlie Plant, who Jane holds up as her hero. After all, the boys were only able to serve their country after he brought them up and saved them from the kinds of hardships he had to endure in a Victorian workhouse when he was a child.
But that wasn’t the place where Jane first found her great grandfather Charlie – it was instead working on Britain’s most famous river. While studying and looking after her mother in London 20 years ago, Jane was told of an ancestor who worked as a wherry man on the Thames on Sundays after a full week of making baskets.
“I went to Kingston Museum in 1999, before records were on the internet. The curator found the 1871 and 1881 census records for me, and printed off maps of the area and photographs of draper shops in Thames Street,” Jane explains, who was then able to find Charlie’s birth certificate.
“I was an inexperienced researcher, so did not realise that ‘the Romford Union’ on the census meant that he was under the charge of the workhouse.”
Born to Mercy Plant (née Colls) and Michael Frederick Plant in May 1855, Charlie spent most of his first four years with his mother in the workhouse before being brought up by his older sister, also called Mercy. His father Michael had been sent to Staffordshire to find work, having lost his job as a silk mercer, which led to his pregnant wife ending up in the workhouse.
Sadly, the family received no help from Michael’s mother- and father-in-law, though the Colls were wealthy Quakers who owned vast land in Norfolk and were leading lights in the Victorian art world. They cut Mercy off when they discovered her relationship with the older Michael.
Jane says, “I felt quite angry that Charlie’s grandparents deserted him – they were wealthy and influential. The fact that they were Quakers seemed to make it worse.”
Charlie’s mother died when he was four, and he was orphaned at eight, losing a father he’d barely known. “I think he was unaware – too young to understand what he had missed, with little memory of his parents. But he was always desperate to be part of a family, and eager to make sure that he looked after his own family later in life.”
Things didn’t get any easier for Charlie following his mother’s death. Along with two of his sisters he was transported to Kingston upon Thames upon the instruction of Samuel Southey, bailiff to the High Court in Romford. However, he fared better than his sisters, Mercy and Ellen, who were held at Samuel’s residence, a ‘sponge house’ where the inmates paid high fees to avoid being incarcerated in the gaol in his basement.
After basic schooling and a few thrashings, like most boys at the age of 14 Charlie became an apprentice, in his case learning how to become a draper – so it’s unclear how he ended up as a basket-maker.
Charlie spent most of his life in the borough of Kingston upon Thames where Jane was born and brought up, and she has found a connection to her ancestor through knowing the places where he lived and worked.
“Charlie’s final and longest-lasting address in Tolworth is where he was happiest,” she explains. “He became a wherry man much
later after his wife died, because he needed the money. My uncle told me that Charlie would come home on a Sunday after ferrying the rich people across to Hampton Court and throw gold sovereigns on the table – his tips, which were often more than he could earn in a whole week as a basket-maker.”
It’s this journey from squalor to a happy life with his wife Alice Gray, mixed in with a host of twists and turns and other fascinating tales of Charlie’s family, that prompted Jane to write The True Tale of Charlie Plant.
Using family records, historical details and a tad of poetic licence, the book is a document to pass down to her children and grandchildren, letting them know of their ancestor who worked hard throughout his life to ensure his family would not have to suffer the terrible poverty he experienced as a boy.
“Charlie never gave up. He was abandoned by his family, and had to make his own way. He was a cheerful character despite great hardship, and remained loyal to the family he chose: his wife Alice and his children. When he suffered hard times he worked hard to make things better.”
I felt angry that his grandparents deserted him – they were wealthy and influential