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William had a number of siblings including Douglas William, born on 20 December 1881, Hilda Lucinda, born 13th August 1884 and Grace Daisy born on 30 March 1887 – the latter two being born when the family lived at 34 Penny Street Portsmouth. Two years after his birth his mother Clara was widowed. By 1901 when he was six years old, his eldest brother Douglas William Lock was in the Royal Marines, stationed at Eastney Barracks in Portsmouth working as a tailor within the service. His sisters Grace, aged 14, and Hilda, aged 16 years, were working as domestic servants in the household of George Gooderham, grocer, at 3 Grove Road North, Portsmouth. William later married Winifred Ethel Bailey and they had three children: Desmond Earle, Douglas Patrick and Margaret Diana. He died in 1970.
Alfred’s mother was Cordelia Sampson née Geach who worked in the same trade as her husband. William Savell Lock was described on Alfred’s birth certificate as a tailor and draper. Alfred had an older sister Cordelia Elizabeth, born the year before him. She became a tailor machinist, working from home as did her parents and her brother. Cordelia Elizabeth subsequently married William Thomas Clark, in 1885 who sadly died within five years of the marriage. Cordelia then went to live near her mother’s sisters in Littlehampton and took in boarders to supplement her income. At some time between Alfred’s birth and his marriage in 1881, the family moved from Sussex to Portsmouth. Alfred became a tailor and left the family home (14 Lombard Street, Portsmouth) at age 21 to marry Clara Earle. Together they had several children including their eldest Douglas William, three girls, Hilda, Grace and Violet Dorothy and the youngest son William Earle Lock. At the time of the latter’s birth in 1896 he was living at 73 High Street Portsmouth. Alfred died on 30 June 1898 of tubercular disease.
William Savell Lock was christened on 26 January 1834 at St Pancras Wesleyan church, Chichester, Sussex. His father was Henry Lock, a schoolmaster and his mother was Eliza neé Savell. He had at least one other brother, Henry Lock jr. christened in 1837 at St Mary Littlehampton. He married Cordelia Sampson Geach on 17th September 1857 aged 23, at St Mary, Littlehampton. They had three children: Cordelia Elizabeth christened on 12th September 1858 and Alfred William, born on 30th October 1859 and Edwin born in 1861. William is variously described as a tailor (1857 and 1881) and tailor/draper (1859) and seems to have worked on his own account from home. He is listed in the 1861 Sussex Post Office Directory as a tailor, living in Island Terrace Littlehampton, alongside a solicitor, watchmaker and physician. On 8 March 1863 however a fire broke out at the premises and caused severe damage to to the upper floor and roof. Despite the fact that on the very same night a local lad, George Lee, known for arson attacks, also set fire to some cottages, nearby, the insurance company refused to pay out for the damage to William Savell Lock's home and business claiming there was insufficient evidence to prove it was the same culprit. The loss seems to have set back the family considerably as, in 1871, they are living in a cottage in Albert Road, behind the railway station, a much more modest and less mainstream position. They had suffered a number of setbacks and tragedies since the loss of their Island Terrace premises - two years after the fire, William and Cordelia had suffered the loss of their eldest son Edwin, named after Cordelia's younger brother. He was only 18 months old. In 1868 Cordelia's brother Edwin, himself died of tuberculosis, aged 33. By 1871 further family deaths occurred - Cordelia's mother had also died as had one of William's sisters and then in December William's mother Eliza died of paralysis William was the chief mourner at her funeral which may indicate there had been a serious rift between Eliza and her husband, Henry. After this funeral William decided to move his family to Portsmouth to try and make a fresh start as a tailor there. In 1881 at the time of the census William, Cordelia and their children, Alfred and Cordelia Elizabeth were still living together at the family home in 14 Lombard Street, Portsmouth. Sadly William was to die 3 years later, on 17th May 1884, at his address on the High Street Portsmouth, of Tuberculosis. The death was registered by his son Alfred, who was to register the death of his mother four years later of the same disease, and to die himself of TB in 1898.
Much of the following information has been obtained or verified by myself from my own geneaological research but I have also been indebted for certain details to the publication The Early Nineteenth Century (Part One) by H. J. F. Thompson which contains a complete paper written by Henry Lock himself in 1882 for a talk to be given to a local meeting of the Total Abstinence Society in Littlehampton and a small essay on Henry Lock and his family, written on the basis of research by a local geneaolgist in the 1980s. Some of the information I have found to be inaccurate and have either omitted or modified it as necessary but much has been a revelation both about the man and his background. Henry Lock was born in November 1806, the second son and youngest child of Thomas Lock and his wife Elizabeth née Short. who had married in July 1782. When Thomas was drowned in 1819, Henry's mother was left in severe difficulties financially. The family were not well off when Thomas had been working and they were living in a court of small cottages near the 'Island Pond' in Littlehampton. Elizabeth applied for assistance from the Merchants Hospital at Arundel and was granted £5 a year and was later afforded a small allowance from the Elder Brethren of Trinity House. Henry's sister Jane married young (possibly as a result of the poor financial circumstances at home) in 1822, aged about 17, to George Viney a mariner and, in 1841, on the census, Elizabeth Lock, her mother (aged 81) is living with Jane and her family in 13 Henlys Buildings, Littlehampton. and may have been living with them for many years. Henlys Buildings were watermen's cottages by the river in Pier Road. Henry who was 12 years old at the time of his father's death probably had his education shortened by the tragedy. In 1822 he was helping a baker in premises in Surrey Street, and ten years later when he married he described his occupation as bootmaker. This same trade is noted at the baptism of his eldest two children, in 1833 and 1835. In the late 1820's Henry had been converted to Methodism and at the age of 22 he had become a lay preacher. Henry married Eliza Savell on 12 April 1832, aged 26 years, at St Mary Littlehampton. Eliza was the daughter of George and Elizabeth Esther Savell, of Great Yarmouth. Elizabeth was a staunch Anglican and it would seem that as Henry became more engrossed in Methodism and later Congregationalism a rift grew between the two. However, the couple had several children together: William Savell Lock, born in 1833 (see above for details of his life) Eliza born in 1835 - the only child to outlive her parents - she took the trade of a milliner in adult life and married Alfred Perkes Scarpe in 1862. Alfred who had gone to sea as a youth and worked his way up from apprentice to Master by 1866. An interesting connection with the Geach family is the fact that during 1865 Alfred was Mate aboard the Pride of the Arun whose master was Edwin Cowling Geach, Cordelia's younger brother who was to die just a couple of years later. Alfred Scarpe worked at sea, under both sail and steam and in 1879 retired to shore to take up his father's former post as manager of the Littlehampton Chain Ferry and he was the last in charge at the time of the replacement of the ferry by the swing bridge in 1908. Henry born in 1837, known as Harry, who took up the trade of sailmaker. From a present day descendant of his I have recently learned that Henry married Elizabeth Gamer Payne in Portsmouth and the couple moved to Woolwich where Henry took work as a sailmaker in a Woolwich shipyard. Henry and Elizabeth had at least two children there, including a daughter Elizabeth Sarah born in 1865. In 1869 the dockyard closed and the family moved back to Littlehampton where two more daughters were born: Adelaide Cordelia and Julia. In Littlehampton, Henry seems to have given up his trade as sailmaker and taken work as a labourer in a railway goods yard where he was tragically killed in 1874. Taking a shortcut between two wagons he was crushed between them when they were shunted together. He suffered appalling internal injuries and died three weeks later. The company were reprimanded by the coroner but exonerated from liability for the accident. Henry was 36 years old. Elizabeth born in 1839 who worked as a milliner like her sister but died young aged 29, unmarried. By 1837, Henry had become a schoolteacher and by the time of the 1841 census both Henry and his wife are listed as schoolteachers living in the Beach Houses built around the Norfolk Road area of Littlehampton. Henry Lock and his family were living within a stone's throw of the Geach family at this time and William Savell Lock, Henry's eldest son, was no doubt a playfellow of Cordelia Sampson Geach whom he was later to marry. It would seem that at this time they had started their own little school in Western Road but some years later moved from Beach to Church Street where Henry had obtained the post of schoolmaster in charge of an infants school built at the expense of a Mrs Welch (later to re-marry and known as Mrs Compton). Henry and Eliza raised four children but with the exception of Henry junior they do not appear on the Parish Registers. Henry's non-conformity was clearly a cause of distress to his wife and It would appear that Eliza finally decided to take matters into her own hands with her third child. She took young Henry (born in 1837) to be baptised into the Anglican church on 18 October 1842. William Savell Lock, christened in 1834 had been baptised at a Wesleyan church in Chichester.. Some time during the late 1860s Henry bought a new cottage in Howard's Place possibly intended as a retirement home. With the introduction of the Education Act in 1870 many small schools of the type Henry and Eliza ran were likely to be closed down to be replaced by more efficiently run, larger publicly controlled schools. Eliza died in 1871 and by 1875, Henry had started a new career as a lay pastor at Bosham Congregationalist church. In 1881, the census records him at his lodgings in Mariners Terrace, Bosham. as a Congregationalist Minister. He held this post for 12 years and was a well known speaker around the area giving talks on his reminiscences of Littlehampton as well as preaching. The 11 Church Street address seems to have been used by Henry Lock intermittently still as a home and as a base for The Good Templars - a temperance movement with which Henry Lock became deeply involved in the latter years of his life. The local group of this American derived movement were known as the 'Try Again Lodge' and were fiercely teetotal. However, in 1881 the census records that Alfred Scarpe and his wife Eliza (Henry's daughter) were living at 11 Church street with their family: Thirza age 19; Selina aged 14 (scholar) Victoria aged 9 (scholar) and William aged 9 months. Henry as stated above was living in lodgings at Bosham at that date. However by the 1890's Henry was back in residence and it was here that he died on 11 April 1895 of 'natural decay'.(!) His death was registered by George William Kendell, wrongly described on Henry's death certificate as 'son-in law'. In fact George William Kendell was married to Henry Lock's grand-daughter Selina, child of Eliza and Alfred Scarpe. Selina's husband, George Kendell was a tailor from York who had obtained work at a tailoring establishment in Littlehampton and who was also to become choirmaster at the Congregational Church. Selina and George seem to have taken over residence of 11 Church Street some time after their marriage and Henry lived there with them until his death. Their son, born four years after Henry's death was named Henry Lock Kendell in his great- grandfather's memory. This child was to grow up to become Mayor of Croydon! Henry Lock had remained very active almost to his dying day with his preaching and lecturing work. Two days before his death, Henry drew up a new Will - he now had only one child living, Eliza and it was she who was to inherit the bulk of her father's estate, including the cottage at Howard Place. Alfred William Lock and his sister, Cordelia (William Savelll Lock's children) were left only £5 each. Henry's funeral seems to have been a particularly grand affair and Wesleyan and Congregationalist ministers from a wide area attended. His service was held at the Congregational Church on the High Street Littlehampton and was conducted by Samuel Lock, Wesleyan Superintendent Minister from Chichester, but no relation. The cortège made its way to the cemetery with the mourners including the members of the Try Again Lodge of Good Templars in their full regalia. Henry was buried near the northern chapel in the cemetery beside his son William Savell Lock.
THOMAS LOCK Thomas was the son of Solomon Lock of Arundel and his wife Mary née Upperton. Thomas Lock was a mariner - from a line of seafaring ancestors and spent most of his working life in coastal trade. For eleven years he was Master of a sloop 'Judith', owned by William Oliver In July 1782 Thomas married Elizabeth Short and together they had at least nine children: Elizabeth christened 6 July 1783 Harriott christened 31 July 1786 Thomas christened 17 August 1788 Sarah christened 20 June 1790 Penelope christened 13 July 1794 Frances christened 16 November 1796 Catherine christened 3 January 1802 Jane christened 11 March 1804 Henry christened 23 November 1806 Thomas's career however seems to have taken a downward turn with the passing years and by the time Henry was born, his father was working as a 'hoveller'. This was the name given to those men who would take the pilots out to ships bound for the harbour as well as transporting food or relief seamen to vessels whose crews needed supplementing with fresh men. The hovellers also engaged in salvage work and rendered assistance to ships in distress before the days of an organised lifeboat service. On 13 January 1819, Thomas Lock together with Thomas Short and Richard Woolven (pilot) were drowned on their return journey to harbour after escorting a local brig Ann out to sea. There was some belief that the small pilot boat had been overloaded and capsized - there had been six men aboard - three were saved but it was 48 hours before the bodies of Thomas Lock and his companions were found. They were buried together in the churchyard at Littlehampton on Friday 17th January 1819. |
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William Earle Lock was born on 15th June 1896, the
youngest son of Alfred William Lock, a journeyman tailor by profession and Clara
neé Earle. The family were at that time living at 73 High Street Portsmouth.
His father registered his birth on 22nd July.