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My apologies for the delay in posting this message on the Forum.
The following is an adaptation of the most recent version of my family’s history
written by my father. The contents come from documentation but also
recollections of living relatives.
Note: the surname Dabbs is apparently a derivation of ‘son of Robert’. It
reputedly originates in the English counties of Lancashire, Yorkshire and
(possibly) Lincolnshire.
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My great-great-grandfather William Dabbs lived in Wellington in Shropshire. He
was a labourer (spoken of as an iron puddler), somehow involved in the castings used in the construction of the first cast iron bridge, now known as Ironbridge in Shropshire. He married Rebecca Rogers. All the children of the marriage were given biblical names, including Zachariah, Theophilus, Ebenezer and James.
James Dabbs (16/01/1839 - / /192-), my great-grandfather (my father’s paternal
grandfather) was reputed to have been born probably at Oakengates, near
Wellington in Shropshire. He left the family home and walked to London to seek his fortune amongst the fabled “golden pavements” of the big city. He seems to have done reasonably well as a book hawker in Faringdon Street market,
specialising in bibles and medical text books that he sold to the students at the
nearby London teaching hospitals. On retirement, he sold his business to another book seller who went on to found Foyles book shops.
James married Mary Ann Piety (? - 1906), who is believed to have been
abandoned, only hours old, on the steps of an orphanage in Folkestone in Kent.
There is some possibility that her mother was then employed by the orphanage in
a menial capacity in order to keep some contact. It is said that the father was a
Norwegian sailor from a visiting ship. Mary Ann (named by the officials at the
orphanage) was a statuesque woman, as much as six feet tall, and described as
‘well-built’ and weighing some 18 stone while not overweight. After her death,
her heart was said to have been kept by one of the teaching hospitals, as it was
healthy but about double the normal size (although this story may be apocryphal).
James and Mary Ann were among the original members of the newly formed
Salvation Army, and regularly wore the uniform. They had six children, Mary,
Ellen, James, Ruth, Frederick and William. James and Frederick both died aged 39; one of them - probably Frederick - married an Ada and had five children.
The youngest child, William Henry Dabbs (13/4/1892 - 5/3/1962), my grandfather, was born at 24 Peabody’s Buildings, Roscoe Street, London. He enlisted in the British Army in 1906, although under age. Bought out by his father, he re-enlisted shortly afterwards. He went to France in the First World War as one of the Old Contemptibles in 1914, and fought at Mons, the Somme and
Passchendale. He was wounded several times and later gassed - the gas was to
affect him for the rest of his life. He was discharged from the Army in 1919.
His experiences made him an ardent pacifist and socialist. He also became an
active trade unionist, a founder member of the National Union of Public Employees. This restricted his employment prospects between the world wars. He worked as a casual labourer, a night watchman, a grave digger and a local council employee. He was take on by Southall Borough Council in London in the late 1930s in the Parks Department where he stayed until retirement after World War Two, during which he served as a mortuary attendant for Air Raid
Casualties.
William married Matilda Timms (26/9/1889 - 22/11/1980), known as Kathleen, on 1 November, 1914, at the Church of St. Mary and St. Thomas, Charterhouse, Playhouse Gardens, Finsbury in London. They met while he was on guard duty outside Wellington Barracks, near Hyde Park in London. She was the daughter of a farm labourer, part of a large family in and around Stanford-in-the-Vale near Faringdon in Berkshire, and was sent away at age 11 into domestic service in London. They had eight children: seven daughters (Kathleen, Constance, Frederica, Dorothy, Gwendoline, Olive and Maydalyn) and one son (my father,
William Frederick James Timms Dabbs).
My father, William Dabbs (28/4/1931 - ), married Marilyn Joyce Ponting
(16/2/1940) on 11 February, 1961. They had two children - me, Christopher
William Dabbs (30/1/1966 - ), and Louise Anne Dabbs (11/1/1968 - ). Neither of
us has any children. Like my father, I am the only male Dabbs of my generation
in the family.
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I hope that this is of interest. I would welcome any information from anyone
about Dabbs in England and the rest of the British Isles - whether pirates,
shippers, mayors, law enforcers, surveyors or any other occupation - as it may help me in my search for my own ancestry.
Followups:
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