William Budgen (1820-1864) and Amy Frith (1826-1921).
My 3rd great-grand uncle and aunt.
Baptised in Worth, Sussex, on 6 February 1820, William was the son of William Budgen and Sarah Rice and would meet a gruesome end.
He grew up in Sussex but married Amy Frith on 6 April 1844 at St Peter & St Paul in Headcorn, Kent. Amy and some other family members were sometimes listed in records with the surname ‘Frid’, ‘Fridd’ or ‘Freed’. She was born on 25 June 1826 to labourer William Frith and his wife Susannah, and baptised as a Wesleyan Methodist in Headcorn on 27 August that year. Her father was later listed as a gamekeeper.
William and Amy raised a family and lived in Marden, Kent – a village on the railway line between the towns of Tonbridge and Ashford.
He was described as a labourer at his marriage but census returns in 1851 and 1861 noted that he worked as a platelayer, a job that involved maintaining rail track. And it was on the tracks near his home that he met his untimely death. As the Morning Post of 2 March 1864 reported: “An inquiry was opened yesterday, at Marden, before the coroner for West Kent, into the circumstances attending the death of William Budgen, a platelayer in the service of the South-Eastern Railway Company, who was killed by an express train on Friday night last.”
William and another platelayer, George Russell, had been working on the line about two miles from their homes on 26 February 1864. After leaving work they went to a beer shop and stayed there until about 10pm, but instead of walking home they decided to go back to the tracks and use a trolley to propel themselves along the down line. They hadn’t got more than a few yards when a fast train, which had left London for Dover at 8.55pm, appeared. Both men quickly jumped off the trolley but to try to prevent a collision with the express and a potential disaster, William and George attempted to pull the trolley clear of the rails.
According to the Morning Post: “They had nearly succeeded in doing this but were too late, as the engine came into collision with the trolley, which was shattered to fragments; and the same was the case with the deceased, as the spot where the accident occurred was afterwards found to be literally strewn with pieces of human flesh. The head of the unfortunate man, which was completely severed from his body, was afterwards found in a ditch.
“The train received a severe shock but, fortunately, did not leave the line of rails, which, for 10 miles on either side of Marden station, are particularly straight. George Russell is now in custody to answer the charge of trespassing on the railway before the magistrates at Cranbrook.”
The East Kent Times of 5 March added further details, claiming that the pair had assumed the train had already gone through the district – but they’d been deceived by the fact that the beer house clock was fast. George must’ve been traumatised by what he saw that night but his troubles weren’t over for a few days later he appeared at Cranbrook Petty Sessions charged with obstructing the passage of the line and endangering life.
The Maidstone Journal and Kentish Advertiser reported on 8 March that the prosecution stated that the prisoner might in some measure be excused as he was only a platelayer and somewhat under the control of William, who was the foreman or ganger. George’s lawyer made ‘a most feeling appeal’ on his behalf and presented an extensively signed memorial to his good character and sobriety. He could not deny George’s guilt but hoped that his subordinate position to the deceased would be taken into account. The bench fined him £5 and costs.
Amy continued to bring up her children after the accident and in 1871 was working as a dressmaker and living with one of her married daughters in West Malling, Kent. She married again, in 1873, her husband being Kent-born carpenter and preacher Henry King. They continued to live in the county with census returns showing them in Marden (1891) and Tenterden (1901), and then settled in Sussex – in Ticehurst and Flimwell. Henry died in 1917, was buried in Ticehurst on 5 September and was celebrated for his 45 years of preaching locally in an obituary (Kent & Sussex Courier 7 September 1917). Amy’s home address was given as Cranbrook at the time of her death in May 1921. She was buried in Ticehurst on 12 May.
Amy and William Budgen had a large family, although I’ve found no baptisms for any of them, and several of the children emigrated to the USA after their father’s death. In fact, several of Amy’s siblings had emigrated there at various points earlier in the 19th century, as reported in an edition of the Geneseo Valley Herald of 23 December 1868. This featured details of a family reunion, in which it was stated that Amy had remained in England along with four of her brothers and sisters. This report gave the family surname as Fridd and many in the American branch adopted this spelling.
- Eliza Budgen (1846-1888). Eliza was born in 1846 and brought up in Marden, Kent. She worked as a domestic servant as a teenager (1861 Census) before marrying bricklayer Edward Coomber on 29 May 1865 at Christ Church in Luton, Kent. They were living with their children in West Malling, Kent, at the 1871 Census but they later moved to Kensington in Middlesex, where Edward was described as a builder and greengrocer in the 1881 Census. Eliza died there in September 1888 and was buried on the 9th. Edward remained in Kensington, living with several of his children, but was recorded as a bricklayer again from 1891. It’s likely that he died in 1914.
- Thomas Budgen (1848-1849) died as a toddler in Marden.
- Ellen Budgen (1851-1946). Ellen, who was born in 1851 and brought up in Marden, disappears from British records after the 1861 Census. She travelled to the United States after her father’s death in the late 1860s and settled initially with her mother’s brother George (whose surname was given as Fridd) who’d settled as a farmer in Geneseo, New York State. She was listed there in the 1875 Census. She married Frederick Camp Wood, who worked in a library, in Geneseo on 21 November 1900. The 1910 and subsequent census returns listed them in Buffalo, Erie County, New York State. Frederick died in Buffalo on 27 January 1930. Ellen died there on 23 March 1946.
- Mary Budgen (1854-1936). Mary came from Marden in Kent and was born in 1854 according to the civil registration documents but many later records, including census returns, gave her date of birth as 1 May 1855. She also travelled to the United States in the late 1860s. She married farmer Francis Eugene Derby in Franklin, Lenawee County, in his home state of Michigan on 22 December 1870. Census returns from 1880 showed that the couple and their children lived and worked in Franklin for the rest of their lives. He died there from a heart condition on 30 November 1926. Mary died in Franklin of heat exhaustion on 13 July 1936.
- Martha Budgen (1857-1945). Martha was brought up in Marden and remained unmarried. She lived with her mother and step-father for some years (1901 and 1911 censuses) and later her sister Elizabeth and her husband in Cranbrook, Kent (1921 Census and 1939 Register). The Kent & Sussex Courier of 14 December 1945 reported her death on the 9 December that year and noted that she had been a Sunday school teacher at Cranbrook Congregational Church and wrote poetry and hymns. It also noted that she’d become incapacitated in her later years.
- Rhoda Budgen (1859-1914). Rhoda came from Marden and married Alfred Edwin Ferguson at St Stephen’s in Rochester Row, Westminster, London, on 21 June 1881. He was a musical agent, teacher, composer and arranger who regularly featured in the newspapers and specialist publications of the time, both in adverts for his services and in reviews of productions he was involved in. He also went by the name Felix Dumas. He was often on the road around the UK on tours, while also being engaged for longer periods at some venues – for example The Stage of 9 January 1885 noted that he was an assistant manager and conductor at the Theatre Royal in West Bromwich while the Greenwich and Deptford Observer of 3 September 1881 reported that he was manager of the newly opened Windsor Castle Palace of Varieties in Plumstead. His children’s baptism records reflected the itinerant lifestyle. In 1891 the census recorded the family in Greenwich, Kent. However, Alfred died young on 22 November 1896 (The Era of 19 December 1896) and this was bad news for his family. The Era reported on a fund that had been set up for his widow and four children who had been left unprovided for as a result of Alfred’s long illness. He was buried on 27 November at Manor Park Cemetery in Essex. Rhoda was recorded in Sutton Valence, Kent, in 1901 working as an infant school mistress. She continued to work as a teacher and was recorded as a visitor to a house in Headcorn, Kent in 1911. She died in Sussex in 1914 and was buried in Ticehurst on 13 June.
- Elizabeth Budgen (1861-1934). Elizabeth came from Marden and settled in Cranbrook in Kent after marrying village resident Daniel Reed at Cranbrook Congregational Church on 7 January 1890 (Maidstone Journal 14 January 1890). He worked as a butcher and they raised a family. The Kentish Express of 7 February 1936 noted that he was superintendent of the Cranbrook Congregational Church Sunday School and had just celebrated his 50th year of teaching there. Elizabeth and her sister Martha had also taught at the school until ill health took over. Elizabeth and Daniel had both been awarded the Diploma of Honour from the National Sunday School Union on reaching the 40th anniversary of their teaching at the school. Elizabeth died on 11 February 1934, Daniel on 3 September 1946, and both were buried in Cranbrook.
Sources:
Birth, marriage, death and burial records including civil registrations from the General Register Office, census returns and other records at Ancestry.co.uk, Findmypast.co.uk and Sussex Family History Group. American census and BMDs are also on Ancestry.
British Newspaper Archive (titles in text).