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Nichols Family Start
28 March 2007
The following grandchildren of Stephen Nichols and Bessie Ball supplied information:
John Ashby
Millicent Leadbeater
Bill (William Robert) Nichols
Bill (William Thomas) Panter
Nancy (Doris Annie)
Tall
Maud Tapp
Frank Nichols, died in 1945. The information
describing his life is based on public records, family photographs and his
children’s memories when answering the writer’s questions forty years after
his death. Personal knowledge is limited to:
the house at Park Rd., where they lived,
the park at Overston Solarium where they owned wooden chalets
and the life and personality of Frank’s widow Lillian and her second
husband Robert Martin.
Family memory with respect to Stephen Nichols, Frank’s father, is inevitably much less. Stephen died when Millicent, the eldest of his surviving grandchildren, was only seven years old. Hence all memory information comes via their grandmother Bessie. Knowledge of Stephen’s youth was limited to the fact that he worked, and met Bessie, in London. Whilst the family knew that he was born in Northamptonshire, they had no idea of the village’s name. Nancy and Bill Nichols earliest recollection concerning Stephen was that he was a Grenadier Guard at Buckingham Palace; John Ashby’s recollection differed, he believed that Stephen was a member of London’s Metropolitan police. John also believed that Stephen drank a lot. Interestingly, no evidence for either occupation in London has been found by the writer even though both metropolitan and military records have been carefully checked!
The extent to which our ancestors can be traced before the eighteenth century depends on the commonality of their name as well as where they lived. In Cornwall where Jane Ball (Steven Nichols’ wife) was born the Bishop made parish records readily available. This alongside the fact that Cornwall has only one adjoining county means that the IGI records (International Genealogical Index) created by the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) is a powerful aide, sadly this is not the case in Northamptonshire.
The initial starting point was the following recollection:-
Some time after he married Bessie, I was told that Stephen became Farm Bailiff at Dingley Dell, Market Harborough, Earl Beatty’s estate and that he died whilst he was relatively young in Kettering. His last employment was as a ‘road man’ laying tarmac(adam), his grandson believes that the fumes killed him.
Finally,
Particular thanks are due to Alice Gray of Stanion, Kettering, who provided both Parish and personal information concerning the Nichols’s living in Grafton Underwood in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
: The photographs included in this family history are generally of poor quality. Most were taken with very simple cameras. The negatives have been lost and some of the photographs are tattered and torn. Most of them would now be thrown away, yet they provide valuable information (as historians call it "unwitting testimony"). The only evidence that is not given below is the size of the photographs, though I have – where possible- indicated that they were invariably printed with a white border. The largest photograph other than those taken at Nancy Nichols’ wedding were postcard size, many were much smaller – those taken in 15 Park Rd. were only one inch (25mm) high.Note 1
Note 2: Memory is crucial in family history but it is also very selective. It was only when checking Frank Nichols’ death certificate that I realised that he was probably working, rather than buying stamps, at the post office where he died.
If you can add any information, and/or provide photographs for copying please contact me.
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