I. Introduction       Home Page    Family History   15 April 2007

There are at least five reasons why I have spent so long researching the Nichols’ family history and writing this record.

1. Life doesn’t begin and end in a vacuum. My initial interest in Family History began with the birth of Jonathan my first son - though little work was done on it, apart from collecting memories, until after my parents death. Birth and death, two links in the chain of life, made me want to reveal the past.

2. Life is both about change and consistency about good and bad times. Our way of life now appears to be in a ferment of continual change, yet few generations have seen greater changes than occurred during the life of Frank and Lillian Nichols. What will be difficult for Frank’s great grandchildren to accept is just how much life changed for him. Frank was able to leave school when he was 11 because he was able to demonstrate his ability in an examination. He worked on a farm, when his parents moved to Kettering he became a skilled shoe maker and managed the factory. After retirement he worked for the post office. Frank lived through the development of the plane and the car, though he never travelled in the former nor owned the latter. He lived when the British Empire was at its height and saw two world wars. Yet, though he listened to the radio and will have heard of television, he never owned a phone, rented a TV, knew of the existence of computers or had a holiday abroad.

It was not until 1952 that some of Frank’s descendants, like many of their compatriots, came together as a family and rented (not bought) a television specifically to watch Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. To my knowledge, although his wife Lillian lived until 1965, she never had a television. For Frank and Lillian, national news and entertainment came from newspapers and, from the wireless (radio). Lillian’s ‘soaps’ were The Archer’s, Mrs. Dale’s Diary and The Huggett’s. Yet, just as individuals now watch the national lottery draw on television, so then did everyone have to be quiet to allow Bill, Frank and Lillian’s son, listen to the ‘Pools’on the radio in the hope of winning a fortune (£75,000).

But just as life is about change so, in the most fundamental sense is it about consistency. Although, on the surface children may reject aspects of the culture of their elders (consider tastes in music, films and opinions on vegetarianism), underlying wants and needs do not change – we are born, live and die as members of a community. We imbibe our culture along with our milk. In a fundamental sense if we had been born in the 1880’s it is highly unlikely that our tastes, opinions and views would have differed from those of Frank, Ellen or Lillian.

3. Family History is fun. It provides an excuse to visit different areas of the country, a chance to meet distant relatives. Family history is not about Kings and Queens but about extra-ordinary, ordinary, individuals. Frank, Ellen & Lillian Nichols were real individuals; family memorabilia, census records and birth, marriage and death certificates supply a surprisingly large amount of detail concerning their lives. One purpose of this history is to provide the opportunity to live for a time in a bygone age.

Although much less information is available before 1840, nuggets of detailed information can be found in the distant past. The Nichols family has the real possibility of a coat of arms; detailed church records, legal documents and wills provide considerable information on Bessie Nichols’ (née Ball) ancestors - consider the reasons why smuggling and wrecking appeared justified, read the wills of the Doubts who lived in Cornwall in the early 1700’s – and recognise parents doing their best for their children.

4. Understanding History. Our ancestors come from widely different backgrounds. The Ball’s were well-to-do Yeomen. The Nichols’ were farm labourers, whilst the Smiths’ (Lillian’s Staffordshire ancestors) worked for at least three generations as shoe makers (cordwainers) and were truly part of the industrial revolution.

5. Reducing Prejudice. I hope my descendants will be proud to be English but:

One line of the Nichols’ ancestors , the Fevers, is likely to be of French descent (Surname: Le Fevre - 200,000 French Huguenots migrated from France in 1685 by Louis XIV).
The Ball’s are Celts – much more closely related to the Welsh than the English.
And, on my wife’s side, there is Welsh and Irish ancestry.

Wherever relevant, references to British social and political history have been added.

Do look at the detailed information in the appendices, which:

allow comparisons of size of family and the survival rates of children to be calculated
indicate how long people lived without a National Health Service.
indicate the age at and suggest reasons for marriage.
demonstrate changes in the legal status of women, when their names, maiden names and occupations had to be recorded in public records.

Not surprisingly, considering the wealth of information available, this family history begins by studying the life of Frank Nichols, his wives’ and children. Thereafter the underlying structure of the family history is based on the fact that until the Industrial Revolution, families lived in very small geographical areas.

Because the first Industrial Revolution occurred in Great Britain, that country became for a time the workshop of the world. For much of the 18th century, London had been at the center of a complex world trade network that became the basis for the growing export trade associated with industrialization. The export market provided an indispensable outlet for the products of the textile and other industries, where the introduction of new techniques led to a rapid expansion of output. The available data suggest that the growth rate of British exports accelerated markedly after 1780.

The second thread begins with the Nichols’ family history in Northamptonshire family culminating with information on Frank’s childhood and the lives of his two parents, Stephen Nichols and Bessie Ball. The third thread begins with Bessie Ball’s ancestry in Cornwall. Economically, until the mid nineteenth century, the Nichols’ and the Ball’s were closely linked to farming (Bessie’s family leased farms, but Stephen’s family worked on them as labourers!). The fourth thread is the life of Lillian Smith’s family in Staffordshire, the Smith’s left the countryside at least a century before the Nichols’ and Balls’.

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