Emma and Jeremiah Harding

Updated January 2024

Emma Macklin married Jeremiah Harding in 1845. Both had been living prior to that in Dean Street Marlow and the area adjacent to that street, Marefield, was the couple's home in 1851.

As a young man Jeremiah was a farm worker but he spent most of his life involved in the gardening trade. On the 1861 census he was a gardener's labourer but by 1870 he was the head gardener to Charlotte Cocks at The Glade in Glade Road Marlow. We know this because in that capacity he charged a lad with stealing apples from the garden. Perpetrator John Vernon was fined 1 shilling plus costs for the offence.

On the 1861 census Emma was given as an embroiderer. This was a tough year for the couple as in it they suffered the death of their eleven year old son James. They were living by then at Trinity Cottages. These were next to Holy Trinity church in what was then Gun Lane, now Trinity Road. They still exist but I am uncertain as to whether they are still collectively named Trinity Cottages. Jeremiah later became the sexton of Holy Trinity church. He and Emma lived in their cottage for the rest of their respective lives. 

In 1871 Emma was censused as a charwoman but later returned to needlework. Jeremiah must have retired from his role at the Glade because in the South Bucks Free Press 25th July 1879 he advertised for one or two days a week gardening or lawn mowing work.

In 1893 went on holiday to London for a week having not been away from home in 25 years. It isn't clear if Emma accompanied him. He sent in an account of his trip to the South Bucks Standard (26th August issue, British Library Archives). They printed it but seem to tease him a little by imitating his local dialectical speech in their title "A Marlowman's Visit to Lunnon". Jeremiah's account is an absolute delight in the way it gives us a window into what was a tourist attraction in those days. He arrived by train and on his first day walked around, sampled travel by Underground and went to see the pub where the week before a barmaid had been shot before visiting a too hot and stuffy music hall. Later in the week he managed a glimpse of the Tichbourne Claimant at Westminster Hall. At Madame Tussauds he was impressed by the Room Of Horrors. He also managed to pack in visits to Westminister Abbey, the National Gallery, Regents Park Zoo, the Albert Memorial, the South Kensington Museum, Horseguards, Lambeth Palace, Hyde Park, St Paul's Cathedral and the Thames Tunnel and ride various trams, river boats and overland trains. Not only that but Jeremiah took a train to Dover where he saw the sea for the first time, confirming it did indeed taste salty and getting his feet wet from an unexpected wave. Within a day of arriving in London he had been noticed as being obviously "up from the country" which reminds us that the Buckinghamshire accent would have been then strong and noticeable and that customs of dress and behaviour could be very different between even people of the same class who lived in Marlow and those from the cities.

Jeremiah died at Trinity Cottages in 1899. His South Bucks Standard obituary said that he had never recovered from the death of his wife the year before. The same obituary said that one of the couple's sons had emigrated to New Zealand. It is possible the article meant Australia as their son Robert (possibly Richard) certainly migrated there. But perhaps they also had a son who went to NZ. Their son in Australia was the curator of the Botanic Gardens at "Toowoomba" as it was described in 1887.

Written and researched by Charlotte Day. 

Biography of Charlotte Cocks plus a photo of The Glade today here

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More Gun Lane related posts can be found on this index

©Marlow Ancestors.

Sources:

GRO marriage and death indexes on the GRO website accessed October 2020.

Obitury = South Bucks Standard, copy held at the British Library. Accessed via the BNA October 2020.

England and Wales Census from Familysearch website run by the LDS (Intellectual Reserve Inc) accessed September 2020.