Emma Carter and her husband Thomas arrived in Marlow in the early 1870s to take over the butcher's shop in Spittal Street previously ran by James Creswell. Previously the couple and their children had lived in Fawley at Dobson's Farm. Thomas was farming 170 acres in 1871 and employing 4 men and 3 boys. He also operated as a butcher, or given how busy he would have been on his farm more likely Emma was behind the counter. Née Goss, she was the daughter of a butcher come farmer, Joseph Goss, of Waddesdon.
When Thomas died in 1876 Emma took over the shop in her own name. She was assisted when they were grown by her sons Thomas, Joseph and Frederick.
The first year few years after her husband died must have been a struggle. In 1878 the local sanitary inspector visited her shop and the slaughterhouse behind it. A rancid carcass of a diseased sheep which she had bought cheap was found dressed for sale. It was clear part of the animal had already been cut off and sold. The offense was so serious she faced three months in jail and a £20 fine but as it was a first offence Emma got a £5 fine plus costs and a heavy warning not to come before the bench again.
She must have got on top of things sufficiently well as 1878 is the only time I find Emma in court charged with sanitary offences. Such charges I must say were not uncommon for Marlow butchers in the 1800s.
Emma raised her own sheep and fowls for her business. She lost one of her sheep, most likely to thieves, at Marlow Market in 1907 and another from a field where it was grazing at Handy Cross in 1904. She offered rewards for the return of both and described her animals as being marked with a red C to identify them. Whether Emma got her animals back is unknown.
For the first few decades of her business Emma was renting her shop from the wealthy Williams family but in 1905 the premises came up for sale and she scooped them and the small cottage next door up for £615 in a local auction.
By 1920 it was her son Thomas who was running the shop. Emma died in 1925.
The shop was later Tom Morris, butchers.
Emma also appears In this post about the sad death of one of her neighbours.
Find more Spittal Street or general historic shops content on this index.
Find more Victorian women in business or other interesting historic Marlow residents on the Biographies of Individuals index here
Written and researched by Charlotte Day.
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For other posts about specific shops/businesses and other content related to Spittal Street see the index here
Information on daily life in Emma's Great Marlow here
Index of biographies of other individuals connected to Marlow here
For every mention of an individual or family here see the A-Z person index in the top drop down menu. There's more than 4,000 people listed there.
©Marlow Ancestors. Reproduction of research for family or local history purposes welcome if with credit to this blog and a link here.
Thanks to Jane Pullinger for seeking out the 1871 census and Waddesdon marriage records. Census information always remains Crown Copyright.
More Sources:
Kellys Directory of Buckinghamshire etc, 1883, 1899, 1907 and 1920. Kellys Directories Limited. University of Leicester Archives.
1881 census Great Marlow, my transcription from microfilm.
South Bucks Standard 8th June 1900, 14th July 1905. Via the BNA / British Library Archives.
Bucks Herald 23rd March 1878. As above.
Marlow area Local Directory 1902.
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