Biggs / Bristow Family Bakers

 Joseph Biggs, originally of Dinton Bucks, moved to Spittal Street Great Marlow in the very late 1850s or 1860.

He was a middle aged widower with a much younger "servant" Sarah Bristow in tow, by whom he had had 3 children - Ellen, Joseph and Alfred. The children were referred to as both Bristows and Biggs at different times. Sarah had worked for him since at least 1851.

Joseph was a corn dealer and baker with a shop in Spittal Street. After his death in age 71 Sarah, sometimes as Sarah Biggs and calling herself a widow, other times as Sarah Bristow, ran the business herself. In 1868 she was fined for having deficient scales used for weighing out bread and also, interestingly, meat. Such prosecutions occur frequently with shopkeepers whose scales needed to be recalibrated every so often to keep them true but who often forgot to organize this. In 1890 Sarah was again fined this time it was 10 shillings for selling bread without weighing it first, another very common offence. Such prosecutions arose from random test visits by the authorities.

By then Sarah's children were no longer at home. On the 1891 census she had a ten year old servant Nellie Edwards living with her to assist her. She may also have had daily shop staff that didn't live in with her.

Sarah's premises on the left hand side. 

Sarah's son Joseph junior with two of his friends had been hailed as "romantic" and "gallant" heroes for diving into the Thames to rescue an exhausted and capsized rower following a competitive race at Marlow in 1874.

One of those friends, John Langley junior, went on to marry Joseph junior's sister Ellen in 1877. Both Joseph junior and his brother Alfred were successful young rowers at Marlow themselves. Women did row competitively at this time but I have found no evidence of Ellen Biggs also competing. You can see the grave of Ellen Biggs/Langley at Holy Trinity church, Marlow here. 

I think Sarah Biggs may perhaps have died in 1909. She had left these premises by 1907 and they became a cafe.

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More posts about specific Marlow families indexed here.

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Written and researched by Charlotte Day. ©Marlow Ancestors. You are welcome to use my research for family or local history purposes if you credit this blog.

Some Sources:

"England and Wales Census, 1871", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KXS5-G47 : 26 June 2022), Ellen Biggs in entry for Sarah Biggs, 1871.

"England and Wales Census, 1891," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:4GGB-V6Z : 22 February 2021), Sarah Biggs, Great Marlow, Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom; from "1891 England, Scotland and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO RG 12, Buckinghamshire county, subdistrict, The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey.

1881 census Great Marlow, my transcription from microfilm. 

Bucks Herald 15th August 1874. British Library Archives.

Reading Mercury 26th July 1890. British Library Archives.

Great Marlow Parish Registers, original.

Miss Perfect and Some Tragedy In Crown Lane

 

Most people who have lived in this lane in Marlow have done so from the early 1890s onwards. Before that the lane existed as a way around to a few buildings but was only ever home to a couple of families at a time. It was sometimes early on called Spittal Lane as it comes off Spittal Street. (For a potential candidate date for the origin of Crown Lane, see the Crown timeline post here - under date 1650. )

On the 1861 census the White and Davis families had homes there. Anthony Davis was a labourer at the paper mills near the river while his wife Elizabeth was a housewife. Thomas White was a sawyer and his wife Mary Ann was a laundress.

Sadly two different residents of Crown Lane were found drowned in the Thames at Marlow- Thomas Holford in 1902 and Arthur Bristow in 1916. In neither case were there any witnesses so the respective juries at the resulting inquests returned verdicts simply of "Found Drowned".

Arthur Bristow aged 43 suffered from "locomotor ataxy". He believed his condition to be worsening and expected to soon lose the use of his legs. As a result he was very depressed and the implication from the evidence of those who knew him at the inquest was that suicide was a probability.  But no one saw him go into the water hence the "Found Drowned" verdict. The jury in his case donated their fees to the Red Cross. Such donations of fees tended to occur when the case heard had been particularly tragic, typically a suicide of an adult or the death of a small child. Both inquests took place at the Two Brewer's pub in St Peter's Street near the river. Local man Albert Truss helped to recover the body.

On the theme of losing the use of legs in 1900 resident "Frank" Tapping took out an ad in the South Bucks Standard thanking all those in the town who had donated money to him after he had to had his right leg amputated. This was in fact Harry Frank Tapping who would have been only 17 at the time. He was the son of Police Constable George Tapping and Mary. Frank appears on the 1901 census as a hairdresser and barber living with his parents and siblings in Crown Lane so the amputation didn't hold him back from starting a career. 

The family had moved there at some point in the 1890s. George was the constable for Lane End from at least 1889 to at least 1892. Prior to that he was stationed at Amersham.

He and Mary married in 1876. Her maiden name was Perfect hence this blog post title. I hadn't heard of this last name before and I had to check it twice to be sure!

The year of Frank's amputation 1900 was also a tragic year for another Crown Lane family when Elizabeth Tubb aged just 40 and a mother with half a dozen children still at home, died. Her husband William, then a labourer, had already had a very troubled life. His father had died at Medmenham when he was only a few months old. His mother brought him back to live with her parents in Dean Street Marlow. He became a shoemaker but found it hard to stay out of trouble. In 1868 he was prosecuted for stealing oats, in 1875 for not paying his lighting rates, in 1880 for rioting when the local Liberal candidate lost the election [more on this in future. Many local working people felt cheated and dispirited by this loss], in 1889 for stealing a piece of leather from Mrs Dewey's Chapel Street shop, and numerous times for failing to pay other local taxes. Poverty looks to be the main factor in these cases. When he stole the leather he said he was a father of ten who had no work for a week after his job with "Messrs Burrows" finished and he was now desperate. The case is a stark reminder of the fact that many families then could afford to make no savings and a single week without pay pushed them to the brink. William received 14 days in jail for that theft. This the court said was a mercy because of his hard pleading of his dire circumstances. The Messrs Burrows had a boot and shoe manufacturing workshop in Marefield, Marlow. 

He still lived in Crown Lane in 1910 when he was summoned for the last time I could find - this time for using bad language.

There was a laundry in Crown Lane in 1929 and an ice cream supplies business at the "Farm House" in the 1950s. When (or if) that house was a farm house I am unsure, it is on my very long "to do" list of further research! It was apparently a school in the early 1830s.

Sculptors Doreen and George Dereford had a studio in Crown Lane in the 1960s.

 

For histories of other Marlow streets or buildings see the "Specific Shops, Streets etc" option on the menu. All mentions of an individual on the blog can be found on the Person Index on the top drop down menu. 

Photographed Summer 2020.

Post written and researched by Charlotte Day. Photos by Kathryn Day.

Sources:

South Bucks Standard 16th November 1900 and 9th December 1910, Reading Mercury 1st February 1902, Bucks Herald 25th July 1868, 14th September 1889 and 19th August 1916. Newspaper copies all from the British Library Archives and accessed via the BNA March 2021.

GRO Marriage Index and Death Index online from their website.

1891 and 1901 census transcribed from microfilm by Jane Pullinger. Thanks Jane.

1881 census from Familysearch website, ran by the LDS [Intellectual Reserve Inc]. Accessed March 2021.

©Marlow Ancestors. You are very welcome to use these images or research for family history purposes if you credit this blog and link here so that our sources remain credited for the information they provided. Thanks!

Nag's Head Dean Street Great Marlow *updated April 2026*

 

Updated by Kathryn June 2025

The Nag's Head stood a bit beyond the turning into what's now called Wethered Road. It was a beer house with a large barn and yard out back. It also had stabling for 5-6 horses. The barn was usually hired out to other tenants. The premises did not feature in the 1833 parish assessment as a beer house however I believe the building itself was there by 1829. There was a small parlour, bar, tap room and 2 kitchens downstairs, and 3 bedrooms above. Note the beerhouse "The Fighting Cocks" was immediately adjacent. 

Dean Street and the neighbouring Marefield district were poor and sometimes rough. The Nag's Head does not come across as one of the worst establishments. There's the usual squabbles eg in 1864 when the wife of Robert Smith had words with Joseph East and this lead to the two men having a fight on the premises..

Below are all the publicans attached to the beer house that I can find records of and some background for them:

1845- Thomas Frith.

1846 - Thomas Frith. Fined 40 shillings plus costs for allowing dominoes to be played on the premises for money. He plead not guilty to no avail.  

1848 - Thomas Frith leaves, and spends some time living on an allowance at Sir William Clayton's estate in Godstone, and some time in Wales. For the possible reasons for Clayton's patronage, see a post on the 1847 election here

1861 William East. Wife Caroline. William also a dealer. He fined 1863 for having his beer shop open during the hours of divine service. Eight customers were found inside by a constables. The 40 shillings fine was substantial.

1864 - William East. Presumably the same William East who moved to the Fighting Cocks c 1869. He then applied to take over the Alma the same year.  He said he'd only moved to the Fighting Cocks to save it from closure. This did not impress the magistrates who did not want people to flit between licenced premises. A conviction also being proved against him, the licence was refused. 

From ? to 1871 Thomas Patterson. He was also a market gardener. Before working as a publican, he was a cordwainer. Wife Ann worked as a boot binder. 

1871-1882 Gardener family. William Gardener / Gardner/ Gardiner took over the licence in 1871 and ran it until his death at the pub aged 65 in 1879. His widow Clara then took over. She was the landlady until 1881 when, upon her death also aged 65, her son William Thomas Gardener briefly ran things. William senior worked as a gas stoker before taking over the licence, while the young William Thomas was at first a paper maker, later a gas stoker. Clara was originally from Sussex and William senior of Leicestershire. They tried unsuccessfully to get a spirit licence for the Nags Head in 1875. 

1882- 84 William Todd with his wife Sarah. I'm very sorry to say William was found drowned in the Thames in 1888. The verdict was open but the suspicion was he'd committed suicide - he was found a short distance from where his sister Elizabeth had taken her life the previous year by jumping off the bridge into the Thames. William is said to have been worried by the large amount of money owed to him for beer by his former customers who he'd allowed to run up large tabs. He'd inevitably fallen behind with his own payments to Wethered's brewery as a result. They had agreed he could pay off his arrears gradually out of wages that he earned by working for the brewery but he was depressed by the large amount still remaining. Let's hope all those in William's debt gave the sums owed to his poor widow and young children. 

1884- 1891 Joseph Bristow. Said to have  suddenly left town. While Dean Street was known for its pubs, there was also a reasonable temperance movement at times in the town, some of whose meetings occurred in Dean Street. A treasured hope of the movement was that non-alcoholic ginger beer could become the drink of choice for the masses. (Not all ginger beer was alcohol free) Unlikely as that now seems to us there was a real concern in the brewing industry that the temperance groups contagious fervour for their cause and promotion of the supposed health benefits in drinking ginger beer could destroy the pub trade. Obviously hedging his bets in this respect was Joseph Bristow who ran the Nag's Head while also brewing a large amount of ginger beer on the premises. It isn't clear if this was for his pub customers, for sale elsewhere, or both. In case alcohol won out he successfully upgraded the Nags Head from a beer house to a fully licensed premises in 1889! (Spirit licence gained 1885 in exchange for the Wethereds brewery permanently closing the immediately adjacent Fighting Cocks which they owned). 

1885 - a "well conducted" house. 

1891 Briefly Henry Price, then Thomas Price.

1891 to 1903 Thomas Price. Thomas also operated as a general dealer and farmed. In 1894 while out scaring birds in his field of peas in Marlow he suffered a gun accident which meant it misfired, blowing off part of a finger and otherwise injuring his hand.

Thomas was married to Annie Bowles at Marlow in 1879. She charged her husband with assault in 1909 but decided to withdraw the case (but not the statement that she had been assaulted) at trial.

1903 - Albert B Smith.

1906  Mr A Smith. 

1907 A B Smith then Thomas Price.

1912 - William Thomas Edworthy then George Verney. 

1911-16 George Verney. George enlisted and as Sapper Verney of the Royal Engineers (Inland Water Transport) sadly died in Epsom hospital on August 10 1917 "of shell shock" and head wounds received in France. He left a widow and 3 children. Formerly of the Railway Inn, Earlswood, Surrey. The 1920 post office directory lists a George Verney as a beer seller of Dean Street - relative or out of date information perhaps. 

1928 - considered for compulsory closure but escapes this attempt. At the time the sanitary conditions there are called "very bad". Sells 3&1/2 barrels of beer a week, plus bottled. 

1939 - Thomas W B Tillion

For a very long list of pubs, inns and beerhouses etc in Marlow and Little Marlow, mostly vanished, see this post here

Please use the Person Index option on the top drop down menu to find people of  interest to you and the Pub Related option for more pub related posts.

More Dean Street content can be found by going to the menu and choosing the "Specific Shops, Streets....Etc" option.

Post researched and written by Charlotte Day and Kathryn Day.

© Marlow Ancestors. You are very welcome to use this information for family or local history purposes but please credit this blog and link back here. 

Sources:

Papers in the British Library via the BNA accessed September 2020: Bucks Herald 3rd Sept 1881, South Bucks Standard 14th June 1894, August 27th 1884, South Bucks Standard 4th December 1891, Maidenhead Advertiser Sept 4th 1889. Berkshire Chronicle 21 August 1846. 

My own census transcriptions from microfilm film.

Jane Pullinger.

Slough Eton and Windsor Observer - August 29 1885 -  Slough Library 

Marlow Almanack and Directory 1881

Marlow Guide , 1903, 1907 

Kellie's Directory - various years. 

Bucks Free Press 2nd March 1928, Wycombe Libraries.