My Family History

The following account starts in the town of Montgomery, Wales, in the late 18th century and then moves to the port of Liverpool and nearby Bromborough on the Wirral penninsular.
It includes the following names: Gough, Smith, Cowell, Bayliss Timmins, Chamberlaine, Calquohoun, Pugh Williams and Hooton. When complete it will also include: Powell Gough.

Edward Gough (1787-1864)

Edward Gough lived and worked in Montgomery, Wales in the late 18th century. The Pigot & Slater Directory of North & South Wales 1844 shows that he the ran the business Edward Gough Sadlers & Harness Makers in Castle Street (actually Bishop Castle Street) and also the Crown Inn in the same Street.

Edward married Mary ? (1799-1839) probably in 1817 and there were five children: Magaret Gough married Pugh Williams and died some time before 1864; Maria Gough married James Colquohon; William Gough, who was a saddler at Walsall in the Midlands; George Gough; and Joseph Gough. Edward and Mary were both buried at the church in Montgomery.

Joseph Gough (?-1890)

Edward's son, Joseph Gough is listed in Slater's Directory of North Wales for 1868 as having several occupations located in Church Street Montgomery: Dealer in Sundries, Seedsman & Nurseryman, Distributor of stamps and Clerk to the Commissioner of Taxes, and Registrar of Births, Deaths & Marriages for Berriew, Churchstoke, Llandyssil & Montgomery.

Joseph married Selina Gough, who ran a confectioner's shop in Castle Street. He inherited property and became the proprietor of the Crown Inn. They had five children: Charles Oliver Gough; Theophilus Joseph Gough; Selina Mary Gough; Pleasure Jane Gough; George Weaver Gough, who probably married Mary Eleanor Gough and died in Glamorgan in 1907; and Henry Edward Gough.

Joseph died at Bicton in 1890 and Selina probably moved to Maisemore, Gloucester, where she died in 1907,

Henry Edward Gough (-1914)

Joseph's son, Henry Edward Gough inherited a large part of his father's property but eventually sold it and moved to Liverpool. In 1874 Henry received a fine silver watch. We know that the family moved to 15 Aubrey Street, Liverpool some time before 1879. This was a pleasant area just off the main Everton Road next door to the Fruit Exchange, near Rupert Lane Recreation Ground and adjoining a recreation ground and St. Christophers Church. Henry became a post office official.

Henry married Jane Timmins at the Church of St. Stephen-the-Martyr, Edge- Hill, West Derby on February 27th, 1879 when he was about 26, witnessed by a Mary Ann Gough. Jane had no profession. Her father Benjamin Bayliss Timmins was a surveyor, probably from Shropshire. Henry and Jane went to live at 53 Bamber Street. If you walk up Brownlow Hill until it changes to Paddington, you encounter two parallel roads going south-east to Edge-Hill: Crown Street (leading to Grove Street) and Smithdown. As recorded on a pre-war map of 1931. Bamber Street ran between them down to Oxford Street East. It is now a waste area with the Traffic Police H.Q. in the southernmost part.

Henry and Jane moved across the water to live in the Wirral. They owned a considerable amount of property: The first was 33 Victoria Road, Tranmere together with part of the Big Town Field belonging to the Tranmere Park Estate running along Copper Street and Victoria Road; and part of The Mill Field in Tranmere along Samuel Street on which was built a house numbered 31 Victoria Road. They also had The Gables on the north east side of a new road called Raby Drive, on the Blakely Brow estate, in Bromborough near Rabymere in the Parish of Neston. The land, included half of the brook and also a piece of land with the house called Ormesby (formerly Garden Cottage and Stanley Lodge), which also backed onto the brook.

Henry Edward Gough died suddenly from a heart attack, intestate on the 4th September 1914. He was buried at Bebington Cemetery.

Henry and Jane had three children - Violet Ethel, Gertrude Florence and Charles Albert Edward. Violet Ethyl Gough married Joseph Smith. They went to live at 66 Rosebury Road, Muswell Hill, London N10, or 30 East Lane Wembley, Middlesex at some time, and they had a daughter, Cynthia Beryl Smith. Gertrude married a clerk, Thomas Hall Cowell, and they lived at 235 Woodchurch Road, Birkenhead. They had a son, Colin Hall Cowell.

Jane Gough died on 30 May 1929.

Charles Albert Edward Gough (1883-1964)

Charles Albert Edward Gough was born on the 6th December 1883 at 15 Aubrey Street, Liverpool. He married Jessie Chamberlaine (1889-1938) at the Registry Office in the Wirral on the 4th July 1913 when he was 29 and she was 24. His address was 22 Winstanley Road, New Ferry, Lower Bebington, and hers was "Dee View", Heswall. Jessie's father, James Chamberlaine, was listed on the marriage certificate as a nurseryman, deceased. He was born to John and Anne Chamberlaine at Backford, near Chester, and baptised by the vicar G. Stevenson in Backford Vicarage on March 3rd 1833. John was a farmer.

Some time during WWI he joined an army regiment and was a driver for a famous general (see photo).

CAE Gough was an accountant, working for the local government in Liverpool. In 1924 he pioneered the Bebington Society which subsequently became the Bebington Dramatic Society.

Jessie and Charles Gough had one son, Charles Chamberlaine Gough who worked abroad for the Unilever Company (located at Port Sunlight).

In 1938, when they had been married for 25 years, Jessie became terminally ill with a heart condition and died on the 13th May at the age of 49. She was buried at Eastham. Three years later on 4th December, Jessie's sister Annie Hooton (wife of Jack Hooton) was to die aged 55 and be laid to rest in the same spot.

CAE Gough married Mary Elizabeth Shaw of Chester in 1939 at Crewe. He died in 1964 and is buried at Eastham. Mary Elizabeth Gough died 1^st April 2005 and is buried at Blacon Cemetry, Chester.