William Jowett In Beeston

William Jowett was born in 1830 in Breaston, Derbyshire, the second child and only son of Enoch Jowett and his wife Jane. After the death of his mother in June 1842, his father remarried and a further five sisters and two brothers were born. One of his sisters, Emma married my great great grandfather, Edward Bywater at Beeston Parish Church on Christmas day 1859.

In 1836 the family moved to Beeston, then a town of less than 3000 inhabitants, situated five miles west of Nottingham. William's father, a self employed lace maker by trade had experienced a downturn in fortune and moved his family to Villa Street, in the centre of the town.

Villa Street still exists today, but at that time seems to have been at the centre of the local lace making trade. There were a number of small lace manufacturers operating in the area, some with only one machine and renting space within the premises of other companies.

William spent the rest of his civilian life in Beeston and would no doubt have been familiar with buildings that still stand today. Here are a few of them pictured on a very hot afternoon in the summer of 2003.

Beeston Parish Church

The present day parish church replaced the original building in 1844 and it is a safe bet that William watched its construction with interest.

Beeston Manor as it is today

The Old Manor House (above) had already been a feature of the local landscape since the seventeenth century and during William's time, many Beestonians would have been regulars at the Crown Inn, one of the oldest pubs in the area.

The Crown Inn, Beeston

The Diary suggests that William spent a happy youth in Beeston and that his death from wounds sustained during the Crimean War caused a great deal of sadness locally. A measure of the sadness that local people felt is evidenced by the memorial to Sergeant Jowett and other locals killed in the Crimean War is evidenced by the Monument in the Parish Church grounds that stands to this day and was erected following a subscription from the people of Beeston.