Ted was the second of my 2xgreat grandparents’ 13 children, one of nine to survive. Unlike some of his siblings, he stayed close to his family and life seems to have followed a traditional pattern. A reported teenage misdemeanour, the impact of war and a description of his dilapidated rural home give a glimpse of the highs and lows of his life and times.

Ted’s early years: A minor brush with the law

Named after his father’s stepfather Edward Thomas Dexter, ‘Ted’ was born on 6 November 1873, at Albert Street, St Albans. His parents Jesse Ephgrave and Harriet, nee Scrivener (my 2xgreat grandparents) had moved there from Luton a few months earlier. They had already had an illegitimate son the previous year (my great grandfather Frederick Hipgrave Scrivener) and just about managed to wed before Ted was born.

Ted’s childhood and teenage years saw four of his 12 siblings die in infancy, and an apparent downturn in the family fortunes around 1884, just after he turned ten. In January that year, Ted’s younger sister Florence Louisa was born at Albert Street, where the family had lived for some time. Seven months later, when she died, they had moved to Inkerman Road, and their father is no longer described as a master baker, but a journeyman, who would have sought work from other bakers.

In May 1884, his father Jesse, a ‘baker of Inkerman Road’ was summonsed for assault against his uncle Eli, ‘baker of Redbourn’. It seems there was some bad blood between the two brothers and it may not be coincidence that Jesse didn’t move his family back to his home village of Redbourn until his brother moved to London, around 1891. I wonder how far the friction between the two impacted on their families.

In 1890, when Ted was 16, he was fined 5s for throwing stones in the street, narrowly missing a little girl. The Hertfordshire Advertiser carried the story:

Hertfordshire Advertiser, 6 September 1890 (British Newspaper Archive, FindMyPast)

This may have been around the time – or shortly before – his parents moved from Inkerman Road to Redbourn, where they are shown in the 1891 census. The delinquent Edward Thos. may be the 17 year old Labourer ‘Ted Ephgrave’ shown in the census lodging with the family of Frederick Giles in Inkerman Road. He is described as ‘nephew’ to the head of household, but I have been unable to find any family connection. That said, there are some intriguing clues to follow up via Frederick Giles’ wife, whose maiden name was Welch; an Ann Welch registered the death of Ted’s sister Florence Louisa Ephgrave at 4 Inkerman Road in 1884, and was living next door to the Giles household in 1891.

Married life and family

It is unclear exactly when Ted moved to Redbourn, but at the end of 1900 he married Redbourn girl Violet Rosana Luck. The marriage took place in the St Albans district which included Redbourn, and it’s probable that they wed in the village’s parish church, although I haven’t ordered the marriage certificate to check. ‘Rose’, as she was known, came from a large Redbourn family; she and her parents, Caleb and Eliza, and her seven siblings lived at Church End. In the 1901 census, Ted and Rose are also shown living at ‘Cottage, Church End, Redbourn’. He was working as a cattle stock keeper on a farm. The couple had two sons and two daughters over the next ten years.

Terrible losses of WW1

Although I have not found any verifiable WW1 service or medal records for Ted or his brothers, researching his wider family including in-laws indicates the impact the conflict would have had on him and his wife Rose.

Two of Rose’s younger brothers enlisted as privates in the 1st Battalion Herts Regiment in 1916. This was a territorial force and one of the first to come under fire in France in 1914 after barely three months of training. The regiment saw service in the Battle of Ancre towards the end of that year and then, in the summer of 1917, took part in one of the deadliest battles of the war, as the Hertfordshire Regiment website recounts:

On the 31^st July 1917 the Hertfordshire Regiment took part in the opening battle of the Third Battle of Ypres, also known as Passchendaele. Despite a successful morning during which they achieved their two main objectives, the afternoon’s fighting, outside the small village of St Julien was the single costliest fight for the Hertfordshire Regiment in the entire war. Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Page, ten Officers and more than 130 men perished. All the remaining Officers and more than 200 men were wounded and the 130 or so men who were still fit for duty finished the day commanded by the Regimental Sergeant Major, ably assisted by the Padre, Reverend Popham. In a letter to the Daily Mail in August 1917 Sir W. Beach Thomas wrote: “The highest sacrifice in the third Battle of Ypres was perhaps paid by the 1^st Hertfordshire Regiment, who with other Territorials as gallant as themselves, took St. Julien and pushed forward deep into the enemy’s country beyond [..] Losing men all the time, but never checked, these troops pushed on a good 1200 yards to the next line of German trenches.”

The First World War – Hertfordshire Regiment Website

Rose’s brother, Private 266657 Frederick James Luck was declared missing on 31 July 1917 and presumed to have been killed in action. He was 27 years old and is commemorated on the Menin Gate as well as Redbourn’s war memorial.

Another brother, John Edward Luck (known as Edward John) was taken Prisoner of War on 31 July 1917 – the same date his brother Fred was presumed killed. He spent 18 months in captivity and was discharged to the reserve on 4 December 1919. His young daughter, Rose’s niece Gladys Rose Luck, died aged three in the last quarter of 1918, a year before her father returned home. His home address was Church End, Redbourn. His application for a pension on the basis of injured health due to treatment whilst in Germany was rejected.

A third brother, Lance Corporal (42513 11th Battalion Essex Regiment) Reginald Harry Luck, known as Harry, died of wounds on 28 May 1918 in France. He had enlisted in 1915 and initially served with the 4th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment (Private 167985). He suffered a shell wound to his left forearm in February 1917. Presumably he was patched up and returned to the field, joining the Essex Regiment, only to be fatally wounded in May 1918. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintain his grave at Esquelbecq Military Cemetery in France. He too is commemorated on Redbourn’s war memorial. He left a wife and three young children, the youngest just a few months old. He was 25 years old.

Postcard image of Redbourn War Memorial c.1920s (Geoff Webb Collection, Herts Memories)

Rose’s eldest brother Arthur Gregory Luck (also known as Gregory Arthur Luck) had moved to East Grinstead by 1901, where he worked as a chauffeur. He was almost 40 years old, married with one son, when war broke out. As private 226240 he served in the Royal Navy reserve and was then transferred to the RAF in 1919, as was his 20 year old son, aircraft mechanic William James Luck. It’s not clear if either served overseas.

I am less clear about the service of Ted’s brothers. There are medal card index records that suggest Arthur Ephgrave may have served in the Army Medical Corps. Their brother William Ephgrave had moved to Hackney and was in his mid-30s by the outbreak of war, and medal card index records suggest that he may have joined the Middlesex Regiment. However, I haven’t proved the connection for either brother. I can also find no verifiable records for the youngest brother George Ephgrave, who by 1914 was living in Hackney.

The Lucks’ sacrifices must, however, have had a lasting impact on the wider family.

Life after the War

Later censuses show that Ted continued working as a farm labourer, in 1921 working for A J Dixon, Farmer, of Beaumont Hall, Redbourn. According to Redbourn Village Online, by 1851 Beaumont Hall had become one of the largest farms in the parish and had a history dating back to the 1400s. The current farm house dates largely to the 18th and 19th centuries and operates as a wedding venue.

The family were living at Church End, Redbourn – specifically at no. 41 in 1921. It is possible that they had lived there since their marriage, but I don’t have any firm evidence for that; the Lloyd George Domesday Survey documents at The Genealogist list Edward Ephgrave at Cottage, Church End, when the survey was taken in 1913. Its state then was ‘very old and dilapidated’:

Extract from Lloyd George Domesday Survey – Ir58_71513_0159 (The Genealogist)

The brick and tile cottage, two [rooms] up[stairs], two down with a barn etc, and garden at the rear, housed Ted, Rose and their four children Ted junior, Grace, Edith (known as Maud) and Arthur – who is recorded variously as Gregory (Arthur’s middle name) and Algie. The 1921 census shows they occupied four rooms, in line with the description above.

Today (2026) Google street view shows Church End lined with quaint old cottages and The Hollybush pub, which dates back to 1595. Numbers 37-41, however, look relatively new. But it’s possible the house numbers changed over time, as on the map accompanying the Lloyd George survey, the Ephgraves’ cottage is opposite the pub, third property along from a small lane, where number 46 now stands. Next door is a large house which may at one time have been several cottages since knocked together. This image from the Geoff Webb collection (below) shows The Hollybush and brick cottages opposite, taken in 1920, when the Ephgraves lived there, which supports the idea of the properties being combined.

Church End, Redbourn, c1920, with cottages on the right where no 46 now stands.
Geoff Webb collection from Herts Memories

Ted’s father Jesse Ephgrave, my 3xgreat grandfather, had moved away from Redbourn by the end of WW1, to Luton, where he died in 1926.

It seems that Ted and Rose moved from the dilapidated cottage in Church End between 1921 and the year of his father’s death, to a home in Lybury Lane, Redbourn. Herts Memories has a photo from 1926 (below) from the Geoff Webb collection said to show Ted, Rose and grown-up children (L-R: ‘Maud’, ‘Algie’, Ted Jnr. and Grace).

Ted Ephgrave died on 27 September 1932, at Redbourn. He was only 58 years old. By then his eldest son and youngest daughter had married and left home. His youngest son married a year later.

Rose outlived her husband by more than 30 years, dying in 1966. At the time of the 1939 Register, she was living at 26 Lybury Lane, Old Council Cottages; her married daughter Edith Batchelor, and son Edward Thomas Ephgrave, were also both living in the same street, the family staying close together. There is said to be a monumental inscription in Redbourn parish church which gives her age as 80, but I have not located any images of it.

The next generations

Edward Thomas Ephgrave (1901-1933): Twice married farm labourer

Ted and Rose’s eldest son, his namesake Edward Thomas Ephgrave, was born in Redbourn in 1901. Like his father, he was known as Ted (junior). I haven’t been able to find out much about his life. In 1921, he is at home with his parents at Church End, and working as a farm labourer. In 1923, he appears to have married Edith Elizabeth Cramphorn. She had an illegitimate daughter, Grace Beatrice, who by then was three years old. The couple do not seem to have had a long marriage. By The 1939 Register, Edith (whose marital status is ‘divorced’) and daughter Grace Ephgrave are living in St Albans, where Edith is working as a brush maker. Ted, meanwhile, is a road work man and is living at 62 Lybury Lane, Old Council Cottages, near his mother and sister. He is shown as married to Hilda M Ephgrave; she was born Hilda May Webb and they married in Redbourn in the second half of 1933, the year following his father’s death, and had a daughter, Doris, in 1937, whose marriage produced two grandchildren.

Ted died in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, in 1983; Hilda died in Luton in 1985.

As an aside, his first wife, brushmaker Edith Ephgrave, travelled to New Zealand in 1956 with her granddaughter ‘Miss Ann Ephgrave’, who was 15 at the time. She appears to have been the illegitimate daughter of Edith’s daughter Grace. They returned two years later, by which time Edith is working as a bookbinder, and Ann as a sales assistant. I wonder what stories they could tell of their time there, and whether Edith and Ted kept in contact after their divorce?

Grace May Ephgrave (1904-1995): Wife of a shopkeeper, stepmother to a physicist

Ted and Rose’s second child was born on 5 January 1904 according to most records (the death index entry at FreeBMD shows 5 Oct 1904). In 1921, Grace was still living at home with her parents in Redbourn, working as a domestic servant for Mr Ross, Farmer of Woodside, Redbourn. She was 16 years and eight months old. She next appears in records online when she married Sydney George Walker in the summer of 1938. She was 34, he was 49. Herts Memories has a photo taken at their wedding:

The bridesmaids are Grace’s nieces, Norah and Barbara Batchelor, her sister Maud’s children.

He was a widower with a son, Norman Kenneth Walker, who was 17 at the time. His first wife was a school mistress before their marriage in 1913, and there are some lovely photos of her shared by other members on Ancestry. She died in 1936 at The School House, Great Bricett, near Ipswich, so perhaps continued to teach throughout their marriage.

Sydney had served in WW1 with the Royal Navy, and had transferred to the newly-formed RAF on discharge. By 1921, he was working as manager for a canned goods merchant in central London. A year after his marriage to Grace, he is recorded on The 1939 Register as a ‘shopkeeper, dairy & green’. He and Grace are living at 83 Hatfield Road, St Albans; his son Norman Kenneth is living with them, working as a railway clerk draughtsman. He later went on to study at London University and became a prominent physicist, expert in guided weapons, both for the RAF in the UK, and the Joint Services Mission in Washington DC. He became a US citizen in 1967 and founded his own company, dying in 1985.

Grace’s husband Sydney’s death was registered in the St Albans district in 1979; Grace died in 1995.

Edith Maud Ephgrave (1906-1956): Mother of seven children

Ted and Rose’s second daughter was born in Redbourn in 1906 and was generally known as Maud. Herts Memories has a photo from the Geoff Webb collection, taken in 1914 of a girls’ sewing class in Redbourn. Maud is said to be the girl with pigtails in the front row, 7th from the left.

By 1921, aged 15, she is still living at home in Church End, working as a packer at Russell Harborough’s Sweet Factory in Redbourn. The firm also made jam at its factory on High Street, on the site now occupied by an industrial estate. The Geoff Webb collection at Herts Memories has a number of photos relating to the factory and its workers from the 1880s through to the middle of the 20th century.

In 1926, aged just 19, Maud married Thomas Edgar Batchelor. Thomas’ mother married his father, Edward Batchelor, in the year of his birth, 1905, and was then widowed a few months later. She later married Alfred Hawes, and Thomas is living with his mother and stepfather at the time of the 1911 and 1921 censuses. In 1911, he and his siblings have the surname Gregory (his mother’s maiden name; her two older children were illegitimate although may have been Edward Batchelor’s children). By 1921, he has his birth surname, Batchelor, and is working as a groom for a Mr Taylor, farmer of Harpendenbury, Redbourn.

In The 1939 Register, Thomas and Maud are living at 35 Lybury Lane Old Council Cottages; he is working as a lorry driver and they have two named children living with them: Norah J, born in 1928 and Alan C, born in 1935. There are two redacted records. They had a total of seven children altogether; in addition to the above, Keith R was born in 1927; Barbara J in 1930; Derek J in 1938; Gordon T born and died in 1941 and Mavis A in 1944. The redacted records are likely to be two of Keith, Barbara and Derek.

A search for the surname Batchelor at Herts Memories reveals a number of photos of the children as they grew up and became adults; they seem to have been well-known in Redbourn, and not averse to fun and games.

Edith Maud Batchelor died at the young age of 50 in 1956, when youngest daughter Mavis was just 12 years old. Her widower survived her by 20 years, dying in the St Albans district in 1973, aged 67.

Arthur Gregory Ephgrave (1910-1990): Shared stories and pub recommendations from his son

Arthur – who seems to have been known as Algie or Gregory – was born in Redbourn in 1910; I know very little about his early life, other than that he appears in the 1911 and 1921 censuses at home with his parents. In 1933 he married Lillian M Green in nearby Berkhamstead and by The 1939 Register, at the outbreak of WWII, they are living at 26 Winifred Road, Hemel Hempstead. Arthur’s occupation is described as ‘Machine Minder for Relief D Stamping Machine’ – although I don’t have any idea what that might be. They have a baby daughter, Margaret S Ephgrave, born on 22 July 1939. There is a redacted record which may be for another child, although I have not found any other birth records for the couple. This could be a relative’s child, perhaps 12 year old Keith Roy Batchelor, Arthur’s sister’s son; there is another Batchelor family a few doors along, but I don’t know if they are Edith Maud’s in-laws. They may alternatively have taken in an evacuee from elsewhere in the country.

In 2006, Arthur’s son Anthony (Tony) Ephgrave contacted me via email and we had some correspondence relating to our shared family history. What I didn’t realise until researching Arthur’s life more recently is that he and Lillian appear to have separated or divorced before Anthony’s birth. The latter’s birth index entry in 1949 gives his mother’s maiden name as Ashman. Unfortunately, digital images of birth certficates at the GRO exclude the year 1949, so I haven’t been able to check this. I have found no marriage records for Arthur and a woman called Ashman, so I do not know any details. Tony Ephgrave had moved to Cirencester, Gloucestershire, by 2006, and died in 2018, so I can’t ask him, and I haven’t found any records of children from either of his marriages.

Arthur Gregory Ephgrave seems, from phone books online, to have lived in St Albans until at least the 1970s. He died in 1990, in Stroud, Gloucestershire.

Arthur’s daughter Margaret married twice and had at least two children from each marriage. This is part of one of her half-brother (?) Tony’s email to me from 2006:

When you visit Redbourn they have a small museum in the high street which is packed full of information, Redbourn House in the High Street (Mary Dexter’s place), the vicar at St: Marys Church is very helpful – most of my relatives are buried there and do visit the Hollybush Pub in Church End it was my family local – they all lived in Church End at the turn of the Century. Somewhere in my loft I have a photograph of the Ephgrave Family circa 1930 taken in Church End which shows Edward Thomas (Grandfather) Violet Rose nee Luck (Grandmother), Edward Thomas Jnr (Uncle), Arthur Gregory (My father), Grace and Maud (My Aunts). I will this weekend make it my mission to see if I can locate and scan you a copy. Good hunting in Redbourn and Wheathampstead (Oh one last thing have a glass of real ale in the Tin Pot, Gustard Wood – another family watering hole in the time of Thomas and Elizabeth [Ephgrave] it’s just down the road from Herons Farm). Kind regards Tony.

Unfortunately, Tony never did send me that photo, although it may be the same one of the family reproduced above from Herts Memories. Mary Dexter, nee Hedges, widow of Frederick Ephgrave, was my 3xgreat grandmother (and Tony’s 2xgreat grandmother), about whom there are more interesting stories to tell. Thomas and Elizabeth Ephrave were Frederick Ephgrave’s parents and, therefore, my 4xgreat grandparents, who helpfully left wills. However, by their grandson Jesse Ephgrave’s time, their legacy appeared to have been lost.