The Ritso Family
The Ritso family was probably the first family to live in No 12 Prior Park Buildings (at the time it was No 13). Captain John Ritso (1772-1866) moved there in 1825 after a long and distinguished career in the Army. His ancestors came from Germany and had close connections with the Royal House of Hanover. Ritso is an anglicised form of the German Ritzau.
John was born in Surrey in 1772. In 1790 at the age of 18 he travelled to India and joined the 76th Regiment as a volunteer. In 1791 he was promoted to Ensign and fought in the Mysore wars against Sultan Tipu, most notably in the siege of Seringapatam in 1792, when Tipu was killed and his sons surrendered.
By 1804 he had reached the rank of Captain and was appointed as ADC to the Governor General to India the Marquis of Wellesley (brother of the Duke of Wellington).
He returned to the UK in 1806 and initially settled in Kingsbridge in Devon. He transferred to the Royal Artillery and was made Professor of Fortifications at Woolwich Arsenal. In 1807 he married Charlotte Boyce. They had 6 children together some of whom were born in Somerton. He retired in 1823 and moved to Prior Park Buildings in about 1825. He died in 1866 at the age of 93!
As a child John’s father George Ritso was a play mate of the young George III. Later George married Louisa Grimm who was an attendant to Queen Charlotte.
Louisa was born in 1743 in Gotha, Saxony, Germany. They had 11 children together. She died on 3 March 1825 at the age of 82 years, and was buried in Bathwick.
John’s Grandparents (George’s parents) were Frederick and Sophia Ritzau. They were both born in German but came to the UK and were the private secretaries to the Prince and Princess of Wales.
John’s daughter Ellen was Christened in the same gown in which George III was Christened. Ellen lived to the age of 103.
The Wylde Family
Edward Wylde (1791-1860) and his family lived in 3 Prior Park Buildings from 1838 until 1843. Edward was a Lieutenant in the Royal Naval. His wife Magdalena (1796- 1861) was born in Paramaribo the Capital of Suriname which at the time was a Dutch Colony in South America. They Married there in 1816 and had 8 children – 3 sons and 5 daughters of whom 5 worn born in Bath.
Edward and Magdalena died in 1860 and 1861 in the Naval Hospital in Greenwich.
Two of their sons went into the military. One, Charles went into the Navy and reached the rank of Captain and is buried in Ross Bay, British Columbia and the other Edward Andree went into the Marines and reached the rank of Major General.
Edward’s father was the Rev Sydenham Teast Wylde who was was born in Bath in 1756.
The Silversides Family
William Silversides moved into 3 Prior Park Buildings around 1870 with his wife Sarah and daughter Eva Jane and ran a boarding school from there. Both William and Sarah were born in Hereford and in the 1841 census William is listed as a footman.
The school did well and over the years migrated from No 3 to No 2, and for a period was in both houses, and then to No 1. Then in around 1894 the school was moved to 5 Widcombe Crescent as the Clarendon School whilst the family remained in No1. William died in 1885 whilst conducting a service at the Christian’s Meeting House in Princess Street. Eva continued to live in No 1 and continued to run the school. In around 1904 she had moved to 5 Widecombe Crescent.
The School was seen as prestigious and was attended by the daughters of Aldermen Bush and Silcock. It was known for its low fees and generous prizes By 1911 there were 72 children at the school. The school closed in 1919 and Eva died 24/6/1930 and is buried in the Abbey Cemetery.
William Bowler
William Bowler a local businessman lived in No 13 Prior Park Buildings from 1925-52. He was born in Bath in 1863 and was the son of Jonathan Burdett Bowler (1834-). His grandfather Frederick E Bowler was a publican at the Kings Arms, 3 Walcot Street.
After an apprenticeship at Stothert & Pitt, William became manager of the mineral water making business in the 1880s. At the time his father J B Bowler had suffered a serious stroke which left him unable to run metal working and mineral water making businesses alone and his two sons, William and Charles, were responsible for these two aspects of the business, whilst their father retained overall control.
In 1889 WW Bowler married Lydia Jane at Thomas a Becket church at Widcombe while he was living at Springfield Place, Holloway. The family – which by 1905 included nine children – moved in various addresses in Widcombe and Entry Hill. After moving to 7 Macaulay Buildings in 1920 the family eventually moved to 13 Prior Park Buildings in 1924.
In 1911 J B Bowler died and WW Bowler took over the running of the mineral water aspect of the business entirely. After a period of decline, during his father’s infirmity WW Bowler revived the operation with more modern equipment and investment in the firm. Unfortunately, the disruptions to the business of two world wars in the 20th century condemned the mineral water firm to decline. WW Bowler died on 25 April 1942-during the Blitz of Bath-although his death was unconnected to the bombing.
We have a copy of WW Bowler’s will and along with a host of other property and shares in businesses is 13 Prior Park Buildings. The property was sold in February 1956 for £1185.00.
On the subject of Bath businesses, one of WW Bowler’s daughters, Dora, married Edward Cross whose uncle was Rodney Cross – the founder of the successful precision engineering company Cross Manufacturing of Midford Road.
WW Bowler and Lydia Jane’s wedding in 1889 and William Woodman in a family portrait a little later.
James Fortt
James Fortt (1834-1917) lived in No 16 PPB was a member of the Fortt family confectionery family famous for their Bath Oliver biscuits!! He was Born in 1834, son of William Fortt, cook & confectioner, who in 1851 had premises at 5 Milsom. The family had various commercial interests in Bath.
In 1860 he married Eliza and they had 3 children.
The biscuit was invented in about 1750 by Dr William Oliver who was one of the founders of the rheumatic hospital in Bath. On his death he bequeathed the recipe on to his coachman who sold it on until by the 19th century it was owned by the Fortt family who continued to produce the biscuit well into the second half of the twentieth century.
Gustav Horstmann
Gustav Otto Horstmann lived in No 9 Prior Park Buildings from 18?? – 18??. He was one of 5 sons of Gustav Horstmann who came to Bath in 1856, having emigrated from Prussia in 1850, and built up a successful clock making business. He was born in Bath in 18??. His mother ??? who was from Bath married his father in 1858.
Gustav Otto along with his brothers expanded the business in other fields including cars, gear and controls and created a very successful engineering company that is still running today. Gustav Otto did not marry.
Ellen Pickering
Ellen Pickering was a successful novelist who lived in 13 Prior Park Buildings from about 1835 until here death there in 1843.
Ellen was baptised in 1802 in Lyndhurst Hampshire to Issac and Catharine (Nee Collins) Pickering. She had two sisters – Emma and Ann and a brother also called Issac.
The Pickering family income was mainly derived from the hundreds of slaves that they owned on sugar plantations Trinidad and Virgin Islands. By the 1820s the family were wealthy enough to be living in Great Pultney Street. After her father died in 1829 they moved to 13 Prior Park Buildings where Ellen remained until she died in 1843 of scarlet fever. She was buried at St Marys Church, Bathwick. Her mother continued to live there with her sister Ann and her brother Issac until she died there in 1855 after which the family dispersed – not too far! Between 1860-1868 Ann is living in 7 and 8 Prior Park Buildings before moving to 15 Prior Park Buildings and between 1858-63 her brother Issac can be found in 3 and 10 Prior Park Buildings. He dies in Daniel Street in 1884 leaving £5900.
Ellen achieved early success as a writer. Her first novel was published in 1825 and she reputedly earned £100 a year (equivalent to £8,733 in 2021). Her books mixed history and romance in the style of Sir Walter Scott. Her novel Nan Darrell, or The Gypsy Mother (1839) was her most successful book and was reprinted five times up to 1865, years after her death. The motif of gypsies, particularly in the fictional role of kidnappers, was popular in nineteenth-century Victorian literature. Nan Darrell, or The Gypsy Mother features a lead gypsy character reminiscent of Meg Merrilies from Scott’s novel Guy Mannering . Her books were very popular in North America. She wrote sixteen three-volume novels up to 1840 one of which was published postumously. Most of her novels would have been written while she was living in Prior Park Buildings.
Dora Wedge
MY LIFE IN THE BUILDINGS
Mrs. Dora Wedge, 5 September 1993.
Dora Wedge was born in 1914, at No. 11 Prior Park Cottages. Her father, Frederick Morris, was a teacher at Widcombe Boys’ School, now the Day Centre. He taught general subjects, and remained there until he went to Holy Trinity (some time in the ’20’s), after which he went to Walcot. He retired about the beginning of he 2nd World War.
The headmaster of Widcombe Boys’ School was then Mr. Richards. The house had seven rooms. Mrs. Wedge principally remembers the marble bathroom, which was exceedingly cold. The owner of the house was a mason named Turvey, who had premises in Manvers Street and later by Weymouth House School.
She does not remember anything of the First World War, except for the German Prisoners coming past. They had been laying drains. They were under the charge of British soldiers. The house was lit by gas and so were the streets. She remembers the gas-lighter coming past, with his little pole.
Her brother Cyril went to Widcombe Boys’ School. Mrs. Wedge went to Duke Street School run by Miss Cleghorn and Miss Clements. When she was eleven, in 1925, she went to the Union of Saints Convent in Pulteney Road, now the Magistrates’ Court. She enjoyed it very much.
In the summer, they went picnicking in the fields at Collett’s Farm (Lyncombe Vale), and they played in the Monument Fields.
She remembers the horses coming up the river, pulling barges. She thinks they came from Bristol. They drew malt up the canal to the malthouse in
Sydney Buildings (See pictures of the Old Malt House in Diana Windsor “The Dream of Bath”)
There were other horse-drawn vehicles. Milk was brought to the doorstep in churns and one took it out with one’s jug.
Crowe Hall was burnt down about 1924. The postman pointed it out to her father and he came and woke them and they saw it from the top windows. It must have started about 6 a.m. One of the maids jumped from the roof where two or three of them were trapped. There was not the array of fire-engines then that there is today. Dame Sarah Grand, the singer, had the house. At one time, Mrs. Wedge believes, she was the Mayor’s Lady Mayoress. The gardens were not opened to the public then as they are now.
She does not remember any other great fires in Widcombe. There was a fire in the paper mill in James Street West. It was so cold the water froze as it came out of the firemen’s hoses. Mrs. Wedge did not see it, but there were pictures in the papers the next day.
By Widcombe Chapel, the bridge was then hump-backed. There was a horse-trough at the bottom of Widcombe Hill, also a drinking fountain, by Sillcox’s warehouse. Just before the last war, the landlord of the White Hart used to go for a walk in the evenings with his dog. The dog would jump up on the horse trough to take a drink, and the landlord would take the opportunity to slip a bottle of beer into the trough, for the policeman on his beat.
Opposite the White Hart there was a grocer’s.
At the corner, where the children’s clothes Shop was, was Mrs. Carey’s Post Office and newsagent’s. Next to the Post Office, in Widcombe Parade, was Davis’s dairy. There was a baker’s in what is now the Bible Shop .
In 1928 the Morris family moved into No. 18 Prior Park Buildings, as Mr. Turvey wanted his house back. Mr. Morris paid $750 for it and thought he had been cheated. Before them it was owned by Mr. Coward who was an engineer, who had works in Kingston Road.
At No. 19 there was a Jewish family called Weiner, furriers, who later had a Shop on the high pavement in George Street. At No. 17 were Mr., Mrs. and Miss Ford. The Fords had retired from Southgate Street, where they had had a haberdashery.
The houses in the terrace were family households. They usually had live-in general servants, who slept at the top of the house. The Morris family had someone who came in daily. One of the families who lived in the terrace was the Davis’. The land behind was a market garden. When it was sold, there was a covenant against building on it.
Before the war, the Roper-Wrights had Widcombe Manor. There is a plaque about them in St. Thomas a Becket Church. The vicar was Mr. Graham. During the war, Mrs. Wedge remembers Vachell, the author, there.
A little man looked after the stream in front. He had access from a gate and stemps in Prior Park Road, towards the middle of the terrace. (Mrs. Collyer’s postcard shows these steps.)
The gardens in front were still enclosed in railings, and usually had bushes around them as well.
Electricity was put into No. 18 after the Second World War. The Water Board took over the water supply from he private firm before the war. Mr. Morris had planted up the back graden and was furious when it all had to be dug up to lay the new pipes.
After they moved into No.18, Mrs. Wedge remembers that a housemaid jumped from the top storey of Widcombe Crescent because she was pregnant. She was working for the Horstmann family. Mrs. Wedge heard about it when ‘she asked her father why the top window had been barred, and he told her it was to stop anyone ever jumping again. Widcombe Mill was still running, on the site of the present garage. It was called “The Mill” and owned by a family named Wright. It sold Hay, Straw and Corn.
It became a garage about 1933-44, and was then run by a Mr. Brooks. There were no particular celebrations in the street for the coronation of George VI. It was not the kind of place to have a street party. There was something on in the Rec. and there was a fair at the Quay. She remembers the fireworks at the Rec. Broad St. Quay was then a resort of ladies of low repute
At the outbreak of war, the Stanley Taylors were living in Bewdley House. He worked for the gas company. Mrs. Taylor had been a Miss Stone, i.e. the family that owned the Priory, Lyncombe Hill.
All the people of the right age were called up. Mrs. Wedge decided to work on the land and became a land girl. She worked at Smallcombe Nurseries and earned about £2.10s a week (£2.50).
No.18 took a retired nurse from London, a family connection, as an evacuee. Unfortunately she became disturbed. She would pack her bags and go out into the night, and wait at some street corner, saying that she was going to be picked up and taken to a patient. The police would have to bring her home.
The railings around the front gardens were taken away in the war. The metal was taken to Bristol but Mrs. Wedge does not think it was ever used.
Mrs. Wedge heard the bombers which dropped bombs on Bath when they were being chased away from Bristol. She was in No. 18 when Prior Park Road was deliberately bombed. A The bomb fell in the road just in front of No. 4 Prior Park Road and another in the market gardens, now the Fred Daw Centre. Mrs. Wedge has a photograph of No. 4. Prior Park Road In the ring binder
The glass in the houses around was blown out. The family in No. 18 put on the kettle and made a cup of tea. The idea of causing a gas explosion from leaking gas did not occur to them. Mrs. Wedge’s sister Vera came around from No. 19, where she lived then, to see if everyone was all right.
The emergency services (ARP) arrived to help clear up. No one was killed but Mrs. Bowler in No. 13, who was already ill, had a heart attack and died.
The Morris family did not take allotments in the war. Mrs. Wedge remembers the bad winter of 1942. It was incredibly cold, with snow, wind and rain. There were rabbits and fowls to look after in the nurseries even if one could not garden. Another job Mrs. Wedge used to do at the nurseries in the war was to tie up bunches of cut flowers to sell.
After the war, the lettings in the terrace began. These were the days of rationing. Coal for instance was rationed. Coal was delivered from the back lane, and the men brought it down the path in sacks and poured it into the coal cellar through the coal chute.
In the 1960’s, when Elizabeth Holland moved into No. 17, Mrs. Wedge was not living in the terrace. She had trained when young as a hairdresser and kept up the employment all her life, except during the war. For a time she worked 1939 in Southampton. Her mother, aged about 90, was living in No. 18 in the 1960’s. Mrs.Wedge moved back after her mother’s death, at the end of the 1960’s. She had been living in Broad Street
Mrs. Wedge remembers the bad winter of ’64-65. The river was frozen from the weir to North Parade Bridge. They used to buy bread to feed the swans that congregated in the bit of open water by the weir.
In her latter days, before the house was sold to Elizabeth Holland, Miss Ford used to live in No. 17, alone except for her maid. She played hymns incessantly. She had a helper called Mary, “slave labour”. After Mary died, Mrs. Fields came to help. Eventually Miss Ford went to Woodland Grove Nursing home, Weston, and the house was sold to Miss Holland. The asking price was abut £900 more than Miss Ford had received, so the agent evidently made a profit (Miss Ford got £2000) . Park Road, opposite.
Mrs. Wedge’s grandparents lived at No. 35 Prior Park Road opposite. They had the whole house. She chiefly remembers her grandmothers small bonnets.
Deirdre McSharry