Life and Times of the BUDGETTS OF KINGSWOOD

In 1986, Prospect House, Kingswood, formerly the home of John Budgett was threatened with demolition. Kingswood has very few buildings of architectural and historical importance and the Kingswood District History Society spearheaded the attempt to save the old house.'What we are trying to do', said a council spokesman is to demolish a slum. The condition of it is terrible. It would cost £18,000 to £20,000 to put it right.' Alan Bryant, research secretary of the KDHS thought otherwise. It could be converted into flats, or have a community use or even be a museum for Kingswood.'You can't save every building but there aren't many of that age. Prospect House was built about 150 years ago. You have to make an effort to keep something.' The house, he added, was built by the Budgett family. wholesale grocers, general merchants and local benefactors. The family led Kingswood people out of the dark ages of the 18th century. creating work, building churches, chapels and schools. Samuel Budgett is one of the few Kingswood residents to have a place in the Dictionary of National Biography. A self-made man, he was 'an athlete in the arena of trade'. This story is not only that of Samuel but also of the firm which was founded in a small way by James Budgett; continued by Henry Hill: improved and expanded Samuel himself and finally bequeathed in their turn to his sons and grandsons. It is therefore the family story of a family firm; at Kingswood from the time of George III to Victoria and in Bristol to the time of Elizabeth II.

THE BOY SAMUEL

Samuel Budgett first arrived in Kingswood in the year 1801 at the age of nine. His father, a small grocer, had taken a shop in The Causeway (called locally 'The Gassy') on Kingswood's main thoroughfare. The shop is believed to have been on the corner of High Street and Park Road. James Budgett had first tried his luck at Wrington, Backwell and Nailsea and hoped for better things from Kingswood, despite the wild reputation of the place. Young Sam went to school at Mrs Stone's at The Yew Tree. The schoolmarm stood for no nonsense and employed a unique punishment for naughtiness. She would, recalled Sam 'put us in a corner with her husband's long speckled stocking drawn over our heads with the foot hanging over our faces.' (Bearing in mind that washing was well-known for its weakening effect, let us hope that the stocking came from the line and not direct from Mr Stone's foot!) Twice Sam stood in the corner thus arrayed; first for scrumping an apple and second - richly deserved - for cleaning off his shoe in a pan of drinking water. Removed from this school, he went to another where the Dame all the while spinning worsted with her foot on the treadle, kept the children quiet by the telling of stories.

'There was once a man,' she said, 'chopping wood. The hatchet slipped and he chopped his bowels out. But he did not go to Heaven as decent folks should. His ghost made mischief in Kingswood and people saw him putting his finger in their fires and lighting his pipe with it. Then he would go down the pit and frighten the poor miners with his shrieking and howling. Twice they laid him, but he would not go. Then lay all got together and laid him all the way into the Red Sea. 'This,' chuckled San, 'was an example of the tuition I received at that Temple of Literature.' His father grew restless again and once more the family moved, to Coleford, a hamlet just outside Kilmersdon on the Mendips and like Kingswood a coalmining district. The Gassy shop was left to the management of Henry Hill Budgett, son of James's first marriage and sixteen years older than Samuel. Henry was recently married. Of a serious and thoughtful nature, he was a convinced Wesleyan. From Kilmersdon, Sam and his younger brother Isaac were sent to a school at Midsummer Norton as weekly boarders. Sam began to show himself adept at trade and numerous small business transactions netted him a profit of £30. He presented it to his parents as a parting gift, for now fifteen he was to return to Kingswood as an apprentice of brother Henry.

THE GROCER'S ASSISTANT

Three years into his apprenticeship, the brothers fell out and Henry gave Samuel notice for 'want of ability'. Undaunted, Sam applied for a situation in a Bristol grocery store, but when he was asked to write his address, he was baffled and offered instead: ' I can write an invoice, sir!' 'Very well. Write 861bs of bacon at ninepence ha'penny a pound.' Samuel scribbled busily. To his mortification, his answer was incorrect. He was allowed a second chance but failed again. Into the shop marched another youth, taller and better dressed. Samuel's hopes plummeted, but luck was on his side. The shopman devised another test. 'You could never carry those cheeses!' he cried pointing to a high shelf. In a flash, Sam monkeyed up to the cheeses and triumphantly displayed his strength. He was engaged to start within the month. He took a few days off before starting his new job and set off to see his parents at Coleford, accompanied by his little brother Isaac, His arithmetical misery still rankled and during the long walk he practised addition and Implication on all matters of bacon' to the yawning boredom of his brother.

Things at home had not prospered and he noted sadly that 'trial seemed to be the portion of his admirable mother.' Her 'straits and pinches' touched his heart and he grew more determined in his ambition for her sake. (He was very attached to her. When she died in 1831 he described her as 'a saint, ripe for glory'.) On the return journey they met a man selling jays. Samuel bought a bird for 3d with a view to a quick re-sale. As the day wore on, he found no takers and eventually at journey's end, he stood haplessly on Bristol Bridge offering his caged companion to passers-by. This too failed but with the persistence he adopted as a motto, he set off hawking round private houses and eventually sold the jay for a shilling, making a handsome ninepence on the deal.

For six months he worked at the Bristol grocery and always remembered his employers with a great deal of gratitude, but at the end of this time brother Henry had a change of heart, relented and wanted him back. Sam was reluctant to give up his weekly pay and his master was equally unwilling to let him go but Henry reminded him grimly it was his duty to return. So he turned again to Kingswood, to the little shop, open all hours from six in the morning to nine, ten or eleven o'clock at night. The grinding punishment of these hours was something Sam never forgot.

KINGSWOOD HILL

Kingswood Hill was an ungainly sprawl of a village, partly in the parish of St George (then still called 'The New Church, Kingswood') and the parish of Bitton. At its nearest point it was two and a half miles away from the City of Bristol and at its other extremity nearly six miles from it. There were about seven thousand inhabitants, of whom the vast majority of the men and boys were employed in the extensive coal workings which covered the area.

THE SUCCESSFUL MERCHANT

Samuel was now sufficiently prosperous to build a substantial house in Kingswood. (It was 'The Park' in Tabernacle Road, now called Park Road. The house has long since gone but it is interesting that the name lingers on in the modern street name.) The Reverend Joseph Wood being shown round by the proud new owner noted the position of the property and sounded a sombre warning to the man who was now becoming known to all as 'The Successful Merchant' by saying: 'Here you have something to admonish you. In front is the Workhouse to which you may come. Behind is the graveyard to which you MUST come!' Although he had now 'got on', Samuel's character remained constant. He did not decide that Kingswood was too rough for his growing family and transplant them to the more genteel reaches of Clifton or Bath.

Instead he actively encouraged them to associate with the people of Kingswood, the colliers and labourers and their needy families. Similarly he instituted improvements for his workers. An old employee of the original grocery store recalled the early days of business when they sometimes worked fifteen hours a day. 'It is not rational,' 'Mr Samuel' would cry, 'You should be at home with your families. We MUST get done sooner!' He remembered only too well the drudgery of his young life. He made efforts and soon the leaving bell went at half past eight. The men were well pleased, but Samuel was not. He aimed at seven and increased efficiency brought this about. Still not content he aimed at 6 p.m. and got it. Eventually, paradise: 'Every man in that great establishment could turn homeward at five or half past five o'clock with a full evening of leisure!'

THE FAMILY IN 1841

Recorded in the census of 1841 we find Henry Hill Budgett described as a grocer etc - aged 80 (adult ages in this census were usually given to the nearest five years) of Kingswood Hill, living with a mysterious Sarah Budgett aged 60. (His sister Sarah aged 16 died in 1806; his half-sister Sarah married George Mees, her sister's widower in 1836. His wife Sarah as we have seen died in 1839. The Sarah of the census can be none of these.) With them was a visitor, twenty years old Elizabeth Brittle; the housekeeper, Elizabeth Gibson; two teenage servants, Ann & Sarah Birket and a contingent of the Budgett workforce residing on the premises.

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