I was so amazed and pleased to see the recent post by Lisa Williams on your Instagram page, regarding her three-time great grandfather, Samuel Cuthbert, as he is also my great-great-grandfather.
Samuel married a widowed lady called Mary Yabsley, nee Humphreys in 1854. She was a launderess in Cockington, Devon and brought with her a daughter, also called Mary Yabsley, aged 10 years old who had been born in Devon.
I often wondered why a launderess from Devon had uprooted herself and moved to South Wales, until I was told by one of my old Primary School Teachers (who was herself from Bridgend), that the laundries of South Wales had been famous during the Victorian period for the softness and purity of the water they used.
Consequently, it was common for the well-to-do to send laundry, by train, from London for laundering in South Wales. In the days of frequent train services, this could be achieved quite efficiently and must have provided a great deal of employment.
As a further note on this most enterprising of couples, neither afraid to move from the places they were born to get on in life, their Grandson, Richard Samuel Edwards, born in 1891, started life as a Domestic Gardener at Bosherston, also working as a farm labourer for a time. By 1915, he had sought further education and had trained as one of the first Male Nurses in Britain, working as an attendant at the Joint Counties Asylum in Carmarthen, (later known as St David's Hospital).
By the time he retired, Richard Samuel Edwards was the Deputy Chief Male Nurse at the hospital and both his sons (one of whom was my father) went on to become teachers and indeed, Headmasters
I have often wished to see a photo of Samuel Cuthbert as I feel it is his spirit which has inspired his descendants to move forward in life. Having seen the post by Lisa Williams, I feel proud to be related to him.
Rhiannon Taylor (nee Edwards)
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