Charles Stanley Hudgell

1879 - 1947

Bishop Stortford Essex

Left to right

Dorothy, Constance Alice

Constance Eleanor and Charles Lesley

Dorothy and Constance Ellen

3rd from Left Constance Ellen,

 Daisy Hudgell and Lydia Robinson

   Charles worked for Rochford Nurseries in Stoney Common Stansted where they grew tomatoes grapes and cucumbers in 22 acres of greenhouses.

   A tied cottage at 45, Rochford Cottages came with the job but when he stuck his neck out and asked for more money his fellow workmates fearing they would loose their jobs and homes didn't stand by him and his lost both his job and home when he was sacked.

 Wages and conditions could only be described as poor. Bernard Rochford referred in 1912 to employees working six days a week, ten and a half hours a day, for 20/- shillings a week. In 1912 one grower from Waltham Abbey was supported in his refusal of a half day holiday on Saturdays. In 1914 the Vicar of Cheshunt spoke to the growers about seven day labour, though whether for the protection of the men's bodies or for the good of their souls is not clear!)

  The family moved to Station Road Stansted in a house they rented from the Archer family who owned the Bell and Feathers pub in the village. They had a small sweet shop in the front room which Constance served in and Charles earned extra cash by chopping kindling wood and tied it in bundles to sell.

To gain extra income he shot pigeons and sold them, he was also partial to a piece of pigeon pie himself

He once cleaned a chimney at a house called The Thatch Grove Hill in Stansted were the maids had not put the fire out properly and the house burnt down.

Charles sitting on the wall,

Constance and Elsie in the doorway of the shop

Charles Stanley Hudgell

and

Constance Eleanor who he married in 1902

Charles Stanley Hudgell,

 Reginald Dixon (son in law)

and Constance