If we follow the inhabitants of a house through the late 19th century
we can sample the lives of working men and women in the area. 50 Wellington
Street, a house in one of the older streets, was home to the Kethro family
between 1847 and 1861. John Kethro,
whose wife Martha was 14 years younger, was a stonemason, and in later life
a beer house keeper. He and Martha
bought up nine children at no. 50, three
girls and six boys. He left the house in the early 1860s,
and by the end of that decade the house was occupied by William Harris,
a gas fitter, his wife Martha, who were eventually to have six children,
three boys and three girls. The Harris
family stayed until the mid 1870s,
and by 1881 the house was the home of Charles Bennet, a bricklayer, and
his wife Lydia, who had five children, four
boys and a girl. Theirs was a short stay as was that of the next occupants:
in 1883 a Charles Watkins was in residence,
but, at the end of the 1880s, a Charles
Page, and by 1891 the house had been overtaken by a young couple both
24, a general labourer, James Hall and his wife, Emma.
Jericho retained its working
class character until the last decades of the 20th century. The area
was well serviced by shops and pubs.
It also had its own schools and churches. These facilities, the small densely
housed streets in the heart of Jericho, and the similar aspirations and
lifestyles of its inhabitants were perhaps enough to foster a sense of community
and identity.
