Charles Eastoe sat in his daughter Gerty’s house on Nile Street in the winter of 1921¹, two years after Eliza’s death and two years before his own. At eighty-three, his once-sturdy frame had grown stooped with age, but his full white beard and flat cap gave him the dignified appearance of a man who had weathered life’s storms. The former farm labourer was now dependent on his youngest daughter’s care – a modest but secure end to lives that had begun in hardship and uncertainty. The story of how Charles and Eliza built their remarkable family legacy began six decades earlier, in the small Norfolk village of Litcham, where two people marked by loss would find each other and create something enduring.

Two Lives Shaped by Hardship

Charles had been born in Litcham around 1838, the sixth child of Henry and Mary Eastoe². His father worked as a labourer, and the family lived the precarious existence common to agricultural workers of the time. By 1841, nine people crowded into the cottage on Bridge Street³. Litcham in Charles’s youth was described as “the principal trading Town for the surrounding agricultural Villages⁴.” In 1831 the population was 771 and most people were involved in agriculture. The village attracted families because of “the uninclosed Commons or Waste Lands” – common lands that provided opportunities for the poorest residents to graze animals or gather resources. The 1851 census found the family on Back Lane, with Charles and his brother working as “farmer’s boys” while their father continued as an agricultural labourer⁵. It was a life of limited prospects, where young men might expect to follow their fathers into the same cycle of seasonal work and economic uncertainty.

Eliza Pratt’s childhood in Norwich had been marked by different but equally challenging circumstances. Born in 1840⁶ to Joseph, a weaver, and Lucy, she lived in Wales Buildings⁷ and later Barnes Yard in the parish of St. Augustine. Barnes Yard and Wales Buildings were part of Norwich’s poorest neighbourhoods, where desperation was never far beneath the surface. In 1847, around the time Eliza and her mother were living as paupers in Barnes Yard, a dead infant was discovered in a bin there⁸. The area had also witnessed political ferment: on New Year’s Day 1841, when Eliza was just a baby, a parade of 400-500 Chartists marched past Wales Buildings⁹. By 1851, Eliza’s father had abandoned the family. The census recorded Lucy and her daughter as paupers in Barnes Yard¹⁰, while Joseph was living elsewhere with an unmarried woman and child¹¹ – a scandalous arrangement that would have brought shame on the family and left them in desperate straits.

Eliza’s response to these circumstances showed early signs of the resilience that would characterize her life. By 1861, she had found work as a servant to a picture dealer in Norwich¹², escaping the poverty that had trapped her mother and deaf sister. When Samuel Youell, who had been a lodger with the family¹³, married her mother in February 1861¹⁴, it seemed stability might return to their lives. But Youell’s death in early 1862¹⁵ left Eliza once again facing an uncertain future.

Loss and New Beginnings

Charles’s early adult life was marked by tragedy that would have broken many men. His first marriage, to Eliza Emerson in Snettisham in October 1859¹⁶, produced at least three children, but none survived infancy. An unnamed daughter died in 1859, baby Henry died in February 1861, and Marianne (recorded as Eliza at her burial) died in September 1862¹⁷. Three months later, in December 1862, Charles buried his wife as well¹⁸. Local reports from this period reveal a man struggling with grief and alcohol. In 1860, Charles and four other Litcham men – labourers George Fulcher and James Butcher, basketmaker John Secker, and tailor George Catton – were fined for being drunk and disorderly¹⁹. The incident involved a cross-section of the village’s working men, reflecting the role of public houses as social centres where agricultural workers sought respite from their harsh lives. It’s reasonable to assume that the death of his children and wife would have driven Charles to drink more heavily, though the records don’t explicitly make this connection.

How Charles and Eliza met is not recorded, but the timing suggests her move to Litcham was prompted by Samuel Youell’s death and her need for new employment. Given the limited options for single women and the networks through which domestic work was found, she may have heard of opportunities in the village or known someone who could provide a reference. By October 1863, both were listed as residents of Litcham when they married at All Saints’ Church²⁰.

Building a Family

The early years of their marriage showed Charles continuing to struggle with alcohol while they worked to establish their household. In 1870, he appeared before the magistrate again, this time with his brother Henry Eastoe and Henry Barker, charged with being drunk and refusing to leave the Bull Inn²¹. The presence of his brother suggests these incidents were part of a pattern of communal drinking among the Eastoe men. Perhaps not surprising given the common hardships of rural life and the desire to escape from gruelling work. Three years later, Charles was fined again for drunkenness, this time with Charles Codling, a fellow labourer ten years his junior. The age gap between Charles and Codling, and their shared work, points to a possible mentor-apprentice relationship, with the older man perhaps introducing the younger to both work and the social life of the village²². This 1873 incident was the last recorded instance of Charles’s drinking problems – suggesting that by his mid-thirties, he had either overcome his difficulties or learned to avoid the attention of the law.

Despite these troubles, Charles and Eliza’s family grew steadily. Margaret was born in 1864²³, followed by a brief period when the family moved to Enfield, Middlesex, where Mahala Mary was born in 1866²⁴. Charles’s occupation during this time was listed as “groom to a jobmaster” – skilled work caring for horses hired out for transport. Enfield in 1866 was a market town about ten miles north of London experiencing significant growth due to improved transport links. The traffic was so extensive that on one morning alone 2,200 horses were counted on the road between Shoreditch and Enfield, making it ideal for jobmasters and their skilled employees²⁵. The move to Enfield suggests Charles was willing to take risks for better opportunities, though the family’s return to Norfolk by 1867 indicates the venture was short-lived.

By 1871, the family had settled at 22 Tittleshall Road in Litcham, with Charles working again as an agricultural labourer²⁶. The next 15 years brought many more children: Sarah Anne in 1867, Arthur in 1870, Charles John Henry in 1872, Eliza in 1874, William in 1877, and Alice in 1881²⁷. At the time of the 1881 census, the family were at Drury Square on the outskirts of the village with Charles still labouring, the four eldest children at school and the younger two at home with Eliza²⁸.

The Move to Norwich

The 1870s and early 1880s were a period of severe agricultural uncertainty in Norfolk and the Norfolk Chronicle documented the crisis facing farm workers²⁹. In 1881, the paper reported a “gloomy harvest” with August bringing “just four inches of rain.” The following year, while 1882 was “above the average standard” for crop yields, the “depreciation of the prices of grain” meant that returns per acre were falling considerably. The summer of 1883 brought its own challenges with a “late harvest” and July being “a decidedly wet month.”

The Eastoe family’s decision to leave Litcham sometime between March 1882 and October 1883 represented a calculated risk. Charles was in his mid-forties with a large family to support, and years of agricultural instability would have made rural labor increasingly precarious. Norwich offered the promise of more diverse employment opportunities and better prospects for their children. The move was likely influenced by family networks – Charles’s nephew Henry was among other family members who had also moved from Litcham to Norwich³⁰, suggesting information about opportunities was shared within the extended family.

Norwich in the 1880s was experiencing urban improvements that would have made it attractive to working families. The city offered more regular employment – no longer dependent on seasonal agricultural work, Charles could find steady work as a general labourer in the city’s growing industries. By October 1883, when George Ernest was born³¹, the family had settled in Catton, then a village on the northern outskirts of Norwich that offered a compromise between their rural origins and urban opportunities. The move proved successful – their older children were reaching working age, and the city offered opportunities that hadn’t existed in Litcham.

The Next Generation

The 1890s brought evidence of the family’s upward mobility. Now further into the city at Little Wensum Street in Heigham³², their children married and established themselves in skilled trades that represented clear advancement from their parents’ labouring background. Heigham was rapidly becoming a tightly-packed, working class quarter of Norwich filled with small Victorian terraced houses. There, Margaret, a laundress, married a wire weaver and had fifteen children³³. Arthur became a shoemaker with ten children³⁴. Charles John Henry remained a labourer but married and had five children³⁵. Eliza became a shoe fitter and married a boot rivetter, having eight children before being widowed young³⁶.

The pattern of mobility continued with the younger children. William (my 2x great grandfather) worked as a labourer, hawker, and eventually opened a fish shop before its bankruptcy in 1905 led him to try mining in Durham³⁷. George Ernest also became a miner, moving to Durham between 1908 and 1911³⁸. Alice married a house painter and moved to Middlesbrough around 1920³⁹. The fact that three children ventured to the North East for work suggests family networks sharing information about opportunities and an adaptability and resilience passed down from their parents. Family ties were evidently strong though with all eventually returning to Norfolk.

The Final Years

By the early 1900s, Charles and Eliza were living at Haslip’s Opening⁴⁰ and by 1911 they had achieved modest security as old age pensioners, living next to Margaret’s family in three rooms at 12 Greyhound Opening off Midland Street⁴¹. These locations were typical of Norwich’s working-class neighbourhoods – an “opening” being a narrow passage that provided access to rows of workers’ tenements. They were typically small with limited space and shared facilities. Contemporary newspaper reports from the area frequently featured cases of theft, drunkenness, assault, and public disorder, reflecting the harsh realities of life in cramped quarters⁴². Despite these hardships, such communities were often close-knit, with neighbours supporting each other in daily life. For Charles and Eliza, now in their seventies, their ability to maintain their modest household represented a form of security that many of their neighbours lacked.

Eliza died in 1920 at age seventy-nine from heart failure⁴³. Charles survived her by three years, spending his final time with Gertrude’s family on Nile Street. When he died in April 1923 at the workhouse infirmary on Bowthorpe Road (now part of Norwich Community Hospital), his death certificate listed him as a farm labourer with senile decay⁴⁴. He was eighty-five years old.

The Enduring Legacy

The true measure of Charles and Eliza’s success lay in the family they had built. Their ten surviving children produced at least sixty-five grandchildren, creating a network that stretched across England while remaining rooted in Norfolk values. The progression from agricultural labourer to skilled tradesman, from rural poverty to urban respectability, represented the gradual advancement that characterized many working-class families during the Victorian era. Starting with loss and hardship, they had created a family legacy that would endure for generations, proving that even the most humble beginnings need not define the final outcome.

The photograph that survived them – Charles standing behind Eliza in their later years, both dignified and composed against a brick wall – likely captures them in their Norwich neighbourhood during the 1910s, when they would have been in their seventies.

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References

1. 1921 Census of England and Wales, Norfolk, Norwich, Nile Street, Gertrude Dorrington household ↩
2. Norfolk, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1919 on Ancestry ↩
3. 1841 Census of England and Wales, Norfolk, Litcham, Bridge Street, Henry Easter household ↩
4. https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/NFK/Litcham ↩
5. 1851 Census of England and Wales, Norfolk, Litcham, Back Lane, Henry Eastoe household ↩
6. Norfolk, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1919 on Ancestry ↩
7. 1841 Census of England and Wales, Norfolk, Norwich, St. Augustine parish, Wales Buildings, Joseph Pratt household ↩
8. Norfolk Chronicle, 24 Apr 1847 ↩
9. Norfolk Chronicle. 2 Jan 1841 ↩
10. 1851 Census of England and Wales, Norfolk, Norwich, St. Augustine parish, Barnes Yard, Lucy Pratt household ↩
11. 1851 Census of England and Wales, Norfolk, Norwich, Joseph Pratt household ↩
12. 1861 Census of England and Wales, Norfolk, Norwich, Henry Wigger household ↩
13. 1851 Census of England and Wales, Lucy Pratt household ↩
14. Norfolk, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1936 on Ancestry ↩
15. England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1837-1915 on Ancestry ↩
16. England, Select Marriages, 1538–1973 on Ancestry ↩
17. Norfolk, England, Transcripts of Church of England Baptism, Marriage and Burial Registers, 1600-1935 on Ancestry ↩
18. Eliza Easter death certificate ↩
19. Norfolk News, 6 Oct 1860 ↩
20. Charles Easter and Eliza Pratt marriage certificate ↩
21. Norfolk News, 8 Oct 1870 ↩
22. Norwich Mercury, 8 Feb 1873 ↩
23. Margaret Easter birth certificate ↩
24. Mahala Mary Easter birth certificate ↩
25. https://midtudormanor.wordpress.com/the-role-of-the-horse ↩
26. 1871 Census of England and Wales, Norfolk, Litcham, 22 Tittleshall Road, Charles Eastoe household ↩
27. General Register Office, birth index ↩
28. 1881 Census of England and Wales, Norfolk, Litcham, Drury Square, Charles Eastoe household ↩
29. Norfolk Chronicle and Norwich Gazette, agricultural reports 1881-1883 ↩
30. 1891 Census of England and Wales, Norfolk, Norwich, 10 St Thomas Road, Henry Eastoe household ↩
31. England & Wales, FreeBMD Birth Index, 1837-1915 on Ancestry ↩
32. 1891 Census of England and Wales, Norfolk, Norwich, Heigham, Little Wensum Street, Charles Eastoe household ↩
33. Marriage and census records for Margaret Easter and William Henry Plunkett ↩
34. Norfolk Family History Society marriage transcription and census records for Arthur Easter and Annie Larkman ↩
35. Marriage and census records for Charles John Henry Easter and Ellen Poynter ↩
36. Census records for Eliza Easter and Peter Larkman ↩
37. Census records and bankruptcy records for William Easter ↩
38. 1911 and 1921 census records and 1939 register entry for George Ernest Easter ↩
39. 1921 census record and 1939 register entry for Alice Willis (née Easter) ↩
40. 1901 Census of England and Wales, Norfolk, Norwich, Haslip’s Opening, Charles and Eliza Eastoe ↩
41. 1911 Census of England and Wales, Norfolk, Norwich, 12 Greyhound Opening off Midland Street, Charles and Eliza Eastoe household ↩
42. Various local newspaper reports 1900-1920 regarding incidents involving residents of Greyhound Opening ↩
43. Norfolk Family History Society transcription of death returns ↩
44. Charles Eastoe death certificate ↩