All Roads Lead To Cardiff.: The Thompson, Holt, Clark and Warrender family beginnings.
About this book
Four arms of the author’s family, corresponding with the surnames of his grandparents.The Warrender arm of this history starts in the beautiful Lake District of the 1790s, moves to Preston, and then plays out in and around Salford, Lancashire. That is until a wife in a bad marriage moves herself and her children from Salford to Cardiff, following a new love.The Holt arm starts even earlier in the 1520s and features heavily the picturesque seaside town of Branscombe, Devon. Relatives there were agricultural labourers with wives and daughters that were lace makers. Times were tough and smuggling for one night was said to be worth a week’s wages.Don’t mention smuggling to the Clark side of the family though, because from the early 1700s most of the family were working towards becoming coastguards, chasing smugglers and being posted around the country to where smuggling was most rife.Thompson, the author’s own surname, has humble beginnings in Staffordshire from 1779 and sees the effects of farmers and labourers struggling after The Enclosure Act, and the move to bigger towns looking for work.For their own reasons, each of the four families, and the associated families that helped build them, all found work and a home in Cardiff. Yes it was a booming town, built on coal, but each family had its own reasons to end up there.Families in this history include the following surnames;Addison Allerton Baker Bartlett Blackmore Bond Bradburn Butler Carter Clark Clode Cross Cudd Dawson Doorbar Durbar Durber Farrant Frost Garrett Gush Ham Hardy Holt Hubsdell Jarman Lingham Mecho Monsfield Morris Phillips Pickthall Pointon Pool Prince Robinson Saunders Smith Stacey Stephenson Stockman Stone Thompson Tucker Turner Walham Warrender Westcott Wilcock Williams Wran.