This week’s #52Ancestors is “How Do You Spell That?” When I first read my 3 x Great grandfather’s marriage certificate, I couldn’t make out his father’s first name. In my research since, I have seen it spelt in various imaginative ways in indexes including Uvidale and Uredale but my 4 x Great grandfather was called Uvedale Davies.

Baptised in Mansel Lacy, Herefordshire on 18th August 1776 to Thomas and Mary Davies, his unusual first name has made researching his life a bit easier in a county full of Davies’ ! I believe he was named after Uvedale Price who was Lord of the Manor at Foxley (in Mansel Lacy) at the time and author of Essays on the Picturesque.

Uvedale Davies had an interesting career trajectory. He started off being a carpenter and records show that he was apprenticed to a carpenter, Richard Morgan in Mansel Lacy in 1790.

By 1802, he was living at Hope under Dinmore and was taking on apprentices himself. Indeed his son, my 3x Great Grandfather was a cooper so continued a family tradition. However by 1841, Uvedale had become a clock and watch maker in Weobley, Herefordshire. I’m not sure how he would have picked up this trade but perhaps he had an aptitude for fixing and making intricate things and decided it was a more lucrative career.

Uvedale was an entrepreneur. In 1851 he was also a carrier to Hereford leaving his home at Weobley at 8 am on Wednesdays and Saturdays and returning from the Red Lion, Victoria street Hereford at 5 pm. From 1859 he returned from the Maidenhead Inn Eign Street.

On 22nd March 1799, Uvedale was married to Ann Munn in Mansel Lacy and they had one surviving son, George before Ann died. George and his sons became clock and watch makers and repairers. His second marriage, to my 4 x Great Grandmother, Harriet Gardiner was on 15th August 1814 in Hope under Dinmore and they had 5 children.

Uvedale died at the age of 86 on 23rd January 1862. Apparently there is one of his long case clocks on display at Weobley museum which I hope to go and see https://www.weobley.org/visiting.html