Singer Family

There is one aspect of Havant history that few people will be aware of. The parents and siblings of a (then) well-known cycle and car manufacturer, George Singer lived at Warwick Lodge, Fourth Avenue Denvilles during the last decade of the nineteenth century and until 1925, when the last survivor, Mary Singer died. The grave of George Singer (senior), Hellen Singer, Mary Singer and Arthur William Singer is in the newer part of New Lane cemetery.

The Singer Company is little known these days – it manufactured its last car as an independent concern in 1955, before being taken over by the Rootes Group

Singer Family History

Founder of the Singer marque, George Singer was born to George and Hellen Singer on the 26th January 1847 at Kingston House in the parish of Stinsford, Dorset. His parents had travelled south from Aberdeenshire to work on the Kingston Estate, as Farm Bailiff and Dairy Manager respectively, at some time following their marriage of 1845. Such working arrangements were commonplace in the nineteenth century; it would have been a tough life for the Singers, working hard on the farm and raising a family. The Kingston Estate had been purchased from William Grey Pitt in 1845 by Mr Francis Pitney Brouncker Martin, a wealthy well educated man with an inclination to experimental farming and amateur science. It is not known why the Singer family chose the Kingston Maurward Estate in Dorset; perhaps there was a connection with the Martins or they simply responded to a job advertisement.

George junior had two surviving siblings, Mary and Arthur William; sadly there is record of another, Frederick, buried in the local church, St. Michael’s Stinsford in April 1852, aged five months. The Stinsford churchyard also contains the grave of Poet Laureate Cecil Day Lewis (died 1972) and is the resting place of the heart of poet and novelist Thomas Hardy (died 1928), buried alongside the grave of his first wife Emma Lavinia Gifford who died in 1912.

Stinsford is the village ‘Mellstock’ of Hardy’s novels ‘Under the Greenwood Tree’ and ‘Jude the Obscure’. Hardy had been born on the Kingston Estate in 1840, and from the age of eight attended the village school at Lower Bockhampton near Kingston farmhouse. Francis Martin’s wife Julia Augusta taught at the school, which had opened in 1847 on land she and her husband had donated. Following a dispute between Hardy’s mother, Jemima, and Julia Martin, Hardy was taken away from the school in September 1849. George Singer junior most likely attended the school, possibly from when he was three years old. School attendance at such an early age was not uncommon in those times.

In 1851 George and Hellen Singer were employing Martha Hurden as a house servant. She was a local girl; her family lived nearby in Lower Bockhampton. Martha’s sister Fanny had been at school with Hardy but sadly she died aged 20, and in his poem ‘Voices from Things Growing in a Churchyard’ Thomas Hardy remembered Fanny, though he re-named her Fanny Hurd.

The Kingston Maurward estate was sold in 1853 to James Fellows, the ensuing departure of the Martins signalling the exit of the Singer family.

By 1861 the Singer family had moved to the interestingly named Polthooks Farm near Bosham in West Sussex, where George senior worked as farm bailiff for John Baring Esq. of Oakwood, East Ashling in the parish of Funtington. John Baring was a member of the famous Barings banking family. Baring had been born at Lee in the parish of Lewisham, not far from the Greenwich and Deptford works of famous marine engineer John Penn who built, among other things, the engines for HMS Warrior, now moored in Portsmouth Harbour. George Junior was by this time aged 14. The family’s long stay at Polthooks Farm probably gave rise to the incorrect statement, made in some publications, that George Singer was born in Sussex. Although the original Polthooks farm building remains, the farm itself has become a small business park.

Some connection with the Martins continued during the Singers’ stay at Polthooks because the census records tell us that Mary Singer, aged 21, was visiting the Martins at Broadwater, Worthing in 1871. In the subsequent (1881) census when she was home at Polthooks, her occupation is given as ‘Postal & Telegraphist Clerk’, with her brother Arthur William being recorded as ‘Cow Keeper Agricultural Labourer’.

Most members of the Singer family remained at Polthooks until at least 1891, before moving to Havant to live out their final years. However, George junior did not reside there for long, because before his 15th birthday he left the family home to become an apprentice mechanic at John Penn and Sons of Lewisham, from whence he was drawn into the sewing machine industry by Newton Wilson & Co. It would be a reasonable assumption that the connection with the Lewisham born John Baring led to young George’s move to Lewisham. At this stage it is important to establish the fact that that although George worked in the sewing machine industry for a period, there is no connection whatever with Singer sewing machines.

It’s at Lewisham that another illustrious name from the history of motoring crops up – William Hillman, born in Lewisham and like Singer employed first by John Penn and then Newton Wilson & Co. Singer and Hillman are recorded as bell ringers at the local church during their period together at Lewisham, but life must have been very full for those bright young men because they found time to ring only a single peal at their home tower in February 1867.

In 1869 George Singer moved to Coventry and in 1871 is recorded as living in Union Street, lodging at the home of George and Elizabeth Addison, his stated occupation being given by the census of that year as ‘Sewing Machine Finisher’. A fellow boarder was William Hillman, with stated occupation ‘Sewing Machine Manufacturer’. George Addison himself is recorded as ‘Sewing Machine Maker’. It is therefore probable that Singer, Hillman and Addison all worked at the Coventry Machinists Company Ltd. (earlier the Coventry Sewing Machine Company Ltd.) under works manager James Starley. This is supported by motoring journalist David Burgess-Wise who tells us that Starley had ‘head hunted’ William Hillman and George Singer from Newton Wilson & Co because of their abilities. Starley himself was an extremely able man having started out as gardener to John Penn of Lewisham; today he is considered to be the father of the cycle industry.

At this point we catch another glimpse of ‘Singer the Man’ outside the context of his work, for George became a member of Vicar Lane Chapel, a non conformist Church known as the Independents, who at some point changed their name to Congregationalists. It is probable that George went there because the Addisons attended. On 2nd February 1881 George and six others were appointed to the Finance Committee at Vicar Lane, together with the Pastor and Deacons. George himself became a Deacon on 30th March 1881.
By 1881 George Singer had married and was living at 8 Stoneleigh Terrace Coventry with his wife Eliza and three children Louise, George and Minnie. His stated occupation was ‘Manufacturer of Bicycle and Tricycle Employing 300 Men and Boys’. George was clearly prospering because he was able to employ three servants.