Steve Marriage Snr

Stephen Ezra George Marriage (1878-1962)
 
Stephen Marriage Snr was born in 1878 in Bethnal Green, the fifth of seven children of Charles Henry Marriage, a shoemaker, and his wife Sophia Adelaide (née Stumpenhusan).  In the 1891 census, aged 13, he was an errand boy living with his family at 40 Craven Road, Bethnal Green.
 
His mother Sophia died aged 43 in 1890, and Stephen moved out of the family home when his father re-married in 1895.  He then lodged with George Poore, whose son Samuel was also a scalemaker, at 150 St. Stephens Road, St. Mary Stratford.  It was here that he met his future wife Amelia Emma Goswell.
 
Steve and Amelia were married in 1901, and their son, Stephen John Marriage (Jnr), who later joined Herberts, was born in 1902.
 
Their second son Ernest Edward Marriage (1909-1988) also worked for us.  He was apprenticed as a Scale-Maker in 1925, finishing in 1930, the height of the Depression.  His son remembers him telling him that the day he finished his apprenticeship he was made redundant and never ever worked as a scale-maker.  Instead he joined William Press, the Civil Engineers, and stayed with them for the rest of his working life.
 
We do not have records to show when Steve started with or left the Company, but he was working for Herberts in 1915 aged 37 when this group photograph on the right was taken (second row (standing), 9th from left).  Steve is one of six men wearing the "On War Service 1915” badge issued by The War Office (Ministry of Munitions).  The badge was issued to men engaged in essential war work to provide the wearer with protection from accusations of "shirking and slacking” by not joining up.  Steve is shown in the second (undated, but probably late 1920s) photograph working on a Lion Quick Action scale, most likely at our premises in Berry Place.  He was still with us in 1931 in the third photograph (back row, second from left), which shows 11 members of the Company, mostly outside mechanics, possibly on a summer outing in the country.
 
Steve subsequently left the Company and worked for himself for a while before joining Johnson Matthey during WW2.
 
Stephen Marriage Snr died in 1962 at the age of 84.
 
 
 

 
Steve Marriage Snr
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Herbert History - Steve Marriage Snr
Additional Image of Steve Marriage Snr