Stories
Religion
We know very little about the religious inclinations of our ancestors. Many of them had their birth, marriage and death recorded in the C of E parish records, but we cannot draw any inferences from this. Here is the little we do know.
George Jeffries, Susan Cooper, Jonathan Herbert Jeffries and Margaret Ann Fisher
Both couples were married in Strict Baptist chapels, my great grandparents (George and Susan) at Kingston, Surrey and my grandparents (Jonathan Herbert and Margaret) at Lambeth. Granddad's birth is recorded in the Faringdon Primitive Methodist Circuit records rather than in the C of E parish records. George's father Jonathan's baptism, marriage and burial were all recorded in the parish records of Kingston Bagpuize as was George's birth. Perhaps George was the first to take up non-conformism in the Jeffries line.
My cousin Gill Mullings was told by her mother, Gladys Collie (née Jeffries), that Granddad was a British Israelite. She was also told by her mother that when Gran was in a care home she was visited by granddad's youngest brother, Sydney Ernest, and his wife. They were both spiritualists and the wife was a medium. Whether this was a conviction shared by Gran and Granddad I do not know, although as Strict Baptists/Primitive Methodists this seems unlikely.
Granddad was also a Mason and belonged to Warner Lodge No. 2256 based at Chingford. The Lodge has a website here. I have included this information here as belief in a Supreme Being is one of the main requirements for membership. The photo is of Granddad's own Masonic Apron of a Craft Master Mason, which Gladys still has.
Rose Ellen Abbott and Jessie Rose Jeffries
Both Mum and Gran attended the sisterhood at the Cage Lane Evangelical Free Church in Brewery Road, Plumstead, and Mum attended Sunday evening services, and for a time Dad went too. Gran also attended a weekday afternoon meeting at a small church/chapel in Saunders Road, over the other side of the common, which has now been converted into flats.
This is the main entrance to the former Cage Lane church in Brewery Road in 2007. The building is now the Church of Christ the King.
This photo, from about 1910, is of the Cage Lane Mission taken from the lower part of Lakedale Road. The Mission Hall was still there when I was a child and was, I think, being used as a storage place by a builder/decorator. It was demolished many years ago. The existing church stands behind the Mission Hall. The building on the left was a general store run by Florrie Terras. Today it is the hairdresser where Mum gets her hair
done, and next door a barber's shop (but no quartet!) The cobbles on the right of the photo are the entrance to Beasley's Brewery.
This photo is of a group from the Cage Lane Sisterhood, who would go to other sisterhood groups to sing and conduct the meetings. From left to right they are Mrs Patmore, Mrs Charman, Mum, Mrs Milly Wood, Mrs Pat Radley and Mrs Gwen Bashford. Mum was the "baby" of the group.