A Gentle Family

 Take an occasional ample through Hatfield Road Cemetery, glancing at names on headstone, and we recognise a name which means something to us.  And so, in this occasional series, we pause at the name Gentle.  As I recall from a series of story walks a few years back I recall pondering that if ever there was a practical family for a mechanical world then the Gentle family would be ahead of the pack.

The location of the grave of Charles Gentle at the eastern side of Hatfield
Road Cemetery.

You don't have to delve far back in time before you discover that a family's previous generations didn't originate from St Albans anyway.  They either arrived from afar via the main roads or gradually migrated towards St Albans, generation by generation, from smaller towns and villages along the quieter byways.

A street view of Kimpton a little more recently than the leaving year of the Gentle family.

So arrived Samuel Gentle, who was born in Kimpton in 1808.  His previous port of call before reaching the city was Sandridge, which is where he first me his future wife, Mary Ann.  He probably took on an inn or alehouse for Samuel was a brewer. He did not stay there for long for most of their eight children were born in a house in Adelaide Street or in St Peter's Street.

This was a male dominated household, seven of the children were boys, so let's consider their various specialisms once they had left their schools behind. Daniel became a bricklayer – he and wife Caroline moved to Lambeth where they raised their own family of five.

Samuel junior became a cooper, probably supporting his father and older brother in their jobs.  Charles became a blacksmith.  David, like his brother Samuel, became a Cooper as well as a basket maker.  Philip moved away from St Albans and learned the trade of engine fitting.  One more child, William, but his trade is so far unknown to me.

In concentrating on Charles' family, partly because it is his grave which appears in Hatfield Road Cemetery and that of his wife, Adelia.  It is the name Charles Gentle who was probably best known to residents of St Albans.  Charles found a small house along a yard in French Row, making a success of iron founding.  As time went on he acquired more of the tiny plots around him in order to expand the business.

There were two girls and two boys in the family, and Charles junior took an absorbing interest in the work of his father, eventually joining and then taking over the entire business, but not before also working in the straw hat industry in Fishpool Street.  Some of the present Christopher Place shopping centre has been built on the former Gentle iron foundry, although there was an increasing need to move more of the heavy industries away from the City Centre after World War 2.

The top map (surveyed 1891) is a little more helpful than below (1911) in stating the presence of
a smithy; the location of a metal engineering works within the crowded buildings of
Dagnall Street, Verulam Road and French Row.
MAPS COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The former buildings many of which accommodated the Gentle metal engineering

works now accommodates the Christopher Place shopping area, which takes its name 

from a narrow cut on the site named Christopher Yard.

COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

Charles junior's younger brother, Alfred, tried making shoes at first, but he returned to the family's core business and became a skilled mechanical engineer; his home in Church Crescent becoming appropriately named The Capstone.  Once retired would frequently be seen around town with his camera.  Although he would snap almost any scene his main passion of engineering would encourage him to take photos of bridges, roads under repair – in fact almost any hole in the ground, often to do with building construction.  Alf therefore managed to photograph street scenes before they disappeared in front of the bulldozer.  Much of Alf's collection is archived at St Albans' Museums.

Among the significant collection of Alf Gentle's pictures in the archive of 
St Albans Museums is this of a service tunnel below part of St Peter's Street.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

For much of this time a significant amount of the company's output was in the design and manufacture of bespoke engineering products for new and upgraded infrastructure in the city and surrounding districts; including in the Cathedral tower and Hatfield House entrance gates.

Post World War Two Gentle's moved their business to the former Hatfield Laundry
premises, which became the Tile Shop and later the Fleetville Emporium. The site is now
occupied by Trek Bikes from a new building.

From the early 1960s Gentle's moved to Fleetville and occupied the former laundry, and more recently became The Emporium.  Nevertheless Gentle's became popular with trades people and DIYers of all kinds.  So, the business had been in the city centre for a hundred years before venturing into the suburbs.  But this was not the only Gentle premises because a separate St Albans Welding was opened in Grange Street under the Gentle name, with all existing welding work moved over to the new business.  Meanwhile, along Hatfield Road, a regular parade of customers left with pipes of all lengths, radiators, pumps, tins of various liquids, tools – anything and everything to carry on their own trades, as well as domestic residents who have felt capable of undertaking their own domestic repairs and improvements.