David Borrett: The Jerome family's coach-building business

It was an area that expanded as much as it could. Ponting’s wanted to re-build completely but forever in the way of a proposed new complex was Ford Cottage, a timber-framed structure of 17th century origin that the local council continually refused to grant permission to demolish. Eventually, everybody gave up or died and the cottage got moved to a site near the church.

This Chantry Street/West Street corner had long been home to a commercial operation. Before the two successive garages, the Jerome family ran a coach-building business there, while 150 years ago, it was a blacksmith’s shop. Prior to that, according to the Tithe Survey of 1848, it was a brewery with two cottages.

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History, especially local history, is shaped by what is left behind to tell the tale; but for a series of photographic postcards that advertised vehicles they produced, the Jerome business of coaches and motor vehicles would have been forgotten as has the occupier of the old smithy and the brewery before them. So, let us look at the Jerome family and try to piece together what they did.

The first Charles Jerome to become a coach-builder was born in 1848 at Monxton. The parish registers write the name as ‘Jerram’ which may indicate how it was pronounced. His father, also Charles, was a groom, and in all probability worked at one of the bigger houses in Monxton or Amport. Indeed, he may have been employed by the Marquis of Winchester at Amport House but there would be others living nearby who kept horses, including the local vicar(s). A groom was expected to do anything concerned with the upkeep and well-being of their animals, from mucking out, feeding, exercising and keeping them in trim, and for taking charge of the family carriage for drives out.   

Whether watching his father at work and riding out on occasion inspired young Charles’s interest in carriages, coaches and carts from a young age is speculative at best, but in 1871 we find him lodging with gardener George and Matilda Andrews at Bevois Place in the St Mary’s area of Southampton, his occupation that of coach-painter. These census snapshots can be misleading as they suggest long-term living arrangements that may not be so. He may have worked for someone in Southampton and have been lodging at the Andrews’ house for several years or equally only for several days. What we can be certain here is that this was the end of Charles’s time in Southampton, as a fortnight later he married Elizabeth Blake at St Mary’s, Andover. She was of a local family who lived in London Road.

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Thereafter, the couple must have stayed in Andover as the census of 10 years later shows three children – Charles James, William Owen and Herbert Arthur, aged eight, six and one respectively, all born in the town. In that year (1881), the family was living at 59 Chantry Street, the address where the coach-building business was situated.

But what happened in the intervening 10 years? The coach-painter of 1871 was now the coach-builder of 1881 with his own premises in Chantry Street. There were two other coach-builders in Andover during that period. Both were successful and were well-established. Herbert Stride had his coach-works in Bridge Street next to Town Station Yard and Henry Pratt Moore was in large premises in the High Street, near the Guildhall. Both could have offered Charles Jerome an apprenticeship of sorts. Having learned the skills of the trade over several years, he was sufficiently equipped to start up on his own account.

But it would have taken a fair amount of capital as well. Coach-building is not like selling fruit and vegetables; there would be a considerable outlay to begin with, in order to buy tools and equipment, as well as the time it takes to prove himself capable. We cannot answer such questions a century and a half later but he was in Andover for some years before he started his business. Directories of 1871, 1875 and 1878 do not include him in their commercial sections and it is not until 1880 that we see ‘Jerome Chas, coach-builder, Chantry Street'.

The business seems to have been successful and it is at this point one wonders exactly what a coach-builder did. None of the town coach-building premises were factories as such, producing the springs, the supports and the wooden or metal panels from scratch. Presumably they merely assembled the parts together, buying in the individual components elsewhere. There would have been plenty of people locally who could construct such things: Tasker’s at Anna Valley could supply the metal parts, while cabinet makers and carpenters would be able to produce wooden panels and supports while local wheelwrights could take care of the wheels if necessary. Upholstery was surely part of the coach-builder’s art and if leather straps were needed, there were local saddlers. Painting a liveried exterior was the job of the coach-builder and Charles had already been trained for that.

Tragedy struck the family in February 1888 when Charles Jerome died aged 40. His two sons, Charles James and William Owen were destined to continue the business but they were as yet just 15 and 13 respectively. In name, Charles’ widow, Elizabeth, took it on but there would have been employees. Her two sons in time also stepped up to the task, and in 1891 Charles James was listed as a coach-painter, while William Owen was a coach-wheelwright. As that decade moved on, many must have wondered about the new-fangled motorised transport coming in, and what that would do for the coach-building business. One rare notice that appeared in the local press was to announce that on Friday 25 November 1898, auctioneer Allan Herbert would offer ’17 valuable carriages’ belonging to coach-builder Mrs Jerome who was reducing her stock. These included two and four-wheel dog carts, a village phaeton, gigs, pony carts, a pony van and a donkey cart, as well as several pairs of wheels, rugs and nails etc. These all seem to indicate that the Jeromes produced more work-a-day vehicles, rather than any luxury carriages. Was the clearance sale a sign that things were changing?

Probably tradition held sway for a few years more but although the directory of 1903 records the same three coach-builders of Herbert Stride, Henry Pratt Moore and Elizabeth Jerome, by 1907 Stride had gone and Moore had moved into his former Bridge Street premises, now calling himself a motor agent. The Jeromes continued to call themselves coach-builders but the term increasingly became historic. By the 1920s, nobody was building coaches and as can be seen from the postcards, the Jeromes had switched to vehicles. Much of the component parts must have been bought in, though evidently, they still had some input in the construction such as the design of the chassis and the paintwork.

Both Charles and William Owen had married in the 1890s, and in 1901 were living at adjacent addresses in Chantry Street fronting the coach-works. But by 1911, Charles was at Weighbridge House in Amesbury, listed as a coach and motor body builder, while William stayed in Andover. Were they still working together or had there been a split? Records show that Charles’ wife Sarah died in Christchurch in 1917; he re-married Victoria Evelyn Stratford in Bournemouth four years later and died there in 1926, aged 53.  

From this, we assume that it was younger brother William Owen who continued in Andover while Charles had left altogether, perhaps before 1911. The firm was still called C Jerome but this may have been a continuation from his father’s days. Both William and his mother Elizabeth died in 1934 and this was the end of the business. William’s only son, Owen Albert Charles, is listed as a house painter and carpenter in 1939, still living with his mother Lily at 57 Chantry Street. Inevitably they moved out a little time later. As a footnote to tie up loose ends, she died in 1961 and he, relatively recently, in 1999.    

If you are interested in local history, why not join Andover History and Archaeology Society? Details can be found at andoverlocalhistoryarchaeology.uk.