Boom! at Woodsetton

 

In my daily swoop through what's new on ebay I came upon a photo of La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein. Well, it wasn't labelled as such, but the gentleman has written a quote from Meilhac and Halévy's text on the back, and signed the front 'from Boom'. But ....

And a helpful somebody had identified the 'player'.  Henry Hughes of Woodsetton House (b Kingswinford 1827; d Woodsetton 6 February 1889).   Foiled!  Mr Hughes was by no means an actor. And I shouldn't think he had the time to indulge in amateur dramatics. Maybe this was a costume party?

Henry was a self-very-made-man. Son of a miner, he had worked his way up in the coal and then the iron business to being the owner of a fine house in the Tipton Road, with a fine establishent, a fine bank account (at hisdeath, he left over 36,000L), and a sizeable family ... wife Margaret née Badland, Fred, Walter, Clement, Margaret, Ada, Gertrude, Florence .. and a Henry, too?

I see that portraits of two of them are being sold off alongside him. Here are eldest son Frederick, civil engineer, coalmaster, married (1895) Ada Georgina Caddick 'of Bloomfield House, Sedgeley, son, daughter, and died 23 July 1907

And daughter number two, Ada

Maria stayed at Woodsetton up to her death 1 May 1894. 

As for the others, Walter (builder) married later and had children before his death 24 November 1927,  Gertrude married Frederick Augustus Homer (unitarian minister) and had children and died 19 May 1947 ... so I guess the family lives on ...

I shouldn't have investigated them, had it not been, however, for 'General Boom'!