Tom and Emma Jane Adams and Family c 1912

Berry Hill

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Nita - Tom - Mary - Bobby - Emma Jane - Joyce

Taken in the garden of their house in Lydney, maybe in Grove Road

Tom Adams of Hastie and Adams and the owner of the Berry Hill shop was born October 21 1874 at Top Lonk to George and Emma Adams, one of eleven children. He married Emma Jane Teague of Berry Hill March 9 1899 and they had six children, the only boy dying of diphtheria in 1915. He had a house built in Tutnalls, Lydney round about the time of their marriage, later moving to Grove Road. He left Lydney in 1916, building a shop in Berry Hill and a house in Christchurch where he lived until he died on March 2 1960. Emma Jane stayed in the Christchurch house until her death at the age of 90 in 1968.

He was one of the founder members of the local socialist party and a founder trustee of the Berry Hill Institute (The Hut) and sports grounds. I remember him telling me that he went to Salisbury Plain to the Army Headquarters to buy the building which was transported to the Forest. I believe it had been an ex-army canteen.

As a child he had been considered too delicate to stand working in the mines as all his brothers did at first and that led to him being apprenticed to Rosen's in Coleford at the age of ten.

(Photo supplied by Gene Marshall)