ABSTRACT
When Richard Gale, along with his son Henry, acquired the Ship and Bell he was a family man having been married by licence at Blendworth church at the age of 21 to 24-year-old Eliza Hoare of Blendworth on 29 January 1824. Unlike many of their contemporaries both were educated and literate enough to be able to sign their names in the parish register. Nearly ten months after their marriage their eldest son was born and in the next four years another three sons completed their family. Follow ing Henry Giles came Richard Rogers Gale in February 1826, William Simpson in June 1827 and, finally, George Alexander born on 17 De cember 1828 and baptised on 26 March 1829 at Catherington church, where in fact all four Gale boys had received their baptisms.1 At all these ceremonies their father had been described as a shopkeeper. The shop was a grocery and bakery combined and belonged to Richard’s mother Anne, with whom he worked until shortly before her death and burial at Catherington in May 1838.2
Anne Gale deserves rather more than a footnote in the pages of history. At her death she was stated to be 77 years old. Nothing has been discovered about her early life but she must have been a remark able woman since she was widowed 22 months after the birth of her only child and remained a widow for more than 34 years. In the maledominated age of the early nineteenth century she managed, nevertheless, to be a successful businesswoman and to raise her son into accomplish ing even more. When she died as an elderly lady in the first year of Queen Victoria’s reign she had reason to feel content not only at her own achievements but also at those of her son Richard.
