George Archer (Pegleg Archer)

George Archer and his daughter
Ethel Maude Archer

Hi Michael,

I was adding the Dean/Branch info from your wonderful book to my software so our kids could see both sides of the family & got side-tracked by a half-brother of Buffy's grandfather, Joseph Archer. George Archer appeared to have been married three times & only had one child, Ethel Maude Archer, when he was 79 (& his third wife was 34)! 

I was somewhat sceptical & did a little research. It turns out to be true!! I have attached a pic from 1923-ish of Great-Uncle George with an infant Ethel on his knee & with his step-son George Hewitt Blake, the son of his third wife Ethel Maud Blake & an unknown father (presumably a Hewitt...)

George was an interesting character. He was in an accident as a boy, when he fell off his father William's horse & cart and his leg was crushed under a wheel. The leg was amputated (quite the operation for the 1850's) & he had a wooden artificial leg. He was known thereafter (of course) as Pegleg Archer. He worked for most of his life as a journeyman tailor, & then in his seventies & eighties as a night watchman with an old coal brazier for company. The daughter Ethel recalled later in life that her mother said she had married him because she was desperate & had nowhere for herself & her son to live. Sounds really quite Dickensian!....

There is only so much that can be done over the internet, & it certainly gets frustrating not being able to get to a lot of the locations. I shall definitely have to plan a genealogical research trip to the UK very soon.

Hi Petrina, 

This is the pic of Great-grand-uncle George, & a bit of his story, that I sent to Michael & Buffy.

We are going to set up a blog for genealogical anecdotes (as opposed to facts!!), & I am currently trying to put together a piece on "1066 and all that...". We'll let you know when it's up.

Love John

Just to add a little bit more to this story of William and Pegleg Archer: I remember my grandmother often singing "Jim the Carter Lad" when I was a child. I have one particularly vivid memory of her singing it at Franklin Rd (Kings Norton, Birmingham, UK) as I sat at the dining table and she was serving the lunch! It was clearly one of her favourite tunes, and so I thought we should add this tune to our page here.