Uglow Family History

West Front of Peterborough Cathedral

One of the modern hotspots of Uglow settlement outside Cornwall with several families still living there...

Family 1: Robert Conroy and Emily Heffer

Robert Conroy 1878 was born in Torquay, Devon, the son of William Underhay and Sarah Jane Furze and the grandson of Richard and Susan Underhay.  In 1881, he was a baby, living at 83 Gonsalva Road, Battersea but note that the census records the whole family as "Underhay". In 1891 he was still at school and living at 14 Glenalvon St., Woolwich with his parents. By 1901, he was working as a planner machinist at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich but still living at home, now at 36 Wood[ville] St., Woolwich

In 1907 in Charlton, SE London he married Emily Heffer, who was born in 1878 in Greenwich. Around 1900, she attended an Art Atelier in London and became a painter of lantern slides at Butchers, a photographic firm. In 1901, Emily was living with her parents, William and Sarah, at 562 Woolwich Road, Charlton - this was just round the corner from the Uglows in Wood[ville] St. Her father was a carpenter from Norfolk. After the marriage, they moved to Peterborough - fairly soon as daughter Marjorie was born there in 1908.

In 1911 the family was found at Clyde Villa, Crown St., Peterborough with Robert working as an engineering planer for Peter Brotherhood Engineers in Peterborough. The firm, which produced propulsion engines for torpedoes, had been in Lambeth but re-located to Peterborough in 1903. Presumably the company, looking to recruit skilled workers, headhunted at the Royal Arsenal. Later he found more congenial work at Baker Perkins, which made food processing equipment and where he was known as the Peace Maker

A musician, he played the fiddle and also invented musicial instruments. Robert died in 1953 and the probate record has him living at 99 Scotney St., Peterborough. When Emily dies in 1954, she was at 182 Crown St., Peterborough

• daughter Marjorie Phyllis 1908 born in Peterborough where she attended the County Grammar School for Girls. She went to work in the accounts office at Baker PerkinsIn 1936 she married Bertram Frank Auger and they lived in Peterborough. Bertram worked in the railway industry, in management and research, and was involved in introducing diesels on to the national neetwork. He was also an athlete and sprinter, captain of the railways team that competed in Paris. Later he coached up to Olympic level. During the war, was a major in the army in North Africa and Italy, engaged in logistics, moving men and equpiment by rail. Later he was a station master with British Rail.
  
  Although they had no children, Marjorie was a great encourager of all her nieces and nephews. She was also a musician and an artist who taught design and embroidery to City and Guilds students. Bert died in 1981 and Marjorie in 1998.
  
  
• son Ronald Clive 1910  was born and baptised in St Paul's parish, Peterborough. [St Paul's was built in 1869 for the railway workers and was known as The Railwayman's Church.] Ronald started work with the LNER on 16th December 1926, as a LNER railway signalman in Lincoln but in 1935, moved to the main signal box in Manchester, living in Stockport. A few months previously he married Doris Elizabeth Urquhart.
  
  Doris was born in 1902 and also baptised in St Paul's, Peterborough. She was the daughter of a Scot from Aberdeen who also worked on the railways. She left school at 14, working in a china emporium for 2s per week and later in a shoe shop. They met when they both sang in a non-conformist chapel choir.
  
  He was left with a disability after contracting polio and moved to lighter work as a resident level crossing keeper [£2.25 pw with 5s for rent] at an isolated crossing in Marholm in Werrington, Cambridgeshire. in 1939, the family were living at 1 Hurn Rd, Werrington where Doris was a keen member of the WI and campaigned for school lunches as her sons lived too far away from school to come home for lunch. Ronald had a small holding and was well-known in the area as a cheerful optimist. They retired to the village of Paston in Peterborough and died within 4 months of each other in 1978.
  
  
  • son Robert 1935 born in Stockport. He went to Werrington primary school and the Deacons Grammar School, Peterborough. He left in 1953, graduating from Reading University with a degree in agriculture and playing rugby for the university. He married Mary Elizabeth Walker in 1959 in Bledlow - she had also gone to Reading University where she studied geography. She became PA to the director of an oil company.
    
    They farmed at Holly Green Farm [AJ Walker (Farm) Ltd], Bledlow, Buckinghamshire. A jazz and embroidery enthusiast, Mary was president of Berkshire WI and involved with Bledlow Anglican church. Bob served on several NFU committees as well as being a member of a DEFRA lands tribunal. He also was chairman of Bledlow parish council. Another enterprise, with his brother Bruce, was R and B Uglow Ltd, hauliers of 55 Lincoln Rd, Peterborough, Northamptonshire. The firm was liquidated in July 1981
    
    
    • daughter Jane Elizabeth 1962 was born in Bledlow, again graduating from Reading University with a degree in agriculture. She joined the family firm and became director of an agricultural co-operative. In 1986 she married Neil Dyson in Bledlow. Neil was yet another Reading University alumnus, also with with a degree in agriculture.
      
      
    • daughter Susannah Mary 1964 was born in Bledlow. She read history at York but then qualified as a solicitor in 1991 and worked in Ireland as a legal representative of Shell oil company. She died in 2014.
      
      
    • daughter Helen Margaret 1967 was born in Bledlow. She graudated in 1987 from City University, London with a BSc Management and in 2001-3 undertook an MSc Decision Making at LSE. She worked in university administration at London Business School.
      
      
  • son Ivor was born in 1938. An artist and political activist all his life, he was educated at Werrington primary and Deacons Grammar, like his brothers. He attended the Slade School of Art in London, followed by the Institute of Education. As an art teacher, he was head of art at Taunton School and also lectured at Somerset College of Art. As a painter, his work is mainly flowing abstract landscapes - many of these are in his memoir Rhubarb and Railways [I'm happy to put you in touch if you'd like to see this]. Most of his life, he has lived in Milverton, Somerset where he has played an active role in the Labour party, elected as a county councillor in 1981. His concern for human rights has also seen him involved in CND, Anti-Apartheid and Amnesty International. Later he became a therapeutic counsellor.
    
    In 1961 he married Joyce Elizabeth Moore. Born in Bristol in 1937, she met Ivor at the Slade and went on to become a sculptor and toy designer as well as the director of the Bridgwater Art Centre. In the 1980s, she gained a degree in PPE from Oxford and a PhD from Birkbeck, London researching co-operatives in the work place. She died in 1987.
    
    In 1989, Ivor married Joy Thurnham (Nee Green). She went to Watford Girls Grammar and then the Froebel Institute, Roehampton, graduating in 1966 with a BA in education. As a mature student, she studied handloom weaving at Bradford College. She was an early years teacher, a CAB advisor and also a therapeutic counsellor for young people.
    
    Ivor and Joy moved to Lyme Regis in Dorset, opening a gallery, And Beautiful Baskets. They spent many years on Malta before returning to live in Bridport, Dorset.
    
    
    • son Robert 1961 was born in Westminster, attending Milverton primary, Kingsmead Comprehensive in Wiveliscombe and Taunton College. He has lived in France and Spain and worked for various charities in Wellington, where he now lives.
      
      
    • daughter Liza Jane-Elizabeth 1963 was born in Taunton, attending Milverton primary and Kingsmead Comprehensive in Wiveliscombe. After the foundation course at Somerset College of Art, she studied ceramics and trained as a potter at Camborne School of Art. She met David Galliers and they had a son, WIlliam. David was killed in a road accident in 2005. Liza works for the "Way Ahead", community care in Somerset
      
      
      • son William 1990 was born in Taunton RD, attending Rockwell Green primary and Courtfields Comprehensive in Wellington. Initially training as an aero engineer with Rolls Royce, William spent a year travelling, compiling a portfolio of travel photos. This led to a photography degree at Gloucester University, where he met his partner, Abby Carr. William then gained experience as a photo finisher for London Fashion Houses. The couple live in St Helens on Merseyside.
        
        
  • son Bruce 1942. He was educated at Werrington primary and Deacons Grammar and trained at the Forestry COmmission College. He worked as a forester in the Forest of Dean, the the Tamar Valley before moving back to Cambridgeshire, managing orchards. Another enterprise, with his brother Bob, was R and B Uglow Ltd, hauliers of 55 Lincoln Rd, Peterborough, Northamptonshire. The firm transported shire horses to agricultural shows. It was liquidated in July 1981. Bruce played rugby for Peterborough.
    
    In 1969, he married a Scot from Fife, Ethel Craig, at Marholm Parish Church.
    
    
    • son Iain 1971 born in Huntingdon RD. He was educated at Sawtry Community College and then trained as an engineer with BT and later transferrred to work as a gunsmith and area sales representative with Highland Outdoors. In October 2022, he married Natalie Jakings
      
      
      • daughter Isla 2018
        
      
      
    • son Thomas Bruce (Tom) 1978 was born in Huntingdon. He was educated at Prince William School, Oundle. He joined the army with the Royal Horse Guards (The Blues), featuring in the front cover the the AA London Guide Book on horseback duty in Whitehall! On leaving the army, he was an HGV lorry driver with Rob Masters Ltd, a transport manager Elstree Light and Power and now is a supply chain manager with Whitworth Bros flour company. In 2021, he married Nicola Robinson and they ride and stable former race horses.
      
      In 1997, Tom married Sarah-Jane Palmer, though they later separated
      
      
      • daughter Sophie Marie 1997 was educated at Prince William High School and went on to Buckinghamshire New University where she graduated with a first . She now works in human resources in Southampton.
        
        
      • son Liam Paul 1999
        
  
  
  • son Leslie Roy 1912. In 1939 he marries Phyllis Harbert Parsons. They lived in Luton. Leslie died in 1984.
    
    
    • son Alan Philip 1941 born in Luton. He is the Uglow's other (remember Euan) distinguished artist. His obituary in the New York Times talked of, " His intuitive sense of proportion and subtle painterly texture gave his work a clarity that could easily be called classical. His fields of white, outlined and bisected by tapelike lines of strong color, or segmented into wide bands or blocks of color, were indebted to the precision and tactility of Mondrian and the scale and specificity of Minimalism." He was married twice - in 1963 to Helena Shears, a ceramic and textile designer. They were divorced in 1969. In 1986 he married Elena Alexander, a poet and teacher. A lifelong fan of Chelsea FC, he died in Manhatten in January 2011.  
      
      
  • son Eric Alan 1914 born in Peterborough. In 1940 he married Mary Ann Locke. He died in 1985.
    
    
    • daughter Gillian 1943 born in Peterborough. In 1968 she married Ferdinand Cavallaro. Their daughter Gaia Alexis was born in 1975. 

  Family 2: James Alfred and Ms Morgan

  James Alfred 1900 was born in Twickenham, the son of Henry Richard 1873 and Lillian Maud Eliot and the grandson of James Underhay and Catherine Ellis. His brothers, Frank 1907 and Ernest George 1909, his father Henry and grandfather James all ended their days in Lincolnshire. 

  James married a Ms Morgan in 1926 and was an electrician, like his father. He died in 1940 in Peterborough.

  • daughter Ruby 1926 born in Peterborough. She married Mr Maddicor in 1947.
  • daughter Muriel 1926 born in Peterborough.
  • son James Derek 1930 born in Peterborough. He married Joan M Porter in 1953 in Peterborough but died in 1981 playing golf in Bedford.
    • son James E 1954 born in Peterborough. He married Sandra Jones in Barking in 1976. Divoerced, he marries Wen X Huang in Havering, Essex in 2005. Jim Uglow is a well-known martial arts specialist in Essex - see his biography.
      • daughter Joanna Lesley 1980
      • daughter Nicola Jane 1982
      • son Adam James 1986

  Family 3: Frank and Winifred Vera Lewis

  Frank 1907, born in Brentford and was the son of Henry Richard 1873 and Lillian Maud Eliot and the grandson of James Underhay and Catherine Ellis.

  Frank was an electrician, like his father and his brothers, James Alfred 1900 and Ernest George 1909. His father Henry, grandfather James and brothers all ended their days in Lincolnshire. Frank married Winifred Vera Lewis (born 1912) in 1937 in Peterborough. He died in 1969 in Peterborough. Winifred lived at 5 Monument Street in Peterborough - her partner was Frederick Smith. Winifred died in 2004.

  • son Nicholas Lewis 1939 born in Peterborough. He married Val Barrett [from Nottingham] in 1962 in Basford. The marriage was dissolved and Val married again. Nicholas spent some time in the USA. He returned in the early 1990s and lived with his mother and Fred Smith until her death.
    • son Andy 1963 born in Peterborough.
      • son Owen 1991 born in Peterborough.
      • son Connor 1998 born in Peterborough.
    • son Mark James1966 born in Peterborough. His partner is Sophie Taylor
      • daughter Amy 2000 born in Rochadale
      • son Ben Lewis 2004 born in Rochdale
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