Change the World

June 27, 2023 – Ulverston, UK

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“If anyone looks solemn at my funeral, I will never speak to them again!” – Stan Laurel

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We spent the day with Grandpa Bob.

Robert (Phillipson) Wells was born on Upper Brook Street, Ulverston, on the 27th of February 1887. We don’t have an exact address, but the street is only one block long and we studied every building, so I am quite sure we saw where he lived. It would have been one of the smaller tenements on the street.

Robert’s mother Agnes was a single mom and one of sixteen children herself.  Her work as a domestic servant would not have paid well, I assume she was living on the edge.     

Living on this narrow street, one block off the busy Market Place must have been perilous.  It is a wonder young Robert made it through his childhood, toddling around on Brook Street.

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When Robert’s mother married John Wells in 1889, they moved to his home at 58 Hartley Street.

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By the 1891 census, the Wells family had moved to Church Street.  We don’t have an exact address, but Church Street seems like a lovely place to live.  The sturdy row houses are still magnificent 132 years later.  Ulverston Parish Church at the top of the street, is an impressive piece of architecture dominating the neighbourhood.

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But John had to follow his career. In 1901 the family moved to 149 Foxfield Road, Broughton-in-Furness, 12 miles northwest of Ulverston.  By this time the family had grown to six and another child was on the way.

John worked as a railway porter and the family had taken in a border for extra income, but finances must have been tight.

Robert was 14 by then, working at a peat moss farm as a labourer, by necessity.  His formal education ended at grade 9 and Robert was facing a lifetime of hardscrabble employment to help the family make ends meet.

It is not difficult to imagine why Robert was anxious to emigrate to Canada.  Prospects in his hometown would have seemed bleak.  

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Robert’s life didn’t get any easier when he left Ulverston in 1906 at the age of 19 to homestead in Saskatchewan, but the sacrifices he made eventually paid huge dividends for those of us who came after.  Robert’s farm grew, he was able to provide an education and a start in life for all seven of his children.  That second generation continued the resourceful, hard-working tradition set by Grandpa Bob.

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We had parked the car at the end of Upper Brook Street.  Once our tour of historical family places ended, we walked back up the narrow street to retrieve it.  About halfway along, a door opened, and a young woman emerged, pushing a baby carriage.  The baby was fussing, and the girl seemed haggard. 

The scene reminded me of Robert’s story….

“Someday, the little fellow in the carriage will grow up and …

… Change the World.”

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