Gloving in yeovil
arthur forse
Glove Manufacturer of Percy Road
Arthur Forse was born in 1881 at Stoford, just south of Yeovil, the son of grocer George Forse and his wife Mary Ann Pitman. In the 1891 census Arthur was living at home in Barwick with his parents and five siblings. By the time of the 1901 census the family had moved to 7 Silver Street, living above the coffeehouse that Arthur's mother and sister Rosina kept. While his father was now working as a leather dresser, Arthur was listed as a leather glover.
In the summer of 1910 at Yeovil Arthur married Yeovil-born Mabel Amanda Arnold (1882-1959), the daughter of George Arnold (1832-1919) and Mary Ann née Lewis (1839-1931).They were to have one son, Graham Arthur Arnold Forse (1922-2000) and a step-daughter, Gladys Arnold.
In the 1911 census Arthur, Mabel and Gladys were living at 65 West Hendford. Both Arthur and Mabel were working in the gloving industry, Arthur as a lining cutter and Mabel as a machinist working at home.
Within a few years Arthur and Mabel moved to 15 Percy Road where Arthur set up his own small glove manufacturing business. The company was listed as Arthur Forse, glove manufacturers of 15 Percy Road (with the telephone number 43) in the 1935 and 1939 editions of Kelly's Directory and as A Forse Ltd, glove manufacturers of 13 & 15 Percy Road in Edwin Snell's Directory of 1954. However, by this time Arthur had died.
In 1952 Arthur and Mabel were living at 2 Glenville Road but on 18 July of that year Arthur died at Yeovil District Hospital.
gallery
Courtesy of
Martin Lucas
George and Mary Ann Forse and their family, in a hand-coloured photograph of 1894. Many thanks to Martin Lucas, great, great grandson of George and Mary Ann, for the following notes on the photograph.
Back row, left to right
Rosina (married
William
Matthews, 1899),
Sidney Robert
(my great
granddad -
married Frances
Isabella
Andrews,
daughter of John
Henry Andrews,
blacksmith of
Stars Lane.
Granddaughter of
Thomas Gale
stone mason of
Middle Street
and John
Andrews, coal
dealer of South
Street.
Harry and Kate née
Stroud (this
picture shows
their wedding
day 1894). Sadly
Harry passed
away in March
1901 aged just
28.
Front row, left to right
Mary Ann and
George with
Beatrice between
them.
Sitting bottom
left is a very
interesting
character,
Lindle
(1879-1937).
Lindle was an
inventor. After
working at the
Yeovil hospital
as a dispenser
he started
inventing
things! He
formed the
'Detachable Rim
Company' making
a special kind
of car wheel
(based in
Vicarage
street). Later
he invented a
brick made from
coal slag and
built a factory
in Paulton,
Somerset; sadly
he was run over
by a bus outside
the Red Lion
(1937) and
killed before
the factory
started
manufacturing.
Lindle's son,
Eric, was the
painter LE Forse
(Bluebell Walk,
etc.)
That leaves
Arthur, seated
bottom right,
who married
Mabel Amanda
Arnold in 1910.
Taken about 1960, this colourised photograph of Silver Street is taken from the top churchyard steps. The row of shops at right have all disappeared with the building of the Quedam shopping centre. The entrance to Vicarage Street, another casualty of the Quedam, is just visible at centre, to its immediate right is the tea shop run by Arthur's mother and sister at the turn of the century and where the family lived over the shop. At extreme right is the Half Moon Hotel.
