Henry True

Henry True
Born	1839 Tisbury, Wiltshire, England
Died	1910-04-20 Maesteg, Glamorgan, Wales
Occupation	Market gardener, florist and miner
Father	Charles True
Mother	Eliza True (née Sanger)
Partner	Ann White
Children	Bessie Griffiths Rose Cooke Alice Jones Albert George True

Henry True

Henry True (1839 – 20 April 1910) was a Welshman by adoption, born in Wiltshire, who moved west to Maesteg in the Llynfi valley of south Wales and worked there in turn as a gardener, a florist and a miner. He was the father of Rose Cooke and Bessie Griffiths, and the grandfather of Lucy Currie.

Early life

• Baptised at the parish church of Tisbury, Wiltshire, in 1839, the eldest of the children of Charles True and his wife Eliza.
• His parents married at Tisbury on 23 January 1838, the year before his baptism; the family genealogist Dan Griffiths gives his mother's name as Elizabeth Sanger, the Tisbury register as Eliza Sanger.
• His siblings, by the same register sequence, were Caroline (1842), Anna Maria (1845), Mark (1848), Alfred (1850), Charles (1852), Luke (1855) and Isabella (1864).

Marriage and Woolland

• Married Ann White at Fonthill Gifford, Wiltshire, on 11 July 1861.
• The couple then lived at Maun House, Woolland, where four of their children were born and where Henry worked as an under gardener.

Maesteg

• Moved from Wiltshire to Maesteg, Glamorgan, some 150 kilometres west, settling on South Parade — a terrace built after the Maesteg iron works opened in 1828.

Nos. 8 and 9 South Parade, Maesteg, with their long front gardens, 2008

• Living at 8 South Parade with his wife and children by 1891, and still there at the 1901 census, when he was recorded as a market gardener working on his own account, aged 62.
• His son Albert George True was born at 25 Temple Street on 4 May 1878, and his daughter Rosetta Agnes True on South Parade on 22 July 1884.
• Began selling produce from his own greenhouse after meeting the Cook family on South Parade, and went on to sell at Maesteg market while also working at the Caedefaid drift mine.
• In 1906, aged 67, he was working as an ostler at the No. 9 Level Caedefaid drift mine — one of several collieries then working the valley alongside Coegnant and the Maesteg Deep pit at Cwrt-y-Mwnws.
• His occupation is given differently on each surviving certificate: a florist on his wife's death certificate in 1906, and formerly a market gardener on his own in 1910.
• Dan Griffiths sums up the combination of trades — gardener, florist and miner at once — as that of "a jack of many trades".

The former Maesteg Iron Works site in 1962, South Parade behind; family annotations mark Henry's greenhouse and Fonthill House

Fonthill House, behind South Parade, under repair in 2008

• His greenhouse stood beside Fonthill House, on the slope behind South Parade; a family-annotated 1962 photograph of the former iron works site marks both.
• Fonthill House was still standing, under repair, in September 2008, with the site of an "old nursery" beside it.

Marriage and family

Annie True (née White) and Henry True

Henry married Ann White (1843 – 1906) and had seven children:

• Rosetta Agnes "Rose" (Cooke)
• Bessie Martha (Griffiths)
• Alice Eliza (True) (1870 - 1955)
• Henry True
• Mark True
• Emily J. True
• Albert George True

His wife died at 13 Harvey Street, Maesteg, on 4 November 1906. Their son Albert George True later emigrated to Australia and died at Wellington, Western Australia, on 19 July 1956.

Death

• Died on 20 April 1910 at 5 South Parade, Maesteg, aged 70.
• The recorded causes were arterio-sclerosis and heart failure, certified by Edward Dowling MB.
• His son Albert True, then living at 8 South Parade, was present at the death and registered it the same day.

The True graves in Llangynwyd churchyard, 2013, with three of his great-grandsons: Ronald Griffiths (left), Ron Currie (centre) and Dan Griffiths (right)

Llangynwyd about 1910, with the church in its walled graveyard

• Buried in the churchyard at Llangynwyd, south of Maesteg, in grave no. 11a 427; the family's burial note gives the burial as June 1910 and his age as 70.
• His wife lies in grave no. 11a 458 in the same churchyard. By 2013 both gravestones were covered over with grass.