The Furniss Family
Part 3 – George Furniss And Family
In 1910 George (William George) married Evelyn Jessie Killick (known as Jessie), who worked as a cashier in the butcher’s shop of her cousin, Jim Cracknell. Her father, Harry, was also a butcher and lived in Surbiton.
Cracknell’s butcher’s shop, Ewell.
Image courtesy of Bourne Hall Museum.
Jessie Killick and George Furniss.
Images courtesy of Bourne Hall Museum.
Sadly, George and Jessie’s first child, Billy (William Harry), died at the age of just six months in 1913; their second son, John, was born in 1915, followed by Robert (Bob) in 1920. In 1915 George joined the Royal Flying Corps. The family home at that point was Ivel Cottage, 11 Worple Road, Epsom.
George, John and Jessie.
Image courtesy of Bourne Hall Museum.
In 1911, George founded the Epsom Operatic Society (in 1984, being renamed the Epsom Players). He became a leading producer and performer, specialising in Gilbert and Sullivan. In 1919, he was in charge of the costumes for Epsom’s World War 1 victory celebrations.
George on stage.
Image courtesy of Bourne Hall Museum.
By now, T Furniss & Son was being run by Thomas and George, both sons of Thomas Furniss Senior, who had died in 1908. Thomas Junior managed the coal side of the business and George dealt with the corn. Even after the First World War the coal was still being delivered by horse cart.
A Furniss coal cart
Image courtesy of Bourne Hall Museum
By the early 1920s T Furniss & Son had its first motorised delivery van, but also continued with horse-drawn transport for some years afterwards. George himself had a Trojan car which his son John described as ‘rather like a tin bath with solid tyres’.
An early Furniss van.
Image courtesy of Bourne Hall Museum.
A 1924 Trojan.
Photograph by Buch-t, Image source: Wikipedia
In 1927 T Furniss & Son moved from the West Street premises to Number 100, High Street and expanded into oil distribution and garden supplies. At one stage the old Methodist chapel behind Number 100 was the G & J Furniss paint and coffin shop.
Sadly, Jessie eventually had a breakdown and spent time in various homes; she died in 1946. In 1947 George married Marjorie Morris and they retired to Cornwall, where they died in 1954 and 1991 respectively.
George and Jessie’s son, John, had initially been sent to Clarkes Business College in London, where he says that he did not settle, but no doubt the experience stood him in good stead later on. By 1934 he was learning the business from the bottom up by loading and unloading coal in the High Street yard; he became a director of the firm, along with his younger brother, Bob.
John had inherited his father’s passion for stage performance and by the end of the Second World War (in which he served with the Army but, by virtue of the postings he received, missed the action) he was producing most of the performances of the Epsom Operatic Society. In his youth he was an enthusiastic and successful runner, a member of Blackheath Harriers and a good friend of the famous athlete and one-time world record-holder for the mile, Sydney Wooderson (1914-2006).
The Furniss premises in the 1950s.
Image courtesy of Bourne Hall Museum.
As we know, the coal industry started to go into a decline after the War and gradually the Furniss operations were scaled down, although there was diversification into other goods. John and Bob retired in 1983.
A Furniss invoice from 1954.
Image courtesy of Bourne Hall Museum.
John Furniss on the right.
Image courtesy of Bourne Hall Museum.
John married Blackpool girl Marnie (Margaret) Battersby in 1942 and they had five children, being Michael (1943), Peter (1945),Timothy (1948), Martin (1949) and Catherine (1957). John died in 2003, aged 87. Bob married Corinne Scott-Dutfield in 1950 and they had one son, Geoffrey.
Linda Jackson © May 2012
Link to previous part.
Much of the information in these articles has been obtained from Bourne Hall Museum and the book, ‘Talk of the Town’, by John Furniss (1992).