Tester & Tuck (and Marsh)

Chimney Sweeps, East Street

‘Sweep’s Brush in East Street, Epsom’ by Erica Dring ©
Image courtesy of Bourne Hall Museum

Should you have an open fireplace, you’ve most probably engaged a chimney sweep. These days, of course, the sweep doesn’t look sooty and machinery is usually involved, but in the old days it was all done by a brush on a series of extension rods and it could get very messy.

Chimney sweep in London c1930s
Image source not known

I imagined that Tester and Tuck were very long-standing Epsom residents, since Edward Tester, chimney sweeper, East Street, first appeared in Kelly’s Directory for 1887 and the name of Tester & Tuck continued for decades, but the Testers did not stay for that long and I have yet to find any relevant Tucks.

The original Edward Tester who came to Epsom was born in Redhill and then moved to the Watford area, but didn’t survive for long, dying aged only 51 at the North West London Hospital in 1888 (buried Epsom Cemetery, Grave A52A). In the 1891 census his family were still in East Street.  Edward Junior, then 16, was described as a chimney sweep, but someone else must have been involved in the business since 1888 and there was a John Tester, journeyman sweep, round the corner in Providence Place.

General shot of a snowy Providence Place by night
Image courtesy of Bourne Hall Museum

1890 is when Mr Kelly and his directories start to confuse me, because the entry now reads Mrs Mary Tester, chimney sweeper, East Street. I don’t have a Mrs Mary Tester of Epsom to offer you (only Mrs Elizabeth Tester, Edward’s widow), but I can do a Miss Mary Ann Tester, who was Edward Junior’s sister. I doubt that she was sweeping chimneys, but she may have been sweeping floors, as in the 1891 census she was a general domestic servant to Charles Wilkins, watchmaker and jeweller of Bordeaux House, South Street. I don’t know what was going on here, but I think it’s almost certain that Edward Junior and John were the ones at the coal-face dealing with the chimneys.

By 1901 Edward Junior had decamped to Newington (still sweeping) with his wife Minnie, whom he had married at St Martin’s in 1896. However, in 1911 he was back in Watford with a new wife called Fanny (Frances Rose, née Brooman) and his cousin John was with him – this looks like the Providence Place man. Hard to follow, isn’t it!

Back to the directories! Up to and including 1899 Kelly was listing E Tester & Son in East Street. Andrews’ Directories vary slightly, but in 1899 he had an Edward Tester at Number 33. Kelly’s of 1903 seems to confirm that the Testers had left the scene and had an Edward and Frank Tuck at the address instead, which might well be a mistake. As I said earlier, I know nothing of any chimney-connected persons called Tuck, let alone an Edward and Frank (or Francis, as he becomes later), and they are a complete mystery. The only Tucks in Epsom for the 1911 census were two people incarcerated in the Hospital Cluster (Alfred and Annie), described as long-term lunatics.

As we continue our perilous journey with Kelly, we still have Edward and Francis Tuck (1905, 1907, 1909, 1911, 1913). By 1915 Kelly says that only Francis Tuck is sweeping, and this is the first time the name of Tester & Tuck appears in a directory.

I am doubtful that there ever was a Tuck, unless an unknown and distant Mr Tuck bought a share of the business from Edward Tester Junior, although I question whether it would even be a business in the usual sense.

33-37 East Street
Image courtesy of Bourne Hall Museum

So, if the probably non-existent ‘Edward and Francis Tuck’ stopped running the show at some point between 1899 and 1903, and Edward Tester had left town, who was actually in charge after them? The answer is Francis Marsh (but a man called Pomfrey was also involved briefly). I suggest that Edward Tester kept his partnership in the business but no longer worked in it and we’ll just gloss over who Tuck might have been. If we go to the 1901 census, which is halfway between the directory entries where the names change, we find Francis Robert Marsh, a young chimney sweep from Hove, at 33 East Street and his assistant is a lad called Thomas Herbert Brown.

As for young Mr Pomfrey, he happened to get married in 1909 and his address was 33 East Street, but by 1911 he was living at 5 Garden Cottages, East Street. He then moved away.

Francis Marsh died in 1927, still at East Street, but his son, Henry Robert, had taken up the brushes by then. Henry was still at Number 33 in 1939 (master chimney sweep). In 1938 Kelly’s had still been listing the business as Tester & Tuck and it still had the mysterious Francis Tuck in residence at 33 East Street.

Henry Robert Marsh remained at 33 East Street, until he died at a caravan site in Brighton on 21 May 1966, where he was presumably on holiday. On the probate record his son, Alan Francis, is described as a chimney sweep. Alan was the younger brother of Leslie Henry Marsh, who was killed in WW2.

33-37 East Street, photographed by L R James in 1972
Image source: Epsom & Ewell Local & Family History Centre

 Linda Jackson © 2020

Appeal: If anyone knows who Tuck was, please use our contact page to let us know!

How much did a chimney sweep charge in 1915?

One of Tester & Tuck’s competitors, T.H. Brown of 25 East Street,
charged Foresters Hall of Waterloo Road 2s 6d (12½p) to sweep and clean two furnaces.
Image courtesy of Bourne Hall Museum