Mary Berry Who Do You Think You Are?

Mary Berry is one of Britain's best loved TV cooks.

So what's this going to be, Mary?

This is going to be a Victoria sandwich.

She has worked as a food writer since the 1960s.

Now, at the age of 79, her role as judge

on The Great British Bake Off has catapulted her to national stardom.

Mm, the flavours are lovely.

I am lucky.

You know, when I get up in the morning, I can't wait to get going.

And I love what I do and I want to do it well.

She pushes herself, probably much more than other people of her age.

Paul and Mary have been married for almost 50 years.

Was that about right?

Lovely.

They had three children,

but their lives have also been marked by sadness.

William, when he was 19, died in a motor accident.

And that was a huge tragedy in our family.

But he was a terrific chap and we were very lucky to have him.

Now, Mary wants to know about her background.

I know very little about my family,

but I think strongly that

genes come through and I think I've got qualities from Dad.

Dad had enormous energy.

I've no idea where Daddy got his drive.

I really want to find out further back.

I think they would have been a respectable family.

They would have gone into the traditional jobs and

the girls would be groomed for marriage.

I don't know. I can't wait.

I mean, it's really exciting.

Mary believes she inherits her drive and energy from her father,

and wants to find out more about his side of the family.

She has come to Bath, where she grew up,

to visit her older brother Roger.

-Hello. What a surprise.

-Wow!

-You're back from your holidays?

-Yes, we are.

Hello, Will.

William, her younger brother, is there too.

Nice to see you.

Oh, terrific. You had a good journey?

I have. I haven't brought the weather, have I?

No, you certainly haven't.

-Is Margaret and...

-We're all here.

-It's just started to rain.

Oh, good. Shall we go and find them?

Yeah, do.

I am close to my brothers. We've never lost touch.

And we ring each other, even if I'm not going to see them.

Roger's home overlooks the house they lived in as children.

Looking down at Chalcombe Farm, it looks very much the same.

I mean, it was very happy there.

My overriding memories of my parents are of always being together

and always putting the family first.

-Mother was the calming side of the family.

-Oh, yeah.

And father was the one that had the short fuse that would

blow up with great ease at the slightest opportunity.

Mary's brothers have the family photos

and have been doing some digging.

Mary, I've been looking and, in amongst all of father's old bits and

pieces, I don't know what you think, but I found these two photographs,

and I think they could be of father with his mother on a donkey.

Well, wait a minute, let's have a look.

I've never seen these.

I think it's been taken in a studio in Skegness, as you do,

and then I think the other one is his mother and, um...

That's grandpa.

..and grandpa.

That's so interesting.

Do you know, I have never seen a picture of my grandmother.

All I knew was that she was delicate, she was beautiful.

Mary's grandmother died soon after this

photograph was taken, at the age of 36, when Mary's father was just two.

She was never, ever talked about by grandpa, really.

And I think he was so overawed or upset when she passed away,

that he wanted to let her go up into heaven and forget all about her.

Mary's grandparents both came from Norwich.

Mary knows almost nothing about their backgrounds.

Mary, I was looking in the suitcase and I found this

card, which has got a name on it which might mean something to you.

"In Affectionate Remembrance of Eliza Amelia,

"the beloved wife of William English Suffolk."

How lovely, English Suffolk. "Died aged 50 years, 1885."

Grandmother was Annie Suffolk.

Looking at that card, I think

that Eliza Amelia was mother to our grandmother, Annie Suffolk.

-Could be, couldn't it?

-Yes.

We know that she was a Suffolk

and we know that they're buried in Norwich.

-Yes.

-And I think we should go from there.

-Mm.

Mary is heading to Norwich to find out more about her

grandmother's side of the family.

Gill, I'm hoping that you're going to be able to tell me a little

more of Eliza Amelia Suffolk, who I believe is my great-grandmother.

Yes, she is, or was, I should say.

-Is she?

-Yes, she was.

That's so exciting, to have it confirmed.

She was not born Suffolk, of course,

she was married to William English Suffolk.

She was born in 1834, but the person I think you might be really

interested in is her father, Robert Houghton.

Let me get all prepared. Robert...?

Houghton, who is your great-great-grandfather.

So it's H-o-u-g-h-t-o-n,

and he was born in Norwich in 1798 and he was a local businessman.

And because he was in trade, that means he appears in trade

directories which are often referred to as an early type of Yellow Pages.

This is one for Norwich in 1856.

They list people in trade and they list them alphabetically.

So you need your glasses, too.

Yes, I do need my glasses, I'm afraid.

So you should be able to find Houghton and Robert.

Ah, I'm nearly there. H-o-u-g-h-t-o-n.

Robert.

-So he was a baker.

-Yes.

-A baker!

-Yes.

Well, that's pretty appropriate, isn't it?

I can really say that there's baking in my family.

I'm going to add that to my CV. Gosh!

What's very interesting about Robert is that he

appears in the trade directories from 1830 right through

to 1868, on Ber Street, and we've got a later directory here

from 1864 where you can have another look and see how he's listed then.

Houghton.

Yeah.

Wait a minute!

-Robert is not only a baker now, he's a builder as well.

-I know.

I don't think those two things go together at all.

Well, he obviously diversified

and it was very common for people to have more than one hat.

He was part of this Victorian entrepreneurial class.

But there's no doubts that he was on Ber Street throughout that

whole nearly 40 years.

-And what size street was Ber Street. Was it a little street?

-Well, I...

Right in the middle?

I think you will need to go and have a look at that

and find out a bit more.

I bet it's not a baker's now. We shall see.

I had no idea that I would find that I am truly related to a baker.

And I can't wait to find out more.

I can't wait to get to Ber Street.

In Ber Street, Mary is meeting local historian Neil Storey.

-Welcome.

-Thank you.

Now, I've got something to show you.

Have a little look at this.

This is taken around about 1905, but it's as the street would have

looked very much from the time of the 19th century.

A lot of the streets, features and houses are now gone because of

the Blitz and because there was clearance after the war as well.

Today, Ber Street retains almost none of its 19th century features.

Instead, Neil takes Mary to a nearby street,

unchanged since Robert's day.

-Just in here.

-Oh, yes, OK.

Come on in. Here we are.

So this is a court, just like Robert Houghton would have

known on Ber Street.

Ber Street, in the mid-19th Century, was the worst street in Norwich.

It's reputation had been down at heel for centuries,

since it had bear pits, it had cock fighting, it had prostitution,

it had Molly houses for the male prostitutes,

it was known as Blood and Guts Alley

You could have your throat cut, you could be mugged there.

But, just a moment, Robert was in this street selling

-all his bread and his cakes and whatever.

-Yes.

Would they have been quite simple breads and cakes

because they wouldn't have had much money, if this was a very poor area?

Well, I think you need to look at some documents to learn a lot

more about Robert.

-I'd like to.

-Come this way.

Thank you.

Have a look at this.

This is the relevant page from the 1861 Census.

Robert Houghton, he's the head of the family, that's right, isn't it?

Baker, employing three hands. That's three people.

Three staff.

And then there's a servant here and she's Louisa Lawson.

Well, it seems to me, that this is a small family business,

and obviously doing well because they employ three.

They're looking respectable, aren't they?

You have to remember that even on the hardest streets of London

or Norwich or any of the great cities, you can find examples of

those that are wealthy, living cheek by jowl with those who are poor.

Have a look at this document.

Now, where are we here?

Well, this relates to the workhouse in Norwich.

So... Right. So this is supplying bread to the workhouse.

Ah, here we are.

"Robert Houghton, 681 score loaves of bread."

Now, that's 20 to a score.

That's right.

Gracious, that's a huge quantity of bread.

What he's getting for that is £161.14.9d.

Now, that is a large amount of money.

The modern equivalent would be roughly £7,000.

And when you think that the bread was made just by those small

number of people.

They must have worked so hard.

By winning the contract to supply bread to the workhouse, Robert

was tapping into a growing market - the poor of Norwich.

Traditionally dependent on small scale hand weaving,

Norwich was unable to compete with the new, mechanised industrial

towns of the North.

The mid-19th Century was a period of increasing poverty in the city.

The Norwich workhouse had space for only a few hundred -

thousands more received help outside its walls.

Neil has also discovered contracts Robert won to feed these

outdoor paupers.

This is the list of people supplying the paupers,

the outside paupers.

This is the outdoor relief.

And here we've got Robert Houghton and he's been paid for that...

£691?!

Yes. In the modern equivalent that's about £30,000.

He's doing a bit of all right, isn't he?

I think he's a very savvy chappy.

When I first heard he was a baker, I thought

he was a little baker making a few loaves.

But, as the day has progressed, I realise that he was

a bit of an entrepreneur.

They must have been baking bread morning, noon and night.

I want to know exactly how his day went.

He was making an enormous amount of bread, with three helpers.

And I want to know how he achieved that.

I wonder if I could possibly do that.

I don't think I could.

Mary has come to the School of Artisan Food, near Mansfield.

This is rather splendid, isn't it? Wow!

She is meeting master baker Colin Lomax.

-Hello, good morning.

-Good morning.

How are you? Nice to meet you.

Very nice to see you.

Right, Mary, can we come and show you these Victorian ovens.

These were the kind of ovens that your great-great-grandfather

-would have been using.

-Right.

And this oven bakes about 70 loaves in one go,

and your great-great-grandfather was baking up to 700, 800 loaves a day.

The lives of 19th century bakers like Robert were notoriously tough.

The heat and flour dust caused lung and skin conditions.

And the work was physically exhausting.

Here we go.

Flour came in 280lb bags, in hessian bags, so that

alone for the bakers, carrying that flour around the bakery.

-It would be blooming heavy.

-It was a hell of a job.

And there are many, many reports of bakers having a permanent stoop,

and of course, from the health point of view, it was really hard work

and back-breaking.

And they certainly were working 18 hours a day and sometimes 21

hours a day, and at the weekend when they had the biggest demand,

they literally didn't go to bed for two or three days.

Like Robert, Mary is using the plainest flour and yeast.

And like him, she has three helpers.

We get that lovely smell, it's fantastic, isn't it?

And here, we've only got probably about a quarter of the size of dough

that your great-great-grandfather would have used.

And the important thing of course,

he's got to get the right yield out of it.

Although Robert was earning large amounts of money, his costs were

high and he had to make sure every loaf weighed precisely one pound.

It's amazing. Just by overscaling every loaf by about that, he could

lose about 20 loaves on his day's production.

And again, that was profit.

-So he would keep a beady eye on you lot...

-Yes.

..to see that everything was quite accurate.

-Right, I'd better have a go now.

-Yes, certainly.

And it's supposed to be pounds.

And it even sticks to the table for me.

No, it's going to be too much. Oh, gosh.

That's spot on.

Well, not quite. That's it.

There we are.

Mass-producing bread for the paupers of Norwich, Robert had to work fast.

Richard's doing it with two hands, well done, Richard.

That takes a bit of a skill.

I'm holding you up already. That's it.

Now, you want me to mould, don't you?

I do.

Getting there slowly. But I don't think I would be employed.

I wouldn't be able to do enough per hour.

For bakers like Robert,

the harsh working conditions took a toll on their health.

They didn't live very long.

But there were a study done in 1853 of 111 bakers.

That's just about the time when my great-great-grandfather was baking.

That's correct, yes.

And they only found 13 of the bakers that

could have been classed as healthy.

It's a bit like fishing.

I'll pick them off for you.

I can tip them. OK

I want to do the job properly. Cor blimey, it's heavy.

Can you free the back of the peel?

Am I hitting anything?

No, you're all right.

-Here you are.

-Thank you.

We've probably done about a seventh of what your great-great-grandfather

did every day, day in, day out, possibly seven days a week.

Do you think you could have done the job?

Couldn't even start.

And I would think Robert and his three assistants would be exhausted.

-Yes.

-You know, there's one thing that I want to do,

and I want to taste that bread.

Right. Good.

Shall we take one through?

Yes, certainly.

This was going to poor people in the workhouse and so forth.

-They wouldn't have butter and jam on that, would they?

-No. No.

That, even without butter, or without anything,

it's very enjoyable.

Having said that, I would just like to show you something, if I may.

It's from the Norfolk News, Saturday, February 10th in 1855.

"On Wednesday at the Guildhall, the Mayor stated that he had received

"the following memorial signed by a large number of outdoor paupers...

"'We the undersigned, paupers of the city of Norwich, beg to lay before

"you our complaint of the bread with which we have been supplied.

"It is so bad that we do not know how to eat it.'"

Gosh! It's not like what we've been doing.

"'Mr Inspector Peck said he had procured some of the bread

"given out by Mr Houghton on the previous day.'"

Must have been some left.

"'On inspection, the bread was found to be very good.

"The matter was therefore dropped.'"

Now, why do you think that all happened?

Do you think that somebody was trying to stir the pot?

Or perhaps somebody had been sacked by Mr Houghton or, you know?

I'm not sure.

It's a judgment we've got to make.

You know, it was said that bakers found it very difficult not

to adulterate the bread.

Because the margins were so fine.

And there are lots of stories of people adding bone

dust to flour, to cheapen it.

What's bone dust?

Well, it's ground up bones.

They go to the knackers yard and get bones and grind them up.

But I don't think Robert Houghton did, because

they brought bread that they were complaining about from the

previous day, so it doesn't sound... I'm standing up for my relation.

I don't blame you. We don't know that.

At the same time, for the paupers to complain about it, it must have put

them under a lot of pressure because they were grateful for free bread.

So it just put a bit of a question as to

whether or not he was adulterating his bread.

I hope he wasn't.

Can I show you one more thing.

I never know what's coming next.

Well, I guess this is quite sad here, really, because it is the end.

"Saturday, March 21st, 1868. Death. Houghton.

"On the 12 instant suddenly, to the

"great grief of an afflicted wife and family, Mr Robert Houghton,

"baker and builder, for 34 years, a clerk of the Parish."

So how sad. We don't know how he died, but he died.

No. He was 69.

-It's sad to see but he had a good innings for...

-He did.

And unusually lived to - for a baker -

to a good old age in those days.

But I find it quite interesting that he'd

been on the clerk of the council, the Parish, for 34 years and would

not suggest that that influenced him achieving those wonderful contracts.

You know, you're a bit shrewd, aren't you?

But it would help, wouldn't it?

It definitely would. And we've said before...

-He'd got friends in the right places.

-He had.

I'm full of admiration for him,

but there's a little tinge of something that I don't know.

I was sad to read the last entry in the newspaper,

when the paupers complained about the bread.

Of course, he was on the Parish council and

he could get contracts.

I was a little bit wondering about that

but I like to think that he was a good man

and that he worked very hard and it was a lovely family business.

Mary now wants to find out about the family of her paternal

grandfather, who in later life was a canon in the Church of England.

My grandfather, Edward Berry, was very severe

and his sermons were very boring and very traditional.

I'm intrigued to know what grandfather's family were like,

and I think he would have come from really quite a Victorian,

stilted family.

I don't know.

Mary has come to the Norfolk Record Office in Norwich.

She is meeting with genealogist Joanne Penn.

-Nice to meet you, I'm Joanne.

-Joanne? Is that right?

Yes. Hello. Hello, Mary.

Mary's brought a private autobiography written by her father.

Dad wrote his memoir and they're sort of brief, to the

point and factual, not romantic at all.

So I'll tell you what he said and that's really just about all I know.

He starts off with origins.

"Grandfather and Grandmother Berry were almost myths to me.

"I only went to their home once.

"Grandfather had, I believe, been a journeyman printer

"and ended up by being either a foreman or an owner."

And that's about all I know

and that's all Dad has written in this book.

I think that we can find out a few more things.

Joanne has found the birth certificate of Mary's

great-grandfather, who was also called Edward.

This is the date, yes, the 10th June, 1845, Edward...

-Edward, and it's a boy, we know that.

-Yeah.

Surname and name of mother, Mary Berry!

That's the only other Mary Berry I've come across.

It's Golden Dog Lane which is, it's not the nicest part of Norwich.

It's over the water, as we say here, it was a pretty poor area.

Lots of the people who lived there lived in very poor housing

tenements and yards, slums really.

So, it's not the best address in Norwich.

And there's something a little bit unusual here,

because, if you notice the father's name, it's not here.

Do you know, I didn't spot that.

Maybe the father is dead.

It's possible.

He wouldn't be illegitimate, would he?

Well, I haven't been able to find a marriage certificate for her,

but they only began marriage certificates,

civil registration only began in 1837,

so we need to go to the parish registers and look in those.

And for that we'll need to go into the strong rooms

and see what we can find there.

Right. Here we go.

Joanne digs out the Norwich Parish Registers for the 1830s.

I have searched very carefully

and I can find no sign that your great-great-grandmother,

Mary Berry, married anybody in that period before 1837 either.

But I have found some

entries that I think you'll be interested in.

It turns out that Edward, born in 1845, was not Mary's first child.

Baptisms.

So if you have a look here...

Gosh, right at the top there's a Mary Berry.

1832, July the 15th.

Yeah.

Henry Augustus.

No sign of any mention of a husband.

-No.

-There's nothing.

-No.

Gosh.

But the story doesn't end here.

This is another Norwich parish.

-Baptisms.

-Yeah. This is the parish of St Stephens.

Berry. Here we are again.

This time there's a Mary Ann Berry.

Yes, she seems to have been sometimes known as Mary Ann

and sometimes as Mary.

And this time she has a daughter, Emma.

Yep.

Is that illegitimate?

It is, yeah. Yeah.

That's the first time we've seen the word illegitimate.

That's the first time.

What a sadness, isn't it?

It is, yeah. But it's not over yet.

To make a mistake twice.

Don't tell me there's going to be a third one.

-Have a look.

-I think she's a bit troublesome.

Here we go again, and this time a son.

George Frederick.

So that's the third one between 1832 and 1836.

Do you know, I think she might have been a prostitute or

something, which would be awful.

I mean, to have three children in such a short time without a husband.

Mm. Well, I have a theory about what may have been going on here.

Normally, what would be very common would be to have one

illegitimate child and then to marry the father soon after or

somebody else within a year or two.

And she doesn't marry

and she has these three very evenly spaced children.

So my suspicion is that there was a man involved, that he

wasn't free to marry her.

Yeah, I think you've been working quickly.

So that means the fellow that she was, er, fond of

or was having these children by, was married to somebody else.

That's my suspicion.

No record survives of who the father of Mary's four children might

have been.

I've got another register to look at here.

And this one is different to the others we looked at.

-Burials?

-Yes.

Henry Berry.

Yes. He was baptised as Henry Augustus.

He was the first child that she had.

-The first child?

-Yes.

And he was only how old?

He was only about three months old when he died,

so he really didn't live long.

Infant.

And then, if we look a little bit further on.

Not another...?

Oh, there. That's Emma, her daughter.

-Yeah.

-And she dies at two.

-Yes.

I mean, to lose one child...

-..it's sad, isn't it?

-It is, very sad. Very sad.

What a poor woman.

We don't know what background she had, whether she was alone or...

It might be interesting perhaps to try and find out a little bit

more about Mary's family, about who her parents were.

-Right.

-Whether they were around.

If they're around, she could be living with her mother

or father if they were alive.

-Mm.

-I don't know.

And we've got something else to look at here.

It's a bottomless pit.

This, if we open it up on this page here.

1808. Gosh.

These are the baptisms.

-Baptisms.

-Yeah.

Now, that's interesting.

"Berry, Mary, daughter of Christopher Berry and Mary his wife."

Well, at least she was born in wedlock.

And what's interesting about this is this name, her father's name,

Christopher Berry.

And this is... I think you've seen some of these already, haven't you?

This is a trade directory.

Right. Where are we?

Now, I think if you look...

"Berry. Christopher. Book-seller and Printer.

"Dove Lane."

There's something else interesting at the front of this book.

If we look on this page here.

"Printed by C. Berry."

-Now, C. Berry is Christopher Berry.

-It is.

"Of Dove Lane. 1810."

And he's living in a nice part of Norwich.

So what happened to her, to Mary, then?

-Well, that's, that's the mystery, isn't it?

-Yes.

I think there's a story to be found there, isn't there?

I hope so.

It certainly wasn't what I was expecting to find.

It's a very sad story and I hate to think of her being hungry

and not enough food to feed those children.

I mean, it is immensely sad.

What I want to find out next is Christopher, her father.

He was a printer.

Was she thrown out because she was pregnant?

Did she run away from home?

I want to know more about Christopher

and why he was not looking after his daughter.

-Hello. I'm David.

-Well, hello.

-Welcome to Jarrold Print Museum.

-Well, thank you.

David Stoker is a book trade historian.

-Thank you.

-Thank you very much.

David, I've got here Berry's Norwich Directory, 1810.

And Christopher Berry was my great-great-great-grandfather

-and I want to know more.

-OK.

Well, the Berrys were a very notable family of book-sellers

and local publishers in Norwich during the second

half of the 18th century and into the early 19th century.

They would have had a very considerable book shop in Dove Lane.

They were a well-to-do family and successful.

In, fact there were three generations of them,

so they were quite a book-selling dynasty.

Now, Christopher had a daughter, Mary, and I found out

that Mary eventually had four illegitimate children.

Why was Christopher not looking after her? Do you know?

Well, I have an idea.

Let me just show you an announcement from the Norfolk Chronicle

for Saturday November the 16th, 1811.

If you'd like to read that.

"Whereas a commission of a bankrupt is awarded

"and issued forth against Christopher Berry, the younger..."

He's gone bankrupt.

-Indeed.

-After all the success,

and we've just seen that book and how well he's done.

-And now...

-Why would he go bankrupt?

Less than a year later, he's bankrupt.

I think perhaps the answer lies with this directory.

Why is that?

This was the third trade directory to appear only for Norwich

and shows actually he's beginning to operate on a fairly ambitious scale.

This directory would have been quite expensive to produce,

even the cost of collecting the names

-and addresses would have been considerable.

-Mm.

Have a look at the editor's address to the public.

He's writing in the third person, as was typical at this stage,

but I think it's actually the voice of Christopher Berry.

"He was not aware of the difficulty of obtaining the address of so

"large a population or he would have been deterred from the undertaking."

So even when he wrote this, he was aware how difficult it would be?

He may have bitten off more than he could chew, in fact.

It's immensely sad because it would affect the whole family.

Your own ancestor, Mary, would have only been three at this time.

I'd like to explain to you a little bit

more about the process of going bankrupt.

But to do that, I think we'd better go somewhere else.

David is taking Mary to a pub in the market

square in the centre of Norwich.

Now, have a look at this.

This is Norwich Marketplace, where the whole

process of the bankruptcy would have taken place.

And it was done in a brutally public way.

It would be a meeting of creditors, in a pub or an inn,

just such as this one.

And then there would be a sale of the assets.

Here is an advertisement for the Berrys' bankruptcy.

Perhaps you'd like to have a look at it?

"To be sold by auction - Four post and other bedsteads with

"printed cotton furniture, linen, beautiful French drapery

"window curtains, handsome sofa on castors, Kidderminster carpets,

"large mahogany dining table with circular ends, elegant mahogany

"card tables, gilt and fancy painted drawing room chamber chairs."

What a shock to see it all being viewed and people coming through the

house, and the children must have felt lost as all this was happening.

Absolutely. It must have been utterly humiliating for them.

-I mean, when you think your bed's going...

-Mm.

..you'd think they would leave them the bed.

David, the sale is on the 30th of January, 1812,

I'm just wondering what's going to happen

when all that lot's sold, where will they go, what will they do?

-Well, come inside and I'll tell you what happens.

-Right.

OK. After you.

The point about bankruptcy is, although it's humiliating

and traumatising, it doesn't necessarily mean destitution.

The bankruptcy process allows for 5% of the assets to

be retained by the family and, in this case, they allowed him

to keep a printing press and a set of type, hoping that perhaps

he may be able to get back on his feet again.

And here is the advertisement from the Norfolk Chronicle for June 1813.

"This day is published by C. Berry,

"that's Christopher Berry Junior, Pottergate Street.

"Price - One shilling.

"A little irregular ode addressed to the

"Decayed Members of the Bankrupt Club."

That's very strange, isn't it? He's almost making fun of himself.

He's writing poems about his own situation.

It's all very well to do that,

and it may be a little bit jovial, but who's going to buy it?

He's got to get back to make money to keep his family, hasn't he?

Absolutely.

He doesn't seem to have... Be good in business.

I wonder what he's like at home.

Regarding home, I made a few notes about your family

and your family tree.

If you look across ways you'll see that Mary was not the only child.

Mary was born in April 1808

and then we have another Christopher, a Maria, a John, a Louisa...

And four more children, so he's got one, two, three, four, five,

six, seven, eight mouths to feed and yet he's without a good income,

without a sure house.

And almost a new child each year.

Yes. So I think his wife has quite a lot to put up with.

Indeed, she did.

And in fact, that takes us on to the next document.

What is this?

This is part of the records of the Poor Law Commissioners.

"Ordered that the wife of Christopher Berry,

"the younger, and six of her children be received..."

I don't...

It's... I... Do you know, I really thought... Wait a minute.

They've all gone into the workhouse.

You're as upset as I am!

Yes. Yes, it's a very sad story.

That is unbelievable that... "The wife of Christopher Berry,

"the younger, and six of her children be received into the workhouse and

"that the said Christopher Berry pay 20 shillings weekly towards their

"maintenance on Saturday in each week to commence on Saturday next.

"If he failed therein, the Mayor is requested to issue

"a warrant for the apprehension of the said Christopher Berry."

It's a very sad story.

It's a strange story as well, because he's obviously

earning money, to be able to pay 20 shillings a week upkeep,

he must be earning money and yet he lets his family and all

of those babies, all of those young children, go into the workhouse.

Now, what age would Mary be, er, Mary Berry, at this stage?

She would have been 11.

-11.

-And all of the other children would have been less than 11.

It's a dreadful story.

It's just so sad.

How could he let them?

Talk about from riches to rags,

and to think at the very end of this, the workhouse.

I think, when they arrive, they're going to be very teased.

I mean, they're not going to speak like the other

children in the workhouse or the other people.

They've come from a grand house and good living,

they'll speak well, they'll be educated, it will be hard.

They'll be broken hearted and their mother,

I can't imagine how she feels.

Thinking about it, there were eight children

and I've just read that six go with their mother to the Workhouse.

There are two elsewhere.

I want to know who went to the workhouse and how they were treated.

The workhouse in Norwich the Berrys were sent to no longer stands.

Instead, Mary is visiting a nearby

workhouse, in use around the same time, which is now a museum.

She's meeting workhouse expert Peter Higginbotham.

Norwich workhouse, you know, was not a pleasant place.

I've got a thing here that really illustrates,

in kind of graphic detail, what kind of place it was.

And if you'd like to just have a read through that, a local paper.

"In 1826, and for years previous, the workhouse was in every

"part of it a scene of filth, wretchedness and indecency.

"Imagine 600 paupers who for weeks,

"months and years breakfasted,

"dined and supped without any order or regularity,

"who neither had knife, fork or plate.

"They were to be seen in groups with their hot puddings

"and meat in their hands, literally gnawing at it.

"Beds and bedding swarmed with vermin." That is awful.

It is. It's not that pleasant a place at all.

OK, let's look at what we've got here.

Mary gives Peter the document showing

the admission of Christopher's family into the workhouse.

This is quite a strange picture we've got here.

If he can afford 20 shillings a week to keep his family in the

workhouse, you'd think he'd manage to keep them outside the workhouse.

Exactly.

So, that's very strange in itself.

The one thing that might explain this rather strange situation

is that Christopher has basically left his family,

he's abandoned them, and the family, mother, all those children and

one newly born child couldn't cope and they were forced to seek help.

Are you telling me that you think that he's left home in fact

when they were desperate?

Quite possibly, yeah.

If Christopher had walked out on them,

then that would explain this rather stern record that he was

going to be paying for their keep, or else.

We do have some more information that builds on that suggestion.

And if you'd like to look at that.

"Burials. St Giles, Norwich.

"Eliza Berry."

Now, that was one of the children.

That's right.

That was the youngest, just a few months old.

-In St Andrews Workhouse.

-Mm.

-So the littlest one...

-Yeah.

..has died of something in the workhouse.

In the workhouse, yeah, yeah.

Christopher doesn't immediately come and rescue them,

you might say, take them away from this awful place.

But you'd think he'd do something.

You would think so, but apparently not.

-Nothing.

-Yeah.

In fact, we know they were still in the workhouse

because, just a few years later, we've got another.

Where are we? Again, Burials in the Parish of St Giles.

-That's exactly the same as the one before.

-Yeah.

Augustus! That's one of the children.

Age nine.

And even that's not the end of the story.

The following year...

Again, Burials in St Giles. Edward Berry.

That's one of the little boys.

St Andrews Workhouse. Age six.

Can you imagine how their mother is feeling?

Most likely she has no strength left.

And again, Christopher's not taking any interest or...

-They're still there.

-Mm.

Of the six children who'd entered the workhouse, three had died.

But Christopher had had eight children in all.

Well, we know that six children went into the workhouse.

-Yes. And two...

-And there were two more.

-Yeah.

Now, it was generally the case that the oldest children were

the ones that didn't go into the workhouse.

And that would have been Mary?

That would have been Mary. And Christopher was the oldest boy.

So, what may have happened is Christopher

went into his father's business, such as it was,

and that Mary may have also joined him as his kind of housekeeper.

She was 11,

-so she would be able to cope, to look after her father, maybe.

-Yeah.

But the evidence suggests Mary's relationship with her father

may not have been good.

I believe you've got some baptism certificates.

Right, I have.

Mary shows Peter the birth records of Mary's own boys, born in

the 1830s and the 1840s - Edward, Henry Augustus and George Frederick.

It's interesting, that collection of names.

And is there anything

you might say there's possibly a name that's missing?

-Christopher. Now, you see, I hadn't thought of that.

-Mm.

This means... Often they called a first child after the father

and that has not been in this case, so that perhaps explains that

-Mary didn't think a lot of her father Christopher.

-Yeah, yeah.

And this is a family that, I mean, for generations,

the males have been Christopher or John.

But Mary did name two of her sons after her little brothers -

Augustus and Edward - who had died in the workhouse.

It was lovely that she named two of her children

after the two that died.

And no sign of Christopher whatsoever.

So I just wonder if she had no respect for her father.

I want to know what is happening to Mary.

She's got two small sons, I want to know what happens to Mary

and those little boys.

Mary arranges to meet up again with genealogist Joanne, to find out

what happened to Mary and her two surviving sons, George and Edward.

Mary, in 1845, had Edward.

-Yes.

-And she would have been about 35 then, would she?

-Yeah.

-This was her second child that was alive.

-Yes.

And it must have been so difficult for her

because she would have had this brand-new baby

and, living in a very poor part of Norwich, what was she living off?

-How was she living?

-Mm.

We could have a look at some later censuses and see

-if we can find her there.

-I'd like to, yes.

-Shall we try that? OK.

So, if you just type Mary in there.

Right.

You can see how terribly skilled and speedy I am on a computer.

That's Mary Berry there.

That's it, yeah. This is quite interesting here.

Can you make this out?

Because this is the first time we've seen a profession.

I can't read it. Something maker.

Yeah. I think it says "stay maker".

-Gosh, isn't that wonderful? She's working.

-Yep.

A staymaker. That's corset maker.

It is, yes, yeah.

-Oh, that's good. Well done.

-Yeah.

That's lovely.

OK, so she's a staymaker in 1851.

-Right.

-Let's see what she's up to in 1861.

Here we are. She's a staymaker.

-And she's just living with Edward, your great-grandfather here.

-Yes.

And he is an apprentice to a printer.

So back in the business of printing.

-Yeah.

-So it must have been in the blood.

But I'd like to know more about this corset making.

What would they be paid?

What were the conditions like?

-How did she get the job?

-Yeah.

It might be interesting to see if you can find out a little bit more.

Corsets were made from whalebone

and were designed to give women suffocatingly tight waists.

In the mid-19th century, corsets were in demand.

They were worn by women of all social classes.

Today, just a handful of corset makers remain.

Among them, Gini Newton, who makes corsets for museums

and historical societies.

She's also an expert on the history of corset making

and has done some research into Mary's great-great-grandmother.

-Hello.

-Hello. How nice to meet you.

Gosh, is that done by hand?

This is all done by hand, yes.

When that corset is cinched in on the correct body,

it produces heaving, heaving bosoms.

-Because you used to see great cleavage, didn't you?

-Yes.

So I've just found out that my great-great-grandmother,

Mary, was a staymaker.

Now, would she have done that in her own home, because she

has a little boy of six.

And I understand she wasn't married?

-She was not married, no.

-OK

So, yes, the... I would say there's a very strong likelihood she's

working from her own home.

And she's probably doing what's known as sweated labour or slop.

What that means is that she's working for other people.

And doing long hours, I expect, to make money,

Would it be well paid?

No, it's not well paid.

Somewhere between four and six shillings a week.

So that's not a lot of money.

Certainly not a lot of money.

No. But we find her in a trade directory.

-Oh!

-And this is the trade directory.

-What date was this?

-This is 1854 and have a look here.

There we are. Berry, Mary, Pottergate Street.

Here, what we're actually seeing is Mary has been working in that

sweated industry, but now she's also acknowledging that she has

some private clients who she either goes out to visit and to fit

and to measure, or who come to visit with her.

Well, it's nice to think that she's got...

Could we call it a profession?

I think so.

The census records show that both of Mary's sons entered good trades.

-Her eldest son is shown as a carpenter.

-Hm-mm.

And we have Edward as an apprentice printer.

We also know that her son Edward is just round the corner.

There's a consistent pattern of Edward being

in the same location or very close to his mum.

So, I suspect that he's offering support to her.

-Isn't that nice? Because she's helped him all the way.

-Yes.

-He's her last child and he's got a good job.

-Hm-mm.

And he's obviously giving a little something or at least support

to his mother.

And in fact, Mary, right to the end.

Here we have...

-This is her death certificate.

-Yes.

So Mary Berry dies at age 70.

"Signature and description and residence of informant.

"Edward Berry, son, present at the death." That's lovely.

-Her son, Edward, was there at the end.

-Yeah.

Looking after his mum.

I'm immensely proud of her.

And she had such difficult times and she battled on proudly.

She did all she could for her children,

but she was very rewarded in the end.

She had her children nearby, like I've got my children nearby,

it's lovely.

And Edward was there by her side.

In a way, I think that's a happy ending.

Mary's journey began with her grandparents and she decides to end

by visiting their grave in Norwich, with her brothers William and Roger.

It's a difficult thing. Who do I inherit genes from?

Robert Houghton or Mary Berry? Robert Houghton

worked really, really hard in his bakery for his family.

But, on the other hand, I think perhaps my genes

come from Mary Berry.

She did the very best of her life.

She avoided the workhouse and

I think she was very family orientated, which indeed I am.

Er, I think I have to thank Mary Berry.