A Family Plot Meet the Ancestors

When a fine brick vault was discovered in the centre of a city,

the ancestors team investigated.

We uncovered the moving story

of a 19th-century Midlands family.

I'm in Coventry, not perhaps what you'd think of as a historic town.

But we've got something that might just change your mind.

Next to Holy Trinity church is an old graveyard

that's been earmarked for redevelopment.

First, all the burials have to be removed.

'I was invited along by Paul Thompson, the city archaeologist.'

Lever it up...

Our first job was a heavy one - moving headstones.

You may wonder why, in the whole graveyard, we're digging here.

A couple of years ago, Paul put a small trench in,

and at the edge of that trench, he found a brick vault.

If it is a vault, it will contain a whole range of burials.

After two days of hard digging, the roof of the vault began to appear.

Now it's exposed, you can see the brick arch here.

This brickwork here is much rougher.

Obviously, this bit was taken out and put back in to seal it up.

So we'll have to take it off to see inside.

The sides of the hole could have collapsed, so we put shoring in.

But who were the people in the vault, and when did they die?

Originally, that vault would have had a stone above it,

but over the years, the stones have been moved around and jumbled up.

We'll only have the burials inside it to tell us who the people are.

Only one stone hasn't been moved, because a tree's grown around it.

'The next day, bone specialist Trevor Anderson arrived.'

So, what would you expect to find inside something like that?

I think, when we get in the vault tomorrow,

I would imagine that we're probably looking at a group of coffins,

perhaps stacked one on top of the other.

The uppermost coffins are probably quite well preserved,

and the lower ones may be squashed.

This stuff might look very strange, but there's a serious purpose.

Those bones could only be 200 years old.

There could be biological hazards in there, so we need protection.

It's a very strange feeling, isn't it?

'As the first few bricks were removed,

'there was a mixture of excitement and apprehension.'

OK, Trevor, have a look.

What's that, that's just wood, isn't it?

That's a collapsed... collapsed coffin at the bottom.

But then there's... That looks like an intact one,

sitting on top of it - down this side you can see a handle.

It looks as if there's a whole stack of coffins along one side.

The top one looks like it's intact, but it looks like a lead coffin.

There's an enormous space, then these few coffins.

It's deeper than we thought.

'We know there are three coffins.

'What do Paul and Trevor intend to do with them?'

Our purpose is to rescue the remains in advance of the redevelopment.

An intact coffin we would just re-bury with care and consideration.

The next stage is to get the roof off the vault.

We've got to make sure nothing falls onto the coffins.

So we're going to slide some boards and planks through

so that if any bricks do fall, they won't cause any damage.

The principle of this is simple, that if you knock out that brick,

then it should fall in, but we don't want too much to fall in.

Just...gradually.

So, let's have a try...

-HE LAUGHS

-There we are!

'With the roof off and the end walls nearly removed,

'the next problem was getting the top coffin out.

'There's little room for manoeuvre.'

Is the bottom going to fall out? That's the worrying thing.

It is. So if you can lift...

Are you ready for this, lads?

OK, right...

It's light as a feather!

'Everyone was expecting a heavy, lead-lined coffin.

'But being so light, it must be made of wood.'

Almost there. That's it, we're home. Well done, lads.

It's in extraordinary condition, after being buried for so long.

But when it was first made,

the top may have been covered in some bright material.

There's a decorative border, perhaps in a shiny, silvery metal.

And these plaques, now so rusty, would have been shiny and black.

It would have been a splendid coffin,

a proper sendoff for somebody.

I'm relieved it came out in one piece.

But I suppose what's disappointing in some ways - after all this,

I'd love to have known who it was, if there'd been a nameplate.

It's a shame - we've got three fabulous slates, all decorative,

but no name to identify the person in there.

We'll have to see with the next coffin, and the one at the bottom,

if we get any more information.

'Because the coffin was so fragile, it was placed in a sturdy container

'for transportation to the funeral parlour.'

I'll just put it there.

I think that's very appropriate.

'The next day, Julian Litten, a historic funeral expert,

'arrived to examine the coffin.

'What could he tell us?'

Quite a lot. One can tell the size of the individual, to start with.

One can also tell when the coffin was made, within a 25-year period.

1840s or 1850s, judging from the coffin furniture,

which is the collective noun for the metal applique work you find on them.

The figure at the top is Our Lord.

The inscription - "Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden,

-"and I will give you rest."

-Is that a common one?

-It is, yes.

"Be faithful unto death and you will receive the crown of life" is too.

"Gone but not forgotten" certainly wasn't used in the 19th century. "Simply the best"? No. That's 1990s.

You wouldn't have got it in the 1850s.

-Are the handles what you'd expect?

-Yes, they are.

I'm surprised and delighted with them.

The grip plates at the foot end of the coffin

show the oval one would expect at the end of the 18th century,

but they've added extra spandrels

now we've gone into the 1840s, 1850s.

In the centre is an angel with HUGE wings -

absolutely massive wings.

With wings that size, it could put a girdle round the Earth in 40 seconds.

And then, this successfully hideous handle.

It's the worst type of manufacturing art that you could get -

the very reason why the 1851 Great Exhibition of All Nations was set up,

to see whether one could improve the quality of design

within the manufacturing arts. I'm afraid to say

this company probably didn't have a stand there!

At the graveyard, they were raising the second coffin.

-That's fine. We've got it.

-WOMAN:

-Yeah. Oh, I'm sliding!

But unfortunately it was in a very poor state and all that survived

were fragments of decayed wood.

Trevor was left with no bones to examine.

This may be our last chance to find out who the family buried here were.

The first two coffins have no names on them.

There's just this last one,

which lies crushed at the bottom of the vault.

TREVOR: Can we get this big piece off, do you think?

Let's see.

-And then just put it into the bucket.

-OK, yeah.

Just when we least expected it,

there under a fragment of crushed coffin was a metal nameplate.

Could this be our vital clue?

Can we have the torch? Thank you.

Let's see -

S-A-R-A-H.

Sarah...Conroy I THINK is what it says.

I think this says, "Died July 10th...

"1827...

"29 years."

'Now we had a name, it was time to bring in local historian Judith Riley.'

We're hoping to find out who the people buried in that vault are.

-Is that going to be difficult?

-If you could sort out a date,

we might have a starting point.

A name or a suggested name would be even better.

Would, er... something like that help?

-Ooh!

-There you are - "Sarah Conroy.

"Died July 10th 1827."

Now...

will that give you a good start?

We can do it with that. I'm sure we can.

Judith began her search of the city archives

while Paul and I excavated the remains of Sarah's coffin...

with unexpected results.

Oh, wow! That's absolutely fantastic! That is incredible!

TREVOR: You can see its fastenings.

Lying under the remains of three coffin lids

were the fragile remains of Sarah's burial clothing.

Almost everything had decayed

except for the silk ribbon edging the shroud.

This is the body,

what's left of it.

There's very little bone material.

This white powdery residue is all that's left of the bone.

That's where the skull would be.

Around it we see, in situ, a double loop of ribbon

and a bow tied under the chin.

It's preserved just the way it should be.

This other bow is probably just above the waist.

And then...

it comes all the way down,

all the way down to below the feet.

Although we don't have much of it remaining,

because of the state and position we know what this looks like.

At the end of the week,

I went to see what Judith had found out about the Conroys.

-Hello.

-Hello, Julian.

-This is more civilised than digging in the mud!

-Very much so.

-Have you found anything about Sarah for me?

Well, yes, I have.

In the Holy Trinity registers I found the burial entry for Sarah Conroy

and her abode - where she lived - Cross Cheaping.

And a John Conroy later on, in 1870. I've made a note of him.

Their ages are given. He was 80 then.

The Cross Cheaping business interested me.

I decided to look in the trade directories and we were very lucky -

there was a John Conroy,

foreign and home fruit merchant and tea dealer, Cross Cheaping.

-There must be a connection between John and Sarah.

-Definitely.

-But what? Could he be her husband?

-Yes.

-It would fit in terms of dates.

He could well have been her husband.

Did you find any other Conroys?

Yes, there was an Ellen Conroy.

She was 35 when she was buried.

But she lived at Upper Well Street - 9 Upper Well Street.

John, when he was buried, later on,

lived at Upper Well Street.

So they're connected, anyway.

-So Ellen might be...

-She could be the daughter.

-She might have survived...

-She might.

-..as Sarah was dying.

Right. Where do we go from here? I want to know more about this family.

Well, after 1837, you can actually apply for death registers.

It would be well worth, although it's a long shot,

applying for copies of their death certificates.

Here, Coventry people register their births, marriages and deaths.

Hopefully, I'll find out more about Sarah and her relatives.

Sarah died before it was compulsory formally to register a death.

But the records of John and Ellen, who died later, should be available.

-Death certificates for John Conroy and Ellen Conroy.

-Thanks very much.

-Thank you. Bye.

-Bye.

These are absolutely fascinating.

There's Ellen Conroy who died, aged 34 years, of acute bronchitis.

She was a silk warper, whatever that is.

But John Conroy died, aged 80 years, of natural decay

and he was a fruiterer.

Next day, at the library, I met Judith

and city conservation officer George Demidowicz.

So are you fairly certain, then, that John and Sarah were married

-and that Ellen was their daughter?

-Yes.

-They also had a son, John...

-Right.

..in 1819.

They then had a James, and that James must have died,

because they baptised another James

and a Henry, who died as a child. Very sad.

That's one thing that struck me.

Ellen seems to have died, at a very young age, of acute bronchitis.

Of course it was January. It would be cold and damp.

What about where they were living?

-George, you've been finding out about Cross Cheaping.

-Yes.

From the rate books,

we discovered a John Conroy living in Cross Cheaping in the 1820s.

We thought it might be in this area just here.

Here is the burial ground where the Conroys are buried in the vault.

-Just literally around the corner.

-Just round the corner.

-So hang on.

-You then had to go where?

-To Warwick Record Office.

And this one that we've marked in yellow is the Conroy house,

because we found, in the rental,

John Conroy, from 20 January 1824,

paying a rent per half year of £6

up to 29 September 1829 when he disappears.

But because we now know which, precisely, is the building,

we've got later photographs

which show the building.

-There's the number. Very convenient.

-They knew we were coming,

because that's the only building with a number on the top.

-It's tall.

-It's timber framed.

It may have a medieval timber frame hiding in there.

-I want to see it.

-I'll show you.

-It's not very far from here.

-Really?

-No.

-Right!

I still find it hard to get my bearings around here, George.

-We're not far from the burial ground, are we?

-No, about 50 yards.

That timber-framed building is just in front of the Conroys' cemetery.

-If they're buried there, where did they live?

-They lived over here.

But hang on a minute. What happened to that?

The whole side of this street was redeveloped in the 1930s.

-And...

-It's gone completely, then?

-Completely.

This department store was built in the 1950s.

-So we can't see the house?

-No. We know where the site is, though.

We can lay old maps over new.

It's just interesting to see where the site was.

-You can tell exactly?

-We've worked it out from plans.

We've marked the position of the house.

-Right!

-You can see, it's partly under the department store

and partly in the pavement.

-Is it the back bit that pokes out?

-It's the back.

-Where should I be?

-In that direction. 4.5 metres.

Chalking towards you. Oops!

And now 3.5, roughly on a right angle. It only needs to be rough.

-OK, so that's 3.5.

-That's the back of the property.

To here. And we need a right angle.

-We need to go back towards Alders.

-OK.

I'll just chalk from here.

That's it then, is it?

This shows a fireplace. Let's put that in.

-That was on the back of the building.

-Right.

-Let's chalk it on here.

-Roughly speaking...

-It's slightly to one side.

-Yes.

Here's one side of the fireplace.

And the other one.

-Like that?

-Further over.

-There.

The fireplace on the back wall.

But, as you can see, the front of the building is...

Somewhere behind the sofas! What a shame.

It would have been lovely to come and find the actual house that they lived in.

Yes, but Coventry has suffered very much.

Lots of historic streets have been knocked down for redevelopment.

-So this is progress, is it?

-This is certainly progress in one direction.

I never thought we'd find out so much about the people in the vault.

They were the Conroy family -

Sarah, her husband, John, and daughter, Ellen.

We even know what they did for work.

John was a fruiterer. Ellen worked in the city's most important industry as a silk warper.

As our picture became clearer, there remained a question.

What was, or is, a silk warper?

Whitchurch in Hampshire is home to one of Britain's last silk mills,

where I met a modern silk warper, Claire Andrews.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-I need to know about what a silk warper does.

You don't wind these, do you?

Yes, we do. The silk comes to us in hanks.

Each thread is put through a series of reeds.

-Are those the comb-like things?

-Yes.

-That keeps them separate?

-Yes.

They then go through a finer reed.

'The warper's job is to take the threads that make up the pattern,

'and bring them to the width of the final piece of woven silk.'

And then start it rolling.

'They're wound round the warping mill before going for weaving.'

When I heard about Ellen being a silk warper, I had no idea what it involved.

How long did it take you to work it out?

A year to be confident in the process but a lot longer to learn about the patterns.

-Are you still learning?

-Yes, you never make the same mistake twice.

'Now I knew what a warper did, I wanted to know how Ellen would have fitted in with the mill workers.

'I found the answer from Christine, who runs the mill.'

Of the 100 people who were working here in the 1850s,

a quarter would have been weavers and the rest winders,

with a very few, under five, who would have been warpers like Ellen.

So she would have had a privileged place in the mill, making the warps.

How much did people get paid?

Weavers were paid more than winders, and warpers were paid more than weavers.

150 years ago, Coventry was famous for silk weaving.

Today, nearly all that's gone.

But the museum has a wonderful collection of silks.

Hugh Jones got them out to show me.

We've got a lot of samples in the museum.

This is one of the earliest ones that's survived.

They're so bright these colours.

They're all done with natural dyes and natural silk, at this stage.

That's what I expect, muted colours,

nothing as bright as these.

They're very intricate, aren't they?

The process was done by hand by the weaver.

-So it was a very skilled job.

-And very time consuming.

They were supposed to produce 36 yards in a week.

-A week!

-Yes, so long hours, long hours bent over a loom.

These are products of a thriving industry. What happened to it?

Well...it went into a very sharp decline in 1860 for various reasons.

One reason was that there was a treaty signed with France that lifted all the import duties

on French goods entering the country.

-Cheap foreign imports!

-Yes. France was the main competitor of Coventry in ribbon weaving.

French ribbons were produced more cheaply.

This must have caused hardship in the town.

For the individual weavers it was a very difficult few years.

Maybe Ellen's death is linked to the collapse of the silk industry

and the dreadful poverty that ensued.

-'Hello.'

-Mr Conroy?

-'Speaking.'

-I work for a BBC programme...

'We were searching for descendants of our Conroys,

'but without success.

'I called every Conroy in the book. No luck!'

-Do your family come from Coventry?

-'No, Stratford.'

-'From Ireland.'

-'The North-East.'

-'We're Geordies.'

The BBC...

'A radio appeal brought no response either.'

If anybody has information about any descendants, we'd like to hear from them.

-We can use your phone line.

-Yes.

The remains - we've found out all that we can - are going to be re-buried with a proper ceremony.

CHURCH ORGAN PLAYS

We brought nothing into the world and we take nothing out.

The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

'Five weeks after opening the vault,

'it's time for the final act.

'We feel we've grown to know this family.

'Now it's time to say goodbye.'

We have entrusted Sarah Conroy to God's merciful keeping.

We now recommit her remains to the ground -

earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust -

in the certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life,

through Jesus Christ who died, was buried

and who rose again for us.

To Him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Now Julian will say a few words about the Conroy family.

Thank you. We've been privileged to have this glimpse into the lives of this family,

who lived in Coventry so long ago

and whose lives seem to have been bound up with Coventry's history.

I feel it's very appropriate

that we disturbed their rest and we're now returning them to rest.

To take your interest in archaeology further, visit our website, or phone.

Subtitles by BBC Subtitling - 2000

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