1800-1830

PLACING BETTS

 

There are records of land in Mary Ann Street in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter at this time, assigned to Edward’s sons, John Betts (1774-1864) (born in Sheffield on 30 December, came to Birmingham in 1785 - my great great great grandfather ) and his brother William Betts (1777-1869) who continued the business together.  Their cousin was Robert Kirby, High Sheriff of London.

 

John was head of the firm in the 1830s and 1840s at a time when, amongst the precious metals, gold was king.  He was also head of what was a prominent Birmingham family and took a keen part in community affairs. (A list of members of a musical society in Birmingham, the Anacreontic Society, dated 1793, contains his name.)  There are contemporary records of his writing to his friend in Australia, Captain John Hepburn, to implore him “to search well the creeks and the hills” of the area of Victoria as he was sure he was “walking over untold treasure every day”.

 

The Betts were friends with another Birmingham family, the Rudders.  In 1824, one of John’s children, Emma (1802-1883), married Enoch Rudder (1801-1888), an erudite but restless man of many interests.  Amongst his writings, we see the earliest records, not only of environmental invention (Enoch was one of Britain’s first clean air exponents, producing engineering drawings for the reduction of toxic flue gases from foundry furnaces) but also of the family passion for science and natural history: he wrote, for example, of bird life, swarming ants and the dissection of a slow-worm.  Emma and Enoch sailed for Australia with their family on 27 August 1833 on the Princess Victoria out of Liverpool.  On the voyage, Enoch conducted many experiments, writing them up for the Birmingham Philosophical Institution and the London Geographical Society. In Australia, Enoch founded the town of Kempsey in New South Wales and led an intriguingly chequered life, but that is quite another story.  Much of it has been recorded by his great grandson, Major Lionel Rudder, and published (1986) by the Kempsey Shire Council. (See also 1849 below.)

 

In 1818 Louis de Koehler (1799-1871) (right) was granted his medical licence from the University of France (see gallery).  This famous doctor was the first to use heated electrical wire in surgery. His daughter, Frances, married Hyla Holden and Annabella Betts’ son (another John) – see below. 

 

1826. The beautiful Annabella (1808-1893) married Hyla Holden Betts, one of Enoch Rudder’s sisters.