Meet Ellen Sainsbury: For Women’s History Month
It was a summer morning when I met Ellen Sainsbury. The grass was tall, the sky trying to be blue and I was standing next to Ellen’s grave in Arnos Vale Cemetery.
She was the first stop on a tour of Bristol women whose souls rest in the Victorian cemetery in Bristol.
Born in 1837, in Stapleton, Ellen was the daughter of William Sainsbury, the innkeeper of The Three Blackbirds Inn on Stapleton Road, Easton. The pub closed permanently in 2020, but back in 1837 it was a detached country pub with gardens down to the River Frome, before the city built up around it and the river was diverted underground.
After helping her father in the pub, Ellen got a job in a refreshment room opposite Temple Meads in her early twenties. She must have impressed someone over the road, because soon she was working for the Bristol & Exeter Railway Company’s refreshment room in Temple Meads Station.
Over the next decade she grew her career in leaps, becoming the manager of the refreshment rooms at Cheddar Station and climbing until she was running the rooms at Temple Meads, Weston-Super-Mare, Chippenham and Salisbury.
In 1881, the census records tell us that Ellen was the Keeper of Refreshment Rooms, owning franchises across the railway network. For a woman in the late nineteenth century, this is impressive. This was a time when women couldn’t own property without a husband, couldn’t vote, could barely have their own money.
After a lot of thought, I believe the key to Ellen’s success was kindness and sticking to her values.
Let’s look at the facts…
When she left Temple Meads to work at Cheddar, several travellers on the railway clubbed together to buy her a gold watch inscribed: Presented to Miss Ellen Sainsbury…by friends who appreciate her worth…
She must have made such an impression – many of us dream of receiving such praise from our customers, colleagues or employer!
Ellen also had an eye for detail, always working on bringing the best service to her customers. As the manager of the Cheddar refreshment room, she laid tables with “exquisite taste” and even organised a dinner for the Duke of Edinburgh, son of Queen Victoria.
Throughout all of this, Ellen was stealing glances with someone. David Jeffries was the Cheddar station master and it’s easy to imagine them watching one another through the refreshment room windows.
Ellen and David married in 1887, when Ellen was 50 (which is said to be a fantastic age to marry). Ellen then spent some of her hard-earned fortune buying Harefield Hall in Willsbridge, although I hope she married for love rather than property buying rights.
Records show that Ellen was still working hard at 77, before she passed away at 80 in 1917. She’s proof that we can work well into old age if we need to or love what we do, as Ellen did, striking new deals and improving things for those around her whether at work or for the local community.
By the time she passed, she owned five big houses, seven farms (!), six cottages and pastures spread across South Gloucestershire, and the village of Cowhill which included more farms and a salmon fishery!
Her great wealth was divided between friends, staff at the refreshment rooms and Harefield Hall, and local hospitals that she’d spent her later life supporting.
Ellen Sainsbury is an inspiration, even from her peaceful resting place in the gardens of Arnos Vale Cemetery, where she still greets visitors as they enter.
More importantly, she lived a full life giving to others and getting plenty back. She was loved because of her kindness and hard work, and has earned a place on my list of role models.
