LiveTheirStory

This striking stone in Meeks’ cemetery, Chatteris, commemorates five members of the Shanks family. On one face are the names and dates of Reuben Shanks and his wife Ann. Another face has those of their daughter, Clara. A third records Sarah Shanks and Sarah Chapman. It’s pretty clear the stone is not contemporary with their recorded deaths, so I was intrigued to know more about their story, particularly as four of the five names are of the women in the family.

But let’s start with Reuben. Born in Bluntisham in 1831, he started out as an apprentice carpenter, probably working alongside his older brother Owen. He married Ann Shanks (a cousin) in 1857, and their first son, also Reuben, was born in the same year in Nottingham. Another son, George Cyrus, was also born in the East Midlands before the family settled in Somersham, where Reuben senior was working as a carpenter and joiner by 1861. Living with them was Ann’s widowed mother, Sarah, about whom more later. By 1871 the family had moved to Station Road, Chatteris, and 5 more children had arrived. Reuben was by this time a successful builder, ’employing 6 men and 2 boys’. His family grew, with two more sons born by 1881. Reuben was by now employing 7 men and apprentices, and no doubt benefiting from the later Victorian building boom in the town. The family business likely included his 16-year-old son Jesse, working as a carpenter and, by 1891, another son, Walter, was working as a bricklayer and the youngest, Frederick, was an apprentice carpenter.

Another young man who worked for the family was George Clare, who drove a builder’s cart for Reuben senior from the age of 12, but is better known as as a recipient of a VC for his service in WWI, and is celebrated in a short video produced by Chatteris museum. Meanwhile Reuben junior was now also married, and working as a timber merchant and builder, living just a couple of doors down from his parents in Station Street. He later moved to Victoria Street, and his signature building style became well-known around Chatteris. Sadly, he also experienced the loss of a child, his son Sydney dying at the age of 18. Reuben senior outlived Ann, who died in 1905, and himself died at the age of 87 in 1918.

Want to read more? >Shanks Memorial 2: Ann