From Clement to Clemersons

Pondering over the guest blog post written by Tony Jarram recently about artists in Loughborough, I was idly looking through some notes, when I spotted someone who classed themselves as a landscape painter, who at one time was living on Sparrow Hill.

Clement Edwards Pike was born in Quorn in 1859 almost the youngest child of James Carey Pike, born in Derby on 26 June 1817, and his wife Maria Balm, born in Quorn, who married in 1851. There were eight children in all. On the 1861 census, James was listed as a Baptist minister, while Maria was listed as a lace manufacturer, employing 31 men, 16 boys and 22 girls, the factory being on Leicester Road Quorn, and the family were living in Quorn. The Quorn company made twisted lace, silk net and cotton-tatting, and was at one time called Balm & Hill. For more information see:

http://www.quornmuseum.com/display.php?id=1035  AND http://www.quornmuseum.com/display.php?id=1614 AND 

http://mountsorrelarchive.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/KFO_294-Melville-Directory-1854.pdf

Anyway, back to the Pikes!

This was James Pike’s second marriage. His first had been to Lucy Wherry from Bourne, in 1839, and together they had at least three children, but Lucy died in 1850. James then married Maria and had another five children. When Clement was 12, his elder brother, Joseph was a medical student at St Thomas’s hospital in London, and when Clement was 17, his father died in 1876. On the 1871 census, the family were living in Leicester, but quite what Clement was doing between 1871 and 1881 I don’t know, but on the 1881 census returns, Clement is listed a being art 30 Sparrow Hill, in the home of his brother James, who is a physician and surgeon. Their widowed mother, Maria, their younger sister, Caroline Annie, and their nieces Jane and Florence are also listed here.

For occupation Clement has been recorded as a landscape artist. As yet, I have been unable to trace any paintings Clement may have done, nor have I been able to trace him on the 1891 census returns. UPDATE: Thanks to one of the Loughborough Library Local Studies Volunteers (LLLSVs), Clement has been found on the 1891 census, masquerading as Clement Rike - at least according to the transcriber!!!! He is living with his sister Caroline and servant Kate Chapman, from Loughborough, at N0.10 Bramshill Gardens, Kentish Town. He is listed as a Minister of Religion,  Free Christian Unitarian Church.  

On the 1901 census, Clement is now recorded as being a Unitarian Minister, living on Carisbrooke Road on the Isle of Wight with his sister, Caroline Annie. By 1911 they had moved to Taunton Road, Bridgewater in Somerset, where they continued to live until at least 1919.

Clement died in 1928 at no.88 Leicester Road, Loughborough, although he was living in Mill Brook, Tavistock at the time. No.88, until recently the De Montfort Hotel, was the home of his sister, who had moved to Loughborough on her marriage, so presumably Clement was visiting her. She and her husband lived at the White House (formerly Maher’s the off-licence) on Leicester Road. Caroline had married relatively late in life, in 1923, at the age of 63, and she outlived her new husband, who died 2 years after their marriage, in 1927, by 10 years. Caroline died in 1937, and at the time she was living on Stanley Street.

So, the journey from Clement to Clemersons and the connection is that Clement’s sister, Caroline Annie, had married Henry Clemerson, a member of the Clemerson family who are so fondly remembered by many folk in Loughborough for their department store in the town centre.

You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follow:

Dyer, Lynne (2020). From Clement to Clemersons. Available from:https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2020/04/from-clement-to-clemersons.html [Accessed 19 April 2020]

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Lynne