William Mustard Ferry was born on Wednesday, 26 May 1886, at 15 Crescent Row, Sunderland, Durham, England. He was the son of William Ferry (1864–1945) and Dorothy Mustard (1867–1935).
William was born into a Sunderland that was firmly shaped by industry. By the time of his birth in 1886, the River Wear was lined with shipyards, engineering works, docks, warehouses and coal-handling facilities, and shipbuilding had become one of the defining industries of the town. Sunderland had been building ships for centuries, but during the nineteenth century the industry expanded enormously. By the 1880s, iron had largely replaced wood and steel was increasingly being used in the construction of large cargo vessels and tankers.
For a working family such as the Ferrys, this industrial landscape would have been impossible to ignore. The sounds of shipbuilding, the movement of carts and railway wagons, the smoke from industrial chimneys and the constant activity around the River Wear formed part of everyday life. Employment in the yards and associated trades could provide a livelihood for generations, and William would eventually become part of this great industrial workforce himself.
Childhood in Bishopwearmouth
The 1891 Census records five-year-old William living at 2 Cliffe Terrace, Bishopwearmouth, Sunderland, with his family.
Bishopwearmouth was one of the historic settlements that had grown alongside Sunderland. The opening of the first Wearmouth Bridge in 1796 helped connect Bishopwearmouth with Monkwearmouth and Sunderland, encouraging the expansion of the town and the development of new residential streets.
The housing around Bishopwearmouth and the expanding industrial districts consisted largely of modest terraces and rows of working-class houses. Families often lived in relatively small homes, sometimes with several people sharing bedrooms. Streets were closely packed, reflecting the rapid growth of Sunderland’s population during industrialisation.
William’s childhood was therefore spent within a community where home and workplace were often closely connected. The shipyards and engineering works provided employment for thousands of local men, while shops, public houses, chapels, churches, schools and other businesses grew to serve the expanding population.
At this time William was simply a young boy growing up in an industrial town, but the environment around him was already shaping the future that awaited him.
A young man enters the shipbuilding industry
By the 1901 Census, William was fifteen years old and living at 49 Thomas Street South, Southwick, Sunderland, with a household of nine people.
Most importantly, his occupation was recorded as:
Ship Plate Rivetter
This was a skilled and physically demanding occupation within the shipbuilding industry.
A rivetter was responsible for joining sections of metal plate together using rivets. Before modern welding became commonplace, riveted construction was fundamental to the building of iron and steel ships. Heated rivets were driven through holes in overlapping plates and hammered into place, creating strong joints capable of withstanding the enormous stresses placed upon a ship’s hull.
William’s work placed him directly within the great transformation taking place on the River Wear. Sunderland had moved from wooden ship construction towards iron and steel, and by William’s teenage years steel shipbuilding was becoming increasingly important. Sunderland’s shipyards were producing increasingly large vessels, many of them destined for customers overseas.
It is easy to imagine the young William entering this world of enormous steel plates, rivets, cranes, scaffolding, furnaces and hammering machinery. The work was noisy, dirty and potentially dangerous, but it was also highly skilled. Men such as William were essential to the construction of the ships upon which Britain’s expanding trading economy depended.
Marriage and life at Wear Street
On 21 November 1910, William acted as a witness at the marriage of his brother George Clark Ferry and Sarah Harrison at Sunderland Register Office.
Only a few months later, William himself married Elizabeth Foster. Their marriage took place in Sunderland around January 1911.
The 1911 Census, taken on 2 April, records William and Elizabeth living together at:
28 Wear Street, Sunderland
They were the only two people in the household, and William was recorded as a plate rivetter in shipbuilding.
This was an important period in William’s life. At twenty-four years of age he was a married man with a skilled trade, living close to the industrial world that provided his livelihood.
Wearside’s shipbuilding industry was enormous by this time. Sunderland had become one of Britain’s principal shipbuilding centres, with large yards operating along the Wear. Shipbuilding was not simply a matter of constructing vessels; it supported a huge network of trades including boilermakers, rivetters, platers, engineers, joiners, painters, labourers, shipwrights and many others.
William’s occupation therefore connected him directly to one of the industries that gave Sunderland much of its identity and prosperity.
Family life and tragedy
William and Elizabeth had two children:
- Alice Mary Ferry, born in Sunderland around October 1912.
- William Mustard Ferry, born in Sunderland around April 1916.
The family’s happiness was sadly short-lived.
Elizabeth was born in Sunderland in 1884 and died at only 35 years of age, at 5 Trimdon Street West, Sunderland, in December 1919.
She was buried at Bishopwearmouth Cemetery, Ward 16, Section A, Grave 1182, on 16 December 1919.
Elizabeth’s death came at a particularly difficult time. The First World War had only recently ended, and Sunderland had experienced the pressures and disruption associated with wartime industry. Shipbuilding on the Wear had been heavily involved in maintaining Britain’s wartime supply lines, and the industry was adapting to the difficult transition from war to peace.
For William, however, the national story became a very personal tragedy. He was left widowed with two young children.
A new life in Wales
Around April 1924, William married for a second time. His bride was Winifred Violet Diggins, known within the family as Winnie.
The marriage took place in Cardiff, Glamorgan, and marked a major change in William’s life. He had left the industrial landscape of Sunderland and established himself in Penarth, just across the water from Cardiff.
Penarth had undergone an extraordinary transformation during the nineteenth century. Once a relatively small settlement, it expanded rapidly following the development of Penarth Dock, which opened in 1865, and the arrival of the railway. The dock was built primarily to handle the export of coal from the South Wales coalfield. Housing developed around the dock to accommodate the growing workforce.
William’s move to Penarth therefore did not take him away from an industrial community. Instead, he had moved from one great maritime and industrial centre to another.
Working in Penarth
By the 1921 Census, William was living at:
7 Andrew Road, Penarth, Glamorgan
He was thirty-five years old, widowed, and recorded as out of work – boilermaker.
This occupational change is particularly interesting.
His earlier occupation in Sunderland had been that of a plate rivetter, while in Penarth he was described as a boilermaker. These trades were closely related. Both involved working with heavy iron and steel plates, riveting, forming and assembling metal structures. A skilled rivetter could therefore have possessed experience that was valuable in boiler construction and repair.
Boilermaking was an important industrial skill in a region dominated by coal, railways, docks and heavy engineering. Boilers were essential to steam-powered machinery, ships, locomotives and industrial works.
The fact that William was recorded as out of work in 1921 is also significant. South Wales entered a difficult economic period after the First World War. The coal industry and associated heavy industries experienced serious difficulties during the inter-war years, and unemployment became a major problem.
William’s experience of unemployment would have been especially difficult for a man whose entire working life had been built around heavy industry.
Penarth in the 1920s
Penarth itself had a very distinctive character during this period. It was both an industrial dock town and a fashionable seaside resort.
The railway connection to Cardiff, established in the nineteenth century, encouraged further growth, while the seafront, pier, hotels and shops attracted visitors. At the same time, the dock continued to handle large quantities of coal and employed men in a wide variety of occupations.
The contrast between the different parts of Penarth would have been striking. There were attractive Victorian and Edwardian villas and terraces overlooking the sea, but there were also more modest streets where dock workers and industrial families lived.
William and Winifred’s life belonged to this working community.
During the 1920s the economic situation became increasingly difficult. The South Wales coal industry suffered badly, and unemployment spread throughout the region. Penarth itself experienced a reduction in employment during the decade, while the docks began their long decline.
For families dependent upon skilled industrial work, employment could be uncertain, and William’s experience of being out of work in 1921 provides a glimpse into these wider economic difficulties.
William and Winifred’s family
William and Winifred had four children:
- Lilian Frances Ferry, born in Cardiff around April 1924. Sadly, she died only a few months later, around June 1924.
- Peter William John Ferry, born in Cardiff on 10 December 1925. He died at Llandough Hospital, Penarth, on 6 June 2009, aged 83.
- Bryan Ferry, born in Cardiff around July 1930.
- Jean Celia Ferry, born in Cardiff on 17 May 1932.
The loss of little Lilian must have been devastating for William and Winifred, particularly following the death of William’s first wife, Elizabeth, only a few years earlier.
Nevertheless, the family continued to grow, and William remained connected to the industrial world through his work as a rivetter and boilermaker.
Glebe Street and the approach of war
By 29 September 1939, William and Winifred were living at:
41 Glebe Street, Penarth
William was then 53 years old and was recorded as a:
Rivetter and Boilermaker
This occupational description brings his working life full circle. The young boy who had entered the Sunderland shipbuilding industry as a plate rivetter had spent more than three decades working with metal and heavy engineering.
His trade would soon become important once again.
The Second World War dramatically changed Penarth. The docks became strategically important and were reopened for wartime use. Ships carrying ammunition, bombs, vehicles, petrol, aircraft parts and other military supplies passed through the port. Penarth was subjected to bombing raids because of the importance of the docks and its proximity to Cardiff.
The bombing of 4 March 1941 was particularly severe, with large numbers of high-explosive and incendiary bombs falling on the town. Houses in Glebe Street were among those damaged or destroyed.
This gives particular significance to the family’s address at 41 Glebe Street. William and his family were living in an area directly affected by the dangers of wartime Penarth.
For a man whose working life had been spent constructing and repairing ships and boilers, the war would have brought a renewed importance to his skills. Rivetters and boilermakers were part of the industrial workforce needed to maintain the ships, machinery and infrastructure upon which the war effort depended.
Later years in Penarth
By 1949, William and Winifred were living at:
9 Arcot Street, Penarth.
Arcot Street was situated within the established Victorian town, close to the centre of Penarth and the network of streets that had developed as the town expanded around the dock and railway.
By this time William was in his early sixties. After a lifetime of heavy industrial work, he had spent many years working with steel, boilers and ships. His career had followed the industrial story of two very different communities: Sunderland on the River Wear and Penarth beside the Bristol Channel.
Both places had been transformed by maritime trade, shipbuilding, docks and the movement of goods and people.
The death of William Mustard Ferry
William Mustard Ferry died in Glamorgan around January 1951, aged approximately 64.
His life had spanned an extraordinary period of industrial change.
He was born during the great age of Sunderland shipbuilding, grew up among the terraces of Bishopwearmouth and Southwick, and entered the shipbuilding industry as a teenager. He became a skilled plate rivetter, later working as a boilermaker and rivetter, trades that connected him directly to Britain’s maritime and industrial economy.
He experienced marriage, widowhood, remarriage and the raising of two families. He also experienced unemployment, the loss of a young child, and the enormous upheaval brought by two World Wars.
His story is also the story of migration for work. Like many industrial workers of his generation, William’s life was shaped by the availability of skilled employment. His move from Sunderland to South Wales took him from one major industrial community to another, where the same knowledge of metalworking and ship-related trades could be put to use.
Winifred Violet Ferry
William’s second wife, Winifred Violet Diggins, survived him by many years.
Known as Winnie, she was born on Christmas Day, 25 December 1904, and lived through most of the twentieth century.
After William’s death, Winifred later married John Oatten in 1955 in Glamorgan.
She eventually lived at St Luke’s Avenue, Penarth, and died suddenly but peacefully at Cardiff Royal Infirmary on 21 April 1987, aged 82.
Her death notice in the South Wales Echo remembered her as the beloved wife of the late Jack, a devoted mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. Her funeral took place from Lavernock Court Funeral Home, followed by a service at Thornhill Crematorium.
Winifred’s long life meant that she carried memories of William and of the family they had built together well into the later twentieth century.
William’s working life and his place in history
William Mustard Ferry’s occupations tell us much about the world in which he lived.
To modern eyes, plate rivetter and boilermaker may seem like simply entries on census forms, but they represented highly skilled industrial occupations. William worked with the materials and techniques that allowed huge steel ships and industrial machinery to be constructed.
His working life also illustrates the importance of industrial migration. Sunderland’s shipyards had provided his first opportunity, while Penarth offered another industrial environment in which his skills could be used.
He belonged to a generation of men whose physical labour helped build Britain’s industrial and maritime infrastructure.
Every rivet William drove into a plate was part of something larger: ships that carried coal, goods and people around the world; machinery that powered industry; and vessels that became increasingly important during times of war.
Behind the census entries, addresses and occupational descriptions is therefore the story of a working man whose life was closely tied to the industrial history of both Wearside and South Wales.
From Crescent Row in Sunderland, through Bishopwearmouth, Southwick and Wear Street, and later to Andrew Road, Glebe Street and Arcot Street in Penarth, William’s life followed the changing fortunes of two communities shaped by the sea, the docks and heavy industry.
His story is a reminder that family history is not only about dates and names. The streets where our ancestors lived, the buildings they passed every day, the industries that surrounded them and the work they performed all help us understand the lives they actually lived.
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