George Dance (1843) the son of Edward (1807) was from the Newland district of the Forest of Dean and born at Berry Hill. 

His wife Mary Scriven (1844) came from Rockfield, Monmouth a few miles away. Her sister Ann Scriven (1837) was married to Monmouth born Edward Shellard (1836) who was clerk and verger at St Mary's Church, Monmouth in the late 19th century. 

George Dance (1843) was a tin-roller, the most skilled job in the tin-producing process. As a youth he had worked at the Redbrook tin plate works in the Forest of Dean as a furnace-man. He later  moved to the Llanelly area of South Wales in the 1860s and two of his children, George Edward (1868) and Frederick (1870) were born there.

Bishopswood Church  where Francis (1884) was christened, Mary (1882) was married and their parents George and Mary were buried

George Dance and three of his sons worked at the tin-plate works in Lydbrook, part of the Gloucestershire Forest of Dean area but only a couple of miles from the Herefordshire county border.

Lydbrook is a large village situated on the western edge of the Forest of Dean and adjacent to the Wye Valley. Many of the village houses are high on the valley hillsides. The Lydbrook valley was once the site of a thriving tinplate works, opened in 1871 and closed in 1925.  The old railway, built in 1872 to carry a branch railway line from Cinderford, a major feat of 19th century engineering, ran high along the hillside, and then crossed the valley on a huge viaduct on 90ft high stone piers. The viaduct was finally demolished in 1969. Without the heavy industry, the village is now a tranquil backwater.

Lydbrook in the early 20th Century

George returned to the Wye Valley/ Forest of Dean  in 1871 to the Lydbrook Tinplate Works after working at Llanelly, South Wales and spent the remainder of his working life there. 

His sons Frederick (1870),  Albert (1875) and George Edward Dance (1868) were also tin-plate workers. George Edward was only 12 years old when he started work  as a pickler in 1880.

He and Mary had 10 children. Two were born at Llanelly and the remainder around the Monmouth, Redbrook, Lydbrook area - all within a few miles of the Lydbrook works. 

Though some were born in South Wales they were all baptised in the Forest of Dean.

Lydbrook tin workers in 1911

Photo from the Forest of Dean Family History  web-site

Sarah Dance

1865

Born Redbrook

Married William Roberts (1863) from Carmarthenshire at Lydbrook in 1887

George Edward Dance

1868

Born Llanelly

Married Alice Martin (1869) at Lydbrook in 1894.

Frederick Dance

1870

Born Llanelly

Married Annie Simmonds (1867) at Monmouth in 1892.

Maria Dance

1872

Born Lydbrook

Married Anderson Frankish

Albert Dance

1875

Born Monmouth

Married Maud Magness (1867) in 1900 at Lydbrook

Clara Dance

1877

Born Welsh Bicknor

Married Ernest Bennett (1874) at Lydbrook in 1900.

William Dance

1880

Born Welsh Bicknor

Married Annie Green (1881) at Cheltenham in 1902

Mary Dance

1882

Born Welsh Bicknor

Married Ernest Ridgers (1883) at Bishopswood in 1908

Francis (Frank) Dance 

1884

Born Bishopswood

Married widow Mary Harries (nee Blanch) (1881) at Marylebone in 1925.

Edith Dance

1886

Born Waters Cross

Lodging and working at Monmouth staying with her Uncle & Aunt Shellard in 1901

George Dance's brother-in-law was Edward Shellard 1836-1906, the son of a River Severn waterman, who married Ann Scriven (1837) at Newnham in 1859. He was for 25 years the verger and sexton at St Mary's Church, Monmouth and is remembered on a small stone close to the church gates. His family are also mentioned in local history as early postmen at Monmouth.

"He has left us the example of a blameless life and a name known far beyond the walls of the Church."

The childless couple appear to have had close contact with the Dance family. Census forms show nephews and nieces staying at  St Mary's Cottage.  Edith Dance (1888) was lodging with them in 1891 and appears to be still there in 1901 when she was employed as a baker's shop assistant.

George Dance's home at Bishopswood. It was the family home till his death in 1924  and located nearly opposite the road up to Ruardean.

                   The old house today.

George's Funeral Notice

Ross Gazette - 27th of November 1924.

Funeral - The funeral of the late Mr George Dance, whose death was reported in our last issue, took place on Friday last at Bishopswood Church.

The service was read by the Rev. A H Bromfield (Vicar). The coffin bore the inscription: "George Dance. died Nov. 17th 1924, aged 84 years".

The chief mourners were Mr Geo Dance, Mr Fred Dance, Mr W Dance, and Capt Frank Dance MBE (sons);

Mrs Roberts, Mrs Frankish, and Mrs F.Bennett (daughters); 

Mr F Bennett (son in law), Mrs A Dance (daughter in law), Mr and Mrs J Wheatstone, Mr Corry Dance, Mr Bert Dance, (grandchildren),

Mr M O'Meara, Mr John Davies and Mr Goodfellow.

The floral tributes were very beautiful and bore expressions of sympathy and loving remembrance from the following: 

Rye, Anderson and Maud; Annie, Dot and Edith; George and Claude; Bert, Hilda, Will and Alice; Fred and Annie and family (Swansea); Edith, Bert and children (Boston, USA); to my dear father, from Frank; Dol, Ernie and the children (Windlesham); Will, Rose, Vera and Mabel (Cheltenham); Mr and Mrs Gilchrist; Maud and family; Mrs Clayton; Mr and Mrs Sheldon; Mr and Mrs Goodfellow; Mr A B Murray; Mr Maurice St. Clair O'Meara; Mr and Mrs J Phillips; With sincere sympathy, from staff at Curacho Ltd.

George's eldest daughter Sarah Ann Dance  was born at Redbrook in 1865.  She was employed as a kitchen maid at Sellersbrook House, Whitchurch in 1881. She married gardener William Lewis Roberts (1863) from Carmarthenshire at Lydbrook in 1887. They had three children, George 1887, William 1888, and Louis 1891.

On the 1891 census he appears as one of a number of gardeners employed at Wargrave Manor, Berkshire in 1891.
It appears that something happened to this family before 1901. There is apparently no sign of William or Sarah on the census. Louis is with his Dance grandparents and George with Uncle George Dance in South Wales.

Dance's Corner, Church Hill, Lydbrook

The home of George & Alice Dance

George's son George Edward Dance (1868 - 1927) was working with him at the Redbrook tinplate works as a pickler when only 12 years old.

He married local girl Alice Martin (1869) at Lydbrook in 1894 and was employed in the Aberdare area of South Wales as a plate-layer for the next ten years where three of his children Albert (1897), Hilda (1901), and William (1904), were born.

By 1907 he and Alice had returned to the Forest of Dean where their daughter Alice Claudia (1907) was born at Chamomile Green, Lydbrook. He was a sick man during the latter part of his 59 years, suffering from bronchial and asthmatic problems. His eyesight was also poor and was a contributing factor to an accident that later proved fatal when he walked into the path of a motor cycle not far from the church on Church Hill, Lydbrook around 9pm  one October evening in 1926. He was buried at Lydbrook on the 8th of January 1927. A witness at the inquest was his son, collier Albert Dance, who had been located at the Anchor Inn soon after the incident and rushed to assist his father.

Daughter Alice Dance (1907) married Coleford collier Edwin Brown (1904) at Lydbrook in 1928. 

Her brother, Albert Edward Dance (1897), who was a colliery engine driver, married Winifred Alice Roff (1910) at Lydbrook in August 1934. Her father was Lydbrook builder Edward Roff. They had two children, Winifred Dance (1935) and George E A Dance (1937).

William John Dance from Cheltenham (on left).  Born Welsh Bicknor 1880, son of George Dance, with his sister Maria who was born in 1873 at Redbrook.

Maria Frankish nee Dance and her husband Anderson are on the right.  

Will Dance and his housekeeper (his wife had died in 1921) on the left. 

"She (Maria) looks so much like my mother's sister in later life it's not funny!     Fay Widdicombe

Anderson and Maria spent most of their lives in Surrey but their grave is at Bishopswood churchyard.

William John Dance (1880) who was also born at Laundry Cottage, Welsh Bicknor to George (1843) and Mary, was a policeman in 1901. He married Annie Green at Cheltenham in 1902 and they had two sons, Ronald (1904) and Wilfred (1907). When he volunteered for army service as a 36 year old in 1916 he gave his trade as motor mechanic. He served with the Royal Engineers Railways Division who had the task of building and maintaining light railways supplying the front line troops. He was discharged in 1919 with the rank of Quartermaster Sergeant. He had a haulage business at Cheltenham throughout the 1920s. His wife Annie died in 1921.

His son Ronald Lionel Dance (1904) had a removals business at Cheltenham for many years.

George's daughter Mary Dance (1882) was born at Laundry Cottage in the village of Welsh Bicknor. She married Ernest William Ridgers (1884) from Windlesham, Surrey at All Saints Church, Bishopswood near Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire, on the 1st of August 1908. The marriage certificate has Ernest's father  entered as 'William Ridgers - Builder', and Mary's as 'George Dance- Tin Roller'.

Ernest and Mary Ridgers first moved to Pleasant View, Updown Hill, Windlesham and later, probably after the death of Ernest's father in 1915, settled at the old family home in Church Road and had eight children. Four boys and four girls. Ernest (1911), Allan (1913), Stanley (1915), Dorothy (1910), Vera, Norah, Harold and  Muriel (1921).

Mary Dance around 1930

George's youngest son Francis (Frank) Dance christened at Bishopswood in 1884 was boarding at Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire in 1901 employed as a corn merchant's clerk. 

He married a  Ross bank manager's widow Mary Elizabeth Harries (1881)  at Marylebone, London in 1925 and returned to Bishopswood. She was formerly Mary Elizabeth Blanch a farmer's daughter who was born there and probably knew the Dance family when her father Richard Blanch was farming at Green Farm, Welsh Bicknor in the 1880s.

Frank was a vicar employed in the Hereford Diocese office at the end of the 1950s and died there in 1961.

From "Forest Mercury" October 1924

"A representative of the Forest of Dean newspapers, interested in the appearance of a new industry in the Forest of Dean, was courteously received by Capt. F. Dance, the Managing Director at the Curacho factory and headquarters, adjoining the post office at Lydbrook. Here the Company found suitable premises designed for a mineral water manufactory and erected by Mr.  E. J. Glewellyn, who is now to double or treble the capacity of the place to provide for the future expansion of the enterprise." 

"This is considered to be assured, as the Company have a well authenticated remedy to offer and will express their convictions about it in the form of publicity. "Curacho" was originally owned by a very old man, who treated it more or less as a hobby to produce a few dozen bottles a day.

There is of course a secret recipe and our representative was not invited behind the locked door where the preparation was being made ready for the up-to-date bottling plant. The remedy (the comprehensive utility of which is quite fully explained elsewhere) is extensively stocked by chemists and naturally, those who live near the place of preparation will not find it difficult to get supplies. 

Frank's home in the 1920s. Bishopswood Grange taken around 1900.

A private company with a capital of £8000 has been formed to take over the business from Capt. Dance who acquired the recipe. The Directors include Lord Doune. M.C., son of the Earl of Moray (Chairman) and Major C. J. Vaughan. of Courtfield.There is an interesting story to be told of Capt Dance and his war time associations with Lord Doune.

"There will be many still who remember Capt. Dance as a  Lydbrook boy, bred and born and educated in the border village. Apprenticed very early in life to Thornycrofts the ship builder at Chiswick, he subsequently acted as a clerk at Tewkesbury and at Messers Cadbury's before joining the Bank of New Zealand with whom he has remained to this day, serving them both in London and New Zealand, except for an interregnum resulting from the war.

Captain Dance received a commission and rose to be adjutant to the 3/7th Middlesex Regiment. Then he was transferred to the Air Force for administrative duty. He was appointed Staff Captain and eventually became ADC to the Chief of the Air Force, Sir John Salmond when Lord Doune, who had been acting in that capacity, crashed in a gallant and triumphant affair with a giant Fokker which he brought down, gaining the M.C.

After recovering, Lord Doune rejoined the General for duty, but Capt. Dance kept his post, Sir John wisely deciding that two such ADCs were better than one.

Capt. Dance was mentioned in despatches and awarded the MBE. On demobilisation he returned to his appointment with the New Zealand Bank, but "Curacho" will have his undivided attention in the future.

Note by Tom - We have no record of Curacho's closure. It was still there in 1927 but was replaced according to local directories by the Spring Water works by 1931. Ian's note below records him abroad in February 1929 and we know that Frank was already a curate at Aylesford in Kent from May 1932. The small industrial area at Lydbrook is still in use today and was  known locally from the 1930s as the "Pop factory". 

A note from Ian Pearson who is a descendant of James Dance (1806-81)

As an archivist I was once seconded to the Anglican Diocese of Egypt and spent three months in Cairo sorting and listing their archives.  In one file I happened to notice this:

Letter to Bishop Gwynne, Anglican Bishop for Egypt
18 Feb 1929
From Captain Frank Dance, 
No.4 Flying Training School
RAF Abu Sueir, Egypt

He offers himself for ordination (no reply to this letter on file, but see below).
Says he is 44 and married.  He is an organist and at present plays for the church at Ismailia.
'As a youth I was an ardent worker and preacher in many chapels in Monmouthshire'.
He began work at 14 as a Bank Clerk then emigrated to New Zealand.
During WW1 he was a staff Captain and ADC to the Chief of the RAF in the field. 
Awarded the MBE

* Ismailia is located on Lake Timsah along the coast of the Canal, half-way between Port Said and Suez. 

 *Abu Suwayr Air Base is an Egyptian Air Force base, located approximately 17 km west of Ismailia (Al Isma`iliyah); 116 km northeast of Cairo. From 1921 it was the home of the RAF No.4 Flying   School. During World War II the airfield, then known as RAF Abu Sueir, was used by the RAF and the United States Army Air Force during the North African Campaign.

Frank's wife Mary Elizabeth had four children, Barbara Harries (1910), James L.B (Bill) Harries (1915),  Mary Helena Frances Harries (1919) all born at Ross from her first marriage and Maud Elizabeth Dance (1926) from the second.

Frank's grand-daughter Judith relates - "He fought in WWI and was a Captain mentioned in despatches. He was awarded the MBE. 
In 1926 my mother (Maud Elizabeth Dance) was born and they were living at Bishopswood Grange just outside Ross. He was a company director at that point. He was ordained as a priest in 1932 and was Chaplain at RAF Locking (Weston Super Mare) during WW2. As a child I knew him to be a vicar in Hereford."

May 4th 1927 - Times

The other tales that my mother told me were that they travelled to Egypt when she was very young. She can remember the flies and riding on a camel. My grandmother had a mosquito bite on her leg which went septic. She had to come home early from Egypt for treatment and my mother remembered Mary being winched on a stretcher onto the ship. After becoming a priest he was Chaplain of the Anglican Church in Geneva. This was so the priest there could go back to England for a break. My mother said that she remembered the Nazi flags on the German embassy.  I have been there and have a photo of the church and my mother gave me a print of the it. 

I have finally obtained Frank's death certificate as promised and  my memory of what my mother said was fairly accurate. He had, sadly, developed senility and I remember her saying he had an obsession with the idea that he had stomach cancer. 
He had been living at The Cedars, Walford, Ross. He died in Burghill Hospital in Hereford on 3rd November 1961 aged 77.
I continued to have contact with the Forest of Dean as we went to visit my mother's cousins Ena and Kath, both of whom knew my grandfather as a young man. 

Ena lived in Lydbrook in a house that is now called the 'Old Bakery' and Kath lived near Tretire Farm. There was another much older cousin called Maude who lived in Lydbook when she retired.    Judith

Yes I remember Rev Frank Dance. He was my step grandfather. Mary Elizabeth, formerly Harries, his wife, was my grandmother. I remember visits to their home at 1 Folly Lane, Hereford, during the 1950s. They had one daughter Maud Elizabeth (Betty). She married Thomas Powell, farmer of Much Marcle and they had four children. 

I do remember Frank Dance as being very kind to me as a child.  I recall being taken down to his cellar where he was drying his home grown tobacco.  Also visiting what I think must have been his parish church in Hereford which was a green corrugated iron building. I understand that Mary Elizabeth Dance died on 19 Jan 1965 at Bradley Court Nursing Home, Mitcheldean and her cremated remains are in the same grave as her parents in English Bicknor.      Martin Arthur

Welsh Bicknor Church - No longer in use.

Newland Church, Forest of Dean

Colliery engine driver William James Dance who was born in 1904, the son of  George Edward Dance (1868), married Clara Wilce  at Lydbrook in 1928. Tragically, he lost his wife and new born daughter Joan within a few months of each other in 1930.

Clara was born in 1910 the daughter of Frederick Wilce and Mary Ravenhill.

Taken eight years before Clara's birth, the photo shows the Ravenhill and Wilce families outside the shop which was situated next door to the Jovial Collier's Public House in Lydbrook.

William Dance remarried at Coleford in August 1939. She was Alfreda Tudor Carter (1906) from Victoria Road, Coleford. They had a daughter Sheila Dance (1943).

Sylvia Ravenhill who later became the shop owner (Mrs S Hall) is standing in the doorway.
Frederick Wilce is holding son Merrick. Thomas Ravenhill and his wife Eliza, Daisy Ravenhill in the black dress. Mary Wilce (nee Ravenhill) is  holding son George.
The small girl in the front is Winifred Wilce who later became Winnie Evans.

My sincere thanks to the Forest of Dean Family History  web-site and Margaret Wilce for this photo and memory.

Welsh Bicknor in the early 1900s

The old school at Welsh Bicknor

It would struggle to hold more than 20 pupils. The school closed in the 1920s following the retirement in her 70s through ill health, of long serving teacher Miss Gunter who lived on Coppet Hill.

Then

Now

Old cottage photo kindly supplied by Chris of Welsh Bicknor YHA

Laundry Cottage, Welsh  Bicknor. Mary and her brother William Dance's riverside birthplace. Updated and enlarged in the 1950s and now staff quarters for Welsh Bicknor Youth Hostel. It is only accessible on foot along the river-bank path.

In the 1950s the cottage was altered and modernised. The owners used it as a weekend and holiday home. Unfortunately noise from the Edison Swan works forced them to sell, apparently to the factory owners.

Immediately across the river from around 1912 was the home of the Lydbrook Cable Works. In 1925, the business was bought by the Edison Swan Electric Company. At its peak the plant employed around 1100 people. The Cable Works closed  in 1966, but then the factory was bought by the Reed Paper Group who operated from there until the 1990s. The site is now derelict.

Aerial photo of Laundry Cottage (top left corner) in 1950. The railway bridge is still standing but only used as a footpath. The Cable Works and Lydbrook Junction are across the river.

From Bishopswood Church. The 1908 entry for the marriage of Ernest Ridgers and Mary Dance and the now flattened gravestone of George and Mary Dance, George's sister Maria, and her husband Anderson Frankish. The Frankishs lived  in Surrey most of their lives but their grave is at Bishopswood.