Elizabeth Luxton

Elizabeth Wills Luxton was born on 25 June 1860, at Leat Terrace, Exeter, in the county of Devonshire in south west England. She was the first wife of Frederick Louis Wood, and the mother of Richard, Louis, Joseph, William and Arthur Wood. Elizabeth was the second of two children born toThomas Luxton (a labourer) and Mary Wills (a servant), both natives of Whitestone, Devon, who were married in Exeter St Thomas, in January 1852. Her brother, Richard, was eight years her senior, and was a sailor in the Royal Navy. The Luxtons came from the village of Topsham, now part of the city of Exeter. In Elizabeth's day, Topsham was a separate village: a small and ancient port on the estuary of the River Exe. Three generations of Elizabeth's Luxton ancestors had worked in the village as lightermen, ie bargemen who carried cargoes between Topsham Quay and the ships anchored in the Exe Estuary.

Topsham, Devonshire, as Elizabeth Luxton knew it

Photos: The Topsham Town Web site

Views of Fore Street, Topsham (the main street in the village)

Elizabeth Luxton's forebears worked as lightermen on the River Exe, ferrying cargo to and from the ships in the estuary.

On 3 February 1878, at the age of seventeen, Elizabeth married Frederick Louis Wood at the Parish Church of St Thomas, in Exeter. Frederick was a 21-year-old Gunner in the Royal Horse Artillery, stationed at Topsham Army Barracks. Their first son, Richard, was born in Exeter in April 1880. Shortly after Richard's birth, Frederick left the Army and took his young family to live at No.19 Best Street, in his native Chatham, where he found work as a journeyman bricklayer.

Best Street, Chatham.

Like much of central Chatham, Best Street (the street on the right in the picture above left) was heavily bombed during World War Two, and the house which Elizabeth and Frederick Wood occupied in 1880-81 no longer survives. The only surviving building on Best Street which they would have been familiar with is the Zion Synagogue, pictured above right.

In the five years following Richard's birth, Elizabeth and Frederick Wood had four more sons in quick succession: Louis (b.1881), Joseph (b.1883), William (b.1884) and Arthur (b.1885). Elizabeth fell pregnant with her sixth child in the winter of 1887, but suffered a miscarriage at her home at 5 Alpha Place, Greenwich Marshes, Kent, on 28 February 1888. Elizabeth Wills Luxton died from complications resulting from her miscarriage, on 4 March 1888, and so did not live to see the fate of her sons in the Boer War and World War One. At the time of her death, Elizabeth was 28 years old: she left five sons, the oldest of whom was seven.

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