Robert Witty

Robert Witty was born in Etton, a little East Yorkshire village in an area where his his family had lived for over a century. In 1871 he was a farm servant living on a farm at Harpham, another East Yorkshire village. He married Hannah Maddock on 25th December 1875 in Leeds and gave his occupation as grocer. In 1881, still in Leeds, he is working as a cartman and in 1901, when the family were living at 21 Bedford Place (they moved there between 1875 and 1888) he is a corporation drayman and there are eight lodgers in the house besides the family.

Elizabeth’s sister Charlotte is living there with her husband Fred Hurrand and their six month old son, Percy, who was also to move to Rubery and the Austin and was reputed to have fought Walter in the village. In 1911 there are five lodgers and Robert is unable to work. On 8th March 1907 he had endorsed Dr Macaun’s miracle cure in the Yorkshire Evening Post but it had presumably lost its efficacy.