Christopher Thomas Selth

Beach Street
5 Lower Street
3 North Street
35 Duke Street

Occupation: Ironmonger & Brazier

The son of Zachariah Selth and Sarah Mosier Aldridge, Christopher was a Brazier and Ironmonger who married Mary Ann Marsh on 14 July 1840, setting home in Beach Street where it is assumed that he also traded. Sometime between 1845 and 1847 they move to 5 Lower Street after Wheelwright Joseph Folwell vacates that premises. This must have been a prime site for his business as he stays there for at least twenty years, before he retires and moves to North Street.

Kentish Gazette – Tuesday 21 March 1848.

In 1848 Christopher advertises for an apprentice but who the young man was is unknown.  There certainly was no apprentice living with them when the 1851 census was taken so if the position was filled he must have been living at home.

By 1861 they have William Bailey Marsh, Mary Ann’s brother, living with them he continues to board with them until his death in 1881. Incidentally, he was a witness to their marriage. Also living with them is a domestic servant, Mary White, she stays with the Selth’s for at least twenty years which probably indicates that they were good employers and a happy household.

The couple don’t seem to have had any children so there was no one to pass the business on to when Christopher retired in the late 1870s. 

We can only imagine what he thought, a few years later, when it was reported in a Town Council Meeting and then in the newspaper that his former home and business premises were ‘antiquated’ and that it was to be knocked down and another property built.  

Deal, Walmer, Sandwich Telegraph dated 13 March 1878

‘Mr. Harrison, architect, produced a plan for rebuilding the antiquated- looking shop at the South-end of Lower Street, for many years occupied by Mr. Selth, ironmonger, and for extending the same over the vacant piece of ground to the south of it. The plan was sanctioned and permission given to proceed with the work’

Probate records tell us that when he died he Christopher left £2275 15s 2d who actually benefited from this we can not tell without purchasing a copy of the will. We do know, however, that it was not Mary Ann as she had died a year earlier in the first months of 1889 after nearly fifty years of marriage. 

Sources and further reading:
Kentish Gazette – Tuesday 21 March 1848
Newspaper image © The British Library Board. All rights reserved.
With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk).