GEORGE BASING

BASING  (Vault in Newtown Cemetery W 134)

7 interments   BASING       George  (saddler)   died 1867

                            “               Martha   (wife)       died 1888

                            “               John Edward (son) died 1881

                           “               Richard   (son)        died 1893

                        MATHEWS    James George (grandson)  died 1948

                               “                Annie     (wife of J G M)   died 1902

                               “                Martha A W  (daughter of George Basing)  died 1916

George Basing (bpt. Chieveley October 1793) set up a saddlery business in Mansion House Street (later 6 Market Place) Newbury probably in the 1820s.  His younger sons

John and Richard were employed in the shop making saddles and harnesses, the eldest son George went to London, became a timber merchant and died in Isleworth in 1873. In the 1881 Census James George Mathews (son of George’s daughter Martha) was working in Chute, Wiltshire as a harness maker.  (He was brought up in Newbury and went to St. Bartholomew’s Grammar School)  At the height of the horse-drawn era, James had his own shop in the Broadway.  When the motor car took over from horses, James retired and in 1927 bought No. 1 Donnington Square and the businesses were amalgamated at 46 Cheap Street as Basing and Mathews.  The last directory entry is in 1963, by 1965 it was Poulter, estate agents.

Sources 1881 Census, parish registers, directories and the obituary in the Newbury Weekly News for J G Mathews.

Sources:various