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Brentford in the 1940s and 1950s

In June 2025 Shirley, a descendant of the Dorey family, sent memories of her visits to Brentford High Street with her father. She also provided information about her Dorey family.

I have exchanged a few emails with Janet McNamara in connection with my own research on the Dorey family in Brentford and Chiswick. Janet has encouraged me to contact you with my findings on the origins of the Dorey family who founded the Joseph Dorey building business, but I have also added some other connections which my father had.

I am the daughter of Francis William Dorey who was born in York Rd, Brentford in 1901 and I was born in Chiswick. My father had a lifelong association with Brentford, although as a family we moved to Harrow, Middlesex in 1935.

Visits to Brentford High Street

Dad followed Brentford FC from childhood to grave and was a season ticket holder for many years!

His connections with the High Street were through his association with the Bohee family, printers, and Marriner, the butcher, both businesses for which he kept all their books and prepared their Accounts over many, many years. For this reason he used to make very regular visits to the High Street.

Sometimes, between about 1940 and 1960, I would accompany him, so I have my own memories of the butcher's shop, a typical one of the time, with sawdust on the floor, a big cold room, the smell of hanging meat, and the lady in the corner, in a little glass office, who took all the money! The original shop was on the corner of High St and Half Acre but the building of the tramway resulted in a move a few doors along to 229 High Street.

But the Bohee family were close friends over 3 generations, and it was my father who is mentioned as Executor of two of their wills in the your website's section on Bohees at 58 & 59 High Street. When I was married in 1960, Bohees printed my Wedding Invitations and Service Sheets, and it was only in the last few years that I attended the funeral of Alan Bohee, son of Laurence , who ran the business until its closure in 1969. [Shirley provided this photo of Laurence Henry Bohee (1900-1950)]

I well remember the living accommodation at the premises in the 1940s and 50s, especially the room behind the shop, where we always had tea, the large room on the top floor, which was kept as a beautifully furnished parlour in the Edwardian style, and the garden/yard at the back, with the "privy" and the resident tortoise which roamed amongst the vegetation!

The Dorey family

Coming back to my Dorey family, and it's connection to the Joseph William Dorey, who founded the Dorey building business in Brentford, my great great grandfather, William Jnr born 1836, was a younger brother of Joseph William, born 1823. Their parents were William and Lucy Dorey of Strand on the Green, who are buried in St Nicholas churchyard, Chiswick. William was born 1791/2 and died in 1842, Lucy was born in 1799 and died in 1875, when Joseph William proved her Will, possibly jointly with his brother William.

Their brother George, born 1825, was also buried in the same grave in 1884, but this was a large family and there were 8 children in total born to William and Lucy. Two girls died in childhood, another brother, Henry, born 1839 who was 61 at the 1901 census, was described as a retired publican, and was living with his daughter in King St, Hammersmith. There were 2 other girls, Ann and Caroline Jane. Ann was born in 1832 and in 1851 was working as a servant for Eleanor Carter, yeast brewer, in Hammersmith. Eleanor was born in Chiswick, like Ann. Ann was living with her brother George at the 1881 census.

Caroline, born 1827, spent much of her life in Service, at one time in the house of the Chaplain of the Brentford Union. Her latter years, until her death in 1913, at the age of 85, were spent back in Strand on the Green. In the 1911 census she was living with her nieces and nephews, Fanny Caroline(43), Sarah Lucy(41), and William Arthur(39), my grandfather, the children of the above mentioned William Jnr born 1836. My father, aged 10, was also in that household, with his father (his mother had died when he was a very small boy).

I am as certain as I can be that the above information is correct, as it cross checks with other sources, including the family tree of my great grandmother, Fanny Dorey, nee Gregson, who was born in Rolleston, Staffordshire, researched some years ago by a member of that side of my family, with whom there has always been a very close relationship. It would appear that William and Lucy were married in St Anne's Soho, London, in 1821 and so its possible that the family originated there.

The earliest generation of the Dorey family found to date is the parents of William Dorey senior: George and Phoebe Dorey. They were the very first members of the Dorey family to arrive in Strand on the Green in 1789/90 after marrying in Bristol in 1789.

I also have suspicions that they may have been a Huguenot family. Dorey is known to be a French Huguenot surname; Stonemason is known to be a common Huguenot trade, and many of the men in my family were masons; and Soho, London, was known to be an area in which the Huguenots settled.

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Links

See two photos of the Bohee premises at 58 and 59 High Street, taken around 1919-1924.

Find out about earlier and later occupants of 58 and 59 High Street where the Bohee business was founded in 1906; and 229 High Street where Shirley and her father used to visit the Marriners.

Read Janet McNamara's account of the Dorey family who were builders in Brentford.

The Wadham family history website has research into the Marriners of Middlesex, who lived in Chiswick by the late 1700s. The site includes a photo of Frederick Marriner's premises at 229 High Street from around 1933.

Read other people's Brentford memories.

Published July 2025