Albert Parker EDWARDS was born on 15 Mar 1876 at 22 Cattell Road, Aston. Although intelligent enough to win a place at King Edwards School Birmingham, his father would not allow him to go. Instead, in 1890, he made Albert Parker, at the age of fifteen, take a four year apprenticeship with Philip Lewin Samuel, a pawnbroker at 15 High Street, Prince's End, Tipton, in the county of Stafford.
In about 1894 Albert Parker probably lived at 17 Hilltop, West Bromwich since the photograph of Annie Elizabeth Stokes had this address written on the back of the hand coloured print, which had originally been taken in Paris in 1890.
He married Annie on 14th February 1898 at St. Lawrence Church, Evesham. At the time he was a publican at the Eagle Inn at Crabbs Cross, Redditch, although he may have been in two minds about his choice of career as on his wedding certificate a profession of Market Gardener was first written then crossed out.
They kept The Cricketer's Arms in Beoley Road, Redditch for some years, where their six children, Albert, Mildred, Doris, Ralph, Ena and Osmond were born; and there he dabbled in farming in a small way. In 1995 Osmond visited The Cricketer's Arms and found it to be virtually unchanged.
By 1921 the family had moved to The Royal Exchange, a hotel in Droitwich, where Albert described himself as 'farmer and publican'. Annie Elizabeth and daughter Dolly worked in the hotel, and son Ralph worked as a bank clerk in the Midland Bank in Bromsgrove.
Albert later became the proprietor of The Bear Hotel in Evesham, and later still they moved to the Red Lion at Astwood Bank, where they stayed until Albert Parker Edwards died of tuberculosis on February 11th, 1930 aged 53.
 - Marcheta Morris - 1948.jpg)
