Family History as written by my Uncle, Jim Foreman(to the best of his knowledge), Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, 1993.

Family tradition has it that a daughter of the Duke of Bedford eloped with a gardener named Hatfield. Her maiden name was Russell, the family name of the Bedfords.
She kept her proofs of identity etc. in a silver teapot which was stolen by a woman who burned the papers. She confessed what she had done on her death-bed. However, the ex-gardener named Hatfield went abroad and became a deep-sea diver in the South Seas somewhere and had a family of whom my grandmother Minnie Rebecca Hatfield was one of two girls (we did have a collection of coral once from her father).
My grandmother Minnie was born at Abbey Lane, Stratford. She was quite unlettered but became a nurse and midwife and married George Beldom. Her sister married Alf Currie and Uncle Alf and Granny Belom pooled resources and used their savings to try to claim inheritance of the Bedford estates. Unfortunately, Uncle Alf suffered from alcoholic constipation - he could never pass a pub, and their money soon ran out.
Grandfather George Beldom also became an alcoholic and died in Claybury lunatic asylum just as had grandfather Foreman.
Granny Beldom opened a cook-shop in Glaucus Street, Bow Common(her front room) and with that and her midwife activities(also taking in washing), managed to keep her family going.
My mother Minnie Elizabeth(also born in Abbey Lane, Stratford)married my father Benjamin Ronald Foreman, Christmas Eve 1904 and moved to Bragbury End, Hertfordshire, until the death of his employer when he moved back to Bromley-by-Bow to work for Bergers.I was born at 3, Shepherd Street 17th May 1919.

P.S. All I know of George Beldom is that he was a carman i.e. he drove horses and carts and his widowed mother lived in one room also in Glaucus Street and darned socks to help her meagre hand-out from the relieving officer.

Father's mother's maiden name was Elizabeth Stubbs - she was a protestant Irish. Aunt Maud always reckoned she was a lovely woman.

A cousin branch of my father owned a cricket bat factory just round the corner from us in Talwin Street. They were quite famous bat makers but they lost the deeds of the property and St.Andrews Church was built on the site. The family moved to Chelmsford - still making cricket bats and became timber importers. They lived at Dukes Farm near Chelmsford and young Douglas became a much decorated Squadron Leader in the Second World War until killed in an air crash.

Dad's elder brother Charles was killed by a sniper in France, 1918. Dad also had a cousin James Foreman who was killed by a sniper during the seige of Ladysmith in the Boer War.