Person:Stephen Sweeney (3)

Stephen Sweeney was born on 11th August 1889 at 34 Hampden Street in the Paddington area of London. He was the son of Margaret Sweeney, formerly Rice, and her husband Stephen Sweeney, a carpenter. Young Stephen was the third of four children, but his younger sister Catherine died when she was only three years old, leaving Stephen effectively the youngest, with two older sisters, Mary and Margaret (Daisy).

In 1895, when Stephen was only six years old, his father died. Stephen's grandfather, James Rice, came down from Scotland to live with his widowed daughter and her family. Family tradition has it that James Rice's employer had been the Marquis of Bute, who supported the family. This cannot be proven, but it does seem the family managed to live relatively comfortably, beyond what might be expected. One example is that Stephen was sent to boarding school at Oban in Scotland, where he appears in the 1901 census.

Stephen returned to London, where in 1905 he started working for the Great Western Railway as a clerk in the goods department at Paddington station. His initial salary was £20, rising over the next three years to £50, a relatively comfortable salary for the time. Around 1908 he was posted to the wine cellars at Paddington, after which he forged a career working as a wine buyer for the railways, buying wines to be served both in dining cars on trains and in the many hotels which were run by the railways.

From at least 1910 to 1915 Stephen's mother and sisters ran a boarding house at 87 Sutherland Avenue in Paddington, which was a large town house in a fairly well regarded area. Stephen appears there in the 1911 census. One of the boarders also staying in the house on census night was Dora Higgins from Walthamstow. Towards the end of the First World War, Stephen and Dora (which was short for Edith Dorothy) were married at Farnborough in Kent. By this time Stephen's family had moved to 5 Peploe Road in the Kensal Rise area of London.

Stephen and Dora had one daughter, Margaret Mary, in 1920. At the outbreak of the Second World War the family was living at 72 Hanover Road in the borough of Willesden.

By the mid 1950s, the family had moved to Reading, where they lived at 2 Matlock Road in Caversham. Dora died in 1954 in Reading, aged 66. Stephen outlived her by just over eleven years. He returned to London after her death, living at Flat 2, 69 Marlborough Place in the St John's Wood area. He died at Twyford Abbey in Ealing on 27th January 1966, aged 76. He left an estate of over £10,000, which was administered by his daughter.

1. ↑ Birth certificate, in General Register Office. England and Wales Civil Registration. (London: General Register Office).

   Registration District: Paddington
   Sub-registration district: St Mary Paddington
   No. 141
   When and where born: 11 Aug 1889, 34 Hampden Street
   Name: Stephen
   Sex: boy
   Father: Stephen Sweeney, Carpenter (journeyman)
   Mother: Margaret Sweeney formerly Rice
   Informant: M. Sweeney, Mother, 34 Hampden Street

2. ↑ England. 1891 Census Schedules for England and Wales, Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. (
   Kew, Richmond, Greater London TW9 4DU, United Kingdom:
   The National Archives (abbreviated TNA), formerly the UK General Register Office.)
   Class RG12; Piece 1; Folio 48; Page 20, 5 Apr 1891.

   Address: 2 Alfred Road, Paddington, London
   5 or more rooms occupied
   Stephen Sweeney, head, married, male, 36 [1854/5], Joiner, employed, b. Scotland
   Margaret Sweeney, wife, married, female, 38 [1852/3], b. Scotland
   Mary J. Sweeney, daughter, female, 8 [1882/3], b. Brixton, London
   Margaret Sweeney, daughter, female, 3 [1887/8], b. Paddington, London
   Stephen Sweeney, son, male, 1 [1889/90], b. Paddington, London

3. ↑ General Register Office for Scotland. 1901 Scotland Census. (Edinburgh)
   523/00 002/00 018, 31 Mar 1901.

   Address: Craigavaar, Oban, Kilmore & Kilbride, Argyll
   [house headed by three nuns, with many boarders who were 7-14 year old boys, including:]
   Stephen Sweeney, boarder, male, 11 [1889/90], Scholar, b. England

4.   UK. Railway Employment Records, 1833-1956.

   Name: Sweeney, Stephen
   Date of birth: 1889 Aug 11
   Entered the Service: 1905 Mar 9
   Department: Goods
   Station: Paddington
   Commencing Salary: £20
   Increased Salary, and Date of its Commencement:
   1906 9 Mch: £30
   1907 9 Mch: £40
   1908 9 Mch: £50

5. ↑ England. 1911 Census Schedules for England and Wales, Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. (Kew, Richmond, Greater London TW9 4DU, United Kingdom: The National Archives (abbreviated TNA), (formerly the UK General Register Office.))
   Class RG14; Piece 36; Schedule 87, 2 Apr 1911.

   Class RG14; Piece 36; Schedule 87
   Address: 87 Sutherland Avenue, Paddington, London
   Ten rooms occupied
   Margaret Sweeney, head, female, 58 [1852/3], widow, Boarding house keeper, employer, b. Whithorn, Wigtownshire
   Mary Sweeney, daughter, female, 28 [1882/3], single, Assistant to above, b. Brixton, London
   Margaret Sweeney, daughter, female, 23 [1887/8], single, Assistant to above, b. Paddington, London
   Stephen Sweeney, son, male, 21 [1889/90], single, Railway clerk, worker, b. Paddington, London
   Bride Connolly, boarder, female, 30 [1880/1], single, Elementary school teacher - L.C.C., worker, b. Moher, Roscommon
   Dora Higgins, boarder, female, 22 [1888/9], single, Elementary school teacher - L.C.C., worker, b. Walthamstow, London
   Bryan G. O'Donnell, boarder, male, 21 [1889/90], single, Insurance clerk, worker, b. Kilmallock, Limerick
   Mary Phippen, visitor, female, 50 [1860/1], widow, Housekeeper (domestic), b. Whithorn, Wigtownshire

6. ↑ General Register Office. 1939 Register.

   Address: 72 Hanover Road, Willesden, Middlesex
   Sweeney, Stephen / male / 11 Aug 1889 / married / Railway Clerk
   Sweeney, Edith D. / female / 18 Jun 1888 / married / Unpaid Domestic Duties
   [one record closed]

7. ↑ Deaths index, in General Register Office. England and Wales Civil Registration. (London: General Register Office).

   d. Stephen M. SWEENEY, March Quarter 1966, Ealing Registration District, Vol. 5b, page 41, aged 76 [1889/90]

8. ↑ England. National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations),1858 onwards. (Ancestry.com).

   1966
   SWEENEY Stephen Michael of Flat 2 69 Marlborough Place London N.W.8 died 27 January 1966 at Twyford Abbey Ealing London Administration London 27 April to Margaret Mary Sweeney spinster £10 201.

9.   The Tatler (London)
   1 Apr 1959.

   Wine on the Lines
   by ISAAC BICKERSTAFF
   My visit to the wine cellars of the Hotels and Catering Services of British Transport in Derby was an enlightening one. Even more so when I discovered that in spite of its great size, it was only one of their three main cellars.
   Remember, the railways not only run trains - they have a number of large hotels. Those in the industrial centres are packed to capacity all the year round, and since they sell a vast amount of wine they need to have equally vast cellars.
   I had the good fortune to travel up (by train of course) with Stephen Sweeney, their wine buyer. It appears that in 1908 during his apprenticeship with the railways he found himself for a short while attached to the wine cellars at Paddington. There, in a flash, he discovered that wine was undoubtedly his line, and it became not only his line but his life.
   He has been in the wine trade for 51 years and has paid many visits to the vineyards of France, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Italy. He was appointed wine and spirit buyer to the Great Western Railway in 1919 and in 1948 when nationalisation came along he was appointed to the same position for the whole of the Hotel and Catering Services (as he says) from Dornoch to Penzance and Dover to the Kyle of Lochalsh.
   I asked him what qualities he looked for from wines which had to be served on trains. One was that they should be pleasant to drink when young; another that they should be sufficiently robust to stand up to incessant changes of temperature and that they should be reasonable in price. For example, for lunch on our way up we had a bottle of Medoc for 13s. Mr. Sweeney said this had a bottle age of about two years.
   The wine list varies according to the train and the length of the journey. You will obviously get a better selection on the Flying Scotsman or the Cornish Riviera than on a comparatively short run to Derby. Here the red wines are chosen from those which do not readily throw a crust, and champagne is available.
   I talked to him about quantities and at the time of talking he had 1,500,000 bottles in stock, 200,000 of which were laid down for maturing. This did not include the great quantities of wine in cask which they bottle themselves.
   We were joined at the Midland Hotel in Derby - where stayed the night in considerable comfort - by Lord Rusholme, a member of the British Transport Commission, and Mr. F.G. Hole, General Manager of the whole of British Transport Hotels and Catering Services.
   We dined at the Midland that night and all went off on a marathon tour of the cellars next day, accompanied by Mr. Radford, the Cellar Superintendent, who has been over twenty years in wine, and Mr. Forshaw, the foreman, who has been in the wine trade all his life.
   On the principle that a first-class chef likes a break from preparing routine meals, we left the menu to Donald Mackinnon, Manager of the Hotel, who received much of his early training in Switzerland, Germany and other parts of Europe (and has been with the railways for twenty years), and maitre chef, Mr. Frankland (who has also had twenty years' service with the Group). This is menu they chose and we enjoyed: Petite Marmite Henri IV; Filet de Sole Walewska, with a Pouilly Fuisse '53; Poussin en Cocotte Bergere, Timbale de Legumes, Pommes Nouvelles au Beurre with a bottle of Pape Clement '52; Souffle au Parmesan.
   The wines were selected by Stephen Sweeney and had been bottled in the cellars underneath our hotel.