FAMILY OF THIRTY

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXV, Issue 3278, 12 March 1931, Page 3

FAMILY OF THIRTY

LABOURER’S TWO MARRIAGES. “If everybody gets on as well as we do nobody would ever quarrel,” recently said Mrs. Nelms, the second wife of Mr. Henry Nelms, of Towergey, Buckinghamshire.

Mr. Nelms has. had twelve children by his first wife and eighteen by his second. Seven of the thirty children are married, and sixteen are living at home with their parents. Two of the three boys who served in the war were killed. One child died at birth, leaving twenty-seven still alive. The eldest son is now in India. There were in all seventeen girls and thirteen boys. The family consumes eight pounds of margarine, sixteen pounds of sugar, forty large loaves, and three big joints of meat every week. Three large bars of soap are used weekly for washing purposes. Mr. and Mrs. Nelms and family live in two cottages containing seven beds

for the grown-ups and cots for the younger children. There are six children still .at school and three babies at home, the youngest of whom is eighteen months. Mrs. Nelms is forty-six. Three of the boys, who are living at home, help a chimney sweep and a farm labourer; towards the family exchequer. Mr. Nelms, who is a labourer, was under 21 years of age when he was first married. Since then he has been in fact, he has tried his hand at most trades. He is now sixty-five years of age. He has only recently left hospital. One of the babies is partly crippled. The children apart from this all look extremely healthy.