There
are extensive reports of bakery activity on the site of Bakery House going back to 1709 when William Lee died and the business
was carried on by his nephew Thomas Halls. In the early 19th Century John Marlton passed the business over to
his son Joseph with a newly erected bake house. In 1860 John Bradford was the baker and the premises consisted of a
brick built and slated dwelling with shop, bake house, flour chamber, yard, garden, cart shed and stable.
In the early
20th Century Joshua Mallet of Little Waltham Mill owned the bakery with Isaac Hicks as tenant. Isaac’s son Fred ran
the bakery until his death in 1936. It was recorded that in 1911 the main oven was installed to replace an earlier Victorian
oven. Tom Amos’s father Ernest was the son of a Cressing postman and had walked to Little Waltham in 1898 to obtain
work with Isaac Hicks and eventually became head baker under Fred Hicks. After Fred’s death Ernest took over the business
and later ran it with his son Tom.
At this time there were two motor delivery vans covering rounds in Chelmsford and
Fuller Street/Terling and two horse and carts covering rounds in Great Waltham/Pleshey/Howe Street and Chatham Green/Great
Leighs. Also, at this time Fred Hicks’s daughter Jessie delivered bread with a handcart in Little Waltham.
The normal practice was that the dough was prepared at about 8.00pm the evening before and left overnight to rise in one of
the three dough troughs which still remained in the premises until 2009. The bread and rolls would then be baked in
the coal fired oven in the early morning ready for the daily rounds which began at about 8.00am.
Once the
delivery rounds had departed a range of cakes etc were baked in the oven. Tom did not have any rest on Christmas Day when
he lit the oven to cook large numbers of turkeys which were too large for the cottage ovens in the village. During the
Second World War Tom was drafted into the Catering Corps as a baker. He travelled to many parts of the world baking
for the front line troops. In 1950 Ernest was 70 years old and there were five men working in the bakery, whilst his
wife ran the shop. There were also several girls to serve customers and keep the books. The roundsmen reported
all their transactions to the girls when they returned to the bakery so that bills could be prepared for those customers paying
weekly. Earnest sang in the St Martins Church Choir whilst Tom was the organ blower boy. His father died in 1964 and Tom ran
the business with his sister Margaret Poney and her husband until its closure in 1980. It should be noted that the name of
Tom’s father remained on the shop front until its closure in 1980.
From his retirement until his
death in 2003 Tom took a great interest in the Stock Market and had an extensive portfolio of investments and operated an
active charitable bank account donating funds to a large number of charities. He set up the Tom Amos Charity in 1999,
leaving the bulk of his estate of £1,400,000 to it. His gravestone can be visited in St. Martins Church Yard in Little
Waltham.
