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  • #6254
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      The Gladstone Connection

      My grandmother had said that we were distantly related to Gladstone the prime minister. Apparently Grandma’s mothers aunt had a neice that was related to him, or some combination of aunts and nieces on the Gretton side. I had not yet explored all the potential great grandmothers aunt’s nieces looking for this Gladstone connection, but I accidentally found a Gladstone on the tree on the Gretton side.

      I was wandering around randomly looking at the hints for other people that had my grandparents in their trees to see who they were and how they were connected, and noted a couple of photos of Orgills. Richard Gretton, grandma’s mother Florence Nightingale Gretton’s father,  married Sarah Orgill. Sarah’s brother John Orgill married Elizabeth Mary Gladstone. It was the photographs that caught my eye, but then I saw the Gladstone name, and that she was born in Liverpool. Her father was William Gladstone born 1809 in Liverpool, just like the prime minister. And his father was John Gladstone, just like the prime minister.

      But the William Gladstone in our family tree was a millwright, who emigrated to Australia with his wife and two children rather late in life at the age of 54, in 1863. He died three years later when he was thrown out of a cart in 1866. This was clearly not William Gladstone the prime minister.

      John Orgill emigrated to Australia in 1865, and married Elizabeth Mary Gladstone in Victoria in 1870. Their first child was born in December that year, in Dandenong. Their three sons all have the middle name Gladstone.

      John Orgill 1835-1911 (Florence Nightingale Gretton’s mothers brother)

      John Orgill

      Elizabeth Mary Gladstone 1845-1926

      Elizabeth Mary Gladstone

       

      I did not think that the link to Gladstone the prime minister was true, until I found an article in the Australian newspapers while researching the family of John Orgill for the Australia chapter.

      In the Letters to the Editor in The Argus, a Melbourne newspaper, dated 8 November 1921:

      Gladstone

       

      THE GLADSTONE FAMILY.
      TO THE EDITOR OF THE ARGUS.
      Sir,—I notice to-day a reference to the
      death of Mr. Robert Gladstone, late of
      Wooltonvale. Liverpool, who, together
      with estate in England valued at £143,079,
      is reported to have left to his children
      (five sons and seven daughters) estate
      valued at £4,300 in Victoria. It may be
      of interest to some of your readers to
      know that this Robert Gladstone was a
      son of the Gladstone family to which
      the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, the
      famous Prime Minister, belonged, some
      members of which are now resident in Aus-
      tralia. Robert Gladstone’s father (W. E.
      Gladstone’s cousin), Stuart Gladstone, of
      Liverpool, owned at one time the estates
      of Noorat and Glenormiston, in Victoria,
      to which he sent Neil Black as manager.
      Mr. Black, who afterwards acquired the
      property, called one of his sons “Stuart
      Gladstone” after his employer. A nephew
      of Stuart Gladstone (and cousin of
      Robert Gladstone, of Wooltonvale), Robert
      Cottingham, by name “Bobbie” came out
      to Australia to farm at Noorat, but was
      killed in a horse accident when only 21,
      and was the first to be buried in the new
      cemetery at Noorat. A brother, of “Bob-
      bie,” “Fred” by name, was well known
      in the early eighties as an overland
      drover, taking stock for C. B. Fisher to
      the far north. Later on he married and
      settled in Melbourne, but left during the
      depressing time following the bursting of
      the boom, to return to Queensland, where,
      in all probability, he still resides. A sister
      of “Bobbie” and “Fred” still lives in the
      neighbourhood of Melbourne. Their
      father, Montgomery Gladstone, who was in
      the diplomatic service, and travelled about
      a great deal, was a brother of Stuart Glad-
      stone, the owner of Noorat, and a full
      cousin of William Ewart Gladstone, his
      father, Robert, being a brother of W. E.
      Gladstone’s father, Sir John, of Liverpool.
      The wife of Robert Gladstone, of Woolton-
      vale, Ella Gladstone by name, was also
      his second cousin, being the daughter of
      Robertson Gladstone, of Courthaize, near
      Liverpool, W. E. Gladstone’s older
      brother.
      A cousin of Sir John Gladstone
      (W. E. G.’s father), also called John, was
      a foundry owner in Castledouglas, and the
      inventor of the first suspension bridge, a
      model of which was made use of in the
      erection of the Menai Bridge connecting
      Anglesea with the mainland, and was after-
      wards presented to the Liverpool Stock
      Exchange by the inventor’s cousin, Sir
      John. One of the sons of this inventive
      engineer, William by name, left England
      in 1863 with his wife and son and daugh-
      ter, intending to settle in New Zealand,
      but owing to the unrest caused there by
      the Maori war, he came instead to Vic-
      toria, and bought land near Dandenong.
      Three years later he was killed in a horse
      accident, but his name is perpetuated in
      the name “Gladstone road” in Dandenong.
      His daughter afterwards married, and lived
      for many years in Gladstone House, Dande-
      nong, but is now widowed and settled in
      Gippsland. Her three sons and four daugh-
      ters are all married and perpetuating the
      Gladstone family in different parts of Aus-
      tralia. William’s son (also called Wil-
      liam), who came out with his father,
      mother, and sister in 1863 still lives in the
      Fix this textneighbourhood of Melbourne, with his son
      and grandson. An aunt of Sir John Glad-
      stone (W. E. G.’s father), Christina Glad-
      stone by name, married a Mr. Somerville,
      of Biggar. One of her great-grandchildren
      is Professor W. P. Paterson, of Edinburgh
      University, another is a professor in the
      West Australian University, and a third
      resides in Melbourne. Yours. &c.

      Melbourne, Nov.7, FAMILY TREE

       

      According to the Old Dandenong website:

      “Elizabeth Mary Orgill (nee Gladstone) operated Gladstone House until at least 1911, along with another hydropathic hospital (Birthwood) on Cheltenham road. She was the daughter of William Gladstone (Nephew of William Ewart Gladstone, UK prime minister in 1874).”

      The story of the Orgill’s continues in the chapter on Australia.

      #6252
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        The USA Housley’s

        This chapter is copied from Barbara Housley’s Narrative on Historic Letters, with thanks to her brother Howard Housley for sharing it with me.  Interesting to note that Housley descendants  (on the Marshall paternal side) and Gretton descendants (on the Warren maternal side) were both living in Trenton, New Jersey at the same time.

        GEORGE HOUSLEY 1824-1877

        George emigrated to the United states in 1851, arriving in July. The solicitor Abraham John Flint referred in a letter to a 15-pound advance which was made to George on June 9, 1851. This certainly was connected to his journey. George settled along the Delaware River in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The letters from the solicitor were addressed to: Lahaska Post Office, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. George married Sarah Ann Hill on May 6, 1854 in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The service was performed by Attorney James Gilkyson.

        Doylestown

        In her first letter (February 1854), Anne (George’s sister in Smalley, Derbyshire) wrote: “We want to know who and what is this Miss Hill you name in your letter. What age is she? Send us all the particulars but I would advise you not to get married until you have sufficient to make a comfortable home.”

        Upon learning of George’s marriage, Anne wrote: “I hope dear brother you may be happy with your wife….I hope you will be as a son to her parents. Mother unites with me in kind love to you both and to your father and mother with best wishes for your health and happiness.”  In 1872 (December) Joseph (George’s brother) wrote: “I am sorry to hear that sister’s father is so ill. It is what we must all come to some time and hope we shall meet where there is no more trouble.”

        Emma (George’s sister) wrote in 1855, “We write in love to your wife and yourself and you must write soon and tell us whether there is a little nephew or niece and what you call them.” In June of 1856, Emma wrote: “We want to see dear Sarah Ann and the dear little boy. We were much pleased with the “bit of news” you sent.” The bit of news was the birth of John Eley Housley, January 11, 1855. Emma concluded her letter “Give our very kindest love to dear sister and dearest Johnnie.”

        According to his obituary, John Eley was born at Wrightstown and “removed” to Lumberville at the age of 19. John was married first to Lucy Wilson with whom he had three sons: George Wilson (1883), Howard (1893) and Raymond (1895); and then to Elizabeth Kilmer with whom he had one son Albert Kilmer (1907). John Eley Housley died November 20, 1926 at the age of 71. For many years he had worked for John R. Johnson who owned a store. According to his son Albert, John was responsible for caring for Johnson’s horses. One named Rex was considered to be quite wild, but was docile in John’s hands. When John would take orders, he would leave the wagon at the first house and walk along the backs of the houses so that he would have access to the kitchens. When he reached the seventh house he would climb back over the fence to the road and whistle for the horses who would come to meet him. John could not attend church on Sunday mornings because he was working with the horses and occasionally Albert could convince his mother that he was needed also. According to Albert, John was regular in attendance at church on Sunday evenings.

        John was a member of the Carversville Lodge 261 IOOF and the Carversville Lodge Knights of Pythias. Internment was in the Carversville cemetery; not, however, in the plot owned by his father. In addition to his sons, he was survived by his second wife Elizabeth who lived to be 80 and three grandchildren: George’s sons, Kenneth Worman and Morris Wilson and Raymond’s daughter Miriam Louise. George had married Katie Worman about the time John Eley married Elizabeth Kilmer. Howard’s first wife Mary Brink and daughter Florence had died and he remarried Elsa Heed who also lived into her eighties. Raymond’s wife was Fanny Culver.

        Two more sons followed: Joseph Sackett, who was known as Sackett, September 12, 1856 and Edwin or Edward Rose, November 11, 1858. Joseph Sackett Housley married Anna Hubbs of Plumsteadville on January 17, 1880. They had one son Nelson DeC. who in turn had two daughters, Eleanor Mary and Ruth Anna, and lived on Bert Avenue in Trenton N.J. near St. Francis Hospital. Nelson, who was an engineer and built the first cement road in New Jersey, died at the age of 51. His daughters were both single at the time of his death. However, when his widow, the former Eva M. Edwards, died some years later, her survivors included daughters, Mrs. Herbert D. VanSciver and Mrs. James J. McCarrell and four grandchildren. One of the daughters (the younger) was quite crippled in later years and would come to visit her great-aunt Elizabeth (John’s widow) in a chauffeur driven car. Sackett died in 1929 at the age of 70. He was a member of the Warrington Lodge IOOF of Jamison PA, the Uncas tribe and the Uncas Hayloft 102 ORM of Trenton, New Jersey. The interment was in Greenwood cemetery where he had been caretaker since his retirement from one of the oldest manufacturing plants in Trenton (made milk separators for one thing). Sackett also was the caretaker for two other cemeteries one located near the Clinton Street station and the other called Riverside.

        Ed’s wife was named Lydia. They had two daughters, Mary and Margaret and a third child who died in infancy. Mary had seven children–one was named for his grandfather–and settled in lower Bucks county. Margaret never married. She worked for Woolworths in Flemington, N. J. and then was made manager in Somerville, N.J., where she lived until her death. Ed survived both of his brothers, and at the time of Sackett’s death was living in Flemington, New Jersey where he had worked as a grocery clerk.

        In September 1872, Joseph wrote, “I was very sorry to hear that John your oldest had met with such a sad accident but I hope he is got alright again by this time.” In the same letter, Joseph asked: “Now I want to know what sort of a town you are living in or village. How far is it from New York? Now send me all particulars if you please.”

        In March 1873 Harriet asked Sarah Ann: “And will you please send me all the news at the place and what it is like for it seems to me that it is a wild place but you must tell me what it is like….” The question of whether she was referring to Bucks County, Pennsylvania or some other place is raised in Joseph’s letter of the same week.

        On March 17, 1873, Joseph wrote: “I was surprised to hear that you had gone so far away west. Now dear brother what ever are you doing there so far away from home and family–looking out for something better I suppose.” The solicitor wrote on May 23, 1874: “Lately I have not written because I was not certain of your address and because I doubted I had much interesting news to tell you.” Later, Joseph wrote concerning the problems settling the estate, “You see dear brother there is only me here on our side and I cannot do much. I wish you were here to help me a bit and if you think of going for another summer trip this turn you might as well run over here.”

        Apparently, George had indicated he might return to England for a visit in 1856. Emma wrote concerning the portrait of their mother which had been sent to George: “I hope you like mother’s portrait. I did not see it but I suppose it was not quite perfect about the eyes….Joseph and I intend having ours taken for you when you come over….Do come over before very long.”

        In March 1873, Joseph wrote: “You ask me what I think of you coming to England. I think as you have given the trustee power to sign for you I think you could do no good but I should like to see you once again for all that. I can’t say whether there would be anything amiss if you did come as you say it would be throwing good money after bad.”

        On June 10, 1875, the solicitor wrote: “I have been expecting to hear from you for some time past. Please let me hear what you are doing and where you are living and how I must send you your money.” George’s big news at that time was that on May 3, 1875, he had become a naturalized citizen “renouncing and abjuring all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign prince, potentate, state and sovereignity whatsoever, and particularly to Victoria Queen of Great Britain of whom he was before a subject.”

        Another matter which George took care of during the years the estate was being settled was the purchase of a cemetery plot! On March 24, 1873, George purchased plot 67 section 19 division 2 in the Carversville (Bucks County PA) Cemetery (incorporated 1859). The plot cost $15.00, and was located at the very edge of the cemetery. It was in this cemetery, in 1991, while attending the funeral of Sarah Lord Housley, wife of Albert Kilmer Housley, that sixteen month old Laura Ann visited the graves of her great-great-great grandparents, George and Sarah Ann Hill Housley.

        George died on August 13, 1877 and was buried three days later. The text for the funeral sermon was Proverbs 27:1: “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.”

        #6247
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          Warren Brothers Boiler Makers

          Samuel Warren, my great grandfather, and husband of Florence Nightingale Gretton, worked with the family company of boiler makers in Newhall in his early years.  He developed an interest in motor cars, and left the family business to start up on his own. By all accounts, he made some bad decisions and borrowed a substantial amount of money from his sister. It was because of this disastrous state of affairs that the impoverished family moved from Swadlincote/Newhall to Stourbridge.

          1914:  Tram no 10 on Union Road going towards High Street Newhall. On the left Henry Harvey Engineer, on the right Warren Bros Boiler Manufacturers & Engineers:

          Warren Bros Newhall

           

          I found a newspaper article in the Derbyshire Advertiser and Journal dated the 2nd October 1915 about a Samuel Warren of Warren Brothers Boilermakers, but it was about my great grandfathers uncle, also called Samuel.

          DEATH OF MR. SAMUEL WARREN, OF NEWHALL. Samuel Warren, of Rose Villa, Newhall, passed away on Saturday evening at the age of 85.. Of somewhat retiring disposition, he took little or no active part in public affairs, but for many years was trustee of the loyal British Oak Lodge of the M.U. of Oddfellows, and in many other ways served His community when opportunity permitted. He was member of the firm of Warren Bros., of the Boiler Works, Newhall. This thriving business was established by the late Mr. Benjamin Bridge, over 60 years ago, and on his death it was taken over by his four nephews. Mr. William Warren died several years ago, and with the demise Mr. Samuel Warren, two brothers remain, Messrs. Henry and Benjamin Warren. He leaves widow, six daughters, and three sons to mourn his loss. 

          Samuel Warren

           

          This was the first I’d heard of Benjamin Bridge.  William Warren mentioned in the article as having died previously was Samuel’s father, my great great grandfather. William’s brother Henry was the father of Ben Warren, the footballer.

          But who was Benjamin Bridge?

          Samuel’s father was William Warren 1835-1881. He had a brother called Samuel, mentioned above, and William’s father was also named Samuel.  Samuel Warren 1800-1882 married Elizabeth Bridge 1813-1872. Benjamin Bridge 1811-1898 was Elizabeth’s brother.

          Burton Chronicle 28 July 1898:

          Benjamin Bridge

          Benjamin and his wife Jane had no children. According to the obituary in the newspaper, the couple were fondly remembered for their annual tea’s for the widows of the town. Benjamin Bridge’s house was known as “the preachers house”. He was superintendent of Newhall Sunday School and member of Swadlincote’s board of health. And apparently very fond of a tall white hat!

          On the 1881 census, Benjamin Bridge and his wife live near to the Warren family in Newhall.  The Warren’s live in the “boiler yard” and the family living in between the Bridge’s and the Warren’s include an apprentice boiler maker, so we can assume these were houses incorporated in the boiler works property. Benjamin is a 72 year old retired boiler maker.  Elizabeth Warren is a widow (William died in 1881), two of her sons are boiler makers, and Samuel, my great grandfather, is on the next page of the census, at seven years old.

          Bridge Warren Census 1881

           

          Warren Brothers made boilers for the Burton breweries, including Bass, Ratcliff and Gretton.

          This receipt from Warrens Boiler yard for a new boiler in 1885 was purchased off Ebay by Colin Smith. He gave it to one of the grandsons of Robert Adolphus Warren, to keep in the Warren family. It is in his safe at home, and he promised Colin that it will stay in the family forever.

          Warren Bros Receipt

          #6246
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            Florence Nightingale Gretton

            1881-1927

            Florence’s father was Richard Gretton, a baker in Swadlincote, Derbyshire. When Richard married Sarah Orgill in 1861, they lived with her mother, a widow, in Measham, Ashby de la Zouch in Leicestershire. On the 1861 census Sarah’s mother, Elizabeth, is a farmer of two acres.

            (Swadlincote and Ashby de la Zouch are on the Derbyshire Leicestershire border and not far from each other. Swadlincote is near to Burton upon Trent which is sometimes in Staffordshire, sometimes in Derbyshire. Newhall, Church Gresley, and Swadlincote are all very close to each other or districts in the same town.)

            Ten years later in 1871 Richard and Sarah have their own place in Swadlincote, he is a baker, and they have four children. A fourteen year old apprentice or servant is living with them.

            In the Ashby-de-la-Zouch Gazette on 28 February 1880, it was reported that Richard Gretton, baker, of Swadlincote, was charged by Captain Bandys with carrying bread in a cart for sale, the said cart not being provided with scales and weights, according to the requirements of the Act, on the 17th January last.—Defendant pleaded guilty, but urged in extenuation of the offence that in the hurry he had forgotten to put the scales in the cart before his son started.—The Bench took this view of the case, regarding it as an oversight, and fined him one shilling only and costs.  This was not his only offence.

            In 1883, he was fined twenty shillings, and ten shillings and sixpence costs.

            Richard Gretton

            By 1881 they have 4 more children, and Florence Nightingale is the youngest at four months. Richard is 48 by now, and Sarah is 44. Florence’s older brother William is a blacksmith.

            Interestingly on the same census page, two doors down Thomas and Selina Warren live at the Stanhope Arms.  Richards son John Gretton lives at the pub, a 13 year old servant. Incidentally, I noticed on Thomas and Selena’s marriage register that Richard and Sarah Gretton were the witnesses at the wedding.

            Ten years later in 1891, Florence Nightingale and her sister Clara are living with Selina Warren, widow, retired innkeeper, one door down from the Stanhope Arms. Florence is ten, Clara twelve and they are scholars.
            Richard and Sarah are still living three doors up on the other side of the Stanhope Arms, with three of their sons. But the two girls lived up the road with the Warren widow!

            The Stanhope Arms, Swadlincote: it’s possible that the shop with the awning was Richard Gretton’s bakers shop (although not at the time of this later photo).

            Stanhope Arms

             

            Richard died in 1898, a year before Florence married Samuel Warren.

            Sarah is a widowed 60 year old baker on the 1901 census. Her son 26 year old son Alf, also a baker,  lives at the same address, as does her 22 year old daughter Clara who is a district nurse.

            Clara Gretton and family, photo found online:

            Clara Gretton

             

            In 1901 Florence Nightingale (who we don’t have a photograph of!) is now married and is Florrie Warren on the census, and she, her husband Samuel, and their one year old daughter Hildred are visitors at the address of  Elizabeth (Staley)Warren, 60 year old widow and Samuel’s mother, and Samuel’s 36 year old brother William. Samuel and William are engineers.

            Samuel and Florrie had ten children between 1900 and 1925 (and all but two of them used their middle name and not first name: my mother and I had no idea until I found all the records.  My grandmother Florence Noreen was known as Nora, which we knew of course, uncle Jack was actually Douglas John, and so on).

            Hildred, Clara, Billy, and Nora were born in Swadlincote. Sometime between my grandmother’s birth in 1907 and Kay’s birth in 1911, the family moved to Oldswinford, in Stourbridge. Later they moved to Market Street.

            1911 census, Oldswinford, Stourbridge:

            Oldswinford 1911

             

            Oddly, nobody knew when Florrie Warren died. My mothers cousin Ian Warren researched the Warren family some years ago, while my grandmother was still alive. She contributed family stories and information, but couldn’t remember if her mother died in 1929 or 1927.  A recent search of records confirmed that it was the 12th November 1927.

            She was 46 years old. We were curious to know how she died, so my mother ordered a paper copy of her death certificate. It said she died at 31 Market Street, Stourbridge at the age of 47. Clara May Warren, her daughter, was in attendance. Her husband Samuel Warren was a motor mechanic. The Post mortem was by Percival Evans, coroner for Worcestershire, who clarified the cause of death as vascular disease of the heart. There was no inquest. The death was registered on 15 Nov 1927.

            I looked for a photo of 31 Market Street in Stourbridge, and was astonished to see that it was the house next door to one I lived in breifly in the 1980s.  We didn’t know that the Warren’s lived in Market Street until we started searching the records.

            Market Street, Stourbridge. I lived in the one on the corner on the far right, my great grandmother died in the one next door.

            Market Street

             

            I found some hitherto unknown emigrants in the family. Florence Nightingale Grettons eldest brother William 1861-1940 stayed in Swadlincote. John Orgill Gretton born in 1868 moved to Trenton New Jersey USA in 1888, married in 1892 and died in 1949 in USA. Michael Thomas born in 1870 married in New York in 1893 and died in Trenton in 1940. Alfred born 1875 stayed in Swadlincote. Charles Herbert born 1876 married locally and then moved to Australia in 1912, and died in Victoria in 1954. Clara Elizabeth was a district nurse, married locally and died at the age of 99.

            #6243
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              William Housley’s Will and the Court Case

              William Housley died in 1848, but his widow Ellen didn’t die until 1872.  The court case was in 1873.  Details about the court case are archived at the National Archives at Kew,  in London, but are not available online. They can be viewed in person, but that hasn’t been possible thus far.  However, there are a great many references to it in the letters.

              William Housley’s first wife was Mary Carrington 1787-1813.  They had three children, Mary Anne, Elizabeth and William. When Mary died, William married Mary’s sister Ellen, not in their own parish church at Smalley but in Ashbourne.  Although not uncommon for a widower to marry a deceased wife’s sister, it wasn’t legal.  This point is mentioned in one of the letters.

              One of the pages of William Housley’s will:

              William Housleys Will

               

              An excerpt from Barbara Housley’s Narrative on the Letters:

              A comment in a letter from Joseph (August 6, 1873) indicated that William was married twice and that his wives were sisters: “What do you think that I believe that Mary Ann is trying to make our father’s will of no account as she says that my father’s marriage with our mother was not lawful he marrying two sisters. What do you think of her? I have heard my mother say something about paying a fine at the time of the marriage to make it legal.” Markwell and Saul in The A-Z Guide to Tracing Ancestors in Britain explain that marriage to a deceased wife’s sister was not permissible under Canon law as the relationship was within the prohibited degrees. However, such marriages did take place–usually well away from the couple’s home area. Up to 1835 such marriages were not void but were voidable by legal action. Few such actions were instituted but the risk was always there.

              Joseph wrote that when Emma was married, Ellen “broke up the comfortable home and the things went to Derby and she went to live with them but Derby didn’t agree with her so she left again leaving her things behind and came to live with John in the new house where she died.” Ellen was listed with John’s household in the 1871 census. 
              In May 1872, the Ilkeston Pioneer carried this notice: “Mr. Hopkins will sell by auction on Saturday next the eleventh of May 1872 the whole of the useful furniture, sewing machine, etc. nearly new on the premises of the late Mrs. Housley at Smalley near Heanor in the county of Derby. Sale at one o’clock in the afternoon.”

              There were hard feelings between Mary Ann and Ellen and her children. Anne wrote: “If you remember we were not very friendly when you left. They never came and nothing was too bad for Mary Ann to say of Mother and me, but when Robert died Mother sent for her to the funeral but she did not think well to come so we took no more notice. She would not allow her children to come either.”
              Mary Ann was still living in May 1872. Joseph implied that she and her brother, Will “intend making a bit of bother about the settlement of the bit of property” left by their mother. The 1871 census listed Mary Ann’s occupation as “income from houses.”

              In July 1872, Joseph introduced Ruth’s husband: “No doubt he is a bad lot. He is one of the Heath’s of Stanley Common a miller and he lives at Smalley Mill” (Ruth Heath was Mary Anne Housley’s daughter)
              In 1873 Joseph wrote, “He is nothing but a land shark both Heath and his wife and his wife is the worst of the two. You will think these is hard words but they are true dear brother.” The solicitor, Abraham John Flint, was not at all pleased with Heath’s obstruction of the settlement of the estate. He wrote on June 30, 1873: “Heath agreed at first and then because I would not pay his expenses he refused and has since instructed another solicitor for his wife and Mrs. Weston who have been opposing us to the utmost. I am concerned for all parties interested except these two….The judge severely censured Heath for his conduct and wanted to make an order for sale there and then but Heath’s council would not consent….” In June 1875, the solicitor wrote: “Heath bid for the property but it fetched more money than he could give for it. He has been rather quieter lately.”

              In May 1872, Joseph wrote: “For what do you think, John has sold his share and he has acted very bad since his wife died and at the same time he sold all his furniture. You may guess I have never seen him but once since poor mother’s funeral and he is gone now no one knows where.”

              In 1876, the solicitor wrote to George: “Have you heard of John Housley? He is entitled to Robert’s share and I want him to claim it.”

              Anne intended that one third of the inheritance coming to her from her father and her grandfather, William Carrington, be divided between her four nieces: Sam’s three daughters and John’s daughter Elizabeth.
              In the same letter (December 15, 1872), Joseph wrote:
              “I think we have now found all out now that is concerned in the matter for there was only Sam that we did not know his whereabouts but I was informed a week ago that he is dead–died about three years ago in Birmingham Union. Poor Sam. He ought to have come to a better end than that”

              However, Samuel was still alive was on the 1871 census in Henley in Arden, and no record of his death can be found. Samuel’s brother in law said he was dead: we do not know why he lied, or perhaps the brothers were lying to keep his share, or another possibility is that Samuel himself told his brother in law to tell them that he was dead. I am inclined to think it was the latter.

              Excerpts from Barbara Housley’s Narrative on the Letters continued:

              Charles went to Australia in 1851, and was last heard from in January 1853. According to the solicitor, who wrote to George on June 3, 1874, Charles had received advances on the settlement of their parent’s estate. “Your promissory note with the two signed by your brother Charles for 20 pounds he received from his father and 20 pounds he received from his mother are now in the possession of the court.”

              In December 1872, Joseph wrote: “I’m told that Charles two daughters has wrote to Smalley post office making inquiries about his share….” In January 1876, the solicitor wrote: “Charles Housley’s children have claimed their father’s share.”

              In the Adelaide Observer 28 Aug 1875

              HOUSLEY – wanted information
              as to the Death, Will, or Intestacy, and
              Children of Charles Housley, formerly of
              Smalley, Derbyshire, England, who died at
              Geelong or Creewick Creek Diggings, Victoria
              August, 1855. His children will hear of something to their advantage by communicating with
              Mr. A J. Flint, solicitor, Derby, England.
              June 16,1875.

              The Diggers & Diggings of Victoria in 1855. Drawn on Stone by S.T. Gill:

              Victoria Diggings, Australie

               

              The court case:

               Kerry v Housley.
              Documents: Bill, demurrer.
              Plaintiffs: Samuel Kerry and Joseph Housley.
              Defendants: William Housley, Joseph Housley (deleted), Edwin Welch Harvey, Eleanor Harvey (deleted), Ernest Harvey infant, William Stafford, Elizabeth Stafford his wife, Mary Ann Housley, George Purdy and Catherine Purdy his wife, Elizabeth Housley, Mary Ann Weston widow and William Heath and Ruth Heath his wife (deleted).
              Provincial solicitor employed in Derbyshire.
              Date: 1873

              From the Narrative on the Letters:

              The solicitor wrote on May 23, 1874: “Lately I have not written because I was not certain of your address and because I doubted I had much interesting news to tell you.” Later, Joseph wrote concerning the problems settling the estate, “You see dear brother there is only me here on our side and I cannot do much. I wish you were here to help me a bit and if you think of going for another summer trip this turn you might as well run over here.”

              In March 1873, Joseph wrote: “You ask me what I think of you coming to England. I think as you have given the trustee power to sign for you I think you could do no good but I should like to see you once again for all that. I can’t say whether there would be anything amiss if you did come as you say it would be throwing good money after bad.”

              In September 1872 Joseph wrote; “My wife is anxious to come. I hope it will suit her health for she is not over strong.” Elsewhere Joseph wrote that Harriet was “middling sometimes. She is subject to sick headaches. It knocks her up completely when they come on.” In December 1872 Joseph wrote, “Now dear brother about us coming to America you know we shall have to wait until this affair is settled and if it is not settled and thrown into Chancery I’m afraid we shall have to stay in England for I shall never be able to save money enough to bring me out and my family but I hope of better things.”
              On July 19, 1875 Abraham Flint (the solicitor) wrote: “Joseph Housley has removed from Smalley and is working on some new foundry buildings at Little Chester near Derby. He lives at a village called Little Eaton near Derby. If you address your letter to him as Joseph Housley, carpenter, Little Eaton near Derby that will no doubt find him.”

              In his last letter (February 11, 1874), Joseph sounded very discouraged and wrote that Harriet’s parents were very poorly and both had been “in bed for a long time.” In addition, Harriet and the children had been ill.
              The move to Little Eaton may indicate that Joseph received his settlement because in August, 1873, he wrote: “I think this is bad news enough and bad luck too, but I have had little else since I came to live at Kiddsley cottages but perhaps it is all for the best if one could only think so. I have begun to think there will be no chance for us coming over to you for I am afraid there will not be so much left as will bring us out without it is settled very shortly but I don’t intend leaving this house until it is settled either one way or the other. ”

              Joseph’s letters were much concerned with the settling of their mother’s estate. In 1854, Anne wrote, “As for my mother coming (to America) I think not at all likely. She is tied here with her property.” A solicitor, Abraham John Flint of 42 Full Street Derby, was engaged by John following the death of their mother. On June 30, 1873 the solicitor wrote: “Dear sir, On the death of your mother I was consulted by your brother John. I acted for him with reference to the sale and division of your father’s property at Smalley. Mr. Kerry was very unwilling to act as trustee being over 73 years of age but owing to the will being a badly drawn one we could not appoint another trustee in his place nor could the property be sold without a decree of chancery. Therefore Mr. Kerry consented and after a great deal of trouble with Heath who has opposed us all throughout whenever matters did not suit him, we found the title deeds and offered the property for sale by public auction on the 15th of July last. Heath could not find his purchase money without mortaging his property the solicitor which the mortgagee employed refused to accept Mr. Kerry’s title and owing to another defect in the will we could not compel them.”

              In July 1872, Joseph wrote, “I do not know whether you can remember who the trustee was to my father’s will. It was Thomas Watson and Samuel Kerry of Smalley Green. Mr. Watson is dead (died a fortnight before mother) so Mr. Kerry has had to manage the affair.”

              On Dec. 15, 1972, Joseph wrote, “Now about this property affair. It seems as far off of being settled as ever it was….” and in the following March wrote: “I think we are as far off as ever and farther I think.”

              Concerning the property which was auctioned on July 15, 1872 and brought 700 pounds, Joseph wrote: “It was sold in five lots for building land and this man Heath bought up four lots–that is the big house, the croft and the cottages. The croft was made into two lots besides the piece belonging to the big house and the cottages and gardens was another lot and the little intake was another. William Richardson bought that.” Elsewhere Richardson’s purchase was described as “the little croft against Smith’s lane.” Smith’s Lane was probably named for their neighbor Daniel Smith, Mrs. Davy’s father.
              But in December 1872, Joseph wrote that they had not received any money because “Mr. Heath is raising all kinds of objections to the will–something being worded wrong in the will.” In March 1873, Joseph “clarified” matters in this way: “His objection was that one trustee could not convey the property that his signature was not guarantee sufficient as it states in the will that both trustees has to sign the conveyance hence this bother.”
              Joseph indicated that six shares were to come out of the 700 pounds besides Will’s 20 pounds. Children were to come in for the parents shares if dead. The solicitor wrote in 1873, “This of course refers to the Kidsley property in which you take a one seventh share and which if the property sells well may realize you about 60-80 pounds.” In March 1873 Joseph wrote: “You have an equal share with the rest in both lots of property, but I am afraid there will be but very little for any of us.”

              The other “lot of property” was “property in Smalley left under another will.” On July 17, 1872, Joseph wrote: “It was left by my grandfather Carrington and Uncle Richard is trustee. He seems very backward in bringing the property to a sale but I saw him and told him that I for one expect him to proceed with it.” George seemed to have difficulty understanding that there were two pieces of property so Joseph explained further: “It was left by my grandfather Carrington not by our father and Uncle Richard is the trustee for it but the will does not give him power to sell without the signatures of the parties concerned.” In June 1873 the solicitor Abraham John Flint asked: “Nothing has been done about the other property at Smalley at present. It wants attention and the other parties have asked me to attend to it. Do you authorize me to see to it for you as well?”
              After Ellen’s death, the rent was divided between Joseph, Will, Mary Ann and Mr. Heath who bought John’s share and was married to Mary Ann’s daughter, Ruth. Joseph said that Mr. Heath paid 40 pounds for John’s share and that John had drawn 110 pounds in advance. The solicitor said Heath said he paid 60. The solicitor said that Heath was trying to buy the shares of those at home to get control of the property and would have defied the absent ones to get anything.
              In September 1872 Joseph wrote that the lawyer said the trustee cannot sell the property at the bottom of Smalley without the signatures of all parties concerned in it and it will have to go through chancery court which will be a great expense. He advised Joseph to sell his share and Joseph advised George to do the same.

              George sent a “portrait” so that it could be established that it was really him–still living and due a share. Joseph wrote (July 1872): “the trustee was quite willing to (acknowledge you) for the portrait I think is a very good one.” Several letters later in response to an inquiry from George, Joseph wrote: “The trustee recognized you in a minute…I have not shown it to Mary Ann for we are not on good terms….Parties that I have shown it to own you again but they say it is a deal like John. It is something like him, but I think is more like myself.”
              In September 1872 Joseph wrote that the lawyer required all of their ages and they would have to pay “succession duty”. Joseph requested that George send a list of birth dates.

              On May 23, 1874, the solicitor wrote: “I have been offered 240 pounds for the three cottages and the little house. They sold for 200 pounds at the last sale and then I was offered 700 pounds for the whole lot except Richardson’s Heanor piece for which he is still willing to give 58 pounds. Thus you see that the value of the estate has very materially increased since the last sale so that this delay has been beneficial to your interests than other-wise. Coal has become much dearer and they suppose there is coal under this estate. There are many enquiries about it and I believe it will realize 800 pounds or more which increase will more than cover all expenses.” Eventually the solicitor wrote that the property had been sold for 916 pounds and George would take a one-ninth share.

              January 14, 1876:  “I am very sorry to hear of your lameness and illness but I trust that you are now better. This matter as I informed you had to stand over until December since when all the costs and expenses have been taxed and passed by the court and I am expecting to receive the order for these this next week, then we have to pay the legacy duty and them divide the residue which I doubt won’t come to very much amongst so many of you. But you will hear from me towards the end of the month or early next month when I shall have to send you the papers to sign for your share. I can’t tell you how much it will be at present as I shall have to deduct your share with the others of the first sale made of the property before it went to court.
              Wishing you a Happy New Year, I am Dear Sir, Yours truly
              Abram J. Flint”

              September 15, 1876 (the last letter)
              “I duly received your power of attorney which appears to have been properly executed on Thursday last and I sent it on to my London agent, Mr. Henry Lyvell, who happens just now to be away for his annual vacation and will not return for 14 or 20 days and as his signature is required by the Paymaster General before he will pay out your share, it must consequently stand over and await his return home. It shall however receive immediate attention as soon as he returns and I hope to be able to send your checque for the balance very shortly.”

              1874 in chancery:

              Housley Estate Sale

              #6242
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                The Housley Letters

                We discovered that one of Samuel’s brothers, George Housley 1826-1877,  emigrated to America in 1851, to Solebury, in Pennsylvania. Another brother, Charles 1823-1856, emigrated to Australia at the same time.

                I wrote to the Solebury Historical Society to ask them if they had any information on the Housleys there. About a month later I had a very helpful and detailed reply from them.

                There were Housley people in Solebury Township and nearby communities from 1854 to at least 1973, perhaps 1985. George Housley immigrated in 1851, arriving in New York from London in July 1851 on the ship “Senator”. George was in Solebury by 1854, when he is listed on the tax roles for the Township He didn’t own land at that time. Housley family members mostly lived in the Lumberville area, a village in Solebury, or in nearby Buckingham or Wrightstown. The second wife of Howard (aka Harry) Housley was Elsa (aka Elsie) R. Heed, the daughter of the Lumberville Postmaster. Elsie was the proprietor of the Lumberville General Store from 1939 to 1973, and may have continued to live in Lumberville until her death in 1985. The Lumberville General Store was, and still is, a focal point of the community. The store was also the official Post Office at one time, hence the connection between Elsie’s father as Postmaster, and Elsie herself as the proprietor of the store. The Post Office function at Lumberville has been reduced now to a bank of cluster mailboxes, and official U.S. Postal functions are now in Point Pleasant, PA a few miles north of Lumberville.
                We’ve attached a pdf of the Housley people buried in Carversville Cemetery, which is in the town next to Lumberville, and is still in Solebury Township. We hope this list will confirm that these are your relatives.

                It doesn’t seem that any Housley people still live in the area. Some of George’s descendents moved to Wilkes-Barre, PA and Flemington, NJ. One descendent, Barbara Housley, lived in nearby Doylestown, PA, which is the county seat for Bucks County. She actually visited Solebury Township Historical Society looking for Housley relatives, and it would have been nice to connect you with her. Unfortunately she died in 2018. Her obituary is attached in case you want to follow up with the nieces and great nieces who are listed.

                Lumberville General Store, Pennsylvania, Elsie Housley:

                Lumberville

                 

                I noticed the name of Barbara’s brother Howard Housley in her obituary, and found him on facebook.  I knew it was the right Howard Housley as I recognized Barbara’s photograph in his friends list as the same photo in the obituary.  Howard didn’t reply initially to a friend request from a stranger, so I found his daughter Laura on facebook and sent her a message.  She replied, spoke to her father, and we exchanged email addresses and were able to start a correspondence.  I simply could not believe my luck when Howard sent me a 17 page file of Barbara’s Narrative on the Letters with numerous letter excerpts interspersed with her own research compiled on a six month trip to England.

                The letters were written to George between 1851 and the 1870s, from the Housley family in Smalley.

                Narrative of Historic Letters ~ Barbara Housley.
                AND BELIEVE ME EVER MY DEAR BROTHER, YOUR AFFECTIONATE FAMILY
                In February 1991, I took a picture of my 16 month old niece Laura Ann Housley standing near the tombstones of her great-great-great-grandparents, George and Sarah Ann Hill Housley. The occassion was the funeral of another Sarah Housley, Sarah Lord Housley, wife of Albert Kilmer Housley, youngest son of John Eley Housley (George and Sarah Ann’s first born). Laura Ann’s great-grandfather (my grandfather) was another George, John Eley’s first born. It was Aunt Sarah who brought my mother, Lois, a packet of papers which she had found in the attic. Mom spent hours transcribing the letters which had been written first horizontally and then vertically to save paper. What began to emerge was a priceless glimpse into the lives and concerns of Housleys who lived and died over a century ago. All of the letters ended with the phrase “And believe me ever my dear brother, your affectionate….”
                The greeting and opening remarks of each of the letters are included in a list below. The sentence structure and speech patterns have not been altered however spelling and some punctuation has been corrected. Some typical idiosyncrasies were: as for has, were for where and vice versa, no capitals at the beginnings of sentences, occasional commas and dashes but almost no periods. Emma appears to be the best educated of the three Housley letter-writers. Sister-in-law Harriet does not appear to be as well educated as any of the others. Since their mother did not write but apparently was in good health, it must be assumed that she could not.
                The people discussed and described in the following pages are for the most part known to be the family and friends of the Housleys of Smalley, Derbyshire, England. However, practically every page brings conjectures about the significance of persons who are mentioned in the letters and information about persons whose names seem to be significant but who have not yet been established as actual members of the family.

                To say this was a priceless addition to the family research is an understatement. I have since, with Howard’s permission, sent the file to the Derby Records Office for their family history section.  We are hoping that Howard will find the actual letters in among the boxes he has of his sisters belongings.  Some of the letters mention photographs that were sent. Perhaps some will be found.

                #6241
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  Kidsley Grange Farm and The Quakers Next Door

                  Kidsley Grange Farm in Smalley, Derbyshire, was the home of the Housleys in the 1800s.  William Housley 1781-1848 was born in nearby Selston.   His wife Ellen Carrington 1795-1872 was from a long line of Carringtons in Smalley.  They had ten children between 1815 and 1838.  Samuel, my 3x great grandfather, was the second son born in 1816.

                  The original farm has been made into a nursing home in recent years, which at the time of writing is up for sale at £500,000. Sadly none of the original farm appears visible with all the new additions.

                  The farm before it was turned into a nursing home:

                  Kidsley Grange Farm

                  Kidsley Grange Farm and Kidsley Park, a neighbouring farm, are mentioned in a little book about the history of Smalley.  The neighbours at Kidsley Park, the Davy’s,  were friends of the Housleys. They were Quakers.

                  Smalley Farms

                   

                  In Kerry’s History of Smalley:

                  Kidsley Park Farm was owned by Daniel Smith,  a prominent Quaker and the last of the Quakers at Kidsley. His daughter, Elizabeth Davy, widow of William Davis, married WH Barber MB of Smalley. Elizabeth was the author of the poem “Farewell to Kidsley Park”.

                  Emma Housley sent one of Elizabeth Davy’s poems to her brother George in USA.

                   “We have sent you a piece of poetry that Mrs. Davy composed about our ‘Old House.’ I am sure you will like it though you may not understand all the allusions she makes use of as well as we do.”

                  Farewell to Kidsley Park
                  Farewell, Farewell, Thy pathways now by strangers feet are trod,
                  And other hands and horses strange henceforth shall turn thy sod,
                  Yes, other eyes may watch the buds expanding in the spring.
                  And other children round the hearth the coming years may bring,
                  But mine will be the memory of cares and pleasures there,
                  Intenser ~ that no living thing in some of them can share,
                  Commencing with the loved, and lost, in days of long ago,
                  When one was present on whose head Atlantic’s breezes blow,
                  Long years ago he left that roof, and made a home afar ~
                  For that is really only “home” where life’s affections are!
                  How many thoughts come o’er me, for old Kidsley has “a name
                  And memory” ~ in the hearts of some not unknown to fame.
                  We dream not, in those happy times, that I should be the last,
                  Alone, to leave my native place ~ alone, to meet the blast,
                  I loved each nook and corner there, each leaf and blade of grass,
                  Each moonlight shadow on the pond I loved: but let it pass,
                  For mine is still the memory that only death can mar;
                  I fancy I shall see it reflecting every star.
                  The graves of buried quadrupeds, affectionate and true,
                  Will have the olden sunshine, and the same bright morning dew,
                  But the birds that sang at even when the autumn leaves were seer,
                  Will miss the crumbs they used to get, in winters long and drear.
                  Will the poor down-trodden miss me? God help them if they do!
                  Some manna in the wilderness, His goodness guide them to!
                  Farewell to those who love me! I shall bear them still in mind,
                  And hope to be remembered by those I left behind:
                  Do not forget the aged man ~ though another fills his place ~
                  Another, bearing not his name, nor coming of his race.
                  His creed might be peculiar; but there was much of good
                  Successors will not imitate, because not understood.
                  Two hundred years have come and past since George Fox ~ first of “Friends” ~
                  Established his religion there ~ which my departure ends.
                  Then be it so: God prosper these in basket and in store,
                  And make them happy in my place ~ my dwelling, never more!
                  For I may be a wanderer ~ no roof nor hearthstone mine:
                  May light that cometh from above my resting place define.
                  Gloom hovers o’er the prospect now, but He who was my friend,
                  In the midst of troubled waters, will see me to the end.

                  Elizabeth Davy, June 6th, 1863, Derby.

                  Another excerpt from Barbara Housley’s Narrative on the Letters from the family in Smalley to George in USA mentions the Davy’s:

                  Anne’s will was probated October 14, 1856. Mr. William Davy of Kidsley Park appeared for the family. Her estate was valued at under £20. Emma was to receive fancy needlework, a four post bedstead, feather bed and bedding, a mahogany chest of drawers, plates, linen and china. Emma was also to receive Anne’s writing desk! There was a condition that Ellen would have use of these items until her death.
                  The money that Anne was to receive from her grandfather, William Carrington, and her father, William Housley was to be distributed one third to Joseph, one third to Emma, and one third to be divided between her four neices: John’s daughter Elizabeth, 18, and Sam’s daughters Elizabeth, 10, Mary Anne, 9 and Catherine, age 7 to be paid by the trustees as they think “most useful and proper.” Emma Lyon and Elizabeth Davy were the witnesses.

                  Mrs. Davy wrote to George on March 21 1856 sending some gifts from his sisters and a portrait of their mother–“Emma is away yet and A is so much worse.” Mrs. Davy concluded: “With best wishes
                   for thy health and prosperity in this world and the next I am thy sincere friend.” Whenever the girls sent greetings from Mrs. Davy they used her Quaker speech pattern of “thee and thy.”

                   

                  #6240
                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    Phyllis Ellen Marshall

                    1909 – 1983

                    Phyllis Marshall

                     

                    Phyllis, my grandfather George Marshall’s sister, never married. She lived in her parents home in Love Lane, and spent decades of her later life bedridden, living alone and crippled with rheumatoid arthritis. She had her bed in the front downstairs room, and had cords hanging by her bed to open the curtains, turn on the tv and so on, and she had carers and meals on wheels visit her daily. The room was dark and grim, but Phyllis was always smiling and cheerful.  Phyllis loved the Degas ballerinas and had a couple of prints on the walls.

                    I remember visiting her, but it has only recently registered that this was my great grandparents house. When I was a child, we visited her and she indicated a tin on a chest of drawers and said I could take a biscuit. It was a lemon puff, and was the stalest biscuit I’d ever had. To be polite I ate it. Then she offered me another one! I declined, but she thought I was being polite and said “Go on! You can have another!” I ate another one, and have never eaten a lemon puff since that day.

                    Phyllis’s nephew Bryan Marshall used to visit her regularly. I didn’t realize how close they were until recently, when I resumed contact with Bryan, who emigrated to USA in the 1970s following a successful application for a job selling stained glass windows and church furnishings.

                    I asked on a Stourbridge facebook group if anyone remembered her.

                    AF  Yes I remember her. My friend and I used to go up from Longlands school every Friday afternoon to do jobs for her. I remember she had a record player and we used to put her 45rpm record on Send in the Clowns for her. Such a lovely lady. She had her bed in the front room.

                    KW I remember very clearly a lady in a small house in Love Lane with alley at the left hand.  I was intrigued by this lady who used to sit with the front door open and she was in a large chair of some sort. I used to see people going in and out and the lady was smiling. I was young then (31) and wondered how she coped but my sense was she had lots of help.  I’ve never forgotten that lady in Love Lane sitting in the open door way I suppose when it was warm enough.

                    LR I used to deliver meals on wheels to her lovely lady.

                    I sent Bryan the comments from the Stourbridge group and he replied:

                    Thanks Tracy. I don’t recognize the names here but lovely to see such kind comments.
                    In the early 70’s neighbors on Corser Street, Mr. & Mrs. Walter Braithwaite would pop around with occasional visits and meals. Walter was my piano teacher for awhile when I was in my early twenties. He was a well known music teacher at Rudolph Steiner School (former Elmfield School) on Love Lane. A very fine school. I seem to recall seeing a good article on Walter recently…perhaps on the Stourbridge News website. He was very well known.
                    I’m ruminating about life with my Aunt Phyllis. We were very close. Our extra special time was every Saturday at 5pm (I seem to recall) we’d watch Doctor Who. Right from the first episode. We loved it. Likewise I’d do the children’s crossword out of Woman’s Realm magazine…always looking to win a camera but never did ! She opened my mind to the Bible, music and ballet. She once got tickets and had a taxi take us into Birmingham to see the Bolshoi Ballet…at a time when they rarely left their country. It was a very big deal in the early 60’s. ! I’ve many fond memories about her and grandad which I’ll share in due course. I’d change the steel needle on the old record player, following each play of the 78rpm records…oh my…another world.

                    Bryan continues reminiscing about Phyllis in further correspondence:

                    Yes, I can recall those two Degas prints. I don’t know much of Phyllis’ early history other than she was a hairdresser in Birmingham. I want to say at John Lewis, for some reason (so there must have been a connection and being such a large store I bet they did have a salon?)
                    You will know that she had severe and debilitating rheumatoid arthritis that eventually gnarled her hands and moved through her body. I remember strapping on her leg/foot braces and hearing her writhe in pain as I did so but she wanted to continue walking standing/ getting up as long as she could. I’d take her out in the wheelchair and I can’t believe I say it along …but down Stanley Road!! (I had subsequent nightmares about what could have happened to her, had I tripped or let go!) She loved Mary Stevens Park, the swans, ducks and of course Canadian geese. Was grateful for everything in creation. As I used to go over Hanbury Hill on my visit to Love Lane, she would always remind me to smell the “sea-air” as I crested the hill.
                    In the earlier days she smoked cigarettes with one of those long filters…looking like someone from the twenties.

                    I’ll check on “Send in the clowns”. I do recall that music. I remember also she loved to hear Neil Diamond. Her favorites in classical music gave me an appreciation of Elgar and Delius especially. She also loved ballet music such as Swan Lake and Nutcracker. Scheherazade and La Boutique Fantastic also other gems.
                    When grandad died she and aunt Dorothy shared more about grandma (who died I believe when John and I were nine-months old…therefore early 1951). Grandma (Mary Ann Gilman Purdy) played the piano and loved Strauss and Offenbach. The piano in the picture you sent had a bad (wonky) leg which would fall off and when we had the piano at 4, Mount Road it was rather dangerous. In any event my parents didn’t want me or others “banging on it” for fear of waking the younger brothers so it disappeared at sometime.
                    By the way, the dog, Flossy was always so rambunctious (of course, she was a JRT!) she was put on the stairway which fortunately had a door on it. Having said that I’ve always loved dogs so was very excited to see her and disappointed when she was not around. 

                    Phyllis with her parents William and Mary Marshall, and Flossie the dog in the garden at Love Lane:

                    Phyllis William and Mary Marshall

                     

                    Bryan continues:

                    I’ll always remember the early days with the outside toilet with the overhead cistern caked in active BIG spider webs. I used to have to light a candle to go outside, shielding the flame until destination. In that space I’d set the candle down and watch the eery shadows move from side to side whilst…well anyway! Then I’d run like hell back into the house. Eventually the kitchen wall was broken through so it became an indoor loo. Phew!
                    In the early days the house was rented for ten-shillings a week…I know because I used to take over a ten-bob-note to a grumpy lady next door who used to sign the receipt in the rent book. Then, I think she died and it became available for $600.00 yes…the whole house for $600.00 but it wasn’t purchased then. Eventually aunt Phyllis purchased it some years later…perhaps when grandad died.

                    I used to work much in the back garden which was a lovely walled garden with arch-type decorations in the brickwork and semicircular shaped capping bricks. The abundant apple tree. Raspberry and loganberry canes. A gooseberry bush and huge Victoria plum tree on the wall at the bottom of the garden which became a wonderful attraction for wasps! (grandad called the “whasps”). He would stew apples and fruit daily.
                    Do you remember their black and white cat Twinky? Always sat on the pink-screen TV and when she died they were convinced that “that’s wot got ‘er”. Grandad of course loved all his cats and as he aged, he named them all “Billy”.

                    Have you come across the name “Featherstone” in grandma’s name. I don’t recall any details but Dorothy used to recall this. She did much searching of the family history Such a pity she didn’t hand anything on to anyone. She also said that we had a member of the family who worked with James Watt….but likewise I don’t have details.
                    Gifts of chocolates to Phyllis were regular and I became the recipient of the overflow!

                    What a pity Dorothy’s family history research has disappeared!  I have found the Featherstone’s, and the Purdy who worked with James Watt, but I wonder what else Dorothy knew.

                    I mentioned DH Lawrence to Bryan, and the connection to Eastwood, where Bryan’s grandma (and Phyllis’s mother) Mary Ann Gilman Purdy was born, and shared with him the story about Francis Purdy, the Primitive Methodist minister, and about Francis’s son William who invented the miners lamp.

                    He replied:

                    As a nosy young man I was looking through the family bookcase in Love Lane and came across a brown paper covered book. Intrigued, I found “Sons and Lovers” D.H. Lawrence. I knew it was a taboo book (in those days) as I was growing up but now I see the deeper connection. Of course! I know that Phyllis had I think an earlier boyfriend by the name of Maurice who lived in Perry Barr, Birmingham. I think he later married but was always kind enough to send her a book and fond message each birthday (Feb.12). I guess you know grandad’s birthday – July 28. We’d always celebrate those days. I’d usually be the one to go into Oldswinford and get him a cardigan or pullover and later on, his 2oz tins of St. Bruno tobacco for his pipe (I recall the room filled with smoke as he puffed away).
                    Dorothy and Phyllis always spoke of their ancestor’s vocation as a Minister. So glad to have this history! Wow, what a story too. The Lord rescued him from mischief indeed. Just goes to show how God can change hearts…one at a time.
                    So interesting to hear about the Miner’s Lamp. My vicar whilst growing up at St. John’s in Stourbridge was from Durham and each Harvest Festival, there would be a miner’s lamp placed upon the altar as a symbol of the colliery and the bountiful harvest.

                    More recollections from Bryan about the house and garden at Love Lane:

                    I always recall tea around the three legged oak table bedecked with a colorful seersucker cloth. Battenburg cake. Jam Roll. Rich Tea and Digestive biscuits. Mr. Kipling’s exceedingly good cakes! Home-made jam.  Loose tea from the Coronation tin cannister. The ancient mangle outside the back door and the galvanized steel wash tub with hand-operated agitator on the underside of the lid. The hand operated water pump ‘though modernisation allowed for a cold tap only inside, above the single sink and wooden draining board. A small gas stove and very little room for food preparation. Amazing how the Marshalls (×7) managed in this space!

                    The small window over the sink in the kitchen brought in little light since the neighbor built on a bathroom annex at the back of their house, leaving #47 with limited light, much to to upset of grandad and Phyllis. I do recall it being a gloomy place..i.e.the kitchen and back room.

                    The garden was lovely. Long and narrow with privet hedge dividing the properties on the right and the lovely wall on the left. Dorothy planted spectacular lilac bushes against the wall. Vivid blues, purples and whites. Double-flora. Amazing…and with stunning fragrance. Grandad loved older victorian type plants such as foxgloves and comfrey. Forget-me-nots and marigolds (calendulas) in abundance.  Rhubarb stalks. Always plantings of lettuce and other vegetables. Lots of mint too! A large varigated laurel bush outside the front door!

                    Such a pleasant walk through the past. 

                    An autograph book belonging to Phyllis from the 1920s has survived in which each friend painted a little picture, drew a cartoon, or wrote a verse.  This entry is perhaps my favourite:

                    Ripping Time

                    #6238
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      Ellen (Nellie) Purdy

                      My grandfathers aunt Nellie Purdy 1872-1947 grew up with his mother Mary Ann at the Gilmans in Buxton.  We knew she was a nurse or a matron, and that she made a number of trips to USA.

                      I started looking for passenger lists and immigration lists (we had already found some of them, and my cousin Linda Marshall in Boston found some of them), and found one in 1904 with details of the “relatives address while in US”.

                      October 31st, 1904, Ellen Purdy sailed from Liverpool to Baltimore on the Friesland. She was a 32 year old nurse and she paid for her own ticket. The address of relatives in USA was Druid Hill and Lafayette Ave, Baltimore, Maryland.

                      I wondered if she stayed with relatives, perhaps they were the Housley descendants. It was her great uncle George Housley who emigrated in 1851, not so far away in Pennsylvania. I wanted to check the Baltimore census to find out the names at that address, in case they were Housley’s. So I joined a Baltimore History group on facebook, and asked how I might find out.  The people were so enormously helpful!  The address was the Home of the Friendless, an orphanage. (a historic landmark of some note I think), and someone even found Ellen Purdy listed in the Baltimore directory as a nurse there.

                      She sailed back to England in 1913.   Ellen sailed in 1900 and 1920 as well but I haven’t unraveled those trips yet.

                      THE HOME OF THE FRIENDLESS, is situated at the corner of Lafayette and Druid Hill avenues, Baltimore. It is a large brick building, which was erected at a cost of $62,000. It was organized in 1854.The chief aim of the founders of this institution was to respond to a need for providing a home for the friendless and homeless children, orphans, and half-orphans, or the offspring of vagrants. It has been managed since its organization by a board of ladies, who, by close attention and efficient management, have made the institution one of the most prominent charitable institutions in the State. From its opening to the present time there have been received 5,000 children, and homes have been secured for nearly one thousand of this number. The institution has a capacity of about 200 inmates. The present number of beneficiaries is 165. A kindergarten and other educational facilities are successfully conducted. The home knows no demonimational creed, being non-sectarian. Its principal source of revenue is derived from private contributions. For many years the State has appropriated different sums towards it maintenance, and the General Assembly of 1892 contributed the sum of $3,000 per annum.

                      A later trip:   The ship’s manifest from May 1920 the Baltic lists Ellen on board arriving in Ellis Island heading to Baltimore age 48. The next of kin is listed as George Purdy (her father) of 2 Gregory Blvd Forest Side, Nottingham. She’s listed as a nurse, and sailed from Liverpool May 8 1920.

                      Ellen Purdy

                       

                      Ellen eventually retired in England and married Frank Garbett, a tax collector,  at the age of 51 in Herefordshire.  Judging from the number of newspaper articles I found about her, she was an active member of the community and was involved in many fundraising activities for the local cottage hospital.

                      Her obituary in THE KINGTON TIMES, NOVEMBER 8, 1947:
                      Mrs. Ellen Garbett wife of Mr. F. Garbett, of Brook Cottage, Kingsland, whose funeral took place at St. Michael’s Church, Kingsland, on October 30th, was a familiar figure in the district, and by her genial manner and kindly ways had endeared herself to many.
                      Mrs Garbett had had a wide experience in the nursing profession. Beginning her training in this country, she went to the Italian Riviera and there continued her work, later going to the United States. In 1916 she gained the Q.A.I.M.N.S. and returned to England and was appointed sister at the Lord Derby Military Hospital, an appointment she held for four years.

                      We didn’t know that Ellen had worked on the Italian Riviera, and hope in due course to find out more about it.

                      Mike Rushby, Ellen’s sister Kate’s grandson in Australia, spoke to his sister in USA recently about Nellie Purdy. She replied:   I told you I remembered Auntie Nellie coming to Jacksdale. She gave me a small green leatherette covered bible which I still have ( though in a very battered condition). Here is a picture of it.

                      Ellen Purdy bible

                      #6236
                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        The Liverpool Fires

                        Catherine Housley had two older sisters, Elizabeth 1845-1883 and Mary Anne 1846-1935.  Both Elizabeth and Mary Anne grew up in the Belper workhouse after their mother died, and their father was jailed for failing to maintain his three children.  Mary Anne married Samuel Gilman and they had a grocers shop in Buxton.  Elizabeth married in Liverpool in 1873.

                        What was she doing in Liverpool? How did she meet William George Stafford?

                        According to the census, Elizabeth Housley was in Belper workhouse in 1851. In 1861, aged 16,  she was a servant in the household of Peter Lyon, a baker in Derby St Peters.  We noticed that the Lyon’s were friends of the family and were mentioned in the letters to George in Pennsylvania.

                        No record of Elizabeth can be found on the 1871 census, but in 1872 the birth and death was registered of Elizabeth and William’s child, Elizabeth Jane Stafford. The parents are registered as William and Elizabeth Stafford, although they were not yet married. William’s occupation is a “refiner”.

                        In April, 1873, a Fatal Fire is reported in the Liverpool Mercury. Fearful Termination of a Saturday Night Debauch. Seven Persons Burnt To Death.  Interesting to note in the article that “the middle room being let off to a coloured man named William Stafford and his wife”.

                        Fatal Fire Liverpool

                         

                        We had noted on the census that William Stafford place of birth was “Africa, British subject” but it had not occurred to us that he was “coloured”.  A register of birth has not yet been found for William and it is not known where in Africa he was born.

                        Liverpool fire

                         

                        Elizabeth and William survived the fire on Gay Street, and were still living on Gay Street in October 1873 when they got married.

                        William’s occupation on the marriage register is sugar refiner, and his father is Peter Stafford, farmer. Elizabeth’s father is Samuel Housley, plumber. It does not say Samuel Housley deceased, so perhaps we can assume that Samuel is still alive in 1873.

                        Eliza Florence Stafford, their second daughter, was born in 1876.

                        William’s occupation on the 1881 census is “fireman”, in his case, a fire stoker at the sugar refinery, an unpleasant and dangerous job for which they were paid slightly more. William, Elizabeth and Eliza were living in Byrom Terrace.

                        Byrom Terrace, Liverpool, in 1933

                        Byrom Terrace

                         

                        Elizabeth died of heart problems in 1883, when Eliza was six years old, and in 1891 her father died, scalded to death in a tragic accident at the sugar refinery.

                        Scalded to Death

                         

                        Eliza, aged 15, was living as an inmate at the Walton on the Hill Institution in 1891. It’s not clear when she was admitted to the workhouse, perhaps after her mother died in 1883.

                        In 1901 Eliza Florence Stafford is a 24 year old live in laundrymaid, according to the census, living in West Derby  (a part of Liverpool, and not actually in Derby).  On the 1911 census there is a Florence Stafford listed  as an unnmarried laundress, with a daughter called Florence.  In 1901 census she was a laundrymaid in West Derby, Liverpool, and the daughter Florence Stafford was born in 1904 West Derby.  It’s likely that this is Eliza Florence, but nothing further has been found so far.

                         

                        The questions remaining are the location of William’s birth, the name of his mother and his family background, what happened to Eliza and her daughter after 1911, and how did Elizabeth meet William in the first place.

                        William Stafford was a seaman prior to working in the sugar refinery, and he appears on several ship’s crew lists.  Nothing so far has indicated where he might have been born, or where his father came from.

                        Some months after finding the newspaper article about the fire on Gay Street, I saw an unusual request for information on the Liverpool genealogy group. Someone asked if anyone knew of a fire in Liverpool in the 1870’s.  She had watched a programme about children recalling past lives, in this case a memory of a fire. The child recalled pushing her sister into a burning straw mattress by accident, as she attempted to save her from a falling beam.  I watched the episode in question hoping for more information to confirm if this was the same fire, but details were scant and it’s impossible to say for sure.

                        #6235
                        TracyTracy
                        Participant

                          Sydney Smith and Lawrence of Arabia

                          Hannah Warren 1865-1946 was my great grandfather Samuel’s sister. Hannah married Charles Smith, and their son was Sydney Smith 1888-1971, Lawrence of Arabia’s commanding officer. Sydney’s wife, Clare Sydney Smith, wrote a book about their friendship with Lawrence of Arabia called The Golden Reign.

                          This photograph of Sydney Smith and Clare is in our collection of family photos. Written on the back: Sydney Smith son of Hannah Smith sister of Samuel Warren married Clare Eustace Jameson, niece of Earl Haig.

                          Sydney Smith and Clare

                          The Burton Observer and Chronicle – Thursday 19 September 1940:

                          BURTONIANS’ FRIENDSHIP WITH EX-ARAB LEADER. By Clare Sydney Smith (Cassell, 12s. 6d.).  general interest as an intimate study of the most romantic personality on the Allied side… this volume has distinctly local appeal, for the authoress, who is a niece of the late Earl Haig, is the wife of Mr Commodore Sydney Smith, eldest son of Mr. Charles Smith (former joint managing director of Allsopp’s). Her volume, on the whole, is a fascinating record of the devoted friendship which existed between Colonel Lawrence of Arabia, her husband and herself during the latter years of the one-time Arab leader’s life. Their acquaintance with  Lawrence, alias Aircraftman T. E. Shaw, commenced with the Cairo Conference in 1920.

                          The Golden Reign

                           

                          A photograph from the book: From left to right: Lord Astor, Wing-Commander Sydney Smith, Lady Astor, George Bernard Shaw, Charlotte Shaw (hiding behind GBS’s shoulder), Sydney’s daughter Maureen Sydney Smith, an unknown man, Clare Sydney Smith, and on the ladder, T.E.’s feet.

                          Sydney Smith and Lord Astor

                           

                          Also from Clare’s book:

                          Clare Sydney Smith and TE Lawrence

                           

                          Sydney Smith with Lawrence of Arabia:

                          Sydney Smith Lawrence of Arabia

                          #6232
                          TracyTracy
                          Participant

                            Looking for Photographs

                            I appreciate how fortunate I am that there are so many family photographs on various sides of the family, however, on some sides, for example the Warrens and the Grettons, there are no photographs. I’d love to find a photograph of my great grandmother Florence Nightingale Gretton, as she is the only great grandparent I don’t have a photo of.

                            I look on other people’s family trees on ancestry websites, and I join local town memories and old photos groups on facebook hoping to find photos. And I have found a few, and what a prize it is to find a photograph of someone in your tree.  None found so far of Florence Nightingale Gretton, although I found one of her sister Clara, her brother Charles, and another potential one, posted on a Swadlincote group: a Warren wedding group in 1910.

                            Charles Herbert Gretton 1876-1954 and his wife Mary Ann Illsley:

                            Charles Gretton

                             

                            The wedding of Robert Adolphus Warren and Eveline Crofts.  Photo in the collection of Colin Smith, Eveline Crofts first cousin twice removed. Reposted with permission:

                            Warren wedding 1910

                            The groom was Florence’s husbands cousin, but identifying my great grandparents in the crowd would be guesswork.  My grandmother was born in 1906, and could be one of the children sitting at the front.  It was an interesting exercise to note the family likenesses.

                            Ben Warren the footballer is the man on the far right, on the same line as the groom. His children are sitting in front of the bride.

                            There are many mentions of Ben Warren the footballer on the Newhall and Swadlincote groups ~ Ben Warren was my great grandfathers cousin, and is a story in itself ~ and a photograph of Ben’s daughter, Lillian Warren was posted.

                            Lillian Warren (reposted with permission)

                            Lillian Warren

                             

                            Lillian was my grandmothers first cousin once removed or second cousin. The resemblance to my grandmother, Florence Noreen Warren, seems striking.

                            #6229
                            TracyTracy
                            Participant

                              Gretton Tailoresses of Swadlincote and the Single Journalist Boot Maker Next Door

                              The Purdy’s, Housley’s and Marshall’s are my mothers fathers side of the family.  The Warrens, Grettons and Staleys are from my mothers mothers side.

                              I decided to add all the siblings to the Gretton side of the family, in search of some foundation to a couple of family anecdotes.  My grandmother, Nora Marshall, whose mother was Florence Nightingale Gretton, used to mention that our Gretton side of the family were related to the Burton Upon Trent Grettons of Bass, Ratcliff and Gretton, the brewery.  She also said they were related to Lord Gretton of Stableford Park in Leicestershire.  When she was a child, she said parcels of nice clothes were sent to them by relatives.

                              Bass Ratcliffe and Gretton

                               

                              It should be noted however that Baron Gretton is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, and was created in 1944 for the brewer and Conservative politician John Gretton. He was head of the brewery firm of Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton Ltd of Burton upon Trent. So they were not members of the Peerage at the time of this story.

                              What I found was unexpected.

                              My great great grandfather Richard Gretton 1833-1898, a baker in Swadlincote, didn’t have any brothers, but he did have a couple of sisters.

                              One of them, Frances, born 1831, never married, but had four children. She stayed in the family home, and named her children Gretton. In 1841 and 1851 she’s living with parents and siblings. In 1861 she is still living with parents and now on the census she has four children all named Gretton listed as grandchildren of her father.
                              In 1871, her mother having died in 1866, she’s still living with her father William Gretton, Frances is now 40, and her son William 19 and daughter Jane 15 live there.
                              By the time she is 50 in 1881 and her parents have died she’s head of the house with 5 children all called Gretton, including her daughter Jane Gretton aged 24.

                              Twenty five year old Robert Staley is listed on the census transcription as living in the same household, but when viewing the census image it becomes clear that he lived next door, on his own and was a bootmaker, and on the other side, his parents Benjamin and Sarah Staley lived at the Prince of Wales pub with two other siblings.

                              Who was fathering all these Gretton children?

                              It seems that Jane did the same thing as her mother: she stayed at home and had three children, all with the name Gretton.  Jane Gretton named her son, born in 1878, Michael William Staley Gretton, which would suggest that Staley was the name of the father of the child/children of Jane Gretton.

                              The father of Frances Gretton’s four children is not known, and there is no father on the birth registers, although they were all baptized.

                              I found a photo of Jane Gretton on a family tree on an ancestry site, so I contacted the tree owner hoping that she had some more information, but she said no, none of the older family members would explain when asked about it.  Jane later married Tom Penn, and Jane Gretton’s children are listed on census as Tom Penn’s stepchildren.

                              Jane Gretton Penn

                               

                              It seems that Robert Staley (who may or may not be the father of Jane’s children) never married. In 1891 Robert is 35, single, living with widowed mother Sarah in Swadlincote. Sarah is living on own means and Robert has no occupation. On the 1901 census Robert is an unmarried 45 year old journalist and author, living with his widowed mother Sarah Staley aged 79, in Swadlincote.

                              There are at least three Staley  Warren marriages in the family, and at least one Gretton Staley marriage.

                              There is a possibility that the father of Frances’s children could be a Gretton, but impossible to know for sure. William Gretton was a tailor, and several of his children and grandchildren were tailoresses.  The Gretton family who later bought Stableford Park lived not too far away, and appear to be well off with a dozen members of live in staff on the census.   Did our Gretton’s the tailors make their clothes? Is that where the parcels of nice clothes came from?

                              Perhaps we’ll find a family connection to the brewery Grettons, or find the family connection was an unofficial one, or that the connection is further back.

                              I suppose luckily, this isn’t my direct line but an exploration of an offshoot, so the question of paternity is merely a matter of curiosity.  It is a curious thing, those Gretton tailors of Church Gresley near Burton upon Trent, and there are questions remaining.

                              #6227
                              TracyTracy
                              Participant

                                The Scottish Connection

                                My grandfather always used to say we had some Scottish blood because his “mother was a Purdy”, and that they were from the low counties of Scotland near to the English border.

                                My mother had a Scottish hat in among the boxes of souvenirs and old photographs. In one of her recent house moves, she finally threw it away, not knowing why we had it or where it came from, and of course has since regretted it!  It probably came from one of her aunts, either Phyllis or Dorothy. Neither of them had children, and they both died in 1983. My grandfather was executor of the estate in both cases, and it’s assumed that the portraits, the many photographs, the booklet on Primitive Methodists, and the Scottish hat, all relating to his mother’s side of the family, came into his possession then. His sister Phyllis never married and was living in her parents home until she died, and is the likeliest candidate for the keeper of the family souvenirs.

                                Catherine Housley married George Purdy, and his father was Francis Purdy, the Primitive Methodist preacher.  William Purdy was the father of Francis.

                                Record searches find William Purdy was born on 16 July 1767 in Carluke, Lanarkshire, near Glasgow in Scotland. He worked for James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, and moved to Derbyshire for the purpose of installing steam driven pumps to remove the water from the collieries in the area.

                                Another descendant of Francis Purdy found the following in a book in a library in Eastwood:

                                William Purdy

                                William married a local girl, Ruth Clarke, in Duffield in Derbyshire in 1786.  William and Ruth had nine children, and the seventh was Francis who was born at West Hallam in 1795.

                                Perhaps the Scottish hat came from William Purdy, but there is another story of Scottish connections in Smalley:  Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745.  Although the Purdy’s were not from Smalley, Catherine Housley was.

                                From an article on the Heanor and District Local History Society website:

                                The Jacobites in Smalley

                                Few people would readily associate the village of Smalley, situated about two miles west of Heanor, with Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 – but there is a clear link.

                                During the winter of 1745, Charles Edward Stuart, the “Bonnie Prince” or “The Young Pretender”, marched south from Scotland. His troops reached Derby on 4 December, and looted the town, staying for two days before they commenced a fateful retreat as the Duke of Cumberland’s army approached.

                                While staying in Derby, or during the retreat, some of the Jacobites are said to have visited some of the nearby villages, including Smalley.

                                A history of the local aspects of this escapade was written in 1933 by L. Eardley-Simpson, entitled “Derby and the ‘45,” from which the following is an extract:

                                “The presence of a party at Smalley is attested by several local traditions and relics. Not long ago there were people living who remember to have seen at least a dozen old pikes in a room adjoining the stables at Smalley Hall, and these were stated to have been left by a party of Highlanders who came to exchange their ponies for horses belonging to the then owner, Mrs Richardson; in 1907, one of these pikes still remained. Another resident of Smalley had a claymore which was alleged to have been found on Drumhill, Breadsall Moor, while the writer of the History of Smalley himself (Reverend C. Kerry) had a magnificent Andrew Ferrara, with a guard of finely wrought iron, engraved with two heads in Tudor helmets, of the same style, he states, as the one left at Wingfield Manor, though why the outlying bands of Army should have gone so far afield, he omits to mention. Smalley is also mentioned in another strange story as to the origin of the family of Woolley of Collingham who attained more wealth and a better position in the world than some of their relatives. The story is to the effect that when the Scots who had visited Mrs Richardson’s stables were returning to Derby, they fell in with one Woolley of Smalley, a coal carrier, and impressed him with horse and cart for the conveyance of certain heavy baggage. On the retreat, the party with Woolley was surprised by some of the Elector’s troopers (the Royal army) who pursued the Scots, leaving Woolley to shift for himself. This he did, and, his suspicion that the baggage he was carrying was part of the Prince’s treasure turning out to be correct, he retired to Collingham, and spent the rest of his life there in the enjoyment of his luckily acquired gains. Another story of a similar sort was designed to explain the rise of the well-known Derbyshire family of Cox of Brailsford, but the dates by no means agree with the family pedigree, and in any event the suggestion – for it is little more – is entirely at variance with the views as to the rights of the Royal House of Stuart which were expressed by certain members of the Cox family who were alive not many years ago.”

                                A letter from Charles Kerry, dated 30 July 1903, narrates another strange twist to the tale. When the Highlanders turned up in Smalley, a large crowd, mainly women, gathered. “On a command in Gaelic, the regiment stooped, and throwing their kilts over their backs revealed to the astonished ladies and all what modesty is careful to conceal. Father, who told me, said they were not any more troubled with crowds of women.”

                                Folklore or fact? We are unlikely to know, but the Scottish artefacts in the Smalley area certainly suggest that some of the story is based on fact.

                                We are unlikely to know where that Scottish hat came from, but we did find the Scottish connection.  William Purdy’s mother was Grizel Gibson, and her mother was Grizel Murray, both of Lanarkshire in Scotland.  The name Grizel is a Scottish form of the name Griselda, and means “grey battle maiden”.  But with the exception of the name Murray, The Purdy and Gibson names are not traditionally Scottish, so there is not much of a Scottish connection after all.  But the mystery of the Scottish hat remains unsolved.

                                #6222
                                TracyTracy
                                Participant

                                  George Gilman Rushby: The Cousin Who Went To Africa

                                  The portrait of the woman has “mother of Catherine Housley, Smalley” written on the back, and one of the family photographs has “Francis Purdy” written on the back. My first internet search was “Catherine Housley Smalley Francis Purdy”. Easily found was the family tree of George (Mike) Rushby, on one of the genealogy websites. It seemed that it must be our family, but the African lion hunter seemed unlikely until my mother recalled her father had said that he had a cousin who went to Africa. I also noticed that the lion hunter’s middle name was Gilman ~ the name that Catherine Housley’s daughter ~ my great grandmother, Mary Ann Gilman Purdy ~ adopted, from her aunt and uncle who brought her up.

                                  I tried to contact George (Mike) Rushby via the ancestry website, but got no reply. I searched for his name on Facebook and found a photo of a wildfire in a place called Wardell, in Australia, and he was credited with taking the photograph. A comment on the photo, which was a few years old, got no response, so I found a Wardell Community group on Facebook, and joined it. A very small place, population some 700 or so, and I had an immediate response on the group to my question. They knew Mike, exchanged messages, and we were able to start emailing. I was in the chair at the dentist having an exceptionally long canine root canal at the time that I got the message with his email address, and at that moment the song Down in Africa started playing.

                                  Mike said it was clever of me to track him down which amused me, coming from the son of an elephant and lion hunter.  He didn’t know why his father’s middle name was Gilman, and was not aware that Catherine Housley’s sister married a Gilman.

                                  Mike Rushby kindly gave me permission to include his family history research in my book.  This is the story of my grandfather George Marshall’s cousin.  A detailed account of George Gilman Rushby’s years in Africa can be found in another chapter called From Tanganyika With Love; the letters Eleanor wrote to her family.

                                  George Gilman Rushby:

                                  George Gilman Rushby

                                   

                                  The story of George Gilman Rushby 1900-1969, as told by his son Mike:

                                  George Gilman Rushby:
                                  Elephant hunter,poacher, prospector, farmer, forestry officer, game ranger, husband to Eleanor, and father of 6 children who now live around the world.

                                  George Gilman Rushby was born in Nottingham on 28 Feb 1900 the son of Catherine Purdy and John Henry Payling Rushby. But John Henry died when his son was only one and a half years old, and George shunned his drunken bullying stepfather Frank Freer and was brought up by Gypsies who taught him how to fight and took him on regular poaching trips. His love of adventure and his ability to hunt were nurtured at an early stage of his life.
                                  The family moved to Eastwood, where his mother Catherine owned and managed The Three Tuns Inn, but when his stepfather died in mysterious circumstances, his mother married a wealthy bookmaker named Gregory Simpson. He could afford to send George to Worksop College and to Rugby School. This was excellent schooling for George, but the boarding school environment, and the lack of a stable home life, contributed to his desire to go out in the world and do his own thing. When he finished school his first job was as a trainee electrician with Oaks & Co at Pye Bridge. He also worked part time as a motor cycle mechanic and as a professional boxer to raise the money for a voyage to South Africa.

                                  In May 1920 George arrived in Durban destitute and, like many others, living on the beach and dependant upon the Salvation Army for a daily meal. However he soon got work as an electrical mechanic, and after a couple of months had earned enough money to make the next move North. He went to Lourenco Marques where he was appointed shift engineer for the town’s power station. However he was still restless and left the comfort of Lourenco Marques for Beira in August 1921.

                                  Beira was the start point of the new railway being built from the coast to Nyasaland. George became a professional hunter providing essential meat for the gangs of construction workers building the railway. He was a self employed contractor with his own support crew of African men and began to build up a satisfactory business. However, following an incident where he had to shoot and kill a man who attacked him with a spear in middle of the night whilst he was sleeping, George left the lower Zambezi and took a paddle steamer to Nyasaland (Malawi). On his arrival in Karongo he was encouraged to shoot elephant which had reached plague proportions in the area – wrecking African homes and crops, and threatening the lives of those who opposed them.

                                  His next move was to travel by canoe the five hundred kilometre length of Lake Nyasa to Tanganyika, where he hunted for a while in the Lake Rukwa area, before walking through Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) to the Congo. Hunting his way he overachieved his quota of ivory resulting in his being charged with trespass, the confiscation of his rifles, and a fine of one thousand francs. He hunted his way through the Congo to Leopoldville then on to the Portuguese enclave, near the mouth of the mighty river, where he worked as a barman in a rough and tough bar until he received a message that his old friend Lumb had found gold at Lupa near Chunya. George set sail on the next boat for Antwerp in Belgium, then crossed to England and spent a few weeks with his family in Jacksdale before returning by sea to Dar es Salaam. Arriving at the gold fields he pegged his claim and almost immediately went down with blackwater fever – an illness that used to kill three out of four within a week.

                                  When he recovered from his fever, George exchanged his gold lease for a double barrelled .577 elephant rifle and took out a special elephant control licence with the Tanganyika Government. He then headed for the Congo again and poached elephant in Northern Rhodesia from a base in the Congo. He was known by the Africans as “iNyathi”, or the Buffalo, because he was the most dangerous in the long grass. After a profitable hunting expedition in his favourite hunting ground of the Kilombera River he returned to the Congo via Dar es Salaam and Mombassa. He was after the Kabalo district elephant, but hunting was restricted, so he set up his base in The Central African Republic at a place called Obo on the Congo tributary named the M’bomu River. From there he could make poaching raids into the Congo and the Upper Nile regions of the Sudan. He hunted there for two and a half years. He seldom came across other Europeans; hunters kept their own districts and guarded their own territories. But they respected one another and he made good and lasting friendships with members of that small select band of adventurers.

                                  Leaving for Europe via the Congo, George enjoyed a short holiday in Jacksdale with his mother. On his return trip to East Africa he met his future bride in Cape Town. She was 24 year old Eleanor Dunbar Leslie; a high school teacher and daughter of a magistrate who spent her spare time mountaineering, racing ocean yachts, and riding horses. After a whirlwind romance, they were betrothed within 36 hours.

                                  On 25 July 1930 George landed back in Dar es Salaam. He went directly to the Mbeya district to find a home. For one hundred pounds he purchased the Waizneker’s farm on the banks of the Mntshewe Stream. Eleanor, who had been delayed due to her contract as a teacher, followed in November. Her ship docked in Dar es Salaam on 7 Nov 1930, and they were married that day. At Mchewe Estate, their newly acquired farm, they lived in a tent whilst George with some help built their first home – a lovely mud-brick cottage with a thatched roof. George and Eleanor set about developing a coffee plantation out of a bush block. It was a very happy time for them. There was no electricity, no radio, and no telephone. Newspapers came from London every two months. There were a couple of neighbours within twenty miles, but visitors were seldom seen. The farm was a haven for wild life including snakes, monkeys and leopards. Eleanor had to go South all the way to Capetown for the birth of her first child Ann, but with the onset of civilisation, their first son George was born at a new German Mission hospital that had opened in Mbeya.

                                  Occasionally George had to leave the farm in Eleanor’s care whilst he went off hunting to make his living. Having run the coffee plantation for five years with considerable establishment costs and as yet no return, George reluctantly started taking paying clients on hunting safaris as a “white hunter”. This was an occupation George didn’t enjoy. but it brought him an income in the days when social security didn’t exist. Taking wealthy clients on hunting trips to kill animals for trophies and for pleasure didn’t amuse George who hunted for a business and for a way of life. When one of George’s trackers was killed by a leopard that had been wounded by a careless client, George was particularly upset.
                                  The coffee plantation was approaching the time of its first harvest when it was suddenly attacked by plagues of borer beetles and ring barking snails. At the same time severe hail storms shredded the crop. The pressure of the need for an income forced George back to the Lupa gold fields. He was unlucky in his gold discoveries, but luck came in a different form when he was offered a job with the Forestry Department. The offer had been made in recognition of his initiation and management of Tanganyika’s rainbow trout project. George spent most of his short time with the Forestry Department encouraging the indigenous people to conserve their native forests.

                                  In November 1938 he transferred to the Game Department as Ranger for the Eastern Province of Tanganyika, and over several years was based at Nzasa near Dar es Salaam, at the old German town of Morogoro, and at lovely Lyamungu on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. Then the call came for him to be transferred to Mbeya in the Southern Province for there was a serious problem in the Njombe district, and George was selected by the Department as the only man who could possibly fix the problem.

                                  Over a period of several years, people were being attacked and killed by marauding man-eating lions. In the Wagingombe area alone 230 people were listed as having been killed. In the Njombe district, which covered an area about 200 km by 300 km some 1500 people had been killed. Not only was the rural population being decimated, but the morale of the survivors was so low, that many of them believed that the lions were not real. Many thought that evil witch doctors were controlling the lions, or that lion-men were changing form to kill their enemies. Indeed some wichdoctors took advantage of the disarray to settle scores and to kill for reward.

                                  By hunting down and killing the man-eaters, and by showing the flesh and blood to the doubting tribes people, George was able to instil some confidence into the villagers. However the Africans attributed the return of peace and safety, not to the efforts of George Rushby, but to the reinstallation of their deposed chief Matamula Mangera who had previously been stood down for corruption. It was Matamula , in their eyes, who had called off the lions.

                                  Soon after this adventure, George was appointed Deputy Game Warden for Tanganyika, and was based in Arusha. He retired in 1956 to the Njombe district where he developed a coffee plantation, and was one of the first in Tanganyika to plant tea as a major crop. However he sensed a swing in the political fortunes of his beloved Tanganyika, and so sold the plantation and settled in a cottage high on a hill overlooking the Navel Base at Simonstown in the Cape. It was whilst he was there that TV Bulpin wrote his biography “The Hunter is Death” and George wrote his book “No More The Tusker”. He died in the Cape, and his youngest son Henry scattered his ashes at the Southern most tip of Africa where the currents of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet .

                                  George Gilman Rushby:

                                  #6221
                                  TracyTracy
                                  Participant

                                    Mary Ann Gilman Purdy

                                    1880-1950

                                    Mary Ann Gilman Purdy Marshall

                                    Mary Ann was my grandfather George Marshall’s mother. She died in 1950, seven years before I was born. She has been referred to more often than not, since her death, as Mary Ann Gilman Purdy, rather than Mary Marshall. She was from Buxton, so we believed, as was her husband William Marshall. There are family photos of the Gilmans, grocers in Buxton, and we knew that Mary Ann was brought up by them. My grandfather, her son, said that she thought very highly of the Gilman’s, and added the Gilman name to her birth name of Purdy.

                                     

                                    The 1891 census in Buxton:

                                    1891 census Buxton

                                     

                                    (Mary Ann’s aunt, Mrs Gilman, was also called Mary Anne, but spelled with an E.)

                                    Samuel Gilman 1846-1909, and Mary Anne (Housley) Gilman  1846-1935,  in Buxton:

                                    Gilmans Grocers

                                    Samuel Gilman

                                     

                                    What we didn’t know was why Mary Ann (and her sister Ellen/Nellie, we later found) grew up with the Gilman’s. But Mary Ann wasn’t born in Buxton, Derbyshire, she was born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire. When the search moved to Nottingham, we found the Purdy’s.

                                    George Purdy 1848-1935, Mary Ann’s father:

                                    George Purdy

                                     

                                    Mary Ann’s parents were George Purdy of Eastwood, and Catherine Housley of Smalley.

                                    Catherine Housley 1849-1884, Mary Ann’s mother:

                                    Catherine Housley

                                     

                                    Mary Ann was four years old when her mother died. She had three sisters and one brother. George Purdy remarried and kept the two older daughters, and the young son with him. The two younger daughters, Mary Ann and Nellie, went to live with Catherine’s sister, also called Mary Anne, and her husband Samuel Gilman. They had no children of their own. One of the older daughters who stayed with their father was Kate , whose son George Gilman Rushby, went to Africa. But that is another chapter.

                                    George was the son of Francis Purdy and his second wife Jane Eaton. Francis had some twenty children, and is believed in Eastwood to be the reason why there are so many Purdy’s.

                                    The woman who was a mother to Mary Ann and who she thought very highly of, her mothers sister, spent her childhood in the Belper Workhouse. She and her older sister Elizabeth were admitted in June, 1850, the reason: father in prison. Their mother had died the previous year. Mary Anne Housley, Catherine’s sister, married Samuel Gilman, and looked after her dead sisters children.

                                    Mary Ann Gilman Purdy Marshalls recipes written on the back of the Gilmans Grocers paper:

                                    recipes

                                    #6219
                                    TracyTracy
                                    Participant

                                      The following stories started with a single question.

                                      Who was Catherine Housley’s mother?

                                      But one question leads to another, and another, and so this book will never be finished.  This is the first in a collection of stories of a family history research project, not a complete family history.  There will always be more questions and more searches, and each new find presents more questions.

                                      A list of names and dates is only moderately interesting, and doesn’t mean much unless you get to know the characters along the way.   For example, a cousin on my fathers side has already done a great deal of thorough and accurate family research. I copied one branch of the family onto my tree, going back to the 1500’s, but lost interest in it after about an hour or so, because I didn’t feel I knew any of the individuals.

                                      Parish registers, the census every ten years, birth, death and marriage certificates can tell you so much, but they can’t tell you why.  They don’t tell you why parents chose the names they did for their children, or why they moved, or why they married in another town.  They don’t tell you why a person lived in another household, or for how long. The census every ten years doesn’t tell you what people were doing in the intervening years, and in the case of the UK and the hundred year privacy rule, we can’t even use those for the past century.  The first census was in 1831 in England, prior to that all we have are parish registers. An astonishing amount of them have survived and have been transcribed and are one way or another available to see, both transcriptions and microfiche images.  Not all of them survived, however. Sometimes the writing has faded to white, sometimes pages are missing, and in some case the entire register is lost or damaged.

                                      Sometimes if you are lucky, you may find mention of an ancestor in an obscure little local history book or a journal or diary.  Wills, court cases, and newspaper archives often provide interesting information. Town memories and history groups on social media are another excellent source of information, from old photographs of the area, old maps, local history, and of course, distantly related relatives still living in the area.  Local history societies can be useful, and some if not all are very helpful.

                                      If you’re very lucky indeed, you might find a distant relative in another country whose grandparents saved and transcribed bundles of old letters found in the attic, from the family in England to the brother who emigrated, written in the 1800s.  More on this later, as it merits its own chapter as the most exciting find so far.

                                      The social history of the time and place is important and provides many clues as to why people moved and why the family professions and occupations changed over generations.  The Enclosures Act and the Industrial Revolution in England created difficulties for rural farmers, factories replaced cottage industries, and the sons of land owning farmers became shop keepers and miners in the local towns.  For the most part (at least in my own research) people didn’t move around much unless there was a reason.  There are no reasons mentioned in the various registers, records and documents, but with a little reading of social history you can sometimes make a good guess.  Samuel Housley, for example, a plumber, probably moved from rural Derbyshire to urban Wolverhampton, when there was a big project to install indoor plumbing to areas of the city in the early 1800s.  Derbyshire nailmakers were offered a job and a house if they moved to Wolverhampton a generation earlier.

                                      Occasionally a couple would marry in another parish, although usually they married in their own. Again, there was often a reason.  William Housley and Ellen Carrington married in Ashbourne, not in Smalley.  In this case, William’s first wife was Mary Carrington, Ellen’s sister.  It was not uncommon for a man to marry a deceased wife’s sister, but it wasn’t strictly speaking legal.  This caused some problems later when William died, as the children of the first wife contested the will, on the grounds of the second marriage being illegal.

                                      Needless to say, there are always questions remaining, and often a fresh pair of eyes can help find a vital piece of information that has escaped you.  In one case, I’d been looking for the death of a widow, Mary Anne Gilman, and had failed to notice that she remarried at a late age. Her death was easy to find, once I searched for it with her second husbands name.

                                      This brings me to the topic of maternal family lines. One tends to think of their lineage with the focus on paternal surnames, but very quickly the number of surnames increases, and all of the maternal lines are directly related as much as the paternal name.  This is of course obvious, if you start from the beginning with yourself and work back.  In other words, there is not much point in simply looking for your fathers name hundreds of years ago because there are hundreds of other names that are equally your own family ancestors. And in my case, although not intentionally, I’ve investigated far more maternal lines than paternal.

                                      This book, which I hope will be the first of several, will concentrate on my mothers family: The story so far that started with the portrait of Catherine Housley’s mother.

                                      Elizabeth Brookes

                                       

                                      This painting, now in my mothers house, used to hang over the piano in the home of her grandparents.   It says on the back “Catherine Housley’s mother, Smalley”.

                                      The portrait of Catherine Housley’s mother can be seen above the piano. Back row Ronald Marshall, my grandfathers brother, William Marshall, my great grandfather, Mary Ann Gilman Purdy Marshall in the middle, my great grandmother, with her daughters Dorothy on the left and Phyllis on the right, at the Marshall’s house on Love Lane in Stourbridge.

                                      Marshalls

                                       

                                       

                                      The Search for Samuel Housley

                                      As soon as the search for Catherine Housley’s mother was resolved, achieved by ordering a paper copy of her birth certificate, the search for Catherine Housley’s father commenced. We know he was born in Smalley in 1816, son of William Housley and Ellen Carrington, and that he married Elizabeth Brookes in Wolverhampton in 1844. He was a plumber and glazier. His three daughters born between 1845 and 1849 were born in Smalley. Elizabeth died in 1849 of consumption, but Samuel didn’t register her death. A 20 year old neighbour called Aaron Wadkinson did.

                                      Elizabeth death

                                       

                                      Where was Samuel?

                                      On the 1851 census, two of Samuel’s daughters were listed as inmates in the Belper Workhouse, and the third, 2 year old Catherine, was listed as living with John Benniston and his family in nearby Heanor.  Benniston was a framework knitter.

                                      Where was Samuel?

                                      A long search through the microfiche workhouse registers provided an answer. The reason for Elizabeth and Mary Anne’s admission in June 1850 was given as “father in prison”. In May 1850, Samuel Housley was sentenced to one month hard labour at Derby Gaol for failing to maintain his three children. What happened to those little girls in the year after their mothers death, before their father was sentenced, and they entered the workhouse? Where did Catherine go, a six week old baby? We have yet to find out.

                                      Samuel Housley 1850

                                       

                                      And where was Samuel Housley in 1851? He hasn’t appeared on any census.

                                      According to the Belper workhouse registers, Mary Anne was discharged on trial as a servant February 1860. She was readmitted a month later in March 1860, the reason given: unwell.

                                      Belper Workhouse:

                                      Belper Workhouse

                                      Eventually, Mary Anne and Elizabeth were discharged, in April 1860, with an aunt and uncle. The workhouse register doesn’t name the aunt and uncle. One can only wonder why it took them so long.
                                      On the 1861 census, Elizabeth, 16 years old, is a servant in St Peters, Derby, and Mary Anne, 15 years old, is a servant in St Werburghs, Derby.

                                      But where was Samuel?

                                      After some considerable searching, we found him, despite a mistranscription of his name, on the 1861 census, living as a lodger and plumber in Darlaston, Walsall.
                                      Eventually we found him on a 1871 census living as a lodger at the George and Dragon in Henley in Arden. The age is not exactly right, but close enough, he is listed as an unmarried painter, also close enough, and his birth is listed as Kidsley, Derbyshire. He was born at Kidsley Grange Farm. We can assume that he was probably alive in 1872, the year his mother died, and the following year, 1873, during the Kerry vs Housley court case.

                                      Samuel Housley 1871

                                       

                                      I found some living Housley descendants in USA. Samuel Housley’s brother George emigrated there in 1851. The Housley’s in USA found letters in the attic, from the family in Smalley ~ written between 1851 and 1870s. They sent me a “Narrative on the Letters” with many letter excerpts.

                                      The Housley family were embroiled in a complicated will and court case in the early 1870s. In December 15, 1872, Joseph (Samuel’s brother) wrote to George:

                                      “I think we have now found all out now that is concerned in the matter for there was only Sam that we did not know his whereabouts but I was informed a week ago that he is dead–died about three years ago in Birmingham Union. Poor Sam. He ought to have come to a better end than that….His daughter and her husband went to Birmingham and also to Sutton Coldfield that is where he married his wife from and found out his wife’s brother. It appears he has been there and at Birmingham ever since he went away but ever fond of drink.”

                                      No record of Samuel Housley’s death can be found for the Birmingham Union in 1869 or thereabouts.

                                      But if he was alive in 1871 in Henley In Arden…..
                                      Did Samuel tell his wife’s brother to tell them he was dead? Or did the brothers say he was dead so they could have his share?

                                      We still haven’t found a death for Samuel Housley.

                                       

                                       

                                      #5960

                                      Working at the gas station gave me the possibility to not only be confined at home but also at work. At least I could enjoy the transit between places, that’s what I told me everyday. And better go to work than turn around all day in the studio I rented since I left the Inn.

                                      You can’t imagine how many people need gas during the confinement. It looks like in this part of the country people don’t have as many dogs as them in the big cities, so they do all sorts of crazy things to be able to get out.

                                      A man came to the station this morning. I’m sure it was to give the equivalent of a walk to his brand new red GMC Canyon, you know, treating his car like she needed fresh air and to get some exercise regularly. From behind the makeshift window made of transparent wrapper, I asked him how was his day. You know, to be polite. He showed me the back of his truck. I swear there was a cage with two dingos in it.

                                      The guy told me he captured them the other day in case the cops stopped him in the street with no reason to be out. At least, he said, I could still say I’m giving them a walk. I told him them being in a cage would hardly pass as a walk but he answered me with a wink and a big grin that cops weren’t that intelligent. I’m glad we have makeshift windows now, at least seeing his teeth I didn’t have to smell his breath. I’m not sure who’s the less intelligent in absolute terms, but in that case I’d rather bet his IQ would fail him.

                                      Well that’s probably the most exciting thing that happened before I went home after work. As soon as I got home I received a phone call from Prune. On the landline. It’s like she has some magical means to know when I’m there.

                                      Anyway, she asked me if I washed my hand. I told her yes, though I honestly don’t recall. But I have to make her think all is ok. She started to talk again about Jasper. Each time she mention the subject I’m a bit uncomfortable. I’m not sure I fancy having a brother, even if it’s kind of being in a TV series. She said she had looked for him on internet, contacted some adoption agencies, even tried a private called Dick. That’s all that I remember of the private’s name. Dick, maybe that’s because he never answered her calls. Might be dead of the pandamic I told her. PandEmic, She corrected. I know, I told her, I said that to cheer you up.

                                      We talked about Mater too. That made me laugh. Apparently Idle saw her in a fuschia pink leotard. Prune half laughed herself when she mentioned the leotard, but she said : Truth is I don’t know what Dido had taken when she had seen Mater outside. I suspect the om chanting was simply snoring.

                                      There was a silence afterward. Maybe Prune was thinking about age and the meaning of life, I was merely realising I was hungry. I swear I don’t know what crossed my mind. I have a tendency to want to help my sister even if I think there is no hope. You know, I told her, about Jasper we could still go and ask that woman in the bush. It’s like she already knew what I was going to say. Tiku I knew by her tone that all the conversation was fated to lead there. Yeah. I can drive you there after work tomorrow. 

                                      Of course, we didn’t even have to go there after all.

                                      #5845

                                      In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud

                                      Jib
                                      Participant

                                        Some whale random cloud :

                                        Toilet needs seems makes takes
                                        Happens lost died passing sister
                                        Forgive nodded barely strange water
                                        Everybody inspiration weather aunt forget
                                        Fraud writer forgotten speed topic
                                        Talked mostly mars dusted previous
                                        Couch gargoyles coupons

                                        It certainly is talking about something to be found at Jiborium’s Emporium with the coupons.

                                        #5818

                                        Dear Diary

                                        Cousin Lisa came calling yesterday morning and she tells us there’s some in the Village have come down with sickness. Of course it would be Lisa being the bearer of such news, her face lit up when I tell her I have heard nothing. Cook, over hearing our conversation, which was private but Cook is always sticking her great nose in where it is not required, she’s hung braids of garlic at the front door. I caught her telling the children it was to keep away the evil spirits that brought death. Poor little Jimmy couldn’t sleep last night he was that afraid of the spirits bringing death in the night. He asked endless questions,  how will the garlic stop them? Can the spirits get in through a window instead? He got his sister afraid also and the pair of them wouldn’t sleep then for crying in fear. I told Cook off roundly this morning for speaking to them thus.

                                        The master came home filled with drink, crashing around like the damned drunken fool he is nowadays. He shouted at the children for their crying and shouted at me for not keeping them quiet. At least he did not raise his fists for he wanted to lie with me and I nearly retched with his stinking breath coming close and thank God for His mercies that the fool passed out before he could do the deed. I may have done harm if he’d tried for the brass bell was sitting there on the table (and it is a heavy thing) and I was seeing at it as he came close and there was a moment I could have picked it up and crashed it to his skull. May God forgive me. 

                                        He makes my skin crawl for I know what he has done that he thinks I don’t know. But all will come to light if not in this world then the next. I am more sure than ever I must get away and the children with me.

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