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The Birmingham Bootmaker

Samuel Jones 1816-1875

 

Samuel Jones the elder was born in Belfast circa 1779.  He is one of just two direct ancestors found thus far born in Ireland.  Samuel married Jane Elizabeth Brooker (born in St Giles, London) on the 25th January 1807 at St George, Hanover Square in London.  Their first child Mary was born in 1808 in London, and then the family moved to Birmingham. Mary was my 3x great grandmother.

But this chapter is about her brother Samuel Jones.  I noticed that on a number of other trees on the Ancestry site, Samuel Jones was a convict transported to Australia, but this didn’t tally with the records I’d found for Samuel in Birmingham.  In fact another Samuel Jones born at the same time in the same place was transported, but his occupation was a baker.  Our Samuel Jones was a bootmaker like his father.

Samuel was born on 28th January 1816 in Birmingham and baptised at St Phillips on the 19th August of that year, the fourth child and first son of Samuel the elder and Jane’s eleven children.

On the 1839 electoral register a Samuel Jones owned a property on Colmore Row, Birmingham.

Samuel Jones, bootmaker of 15, Colmore Row is listed in the 1849 Birmingham post office directory, and in the 1855 White’s Directory.

On the 1851 census, Samuel was an unmarried bootmaker employing sixteen men at 15, Colmore Row.  A 9 year old nephew Henry Harris was living with him, and his mother Ruth Harris, as well as a female servant.  Samuel’s sister Ruth was born in 1818 and married Henry Harris in 1840. Henry died in 1848.

Samuel was a 45 year old bootmaker at 15 Colmore Row on the 1861 census, living with Maria Walcot, a 26 year old domestic servant.

In October 1863 Samuel married Maria Walcot at St Philips in Birmingham.  They don’t appear to have had any children as none appear on the 1871 census, where Samuel and Maria are living at the same address, with another female servant and two male lodgers by the name of Messant from Ipswich.

Marriage of Samuel Jones and Maria Walcot:

 

In 1864 Samuel’s father died.  Samuel the son is mentioned in the probate records as one of the executors: “Samuel Jones of Colmore Row Birmingham in the county of Warwick boot and shoe manufacturer the son”.

 

Indeed it could hardly be clearer that this Samuel Jones was not the convict transported to Australia in 1834!

 

In 1867 Samuel Jones, bootmaker, was mentioned in the Birmingham Daily Gazette with regard to an unfortunate incident involving his American lodger, Cory McFarland.  The verdict was accidental death.

Birmingham Daily Gazette – Friday 05 April 1867:

 

I asked a Birmingham history group for an old photo of Colmore Row. This photo is circa 1870 and number 15 is furthest from the camera.  The businesses on the street at the time were as follows:

7 homeopathic chemist George John Morris. 8 surgeon dentist Frederick Sims. 9 Saul & Walter Samuel, Australian merchants. Surgeons occupied 10, pawnbroker John Aaron at 11 & 12. 15 boot & shoemaker. 17 auctioneer…

 

from Bird’s Eye View of Birmingham, 1886:

Transportation

Isaac Stokes 1804-1877

 

Isaac was born in Churchill, Oxfordshire in 1804, and was the youngest brother of my 4X great grandfather Thomas Stokes. The Stokes family were stone masons for generations in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, and Isaac’s occupation was a mason’s labourer in 1834 when he was sentenced at the Lent Assizes in Oxford to fourteen years transportation for stealing tools.

Churchill where the Stokes stonemasons came from: on 31 July 1684 a fire destroyed 20 houses and many other buildings, and killed four people. The village was rebuilt higher up the hill, with stone houses instead of the old timber-framed and thatched cottages. The fire was apparently caused by a baker who, to avoid chimney tax, had knocked through the wall from her oven to her neighbour’s chimney.

Isaac stole a pick axe, the value of 2 shillings and the property of Thomas Joyner of Churchill; a kibbeaux and a trowel value 3 shillings the property of Thomas Symms; a hammer and axe value 5 shillings, property of John Keen of Sarsden.

(The word kibbeaux seems to only exists in relation to Isaac Stokes sentence and whoever was the first to write it was perhaps being creative with the spelling of a kibbo, a miners or a metal bucket. This spelling is repeated in the criminal reports and the newspaper articles about Isaac, but nowhere else).

In March 1834 the Removal of Convicts was announced in the Oxford University and City Herald: Isaac Stokes and several other prisoners were removed from the Oxford county gaol to the Justitia hulk at Woolwich “persuant to their sentences of transportation at our Lent Assizes”.

via digitalpanopticon:

Hulks were decommissioned (and often unseaworthy) ships that were moored in rivers and estuaries and refitted to become floating prisons. The outbreak of war in America in 1775 meant that it was no longer possible to transport British convicts there. Transportation as a form of punishment had started in the late seventeenth century, and following the Transportation Act of 1718, some 44,000 British convicts were sent to the American colonies. The end of this punishment presented a major problem for the authorities in London, since in the decade before 1775, two-thirds of convicts at the Old Bailey received a sentence of transportation – on average 283 convicts a year. As a result, London’s prisons quickly filled to overflowing with convicted prisoners who were sentenced to transportation but had no place to go.

To increase London’s prison capacity, in 1776 Parliament passed the “Hulks Act” (16 Geo III, c.43). Although overseen by local justices of the peace, the hulks were to be directly managed and maintained by private contractors. The first contract to run a hulk was awarded to Duncan Campbell, a former transportation contractor. In August 1776, the Justicia, a former transportation ship moored in the River Thames, became the first prison hulk. This ship soon became full and Campbell quickly introduced a number of other hulks in London; by 1778 the fleet of hulks on the Thames held 510 prisoners.
Demand was so great that new hulks were introduced across the country. There were hulks located at Deptford, Chatham, Woolwich, Gosport, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Sheerness and Cork.

The Justitia via rmg collections:

Convicts perform hard labour at the Woolwich Warren. The hulk on the river is the ‘Justitia’. Prisoners were kept on board such ships for months awaiting deportation to Australia. The ‘Justitia’ was a 260 ton prison hulk that had been originally moored in the Thames when the American War of Independence put a stop to the transportation of criminals to the former colonies. The ‘Justitia’ belonged to the shipowner Duncan Campbell, who was the Government contractor who organized the prison-hulk system at that time. Campbell was subsequently involved in the shipping of convicts to the penal colony at Botany Bay (in fact Port Jackson, later Sydney, just to the north) in New South Wales, the ‘first fleet’ going out in 1788.

 

While searching for records for Isaac Stokes I discovered that another Isaac Stokes was transported to New South Wales in 1835 as well. The other one was a butcher born in 1809, sentenced in London for seven years, and he sailed on the Mary Ann. Our Isaac Stokes sailed on the Lady Nugent, arriving in NSW in April 1835, having set sail from England in December 1834.

Lady Nugent was built at Bombay in 1813. She made four voyages under contract to the British East India Company (EIC). She then made two voyages transporting convicts to Australia, one to New South Wales and one to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). (via Wikipedia)

via freesettlerorfelon website:

On 20 November 1834, 100 male convicts were transferred to the Lady Nugent from the Justitia Hulk and 60 from the Ganymede Hulk at Woolwich, all in apparent good health. The Lady Nugent departed Sheerness on 4 December 1834.

SURGEON OLIVER SPROULE

Oliver Sproule kept a Medical Journal from 7 November 1834 to 27 April 1835. He recorded in his journal the weather conditions they experienced in the first two weeks:

‘In the course of the first week or ten days at sea, there were eight or nine on the sick list with catarrhal affections and one with dropsy which I attribute to the cold and wet we experienced during that period beating down channel. Indeed the foremost berths in the prison at this time were so wet from leaking in that part of the ship, that I was obliged to issue dry beds and bedding to a great many of the prisoners to preserve their health, but after crossing the Bay of Biscay the weather became fine and we got the damp beds and blankets dried, the leaks partially stopped and the prison well aired and ventilated which, I am happy to say soon manifested a favourable change in the health and appearance of the men.

Besides the cases given in the journal I had a great many others to treat, some of them similar to those mentioned but the greater part consisted of boils, scalds, and contusions which would not only be too tedious to enter but I fear would be irksome to the reader. There were four births on board during the passage which did well, therefore I did not consider it necessary to give a detailed account of them in my journal the more especially as they were all favourable cases.

Regularity and cleanliness in the prison, free ventilation and as far as possible dry decks turning all the prisoners up in fine weather as we were lucky enough to have two musicians amongst the convicts, dancing was tolerated every afternoon, strict attention to personal cleanliness and also to the cooking of their victuals with regular hours for their meals, were the only prophylactic means used on this occasion, which I found to answer my expectations to the utmost extent in as much as there was not a single case of contagious or infectious nature during the whole passage with the exception of a few cases of psora which soon yielded to the usual treatment. A few cases of scurvy however appeared on board at rather an early period which I can attribute to nothing else but the wet and hardships the prisoners endured during the first three or four weeks of the passage. I was prompt in my treatment of these cases and they got well, but before we arrived at Sydney I had about thirty others to treat.’

The Lady Nugent arrived in Port Jackson on 9 April 1835 with 284 male prisoners. Two men had died at sea. The prisoners were landed on 27th April 1835 and marched to Hyde Park Barracks prior to being assigned. Ten were under the age of 14 years.

The Lady Nugent:

 

Isaac’s distinguishing marks are noted on various criminal registers and record books:

“Height in feet & inches: 5 4; Complexion: Ruddy; Hair: Light brown; Eyes: Hazel; Marks or Scars: Yes [including] DEVIL on lower left arm, TSIS back of left hand, WS lower right arm, MHDW back of right hand.”

Another includes more detail about Isaac’s tattoos:

“Two slight scars right side of mouth, 2 moles above right breast, figure of the devil and DEVIL and raised mole, lower left arm; anchor, seven dots half moon, TSIS and cross, back of left hand; a mallet, door post, A, mans bust, sun, WS, lower right arm; woman, MHDW and shut knife, back of right hand.”

 

 

From How tattoos became fashionable in Victorian England (2019 article in TheConversation by Robert Shoemaker and Zoe Alkar):

“Historical tattooing was not restricted to sailors, soldiers and convicts, but was a growing and accepted phenomenon in Victorian England. Tattoos provide an important window into the lives of those who typically left no written records of their own. As a form of “history from below”, they give us a fleeting but intriguing understanding of the identities and emotions of ordinary people in the past.
As a practice for which typically the only record is the body itself, few systematic records survive before the advent of photography. One exception to this is the written descriptions of tattoos (and even the occasional sketch) that were kept of institutionalised people forced to submit to the recording of information about their bodies as a means of identifying them. This particularly applies to three groups – criminal convicts, soldiers and sailors. Of these, the convict records are the most voluminous and systematic.
Such records were first kept in large numbers for those who were transported to Australia from 1788 (since Australia was then an open prison) as the authorities needed some means of keeping track of them.”

On the 1837 census Isaac was working for the government at Illiwarra, New South Wales. This record states that he arrived on the Lady Nugent in 1835. There are three other indent records for an Isaac Stokes in the following years, but the transcriptions don’t provide enough information to determine which Isaac Stokes it was. In April 1837 there was an abscondment, and an arrest/apprehension in May of that year, and in 1843 there was a record of convict indulgences.

From the Australian government website regarding “convict indulgences”:

“By the mid-1830s only six per cent of convicts were locked up. The vast majority worked for the government or free settlers and, with good behaviour, could earn a ticket of leave, conditional pardon or and even an absolute pardon. While under such orders convicts could earn their own living.”

 

In 1856 in Camden, NSW, Isaac Stokes married Catherine Daly. With no further information on this record it would be impossible to know for sure if this was the right Isaac Stokes. This couple had six children, all in the Camden area, but none of the records provided enough information. No occupation or place or date of birth recorded for Isaac Stokes.

I wrote to the National Library of Australia about the marriage record, and their reply was a surprise! Issac and Catherine were married on 30 September 1856, at the house of the Rev. Charles William Rigg, a Methodist minister, and it was recorded that Isaac was born in Edinburgh in 1821, to parents James Stokes and Sarah Ellis!  The age at the time of the marriage doesn’t match Isaac’s age at death in 1877, and clearly the place of birth and parents didn’t match either. Only his fathers occupation of stone mason was correct.  I wrote back to the helpful people at the library and they replied that the register was in a very poor condition and that only two and a half entries had survived at all, and that Isaac and Catherines marriage was recorded over two pages.

I searched for an Isaac Stokes born in 1821 in Edinburgh on the Scotland government website (and on all the other genealogy records sites) and didn’t find it. In fact Stokes was a very uncommon name in Scotland at the time. I also searched Australian immigration and other records for another Isaac Stokes born in Scotland or born in 1821, and found nothing.  I was unable to find a single record to corroborate this mysterious other Isaac Stokes.

As the age at death in 1877 was correct, I assume that either Isaac was lying, or that some mistake was made either on the register at the home of the Methodist minster, or a subsequent mistranscription or muddle on the remnants of the surviving register.  Therefore I remain convinced that the Camden stonemason Isaac Stokes was indeed our Isaac from Oxfordshire.

 

I found a history society newsletter article that mentioned Isaac Stokes, stone mason, had built the Glenmore church, near Camden, in 1859.

 

From the Wollondilly museum April 2020 newsletter:

 

From the Camden History website:

“The stone set over the porch of Glenmore Church gives the date of 1860. The church was begun in 1859 on land given by Joseph Moore. James Rogers of Picton was given the contract to build and local builder, Mr. Stokes, carried out the work. Elizabeth Moore, wife of Edward, laid the foundation stone. The first service was held on 19th March 1860. The cemetery alongside the church contains the headstones and memorials of the areas early pioneers.”

 

Isaac died on the 3rd September 1877. The inquest report puts his place of death as Bagdelly, near to Camden, and another death register has put Cambelltown, also very close to Camden.  His age was recorded as 71 and the inquest report states his cause of death was “rupture of one of the large pulmonary vessels of the lung”.  His wife Catherine died in childbirth in 1870 at the age of 43.

 

Isaac and Catherine’s children:

William Stokes 1857-1928

Catherine Stokes 1859-1846

Sarah Josephine Stokes 1861-1931

Ellen Stokes 1863-1932

Rosanna Stokes 1865-1919

Louisa Stokes 1868-1844.

 

It’s possible that Catherine Daly was a transported convict from Ireland.

 

Some time later I unexpectedly received a follow up email from The Oaks Heritage Centre in Australia.

“The Gaudry papers which we have in our archive record him (Isaac Stokes) as having built: the church, the school and the teachers residence.  Isaac is recorded in the General return of convicts: 1837 and in Grevilles Post Office directory 1872 as a mason in Glenmore.”

Wong Sang

 

Wong Sang was born in China in 1884. In October 1916 he married Alice Stokes in Oxford.

Alice was the granddaughter of William Stokes of Churchill, Oxfordshire and William was the brother of Thomas Stokes the wheelwright (who was my 3X great grandfather). In other words Alice was my second cousin, three times removed, on my fathers paternal side.

Wong Sang was an interpreter, according to the baptism registers of his children and the Dreadnought Seamen’s Hospital admission registers in 1930.  The hospital register also notes that he was employed by the Blue Funnel Line, and that his address was 11, Limehouse Causeway, E 14. (London)

“The Blue Funnel Line offered regular First-Class Passenger and Cargo Services From the UK to South Africa, Malaya, China, Japan, Australia, Java, and America.  Blue Funnel Line was Owned and Operated by Alfred Holt & Co., Liverpool.
The Blue Funnel Line, so-called because its ships have a blue funnel with a black top, is more appropriately known as the Ocean Steamship Company.”

 

Wong Sang and Alice’s daughter, Frances Eileen Sang, was born on the 14th July, 1916 and baptised in 1920 at St Stephen in Poplar, Tower Hamlets, London.  The birth date is noted in the 1920 baptism register and would predate their marriage by a few months, although on the death register in 1921 her age at death is four years old and her year of birth is recorded as 1917.

Charles Ronald Sang was baptised on the same day in May 1920, but his birth is recorded as April of that year.  The family were living on Morant Street, Poplar.

James William Sang’s birth is recorded on the 1939 census and on the death register in 2000 as being the 8th March 1913.  This definitely would predate the 1916 marriage in Oxford.

William Norman Sang was born on the 17th October 1922 in Poplar.

Alice and the three sons were living at 11, Limehouse Causeway on the 1939 census, the same address that Wong Sang was living at when he was admitted to Dreadnought Seamen’s Hospital on the 15th January 1930. Wong Sang died in the hospital on the 8th March of that year at the age of 46.

Alice married John Patterson in 1933 in Stepney. John was living with Alice and her three sons on Limehouse Causeway on the 1939 census and his occupation was chef.

Via Old London Photographs:

“Limehouse Causeway is a street in east London that was the home to the original Chinatown of London. A combination of bomb damage during the Second World War and later redevelopment means that almost nothing is left of the original buildings of the street.”

Limehouse Causeway in 1925:

 

From The Story of Limehouse’s Lost Chinatown, poplarlondon website:

“Limehouse was London’s first Chinatown, home to a tightly-knit community who were demonised in popular culture and eventually erased from the cityscape.

As recounted in the BBC’s ‘Our Greatest Generation’ series, Connie was born to a Chinese father and an English mother in early 1920s Limehouse, where she used to play in the street with other British and British-Chinese children before running inside for teatime at one of their houses. 

Limehouse was London’s first Chinatown between the 1880s and the 1960s, before the current Chinatown off Shaftesbury Avenue was established in the 1970s by an influx of immigrants from Hong Kong. 

Connie’s memories of London’s first Chinatown as an “urban village” paint a very different picture to the seedy area portrayed in early twentieth century novels. 

The pyramid in St Anne’s church marked the entrance to the opium den of Dr Fu Manchu, a criminal mastermind who threatened Western society by plotting world domination in a series of novels by Sax Rohmer. 

Thomas Burke’s Limehouse Nights cemented stereotypes about prostitution, gambling and violence within the Chinese community, and whipped up anxiety about sexual relationships between Chinese men and white women. 

Though neither novelist was familiar with the Chinese community, their depictions made Limehouse one of the most notorious areas of London. 

Travel agent Thomas Cook even organised tours of the area for daring visitors, despite the rector of Limehouse warning that “those who look for the Limehouse of Mr Thomas Burke simply will not find it.”

All that remains is a handful of Chinese street names, such as Ming Street, Pekin Street, and Canton Street — but what was Limehouse’s chinatown really like, and why did it get swept away?

Chinese migration to Limehouse 

Chinese sailors discharged from East India Company ships settled in the docklands from as early as the 1780s.

By the late nineteenth century, men from Shanghai had settled around Pennyfields Lane, while a Cantonese community lived on Limehouse Causeway. 

Chinese sailors were often paid less and discriminated against by dock hirers, and so began to diversify their incomes by setting up hand laundry services and restaurants. 

Old photographs show shopfronts emblazoned with Chinese characters with horse-drawn carts idling outside or Chinese men in suits and hats standing proudly in the doorways. 

In oral histories collected by Yat Ming Loo, Connie’s husband Leslie doesn’t recall seeing any Chinese women as a child, since male Chinese sailors settled in London alone and married working-class English women. 

In the 1920s, newspapers fear-mongered about interracial marriages, crime and gambling, and described chinatown as an East End “colony.” 

Ironically, Chinese opium-smoking was also demonised in the press, despite Britain waging war against China in the mid-nineteenth century for suppressing the opium trade to alleviate addiction amongst its people. 

The number of Chinese people who settled in Limehouse was also greatly exaggerated, and in reality only totalled around 300. 

The real Chinatown 

Although the press sought to characterise Limehouse as a monolithic Chinese community in the East End, Connie remembers seeing people of all nationalities in the shops and community spaces in Limehouse.

She doesn’t remember feeling discriminated against by other locals, though Connie does recall having her face measured and IQ tested by a member of the British Eugenics Society who was conducting research in the area. 

Some of Connie’s happiest childhood memories were from her time at Chung-Hua Club, where she learned about Chinese culture and language.

Why did Chinatown disappear? 

The caricature of Limehouse’s Chinatown as a den of vice hastened its erasure. 

Police raids and deportations fuelled by the alarmist media coverage threatened the Chinese population of Limehouse, and slum clearance schemes to redevelop low-income areas dispersed Chinese residents in the 1930s. 

The Defence of the Realm Act imposed at the beginning of the First World War criminalised opium use, gave the authorities increased powers to deport Chinese people and restricted their ability to work on British ships.

Dwindling maritime trade during World War II further stripped Chinese sailors of opportunities for employment, and any remnants of Chinatown were destroyed during the Blitz or erased by postwar development schemes.”

 

Wong Sang 1884-1930

The year 1918 was a troublesome one for Wong Sang, an interpreter and shipping agent for Blue Funnel Line.  The Sang family were living at 156, Chrisp Street.

Chrisp Street, Poplar, in 1913 via Old London Photographs:

 

In February Wong Sang was discharged from a false accusation after defending his home from potential robbers.

East End News and London Shipping Chronicle – Friday 15 February 1918:

 

In August of that year he was involved in an incident that left him unconscious.

Faringdon Advertiser and Vale of the White Horse Gazette – Saturday 31 August 1918:

 

Wong Sang is mentioned in an 1922 article about “Oriental London”.

London and China Express – Thursday 09 February 1922:

A photograph of the Chee Kong Tong Chinese Freemason Society mentioned in the above article, via Old London Photographs:

 

Wong Sang was recommended by the London Metropolitan Police in 1928 to assist in a case in Wellingborough, Northampton.

Difficulty of Getting an Interpreter: Northampton Mercury – Friday 16 March 1928:

The difficulty was that “this man speaks the Cantonese language only…the Northeners and the Southerners in China have differing languages and the interpreter seemed to speak one that was in between these two.”

 

In 1917, Alice Wong Sang was a witness at her sister Harriet Stokes marriage to James William Watts in Southwark, London.  Their father James Stokes occupation on the marriage register is foreman surveyor, but on the census he was a council roadman or labourer. (I initially rejected this as the correct marriage for Harriet because of the discrepancy with the occupations. Alice Wong Sang as a witness confirmed that it was indeed the correct one.)

 

 

James William Sang 1913-2000 was a clock fitter and watch assembler (on the 1939 census). He married Ivy Laura Fenton in 1963 in Sidcup, Kent. James died in Southwark in 2000.

Charles Ronald Sang 1920-1974  was a draughtsman (1939 census). He married Eileen Burgess in 1947 in Marylebone.  Charles and Eileen had two sons:  Keith born in 1951 and Roger born in 1952.  He died in 1974 in Hertfordshire.

William Norman Sang 1922-2000 was a clerk and telephone operator (1939 census).  William enlisted in the Royal Artillery in 1942. He married Lily Mullins in 1949 in Bethnal Green, and they had three daughters: Marion born in 1950, Christine in 1953, and Frances in 1959.  He died in Redbridge in 2000.

 

I then found another two births registered in Poplar by Alice Sang, both daughters.  Doris Winifred Sang was born in 1925, and Patricia Margaret Sang was born in 1933 ~ three years after Wong Sang’s death.  Neither of the these daughters were on the 1939 census with Alice, John Patterson and the three sons.  Margaret had presumably been evacuated because of the war to a family in Taunton, Somerset. Doris would have been fourteen and I have been unable to find her in 1939 (possibly because she died in 2017 and has not had the redaction removed  yet on the 1939 census as only deceased people are viewable).

Doris Winifred Sang 1925-2017 was a nursing sister. She didn’t marry, and spent a year in USA between 1954 and 1955. She stayed in London, and died at the age of ninety two in 2017.

Patricia Margaret Sang 1933-1998 was also a nurse. She married Patrick L Nicely in Stepney in 1957.  Patricia and Patrick had five children in London: Sharon born 1959, Donald in 1960, Malcolm was born and died in 1966, Alison was born in 1969 and David in 1971.

 

I was unable to find a birth registered for Alice’s first son, James William Sang (as he appeared on the 1939 census).  I found Alice Stokes on the 1911 census as a 17 year old live in servant at a tobacconist on Pekin Street, Limehouse, living with Mr Sui Fong from Hong Kong and his wife Sarah Sui Fong from Berlin.  I looked for a birth registered for James William Fong instead of Sang, and found it ~ mothers maiden name Stokes, and his date of birth matched the 1939 census: 8th March, 1913.

On the 1921 census, Wong Sang is not listed as living with them but it is mentioned that Mr Wong Sang was the person returning the census.  Also living with Alice and her sons James and Charles in 1921 are two visitors:  (Florence) May Stokes, 17 years old, born in Woodstock, and Charles Stokes, aged 14, also born in Woodstock. May and Charles were Alice’s sister and brother.

 

I found Sharon Nicely on social media and she kindly shared photos of Wong Sang and Alice Stokes:

 

Albert Parker Edwards

1876-1930

 

Albert Parker Edwards, my great grandfather, was born in Aston, Warwickshire in 1876.  On the 1881 census he was living with his parents Enoch and Amelia in Bournebrook, Northfield, Worcestershire.  Enoch was a button tool maker at the time of the census.

In 1890 Albert was indentured in an apprenticeship as a pawnbroker in Tipton, Staffordshire.

 

On the 1891 census Albert was a lodger in Tipton at the home of Phoebe Levy, pawnbroker, and Alberts occupation was an apprentice.

Albert married Annie Elizabeth Stokes in 1898 in Evesham, and their first son, my grandfather Albert Garnet Edwards (1898-1950), was born six months later in Crabbs Cross.  On the 1901 census, Annie was in hospital as a patient and Albert was living at Crabbs Cross with a boarder, his brother Garnet Edwards.  Their two year old son Albert Garnet was staying with his uncle Ralph, Albert Parkers brother, also in Crabbs Cross.

Albert and Annie kept the Cricketers Arms hotel on Beoley Road in Redditch until around 1920. They had a further four children while living there: Doris May Edwards (1902-1974),  Ralph Clifford Edwards (1903-1988),  Ena Flora Edwards (1908-1983) and Osmond Edwards (1910-2000).

 

In 1906 Albert was assaulted during an incident in the Cricketers Arms.

Bromsgrove & Droitwich Messenger – Saturday 18 August 1906:

 

In 1910 a gold medal was given to Albert Parker Edwards by Mr. Banks, a policeman, in Redditch for saving the life of his two children from drowning in a brook on the Proctor farm which adjoined The Cricketers Arms.  The story my father heard was that policeman Banks could not persuade the town of Redditch to come up with an award for Albert Parker Edwards so policeman Banks did it himself.  William Banks, police constable, was living on Beoley Road on the 1911 census. His son Thomas was aged 5 and his daughter Frances was 8.  It seems that when the father retired from the police he moved to Worcester. Thomas went into the hotel business and in 1939 was the manager of the Abbey hotel in Kenilworth. Frances married Edward Pardoe and was living along Redditch Road, Alvechurch in 1939.

My grandmother Peggy had the gold medal put on a gold chain for me in the 1970s.  When I left England in the 1980s, I gave it back to her for safekeeping. When she died, the medal on the chain ended up in my fathers possession, who claims to have no knowledge that it was once given to me!

The medal:

Albert Parker Edwards wearing the medal:

 

In 1921 Albert was at the The Royal Exchange hotel in Droitwich:

 

Between 1922 and 1927 Albert kept the Bear Hotel in Evesham:

 

Then Albert and Annie moved to the Red Lion at Astwood Bank:

 

Albert in the garden behind the Red Lion:

 

They stayed at the Red Lion until Albert Parker Edwards died on the 11th of February, 1930 aged 53.

The Hamstall Ridware Connection

Stubbs and Woods

Hamstall Ridware

 

 

Charles Tomlinson‘s (1847-1907) wife Emma Grattidge (1853-1911) was born in Wolverhampton, the daughter and youngest child of William Grattidge (1820-1887) born in Foston, Derbyshire, and Mary Stubbs (1819-1880), born in Burton on Trent, daughter of Solomon Stubbs.

Solomon Stubbs (1781-1857) was born in Hamstall Ridware in 1781, the son of Samuel and Rebecca.  Samuel Stubbs (1743-) and Rebecca Wood (1754-) married in 1769 in Darlaston.  Samuel and Rebecca had six other children, all born in Darlaston. Sadly four of them died in infancy. Son John was born in 1779 in Darlaston and died two years later in Hamstall Ridware in 1781, the same year that Solomon was born there.

But why did they move to Hamstall Ridware?

Samuel Stubbs was born in 1743 in Curdworth, Warwickshire (near to Birmingham).  I had made a mistake on the tree (along with all of the public trees on the Ancestry website) and had Rebecca Wood born in Cheddleton, Staffordshire.  Rebecca Wood from Cheddleton was also born in 1843, the right age for the marriage.  The Rebecca Wood born in Darlaston in 1754 seemed too young, at just fifteen years old at the time of the marriage.  I couldn’t find any explanation for why a woman from Cheddleton would marry in Darlaston and then move to Hamstall Ridware.  People didn’t usually move around much other than intermarriage with neighbouring villages, especially women.  I had a closer look at the Darlaston Rebecca, and did a search on her father William Wood.  I found his 1784 will online in which he mentions his daughter Rebecca, wife of Samuel Stubbs.  Clearly the right Rebecca Wood was the one born in Darlaston, which made much more sense.

An excerpt from William Wood’s 1784 will mentioning daughter Rebecca married to Samuel Stubbs:

 

But why did they move to Hamstall Ridware circa 1780?

I had not intially noticed that Solomon Stubbs married again the year after his wife Phillis Lomas (1787-1844) died.  Solomon married Charlotte Bell in 1845 in Burton on Trent and on the marriage register, Solomon’s father Samuel Stubbs occupation was mentioned: Samuel was a buckle maker.

Marriage of Solomon Stubbs and Charlotte Bell, father Samuel Stubbs buckle maker:

 

A rudimentary search on buckle making in the late 1700s provided a possible answer as to why Samuel and Rebecca left Darlaston in 1781.  Shoe buckles had gone out of fashion, and by 1781 there were half as many buckle makers in Wolverhampton as there had been previously.

“Where there were 127 buckle makers at work in Wolverhampton, 68 in Bilston and 58 in Birmingham in 1770, their numbers had halved in 1781.”

via “historywebsite”(museum/metalware/steel)

Steel buckles had been the height of fashion, and the trade became enormous in Wolverhampton.  Wolverhampton was a steel working town, renowned for its steel jewellery which was probably of many types.  The trade directories show great numbers of “buckle makers”.  Steel buckles were predominantly made in Wolverhampton: “from the late 1760s cut steel comes to the fore, from the thriving industry of the Wolverhampton area”. Bilston was also a great centre of buckle making, and other areas included Walsall. (It should be noted that Darlaston, Walsall, Bilston and Wolverhampton are all part of the same area)

In 1860, writing in defence of the Wolverhampton Art School, George Wallis talks about the cut steel industry in Wolverhampton.  Referring to “the fine steel workers of the 17th and 18th centuries” he says: “Let them remember that 100 years ago [sc. c. 1760] a large trade existed with France and Spain in the fine steel goods of Birmingham and Wolverhampton, of which the latter were always allowed to be the best both in taste and workmanship.  … A century ago French and Spanish merchants had their houses and agencies at Birmingham for the purchase of the steel goods of Wolverhampton…..The Great Revolution in France put an end to the demand for fine steel goods for a time and hostile tariffs finished what revolution began”.

 

The next search on buckle makers, Wolverhampton and Hamstall Ridware revealed an unexpected connecting link.

In Riotous Assemblies: Popular Protest in Hanoverian England by Adrian Randall:

In Walsall in 1750 on “Restoration Day” a crowd numbering 300 assembled, mostly buckle makers,  singing  Jacobite songs and other rebellious and riotous acts.  The government was particularly worried about a curious meeting known as the “Jubilee” in Hamstall Ridware, which may have been part of a conspiracy for a Jacobite uprising.

 

But this was thirty years before Samuel and Rebecca moved to Hamstall Ridware and does not help to explain why they moved there around 1780, although it does suggest connecting links.

Rebecca’s father, William Wood, was a brickmaker.  This was stated at the beginning of his will.  On closer inspection of the will, he was a brickmaker who owned four acres of brick kilns, as well as dwelling houses, shops, barns, stables, a brewhouse, a malthouse, cattle and land.

A page from the 1784 will of William Wood:

 

The 1784 will of William Wood of Darlaston:

I William Wood the elder of Darlaston in the county of Stafford, brickmaker, being of sound and disposing mind memory and understanding (praised be to god for the same) do make publish and declare my last will and testament in manner and form following (that is to say) {after debts and funeral expense paid etc} I give to my loving wife Mary the use usage wear interest and enjoyment of all my goods chattels cattle stock in trade ~ money securities for money personal estate and effects whatsoever and wheresoever to hold unto her my said wife for and during the term of her natural life providing she so long continues my widow and unmarried and from or after her decease or intermarriage with any future husband which shall first happen.

Then I give all the said goods chattels cattle stock in trade money securites for money personal estate and effects unto my son Abraham Wood absolutely and forever. Also I give devise and bequeath unto my said wife Mary all that my messuages tenement or dwelling house together with the malthouse brewhouse barn stableyard garden and premises to the same belonging situate and being at Darlaston aforesaid and now in my own possession. Also all that messuage tenement or dwelling house together with the shop garden and premises with the appurtenances to the same ~ belonging situate in Darlaston aforesaid and now in the several holdings or occupation of George Knowles and Edward Knowles to hold the aforesaid premises and every part thereof with the appurtenances to my said wife Mary for and during the term of her natural life provided she so long continues my widow and unmarried. And from or after her decease or intermarriage with a future husband which shall first happen. Then I give and devise the aforesaid premises and every part thereof with the appurtenances unto my said son Abraham Wood his heirs and assigns forever.

Also I give unto my said wife all that piece or parcel of land or ground inclosed and taken out of Heath Field in the parish of Darlaston aforesaid containing four acres or thereabouts (be the same more or less) upon which my brick kilns erected and now in my own possession. To hold unto my said wife Mary until my said son Abraham attains his age of twenty one years if she so long continues my widow and unmarried as aforesaid and from and immediately after my said son Abraham attaining his age of twenty one years or my said wife marrying again as aforesaid which shall first happen then I give the said piece or parcel of land or ground and premises unto my said son Abraham his heirs and assigns forever.

And I do hereby charge all the aforesaid premises with the payment of the sum of twenty pounds a piece to each of my daughters namely Elizabeth the wife of Ambrose Dudall and Rebecca the wife of Samuel Stubbs which said sum of twenty pounds each I devise may be paid to them by my said son Abraham when and so soon as he attains his age of twenty one years provided always and my mind and will is that if my said son Abraham should happen to depart this life without leaving issue of his body lawfully begotten before he attains his age of twenty one years then I give and devise all the aforesaid premises and every part thereof with the appurtenances so given to my said son Abraham as aforesaid unto my said son William Wood and my said daughter Elizabeth Dudall and Rebecca Stubbs their heirs and assigns forever equally divided among them share and share alike as tenants in common and not as joint tenants. And lastly I do hereby nominate constitute and appoint my said wife Mary and my said son Abraham executrix and executor of this my will.

 

 

The marriage of William Wood (1725-1784) and Mary Clews (1715-1798) in 1749 was in Hamstall Ridware.

 

Mary was eleven years Williams senior, and it appears that they both came from Hamstall Ridware and moved to Darlaston after they married. Clearly Rebecca had extended family there (notwithstanding any possible connecting links between the Stubbs buckle makers of Darlaston and the Hamstall Ridware Jacobites thirty years prior).  When the buckle trade collapsed in Darlaston, they likely moved to find employment elsewhere, perhaps with the help of Rebecca’s family.

I have not yet been able to find deaths recorded anywhere for either Samuel or Rebecca (there are a couple of deaths recorded for a Samuel Stubbs, one in 1809 in Wolverhampton, and one in 1810 in Birmingham but impossible to say which, if either, is the right one with the limited information, and difficult to know if they stayed in the Hamstall Ridware area or perhaps moved elsewhere)~ or find a reason for their son Solomon to be in Burton upon Trent, an evidently prosperous man with several properties including an earthenware business, as well as a land carrier business.

The House on Penn Common

Toi Fang and the Duke of Sutherland

 

Tomlinsons

 

 

Grassholme

 

Charles Tomlinson (1873-1929) my great grandfather, was born in Wolverhampton in 1873. His father Charles Tomlinson (1847-1907) was a licensed victualler or publican, or alternatively a vet/castrator. He married Emma Grattidge (1853-1911) in 1872. On the 1881 census they were living at The Wheel in Wolverhampton.

Charles married Nellie Fisher (1877-1956) in Wolverhampton in 1896. In 1901 they were living next to the post office in Upper Penn, with children (Charles) Sidney Tomlinson (1896-1955), and Hilda Tomlinson (1898-1977) . Charles was a vet/castrator working on his own account.

In 1911 their address was 4, Wakely Hill, Penn, and living with them were their children Hilda, Frank Tomlinson (1901-1975), (Dorothy) Phyllis Tomlinson (1905-1982), Nellie Tomlinson (1906-1978) and May Tomlinson (1910-1983). Charles was a castrator working on his own account.

Charles and Nellie had a further four children: Charles Fisher Tomlinson (1911-1977), Margaret Tomlinson (1913-1989) (my grandmother Peggy), Major Tomlinson (1916-1984) and Norah Mary Tomlinson (1919-2010).

My father told me that my grandmother had fallen down the well at the house on Penn Common in 1915 when she was two years old, and sent me a photo of her standing next to the well when she revisted the house at a much later date.

Peggy next to the well on Penn Common:

 

My grandmother Peggy told me that her father had had a racehorse called Toi Fang. She remembered the racing colours were sky blue and orange, and had a set of racing silks made which she sent to my father.
Through a DNA match, I met Ian Tomlinson. Ian is the son of my fathers favourite cousin Roger, Frank’s son. Ian found some racing silks and sent a photo to my father (they are now in contact with each other as a result of my DNA match with Ian), wondering what they were.

 

When Ian sent a photo of these racing silks, I had a look in the newspaper archives. In 1920 there are a number of mentions in the racing news of Mr C Tomlinson’s horse TOI FANG. I have not found any mention of Toi Fang in the newspapers in the following years.

The Scotsman – Monday 12 July 1920:

 

 

The other story that Ian Tomlinson recalled was about the house on Penn Common. Ian said he’d heard that the local titled person took Charles Tomlinson to court over building the house but that Tomlinson won the case because it was built on common land and was the first case of it’s kind.

 

Penn Common Right of Way Case:
Staffordshire Advertiser March 9, 1912

In the chancery division, on Tuesday, before Mr Justice Joyce, it was announced that a settlement had been arrived at of the Penn Common Right of Way case, the hearing of which occupied several days last month. The action was brought by the Duke of Sutherland (as Lord of the Manor of Penn) and Mr Harry Sydney Pitt (on behalf of himself and other freeholders of the manor having a right to pasturage on Penn Common) to restrain Mr James Lakin, Carlton House, Penn; Mr Charles Tomlinson, Mayfield Villa, Wakely Hill, Penn; and Mr Joseph Harold Simpkin, Dudley Road, Wolverhampton, from drawing building materials across the common, or otherwise causing injury to the soil.

The real point in dispute was whether there was a public highway for all purposes running by the side of the defendants land from the Turf Tavern past the golf club to the Barley Mow.
Mr Hughes, KC for the plaintiffs, now stated that the parties had been in consultation, and had come to terms, the substance of which was that the defendants admitted that there was no public right of way, and that they were granted a private way. This, he thought, would involve the granting of some deed or deeds to express the rights of the parties, and he suggested that the documents should be be settled by some counsel to be mutually agreed upon.

His lordship observed that the question of coal was probably the important point. Mr Younger said Mr Tomlinson was a freeholder, and the plaintiffs could not mine under him. Mr Hughes: The coal actually under his house is his, and, of course, subsidence might be produced by taking away coal some distance away. I think some document is required to determine his actual rights.
Mr Younger said he wanted to avoid anything that would increase the costs, but, after further discussion, it was agreed that Mr John Dixon (an expert on mineral rights), or failing him, another counsel satisfactory to both parties, should be invited to settle the terms scheduled in the agreement, in order to prevent any further dispute.

 

 

The name of the house is Grassholme.  The address of Mayfield Villas is the house they were living in while building Grassholme, which I assume they had not yet moved in to at the time of the newspaper article in March 1912.

 

 

What my grandmother didn’t tell anyone was how her father died in 1929:

 

 

 

On the 1921 census, Charles, Nellie and eight of their children were living at 269 Coleman Street, Wolverhampton.

 

 

They were living on Coleman Street in 1915 when Charles was fined for staying open late.

Staffordshire Advertiser – Saturday 13 February 1915:

 

 

What is not yet clear is why they moved from the house on Penn Common sometime between 1912 and 1915. And why did he have a racehorse in 1920?

STONE MANOR

 

Hildred Orgill Warren born in 1900, my grandmothers sister, married Reginald Williams in Stone, Worcestershire in March 1924. Their daughter Joan was born there in October of that year.

Hildred was a chaffeur on the 1921 census, living at home in Stourbridge with her father (my great grandfather) Samuel Warren, mechanic. I recall my grandmother saying that Hildred was one of the first lady chauffeurs. On their wedding certificate, Reginald is also a chauffeur.

1921 census, Stourbridge:

 

Hildred and Reg worked at Stone Manor.  There is a family story of Hildred being involved in a car accident involving a fatality and that she had to go to court.

Stone Manor is in a tiny village called Stone, near Kidderminster, Worcestershire. It used to be a private house, but has been a hotel and nightclub for some years. We knew in the family that Hildred and Reg worked at Stone Manor and that Joan was born there. Around 2007 Joan held a family party there.

Stone Manor, Stone, Worcestershire:

 

 

I asked on a Kidderminster Family Research group about Stone Manor in the 1920s:

“the original Stone Manor burnt down and the current building dates from the early 1920’s and was built for James Culcheth Hill, completed in 1926”
But was there a fire at Stone Manor?
“I’m not sure there was a fire at the Stone Manor… there seems to have been a fire at another big house a short distance away and it looks like stories have crossed over… as the dates are the same…”

 

JC Hill was one of the witnesses at Hildred and Reginalds wedding in Stone in 1924. K Warren, Hildreds sister Kay, was the other:

 

I searched the census and electoral rolls for James Culcheth Hill and found him at the Stone Manor on the 1929-1931 electoral rolls for Stone, and Hildred and Reginald living at The Manor House Lodge, Stone:

 

On the 1911 census James Culcheth Hill was a 12 year old student at Eastmans Royal Naval Academy, Northwood Park, Crawley, Winchester. He was born in Kidderminster in 1899. On the same census page, also a student at the school, is Reginald Culcheth Holcroft, born in 1900 in Stourbridge.  The unusual middle name would seem to indicate that they might be related.

A member of the Kidderminster Family Research group kindly provided this article:

 

 

SHOT THROUGH THE TEMPLE

Well known Worcestershire man’s tragic death.

Dudley Chronicle 27 March 1930.

Well known in Worcestershire, especially the Kidderminster district, Mr Philip Rowland Hill MA LLD who was mayor of Kidderminster in 1907 was found dead with a bullet wound through his temple on board his yacht, anchored off Cannes, on Friday, recently. A harbour watchman discovered the dead man huddled in a chair on board the yacht. A small revolver was lying on the blood soaked carpet beside him.

Friends of Mr Hill, whose London address is given as Grosvenor House, Park Lane, say that he appeared despondent since last month when he was involved in a motor car accident on the Antibes ~ Nice road. He was then detained by the police after his car collided with a small motor lorry driven by two Italians, who were killed in the crash. Later he was released on bail of 180,000 francs (£1440) pending an investigation of a charge of being responsible for the fatal accident. …….

Mr Rowland Hill (Philips father) was heir to Sir Charles Holcroft, the wealthy Staffordshire man, and managed his estates for him, inheriting the property on the death of Sir Charles. On the death of Mr Rowland HIll, which took place at the Firs, Kidderminster, his property was inherited by Mr James (Culcheth) Hill who had built a mansion at Stone, near Kidderminster. Mr Philip Rowland Hill assisted his brother in managing the estate. …….

At the time of the collison both brothers were in the car.

This article doesn’t mention who was driving the car ~ could the family story of a car accident be this one?  Hildred and Reg were working at Stone Manor, both were (or at least previously had been) chauffeurs, and Philip Hill was helping James Culcheth Hill manage the Stone Manor estate at the time.

 

This photograph was taken circa 1931 in Llanaeron, Wales.  Hildred is in the middle on the back row:

Sally Gray sent the photo with this message:

“Joan gave me a short note: Photo was taken when they lived in Wales, at Llanaeron, before Janet was born, & Aunty Lorna (my mother) lived with them, to take Joan to school in Aberaeron, as they only spoke Welsh at the local school.”

Hildred and Reginalds daughter Janet was born in 1932 in Stratford.  It would appear that Hildred and Reg moved to Wales just after the car accident, and shortly afterwards moved to Stratford.

In 1921 James Culcheth Hill was living at Red Hill House in Stourbridge. Although I have not been able to trace Reginald Williams yet, perhaps this Stourbridge connection with his employer explains how Hildred met Reginald.

Sir Reginald Culcheth Holcroft, the other pupil at the school in Winchester with James Culcheth Hill, was indeed related, as Sir Holcroft left his estate to James Culcheth Hill’s father.  Sir Reginald was born in 1899 in Upper Swinford, Stourbridge.  Hildred also lived in that part of Stourbridge in the early 1900s.

1921 Red Hill House:

 

The 2007 family reunion organized by Joan Williams at Stone Manor: Joan in black and white at the front.

 

Unrelated to the Warrens, my fathers friends (and customers at The Fox when my grandmother Peggy Edwards owned it) Geoff and Beryl Lamb later bought Stone Manor.

Looking for Robert Staley

 

William Warren (1835-1880) of Newhall (Stapenhill) married Elizabeth Staley (1836-1907) in 1858. Elizabeth was born in Newhall, the daughter of John Staley (1795-1876) and Jane Brothers. John was born in Newhall, and Jane was born in Armagh, Ireland, and they were married in Armagh in 1820. Elizabeths older brothers were born in Ireland: William in 1826 and Thomas in Dublin in 1830. Francis was born in Liverpool in 1834, and then Elizabeth in Newhall in 1836; thereafter the children were born in Newhall.

Marriage of John Staley and Jane Brothers in 1820:

 

 

My grandmother related a story about an Elizabeth Staley who ran away from boarding school and eloped to Ireland, but later returned. The only Irish connection found so far is Jane Brothers, so perhaps she meant Elizabeth Staley’s mother. A boarding school seems unlikely, and it would seem that it was John Staley who went to Ireland.

The 1841 census states Jane’s age as 33, which would make her just 12 at the time of her marriage. The 1851 census states her age as 44, making her 13 at the time of her 1820 marriage, and the 1861 census estimates her birth year as a more likely 1804. Birth records in Ireland for her have not been found. It’s possible, perhaps, that she was in service in the Newhall area as a teenager (more likely than boarding school), and that John and Jane ran off to get married in Ireland, although I haven’t found any record of a child born to them early in their marriage. John was an agricultural labourer, and later a coal miner.

John Staley was the son of Joseph Staley (1756-1838) and Sarah Dumolo (1764-). Joseph and Sarah were married by licence in Newhall in 1782. Joseph was a carpenter on the marriage licence, but later a collier (although not necessarily a miner).

The Derbyshire Record Office holds records of  an “Estimate of Joseph Staley of Newhall for the cost of continuing to work Pisternhill Colliery” dated 1820 and addresssed to Mr Bloud at Calke Abbey (presumably the owner of the mine)

Josephs parents were Robert Staley and Elizabeth. I couldn’t find a baptism or birth record for Robert Staley. Other trees on an ancestry site had his birth in Elton, but with no supporting documents. Robert, as stated in his 1795 will, was a Yeoman.

“Yeoman: A former class of small freeholders who farm their own land; a commoner of good standing.”
“Husbandman: The old word for a farmer below the rank of yeoman. A husbandman usually held his land by copyhold or leasehold tenure and may be regarded as the ‘average farmer in his locality’. The words ‘yeoman’ and ‘husbandman’ were gradually replaced in the later 18th and 19th centuries by ‘farmer’.”

He left a number of properties in Newhall and Hartshorne (near Newhall) including dwellings, enclosures, orchards, various yards, barns and acreages. It seemed to me more likely that he had inherited them, rather than moving into the village and buying them.

There is a mention of Robert Staley in a 1782 newpaper advertisement.

“Fire Engine To Be Sold.  An exceedingly good fire engine, with the boiler, cylinder, etc in good condition. For particulars apply to Mr Burslem at Burton-upon-Trent, or Robert Staley at Newhall near Burton, where the engine may be seen.”

 

Was the fire engine perhaps connected with a foundry or a coal mine?

I noticed that Robert Staley was the witness at a 1755 marriage in Stapenhill between Barbara Burslem and Richard Daston the younger esquire. The other witness was signed Burslem Jnr.

 

Looking for Robert Staley

 

I assumed that once again, in the absence of the correct records, a similarly named and aged persons baptism had been added to the tree regardless of accuracy, so I looked through the Stapenhill/Newhall parish register images page by page. There were no Staleys in Newhall at all in the early 1700s, so it seemed that Robert did come from elsewhere and I expected to find the Staleys in a neighbouring parish. But I still didn’t find any Staleys.

I spoke to a couple of Staley descendants that I’d met during the family research. I met Carole via a DNA match some months previously and contacted her to ask about the Staleys in Elton. She also had Robert Staley born in Elton (indeed, there were many Staleys in Elton) but she didn’t have any documentation for his birth, and we decided to collaborate and try and find out more.

I couldn’t find the earlier Elton parish registers anywhere online, but eventually found the untranscribed microfiche images of the Bishops Transcripts for Elton.

via familysearch:
“In its most basic sense, a bishop’s transcript is a copy of a parish register. As bishop’s transcripts generally contain more or less the same information as parish registers, they are an invaluable resource when a parish register has been damaged, destroyed, or otherwise lost. Bishop’s transcripts are often of value even when parish registers exist, as priests often recorded either additional or different information in their transcripts than they did in the original registers.”

 

Unfortunately there was a gap in the Bishops Transcripts between 1704 and 1711 ~ exactly where I needed to look. I subsequently found out that the Elton registers were incomplete as they had been damaged by fire.

I estimated Robert Staleys date of birth between 1710 and 1715. He died in 1795, and his son Daniel died in 1805: both of these wills were found online. Daniel married Mary Moon in Stapenhill in 1762, making a likely birth date for Daniel around 1740.

The marriage of Robert Staley (assuming this was Robert’s father) and Alice Maceland (or Marsland or Marsden, depending on how the parish clerk chose to spell it presumably) was in the Bishops Transcripts for Elton in 1704. They were married in Elton on 26th February. There followed the missing parish register pages and in all likelihood the records of the baptisms of their first children. No doubt Robert was one of them, probably the first male child.

(Incidentally, my grandfather’s Marshalls also came from Elton, a small Derbyshire village near Matlock.  The Staley’s are on my grandmothers Warren side.)

The parish register pages resume in 1711. One of the first entries was the baptism of Robert Staley in 1711, parents Thomas and Ann. This was surely the one we were looking for, and Roberts parents weren’t Robert and Alice.

But then in 1735 a marriage was recorded between Robert son of Robert Staley (and this was unusual, the father of the groom isn’t usually recorded on the parish register) and Elizabeth Milner. They were married on the 9th March 1735. We know that the Robert we were looking for married an Elizabeth, as her name was on the Stapenhill baptisms of their later children, including Joseph Staleys.  The 1735 marriage also fit with the assumed birth date of Daniel, circa 1740. A baptism was found for a Robert Staley in 1738 in the Elton registers, parents Robert and Elizabeth, as well as the baptism in 1736 for Mary, presumably their first child. Her burial is recorded the following year.

The marriage of Robert Staley and Elizabeth Milner in 1735:

 

There were several other Staley couples of a similar age in Elton, perhaps brothers and cousins. It seemed that Thomas and Ann’s son Robert was a different Robert, and that the one we were looking for was prior to that and on the missing pages.

Even so, this doesn’t prove that it was Elizabeth Staleys great grandfather who was born in Elton, but no other birth or baptism for Robert Staley has been found. It doesn’t explain why the Staleys moved to Stapenhill either, although the Enclosures Act and the Industrial Revolution could have been factors.

The 18th century saw the rise of the Industrial Revolution and many renowned Derbyshire Industrialists emerged. They created the turning point from what was until then a largely rural economy, to the development of townships based on factory production methods.

The Marsden Connection

There are some possible clues in the records of the Marsden family.  Robert Staley married Alice Marsden (or Maceland or Marsland) in Elton in 1704.  Robert Staley is mentioned in the 1730 will of John Marsden senior,  of Baslow, Innkeeper (Peacock Inne & Whitlands Farm). He mentions his daughter Alice, wife of Robert Staley.

In a 1715 Marsden will there is an intriguing mention of an alias, which might explain the different spellings on various records for the name Marsden:  “MARSDEN alias MASLAND, Christopher – of Baslow, husbandman, 28 Dec 1714. son Robert MARSDEN alias MASLAND….” etc.

Some potential reasons for a move from one parish to another are explained in this history of the Marsden family, and indeed this could relate to Robert Staley as he married into the Marsden family and his wife was a beneficiary of a Marsden will.  The Chatsworth Estate, at various times, bought a number of farms in order to extend the park.

THE MARSDEN FAMILY
OXCLOSE AND PARKGATE
In the Parishes of
Baslow and Chatsworth

by
David Dalrymple-Smith

“John Marsden (b1653) another son of Edmund (b1611) faired well. By the time he died in
1730 he was publican of the Peacock, the Inn on Church Lane now called the Cavendish
Hotel, and the farmer at “Whitlands”, almost certainly Bubnell Cliff Farm.”

“Coal mining was well known in the Chesterfield area. The coalfield extends as far as the
Gritstone edges, where thin seams outcrop especially in the Baslow area.”

“…the occupants were evicted from the farmland below Dobb Edge and
the ground carefully cleared of all traces of occupation and farming. Shelter belts were
planted especially along the Heathy Lea Brook. An imposing new drive was laid to the
Chatsworth House with the Lodges and “The Golden Gates” at its northern end….”

Although this particular event was later than any events relating to Robert Staley, it’s an indication of how farms and farmland disappeared, and a reason for families to move to another area:

“The Dukes of Devonshire (of Chatsworth)  were major figures in the aristocracy and the government of the
time. Such a position demanded a display of wealth and ostentation. The 6th Duke of
Devonshire, the Bachelor Duke, was not content with the Chatsworth he inherited in 1811,
and immediately started improvements. After major changes around Edensor, he turned his
attention at the north end of the Park. In 1820 plans were made extend the Park up to the
Baslow parish boundary. As this would involve the destruction of most of the Farm at
Oxclose, the farmer at the Higher House Samuel Marsden (b1755) was given the tenancy of
Ewe Close a large farm near Bakewell.
Plans were revised in 1824 when the Dukes of Devonshire and Rutland “Exchanged Lands”,
reputedly during a game of dice. Over 3300 acres were involved in several local parishes, of
which 1000 acres were in Baslow. In the deal Devonshire acquired the southeast corner of
Baslow Parish.
Part of the deal was Gibbet Moor, which was developed for “Sport”. The shelf of land
between Parkgate and Robin Hood and a few extra fields was left untouched. The rest,
between Dobb Edge and Baslow, was agricultural land with farms, fields and houses. It was
this last part that gave the Duke the opportunity to improve the Park beyond his earlier
expectations.”

 

The 1795 will of Robert Staley.

Inriguingly, Robert included the children of his son Daniel Staley in his will, but omitted to leave anything to Daniel.  A perusal of Daniels 1808 will sheds some light on this:  Daniel left his property to his six reputed children with Elizabeth Moon, and his reputed daughter Mary Brearly. Daniels wife was Mary Moon, Elizabeths husband William Moons daughter.

The will of Robert Staley, 1795:

 

The 1805 will of Daniel Staley, Robert’s son:

This is the last will and testament of me Daniel Staley of the Township of Newhall in the parish of Stapenhill in the County of Derby, Farmer. I will and order all of my just debts, funeral and testamentary expenses to be fully paid and satisfied by my executors hereinafter named by and out of my personal estate as soon as conveniently may be after my decease.

I give, devise and bequeath to Humphrey Trafford Nadin of Church Gresely in the said County of Derby Esquire and John Wilkinson of Newhall aforesaid yeoman all my messuages, lands, tenements, hereditaments and real and personal estates to hold to them, their heirs, executors, administrators and assigns until Richard Moon the youngest of my reputed sons by Elizabeth Moon shall attain his age of twenty one years upon trust that they, my said trustees, (or the survivor of them, his heirs, executors, administrators or assigns), shall and do manage and carry on my farm at Newhall aforesaid and pay and apply the rents, issues and profits of all and every of my said real and personal estates in for and towards the support, maintenance and education of all my reputed children by the said Elizabeth Moon until the said Richard Moon my youngest reputed son shall attain his said age of twenty one years and equally share and share and share alike.

And it is my will and desire that my said trustees or trustee for the time being shall recruit and keep up the stock upon my farm as they in their discretion shall see occasion or think proper and that the same shall not be diminished. And in case any of my said reputed children by the said Elizabeth Moon shall be married before my said reputed youngest son shall attain his age of twenty one years that then it is my will and desire that non of their husbands or wives shall come to my farm or be maintained there or have their abode there. That it is also my will and desire in case my reputed children or any of them shall not be steady to business but instead shall be wild and diminish the stock that then my said trustees or trustee for the time being shall have full power and authority in their discretion to sell and dispose of all or any part of my said personal estate and to put out the money arising from the sale thereof to interest and to pay and apply the interest thereof and also thereunto of the said real estate in for and towards the maintenance, education and support of all my said reputed children by the said
Elizabeth Moon as they my said trustees in their discretion that think proper until the said Richard Moon shall attain his age of twenty one years.

Then I give to my grandson Daniel Staley the sum of ten pounds and to each and every of my sons and daughters namely Daniel Staley, Benjamin Staley, John Staley, William Staley, Elizabeth Dent and Sarah Orme and to my niece Ann Brearly the sum of five pounds apiece.

I give to my youngest reputed son Richard Moon one share in the Ashby Canal Navigation and I direct that my said trustees or trustee for the time being shall have full power and authority to pay and apply all or any part of the fortune or legacy hereby intended for my youngest reputed son Richard Moon in placing him out to any trade, business or profession as they in their discretion shall think proper.
And I direct that to my said sons and daughters by my late wife and my said niece shall by wholly paid by my said reputed son Richard Moon out of the fortune herby given him. And it is my will and desire that my said reputed children shall deliver into the hands of my executors all the monies that shall arise from the carrying on of my business that is not wanted to carry on the same unto my acting executor and shall keep a just and true account of all disbursements and receipts of the said business and deliver up the same to my acting executor in order that there may not be any embezzlement or defraud amongst them and from and immediately after my said reputed youngest son Richard Moon shall attain his age of twenty one years then I give, devise and bequeath all my real estate and all the residue and remainder of my personal estate of what nature and kind whatsoever and wheresoever unto and amongst all and every my said reputed sons and daughters namely William Moon, Thomas Moon, Joseph Moon, Richard Moon, Ann Moon, Margaret Moon and to my reputed daughter Mary Brearly to hold to them and their respective heirs, executors, administrator and assigns for ever according to the nature and tenure of the same estates respectively to take the same as tenants in common and not as joint tenants.

And lastly I nominate and appoint the said Humphrey Trafford Nadin and John Wilkinson executors of this my last will and testament and guardians of all my reputed children who are under age during their respective minorities hereby revoking all former and other wills by me heretofore made and declaring this only to be my last will.

In witness whereof I the said Daniel Staley the testator have to this my last will and testament set my hand and seal the eleventh day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and five.

 

The Hair’s and Leedham’s of Netherseal

 

Samuel Warren of Stapenhill married Catherine Holland of Barton under Needwood in 1795. Catherine’s father was Thomas Holland; her mother was Hannah Hair.

Hannah was born in Netherseal, Derbyshire, in 1739. Her parents were Joseph Hair 1696-1746 and Hannah.
Joseph’s parents were Isaac Hair and Elizabeth Leedham.  Elizabeth was born in Netherseal in 1665.  Isaac and Elizabeth were married in Netherseal in 1686.

Marriage of Isaac Hair and Elizabeth Leedham: (variously spelled Ledom, Leedom, Leedham, and in one case mistranscribed as Sedom):

 

 

Isaac was buried in Netherseal on 14 August 1709 (the transcript says the 18th, but the microfiche image clearly says the 14th), but I have not been able to find a birth registered for him. On other public trees on an ancestry website, Isaac Le Haire was baptised in Canterbury and was a Huguenot, but I haven’t found any evidence to support this.

Isaac Hair’s death registered 14 August 1709 in Netherseal:

 

A search for the etymology of the surname Hair brings various suggestions, including:

“This surname is derived from a nickname. ‘the hare,’ probably affixed on some one fleet of foot. Naturally looked upon as a complimentary sobriquet, and retained in the family; compare Lightfoot. (for example) Hugh le Hare, Oxfordshire, 1273. Hundred Rolls.”

From this we may deduce that the name Hair (or Hare) is not necessarily from the French Le Haire, and existed in England for some considerable time before the arrival of the Huguenots.

Elizabeth Leedham was born in Netherseal in 1665. Her parents were Nicholas Leedham 1621-1670 and Dorothy. Nicholas Leedham was born in Church Gresley (Swadlincote) in 1621, and died in Netherseal in 1670.

Nicholas was a Yeoman and left a will and inventory worth £147.14s.8d (one hundred and forty seven pounds fourteen shillings and eight pence).

The 1670 inventory of Nicholas Leedham:

 

According to local historian Mark Knight on the Netherseal History facebook group, the Seale (Netherseal and Overseal)  parish registers from the year 1563 to 1724 were digitized during lockdown.

via Mark Knight:

“There are five entries for Nicholas Leedham.
On March 14th 1646 he and his wife buried an unnamed child, presumably the child died during childbirth or was stillborn.
On November 28th 1659 he buried his wife, Elizabeth. He remarried as on June 13th 1664 he had his son William baptised.
The following year, 1665, he baptised a daughter on November 12th. (Elizabeth) On December 23rd 1672 the parish record says that Dorithy daughter of Dorithy was buried. The Bishops Transcript has Dorithy a daughter of Nicholas. Nicholas’ second wife was called Dorithy and they named a daughter after her. Alas, the daughter died two years after Nicholas. No further Leedhams appear in the record until after 1724.”

Dorothy daughter of Dorothy Leedham was buried 23 December 1672:

 

 

William, son of Nicholas and Dorothy also left a will. In it he mentions “My dear wife Elizabeth. My children Thomas Leedom, Dorothy Leedom , Ann Leedom, Christopher Leedom and William Leedom.”

1726 will of William Leedham:

 

I found a curious error with the the parish register entries for Hannah Hair. It was a transcription error, but not a recent one. The original parish registers were copied: “HO Copy of ye register of Seale anno 1739.” I’m not sure when the copy was made, but it wasn’t recently. I found a burial for Hannah Hair on 22 April 1739 in the HO copy, which was the same day as her baptism registered on the original. I checked both registers name by name and they are exactly copied EXCEPT for Hannah Hairs. The rector, Richard Inge, put burial instead of baptism by mistake.

The original Parish register baptism of Hannah Hair:

 

The HO register copy incorrectly copied:

The Elusive Samuel Housley

and

Other Family Stories

 

Tracy Marshall

 

 

This book of the search for the family history is dedicated to

my mother

 

 

with love, and appreciation for her encouragement.

 

 

With thanks to my helper Fran O’Keefe
and to everyone else who helped, shared and made it possible.

The Hollands of Barton under Needwood

 

Samuel Warren of Stapenhill married Catherine Holland of Barton under Needwood in 1795.

I joined a Barton under Needwood History group and found an incredible amount of information on the Holland family, but first I wanted to make absolutely sure that our Catherine Holland was one of them as there were also Hollands in Newhall. Not only that, on the marriage licence it says that Catherine Holland was from Bretby Park Gate, Stapenhill.

Then I noticed that one of the witnesses on Samuel’s brother Williams marriage to Ann Holland in 1796 was John Hair. Hannah Hair was the wife of Thomas Holland, and they were the Barton under Needwood parents of Catherine. Catherine was born in 1775, and Ann was born in 1767.

The 1851 census clinched it: Catherine Warren 74 years old, widow and formerly a farmers wife, was living in the household of her son John Warren, and her place of birth is listed as Barton under Needwood. In 1841 Catherine was a 64 year old widow, her husband Samuel having died in 1837, and she was living with her son Samuel, a farmer. The 1841 census did not list place of birth, however. Catherine died on 31 March 1861 and does not appear on the 1861 census.

Once I had established that our Catherine Holland was from Barton under Needwood, I had another look at the information available on the Barton under Needwood History group, compiled by local historian Steve Gardner.

Catherine’s parents were Thomas Holland 1737-1828 and Hannah Hair 1739-1822.

Steve Gardner had posted a long list of the dates, marriages and children of the Holland family. The earliest entries in parish registers were Thomae Holland 1562-1626 and his wife Eunica Edwardes 1565-1632. They married on 10th July 1582. They were born, married and died in Barton under Needwood. They were direct ancestors of Catherine Holland, and as such my direct ancestors too.

The known history of the Holland family in Barton under Needwood goes back to Richard De Holland. (Thanks once again to Steve Gardner of the Barton under Needwood History group for this information.)

“Richard de Holland was the first member of the Holland family to become resident in Barton under Needwood (in about 1312) having been granted lands by the Earl of Lancaster (for whom Richard served as Stud and Stock Keeper of the Peak District) The Holland family stemmed from Upholland in Lancashire and had many family connections working for the Earl of Lancaster, who was one of the biggest Barons in England. Lancaster had his own army and lived at Tutbury Castle, from where he ruled over most of the Midlands area. The Earl of Lancaster was one of the main players in the ‘Barons Rebellion’ and the ensuing Battle of Burton Bridge in 1322. Richard de Holland was very much involved in the proceedings which had so angered Englands King. Holland narrowly escaped with his life, unlike the Earl who was executed.
From the arrival of that first Holland family member, the Hollands were a mainstay family in the community, and were in Barton under Needwood for over 600 years.”

Continuing with various items of information regarding the Hollands, thanks to Steve Gardner’s Barton under Needwood history pages:

“PART 6 (Final Part)
Some mentions of The Manor of Barton in the Ancient Staffordshire Rolls:
1330. A Grant was made to Herbert de Ferrars, at le Newland in the Manor of Barton.
1378. The Inquisitio bonorum – Johannis Holand — an interesting Inventory of his goods and their value and his debts.
1380. View of Frankpledge ; the Jury found that Richard Holland was feloniously murdered by his wife Joan and Thomas Graunger, who fled. The goods of the deceased were valued at iiij/. iijj. xid. ; one-third went to the dead man, one-third to his son, one- third to the Lord for the wife’s share. Compare 1 H. V. Indictments. (1413.)
That Thomas Graunger of Barton smyth and Joan the wife of Richard de Holond of Barton on the Feast of St. John the Baptist 10 H. II. (1387) had traitorously killed and murdered at night, at Barton, Richard, the husband of the said Joan. (m. 22.)
The names of various members of the Holland family appear constantly among the listed Jurors on the manorial records printed below : —
1539. Richard Holland and Richard Holland the younger are on the Muster Roll of Barton
1583. Thomas Holland and Unica his wife are living at Barton.
1663-4. Visitations. — Barton under Needword. Disclaimers. William Holland, Senior, William Holland, Junior.
1609. Richard Holland, Clerk and Alice, his wife.
1663-4. Disclaimers at the Visitation. William Holland, Senior, William Holland, Junior.”

I was able to find considerably more information on the Hollands in the book “Some Records of the Holland Family (The Hollands of Barton under Needwood, Staffordshire, and the Hollands in History)” by William Richard Holland. Luckily the full text of this book can be found online.

William Richard Holland (Died 1915) An early local Historian and author of the book:

 

‘Holland House’ taken from the Gardens (sadly demolished in the early 60’s):

 

Excerpt from the book:

“The charter, dated 1314, granting Richard rights and privileges in Needwood Forest, reads as follows:

“Thomas Earl of Lancaster and Leicester, high-steward of England, to whom all these present shall come, greeting: Know ye, that we have given, &c., to Richard Holland of Barton, and his heirs, housboot, heyboot, and fireboot, and common of pasture, in our forest of Needwood, for all his beasts, as well in places fenced as lying open, with 40 hogs, quit of pawnage in our said forest at all times in the year (except hogs only in fence month). All which premises we will warrant, &c. to the said Richard and his heirs against all people for ever”

“The terms “housboot” “heyboot” and “fireboot” meant that Richard and his heirs were to have the privilege of taking from the Forest, wood needed for house repair and building, hedging material for the repairing of fences, and what was needful for purposes of fuel.”

Further excerpts from the book:

“It may here be mentioned that during the renovation of Barton Church, when the stone pillars were being stripped of the plaster which covered them, “William Holland 1617” was found roughly carved on a pillar near to the belfry gallery, obviously the work of a not too devout member of the family, who, seated in the gallery of that time, occupied himself thus during the service. The inscription can still be seen.”

“The earliest mention of a Holland of Upholland occurs in the reign of John in a Final Concord, made at the Lancashire Assizes, dated November 5th, 1202, in which Uchtred de Chryche, who seems to have had some right in the manor of Upholland, releases his right in fourteen oxgangs* of land to Matthew de Holland, in consideration of the sum of six marks of silver. Thus was planted the Holland Tree, all the early information of which is found in The Victoria County History of Lancaster.

As time went on, the family acquired more land, and with this, increased position. Thus, in the reign of Edward I, a Robert de Holland, son of Thurstan, son of Robert, became possessed of the manor of Orrell adjoining Upholland and of the lordship of Hale in the parish of Childwall, and, through marriage with Elizabeth de Samlesbury (co-heiress of Sir Wm. de Samlesbury of Samlesbury, Hall, near to Preston), of the moiety of that manor….

* An oxgang signified the amount of land that could be ploughed by one ox in one day”

“This Robert de Holland, son of Thurstan, received Knighthood in the reign of Edward I, as did also his brother William, ancestor of that branch of the family which later migrated to Cheshire. Belonging to this branch are such noteworthy personages as Mrs. Gaskell, the talented authoress, her mother being a Holland of this branch, Sir Henry Holland, Physician to Queen Victoria, and his two sons, the first Viscount Knutsford, and Canon Francis Holland ; Sir Henry’s grandson (the present Lord Knutsford), Canon Scott Holland, etc. Captain Frederick Holland, R.N., late of Ashbourne Hall, Derbyshire, may also be mentioned here.*”

Thanks to the Barton under Needwood history group for the following:

WALES END FARM:
In 1509 it was owned and occupied by Mr Johannes Holland De Wallass end who was a well to do Yeoman Farmer (the origin of the areas name – Wales End).  Part of the building dates to 1490 making it probably the oldest building still standing in the Village:

 

I found records for all of the Holland’s listed on the Barton under Needwood History group and added them to my ancestry tree. The earliest will I found was for Eunica Edwardes, then Eunica Holland, who died in 1632.

A page from the 1632 will and inventory of Eunica (Unice) Holland:

 

I’d been reading about “pedigree collapse” just before I found out her maiden name of Edwardes. Edwards is my own maiden name.

“In genealogy, pedigree collapse describes how reproduction between two individuals who knowingly or unknowingly share an ancestor causes the family tree of their offspring to be smaller than it would otherwise be.
Without pedigree collapse, a person’s ancestor tree is a binary tree, formed by the person, the parents, grandparents, and so on. However, the number of individuals in such a tree grows exponentially and will eventually become impossibly high. For example, a single individual alive today would, over 30 generations going back to the High Middle Ages, have roughly a billion ancestors, more than the total world population at the time. This apparent paradox occurs because the individuals in the binary tree are not distinct: instead, a single individual may occupy multiple places in the binary tree. This typically happens when the parents of an ancestor are cousins (sometimes unbeknownst to themselves). For example, the offspring of two first cousins has at most only six great-grandparents instead of the normal eight. This reduction in the number of ancestors is pedigree collapse. It collapses the binary tree into a directed acyclic graph with two different, directed paths starting from the ancestor who in the binary tree would occupy two places.” via wikipedia

There is nothing to suggest, however, that Eunica’s family were related to my fathers family, and the only evidence so far in my tree of pedigree collapse are the marriages of Orgill cousins, where two sets of grandparents are repeated.

A list of Holland ancestors:

Catherine Holland 1775-1861
her parents:
Thomas Holland 1737-1828   Hannah Hair 1739-1832
Thomas’s parents:
William Holland 1696-1756   Susannah Whiteing 1715-1752
William’s parents:
William Holland 1665-    Elizabeth Higgs 1675-1720
William’s parents:
Thomas Holland 1634-1681   Katherine Owen 1634-1728
Thomas’s parents:
Thomas Holland 1606-1680   Margaret Belcher 1608-1664
Thomas’s parents:
Thomas Holland 1562-1626   Eunice Edwardes 1565- 1632

Leicestershire Blacksmiths

The Orgill’s of Measham led me further into Leicestershire as I traveled back in time.

I also realized I had uncovered a direct line of women and their mothers going back ten generations:

myself, Tracy Edwards 1957-
my mother Gillian Marshall 1933-
my grandmother Florence Warren 1906-1988
her mother and my great grandmother Florence Gretton 1881-1927
her mother Sarah Orgill 1840-1910
her mother Elizabeth Orgill 1803-1876
her mother Sarah Boss 1783-1847
her mother Elizabeth Page 1749-
her mother Mary Potter 1719-1780
and her mother and my 7x great grandmother Mary 1680-

You could say it leads us to the very heart of England, as these Leicestershire villages are as far from the coast as it’s possible to be. There are countless other maternal lines to follow, of course, but only one of mothers of mothers, and ours takes us to Leicestershire.

The blacksmiths

Sarah Boss was the daughter of Michael Boss 1755-1807, a blacksmith in Measham, and Elizabeth Page of nearby Hartshorn, just over the county border in Derbyshire.

An earlier Michael Boss, a blacksmith of Measham, died in 1772, and in his will he left the possession of the blacksmiths shop and all the working tools and a third of the household furniture to Michael, who he named as his nephew. He left his house in Appleby Magna to his wife Grace, and five pounds to his mother Jane Boss. As none of Michael and Grace’s children are mentioned in the will, perhaps it can be assumed that they were childless.

The will of Michael Boss, 1772, Measham:

 

Michael Boss the uncle was born in Appleby Magna in 1724. His parents were Michael Boss of Nelson in the Thistles and Jane Peircivall of Appleby Magna, who were married in nearby Mancetter in 1720.

Information worth noting on the Appleby Magna website:

In 1752 the calendar in England was changed from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar, as a result 11 days were famously “lost”. But for the recording of Church Registers another very significant change also took place, the start of the year was moved from March 25th to our more familiar January 1st.
Before 1752 the 1st day of each new year was March 25th, Lady Day (a significant date in the Christian calendar). The year number which we all now use for calculating ages didn’t change until March 25th. So, for example, the day after March 24th 1750 was March 25th 1751, and January 1743 followed December 1743.
This March to March recording can be seen very clearly in the Appleby Registers before 1752. Between 1752 and 1768 there appears slightly confused recording, so dates should be carefully checked. After 1768 the recording is more fully by the modern calendar year.

Michael Boss the uncle married Grace Cuthbert.  I haven’t yet found the birth or parents of Grace, but a blacksmith by the name of Edward Cuthbert is mentioned on an Appleby Magna history website:

An Eighteenth Century Blacksmith’s Shop in Little Appleby
by Alan Roberts

Cuthberts inventory

The inventory of Edward Cuthbert provides interesting information about the household possessions and living arrangements of an eighteenth century blacksmith. Edward Cuthbert (als. Cutboard) settled in Appleby after the Restoration to join the handful of blacksmiths already established in the parish, including the Wathews who were prominent horse traders. The blacksmiths may have all worked together in the same shop at one time. Edward and his wife Sarah recorded the baptisms of several of their children in the parish register. Somewhat sadly three of the boys named after their father all died either in infancy or as young children. Edward’s inventory which was drawn up in 1732, by which time he was probably a widower and his children had left home, suggests that they once occupied a comfortable two-storey house in Little Appleby with an attached workshop, well equipped with all the tools for repairing farm carts, ploughs and other implements, for shoeing horses and for general ironmongery. 

Edward Cuthbert born circa 1660, married Joane Tuvenet in 1684 in Swepston cum Snarestone , and died in Appleby in 1732. Tuvenet is a French name and suggests a Huguenot connection, but this isn’t our family, and indeed this Edward Cuthbert is not likely to be Grace’s father anyway.

Michael Boss and Elizabeth Page appear to have married twice: once in 1776, and once in 1779. Both of the documents exist and appear correct. Both marriages were by licence. They both mention Michael is a blacksmith.

Their first daughter, Elizabeth, was baptized in February 1777, just nine months after the first wedding. It’s not known when she was born, however, and it’s possible that the marriage was a hasty one. But why marry again three years later?

But Michael Boss and Elizabeth Page did not marry twice.

Elizabeth Page from Smisby was born in 1752 and married Michael Boss on the 5th of May 1776 in Measham. On the marriage licence allegations and bonds, Michael is a bachelor.

Baby Elizabeth was baptised in Measham on the 9th February 1777. Mother Elizabeth died on the 18th February 1777, also in Measham.

In 1779 Michael Boss married another Elizabeth Page! She was born in 1749 in Hartshorn, and Michael is a widower on the marriage licence allegations and bonds.

Hartshorn and Smisby are neighbouring villages, hence the confusion.  But a closer look at the documents available revealed the clues.  Both Elizabeth Pages were literate, and indeed their signatures on the marriage registers are different:

Marriage of Michael Boss and Elizabeth Page of Smisby in 1776:

 

Marriage of Michael Boss and Elizabeth Page of Harsthorn in 1779:

 

Not only did Michael Boss marry two women both called Elizabeth Page but he had an unusual start in life as well. His uncle Michael Boss left him the blacksmith business and a third of his furniture. This was all in the will. But which of Uncle Michaels brothers was nephew Michaels father?

The only Michael Boss born at the right time was in 1750 in Edingale, Staffordshire, about eight miles from Appleby Magna. His parents were Thomas Boss and Ann Parker, married in Edingale in 1747.  Thomas died in August 1750, and his son Michael was baptised in the December, posthumus son of Thomas and his widow Ann. Both entries are on the same page of the register.

 

Ann Boss, the young widow, married again. But perhaps Michael and his brother went to live with their childless uncle and aunt, Michael Boss and Grace Cuthbert.

The great grandfather of Michael Boss (the Measham blacksmith born in 1850) was also Michael Boss, probably born in the 1660s. He died in Newton Regis in Warwickshire in 1724, four years after his son (also Michael Boss born 1693) married Jane Peircivall.  The entry on the parish register states that Michael Boss was buried ye 13th Affadavit made.

I had not seen affadavit made on a parish register before, and this relates to the The Burying in Woollen Acts 1666–80.  According to Wikipedia:

 “Acts of the Parliament of England which required the dead, except plague victims and the destitute, to be buried in pure English woollen shrouds to the exclusion of any foreign textiles.  It was a requirement that an affidavit be sworn in front of a Justice of the Peace (usually by a relative of the deceased), confirming burial in wool, with the punishment of a £5 fee for noncompliance. Burial entries in parish registers were marked with the word “affidavit” or its equivalent to confirm that affidavit had been sworn; it would be marked “naked” for those too poor to afford the woollen shroud.  The legislation was in force until 1814, but was generally ignored after 1770.”

Michael Boss buried 1724 “Affadavit made”:

 

 

 

Elizabeth Page‘s father was William Page 1717-1783, a wheelwright in Hartshorn.  (The father of the first wife Elizabeth was also William Page, but he was a husbandman in Smisby born in 1714. William Page, the father of the second wife, was born in Nailstone, Leicestershire, in 1717. His place of residence on his marriage to Mary Potter was spelled Nelson.)

Her mother was Mary Potter 1719- of nearby Coleorton.  Mary’s father, Richard Potter 1677-1731, was a blacksmith in Coleorton.

A page of the will of Richard Potter 1731:

 

Richard Potter states: “I will and order that my son Thomas Potter shall after my decease have one shilling paid to him and no more.”  As he left £50 to each of his daughters, one can’t help but wonder what Thomas did to displease his father.

Richard stipulated that his son Thomas should have one shilling paid to him and not more, for several good considerations, and left “the house and ground lying in the parish of Whittwick in a place called the Long Lane to my wife Mary Potter to dispose of as she shall think proper.”

His son Richard inherited the blacksmith business:  “I will and order that my son Richard Potter shall live and be with his mother and serve her duly and truly in the business of a blacksmith, and obey and serve her in all lawful commands six years after my decease, and then I give to him and his heirs…. my house and grounds Coulson House in the Liberty of Thringstone”

Richard wanted his son John to be a blacksmith too: “I will and order that my wife bring up my son John Potter at home with her and teach or cause him to be taught the trade of a blacksmith and that he shall serve her duly and truly seven years after my decease after the manner of an apprentice and at the death of his mother I give him that house and shop and building and the ground belonging to it which I now dwell in to him and his heirs forever.”

To his daughters Margrett and Mary Potter, upon their reaching the age of one and twenty, or the day after their marriage, he leaves £50 each. All the rest of his goods are left to his loving wife Mary.

 

An inventory of the belongings of Richard Potter, 1731:

 

Richard Potters father was also named Richard Potter 1649-1719, and he too was a blacksmith.

Richard Potter of Coleorton in the county of Leicester, blacksmith, stated in his will:  “I give to my son and daughter Thomas and Sarah Potter the possession of my house and grounds.”

He leaves ten pounds each to his daughters Jane and Alice, to his son Francis he gives five pounds, and five shillings to his son Richard. Sons Joseph and William also receive five shillings each. To his daughter Mary, wife of Edward Burton, and her daughter Elizabeth, he gives five shillings each. The rest of his good, chattels and wordly substance he leaves equally between his son and daugter Thomas and Sarah. As there is no mention of his wife, it’s assumed that she predeceased him.

The will of Richard Potter, 1719:

 

Richard Potter’s (1649-1719) parents were William Potter and Alse Huldin, both born in the early 1600s.  They were married in 1646 at Breedon on the Hill, Leicestershire.  The name Huldin appears to originate in Finland.

William Potter was a blacksmith. In the 1659 parish registers of Breedon on the Hill, William Potter of Breedon blacksmith buryed the 14th July.

Matthew Orgill and His Family

 

Matthew Orgill 1828-1907 was the Orgill brother who went to Australia, but returned to Measham.  Matthew married Mary Orgill in Measham in October 1856, having returned from Victoria, Australia in May of that year.

Although Matthew was the first Orgill brother to go to Australia, he was the last one I found, and that was somewhat by accident, while perusing “Orgill” and “Measham” in a newspaper archives search.  I chanced on Matthew’s obituary in the Nuneaton Observer, Friday 14 June 1907:

LATE MATTHEW ORGILL PEACEFUL END TO A BLAMELESS LIFE.

‘Sunset and Evening Star And one clear call for me.”

It is with very deep regret that we have to announce the death of Mr. Matthew Orgill, late of Measham, who passed peacefully away at his residence in Manor Court Road, Nuneaton, in the early hours of yesterday morning. Mr. Orgill, who was in his eightieth year, was a man with a striking history, and was a very fine specimen of our best English manhood. In early life be emigrated to South Africa—sailing in the “Hebrides” on 4th February. 1850—and was one of the first settlers at the Cape; afterwards he went on to Australia at the time of the Gold Rush, and ultimately came home to his native England and settled down in Measham, in Leicestershire, where he carried on a successful business for the long period of half-a-century.

He was full of reminiscences of life in the Colonies in the early days, and an hour or two in his company was an education itself. On the occasion of the recall of Sir Harry Smith from the Governorship of Natal (for refusing to be a party to the slaying of the wives and children in connection with the Kaffir War), Mr. Orgill was appointed to superintend the arrangements for the farewell demonstration. It was one of his boasts that he made the first missionary cart used in South Africa, which is in use to this day—a monument to the character of his work; while it is an interesting fact to note that among Mr. Orgill’s papers there is the original ground-plan of the city of Durban before a single house was built.

In Africa Mr. Orgill came in contact with the great missionary, David Livingstone, and between the two men there was a striking resemblance in character and a deep and lasting friendship. Mr. Orgill could give a most graphic description of the wreck of the “Birkenhead,” having been in the vicinity at the time when the ill-fated vessel went down. He played a most prominent part on the occasion of the famous wreck of the emigrant ship, “Minerva.” when, in conjunction with some half-a-dozen others, and at the eminent risk of their own lives, they rescued more than 100 of the unfortunate passengers. He was afterwards presented with an interesting relic as a memento of that thrilling experience, being a copper bolt from the vessel on which was inscribed the following words: “Relic of the ship Minerva, wrecked off Bluff Point, Port Natal. 8.A.. about 2 a.m.. Friday, July 5, 1850.”

Mr. Orgill was followed to the Colonies by no fewer than six of his brothers, all of whom did well, and one of whom married a niece (brother’s daughter) of the late Mr. William Ewart Gladstone.

On settling down in Measham his kindly and considerate disposition soon won for him a unique place in the hearts of all the people, by whom he was greatly beloved. He was a man of sterling worth and integrity. Upright and honourable in all his dealings, he led a Christian life that was a pattern to all with whom he came in contact, and of him it could truly he said that he wore the white flower of a blameless life.

He was a member of the Baptist Church, and although beyond much active service since settling down in Nuneaton less than two years ago he leaves behind him a record in Christian service attained by few. In politics he was a Radical of the old school. A great reader, he studied all the questions of the day, and could back up every belief he held by sound and fearless argument. The South African – war was a great grief to him. He knew the Boers from personal experience, and although he suffered at the time of the war for his outspoken condemnation, he had the satisfaction of living to see the people of England fully recognising their awful blunder. To give anything like an adequate idea of Mr. Orgill’s history would take up a great amount of space, and besides much of it has been written and commented on before; suffice it to say that it was strenuous, interesting, and eventful, and yet all through his hands remained unspotted and his heart was pure.

He is survived by three daughters, and was father-in-law to Mr. J. S. Massey. St Kilda. Manor Court Road, to whom deep and loving sympathy is extended in their sore bereavement by a wide circle of friends. The funeral is arranged to leave for Measham on Monday at twelve noon.

 

“To give anything like an adequate idea of Mr. Orgill’s history would take up a great amount of space, and besides much of it has been written and commented on before…”

I had another look in the newspaper archives and found a number of articles mentioning him, including an intriguing excerpt in an article about local history published in the Burton Observer and Chronicle 8 August 1963:

on an upstairs window pane he scratched with his diamond ring “Matthew Orgill, 1st July, 1858”

 

I asked on a Measham facebook group if anyone knew the location of the house mentioned in the article and someone kindly responded. This is the same building, seen from either side:

 

Coincidentally, I had already found this wonderful photograph of the same building, taken in 1910 ~ three years after Matthew’s death.

 

But what to make of the inscription in the window?

Matthew and Mary married in October 1856, and their first child (according to the records I’d found thus far) was a daughter Mary born in 1860.  I had a look for a Matthew Orgill birth registered in 1858, the date Matthew had etched on the window, and found a death for a Matthew Orgill in 1859.  Assuming I would find the birth of Matthew Orgill registered on the first of July 1958, to match the etching in the window, the corresponding birth was in July 1857!

Matthew and Mary had four children. Matthew, Mary, Clara and Hannah.  Hannah Proudman Orgill married Joseph Stanton Massey.  The Orgill name continues with their son Stanley Orgill Massey 1900-1979, who was a doctor and surgeon.  Two of Stanley’s four sons were doctors, Paul Mackintosh Orgill Massey 1929-2009, and Michael Joseph Orgill Massey 1932-1989.

 

Mary Orgill 1827-1894, Matthews wife, was an Orgill too.

And this is where the Orgill branch of the tree gets complicated.

Mary’s father was Henry Orgill born in 1805 and her mother was Hannah Proudman born in 1805.
Henry Orgill’s father was Matthew Orgill born in 1769 and his mother was Frances Finch born in 1771.

Mary’s husband Matthews parents are Matthew Orgill born in 1798 and Elizabeth Orgill born in 1803.

Another Orgill Orgill marriage!

Matthews parents,  Matthew and Elizabeth, have the same grandparents as each other, Matthew Orgill born in 1736 and Ann Proudman born in 1735.

But Matthews grandparents are none other than Matthew Orgill born in 1769 and Frances Finch born in 1771 ~ the same grandparents as his wife Mary!

To Australia

Grettons

Charles Herbert Gretton 1876-1954

Charles Gretton, my great grandmothers youngest brother, arrived in Sydney Australia on 12 February 1912, having set sail on 5 January 1912 from London. His occupation on the passenger list was stockman, and he was traveling alone.  Later that year, in October, his wife and two sons sailed out to join him.

 

Charles was born in Swadlincote.  He married Mary Anne Illsley, a local girl from nearby Church Gresley, in 1898. Their first son, Leslie Charles Bloemfontein Gretton, was born in 1900 in Church Gresley, and their second son, George Herbert Gretton, was born in 1910 in Swadlincote.  In 1901 Charles was a colliery worker, and on the 1911 census, his occupation was a sanitary ware packer.

Charles and Mary Anne had two more sons, both born in Footscray:  Frank Orgill Gretton in 1914, and Arthur Ernest Gretton in 1920.

On the Australian 1914 electoral rolls, Charles and Mary Ann were living at 72 Moreland Street, Footscray, and in 1919 at 134 Cowper Street, Footscray, and Charles was a labourer.  In 1924, Charles was a sub foreman, living at 3, Ryan Street E, Footscray, Australia.  On a later electoral register, Charles was a foreman.  Footscray is a suburb of Melbourne, and developed into an industrial zone in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Charles died in Victoria in 1954 at the age of 77. His wife Mary Ann died in 1958.

 

Charles and Mary Ann Gretton:

 

Leslie Charles Bloemfontein Gretton 1900-1955

Leslie was an electrician.   He married Ethel Christine Halliday, born in 1900 in Footscray, in 1927.  They had four children: Tom, Claire, Nancy and Frank. By 1943 they were living in Yallourn.  Yallourn, Victoria was a company town in Victoria, Australia built between the 1920s and 1950s to house employees of the State Electricity Commission of Victoria, who operated the nearby Yallourn Power Station complex. However, expansion of the adjacent open-cut brown coal mine led to the closure and removal of the town in the 1980s.

On the 1954 electoral registers, daughter Claire Elizabeth Gretton, occupation teacher, was living at the same address as Leslie and Ethel.

Leslie died in Yallourn in 1955, and Ethel nine years later in 1964, also in Yallourn.

 

George Herbert Gretton 1910-1970

George married Florence May Hall in 1934 in Victoria, Australia.  In 1942 George was listed on the electoral roll as a grocer, likewise in 1949. In 1963 his occupation was a process worker, and in 1968 in Flinders, a horticultural advisor.

George died in Lang Lang, not far from Melbourne, in 1970.

 

Frank Orgill Gretton 1914-

Arthur Ernest Gretton 1920-

 

Orgills

John Orgill 1835-1911

John Orgill was Charles Herbert Gretton’s uncle.  He emigrated to Australia in 1865, and married Elizabeth Mary Gladstone 1845-1926 in Victoria in 1870. Their first child was born in December that year, in Dandenong. They had seven children, and their three sons all have the middle name Gladstone.

John Orgill was a councillor for the Shire of Dandenong in 1873, and between 1876 and 1879.

John Orgill:

 

John Orgill obituary in the South Bourke and Mornington Journal, 21 December 1911:

 

 

John’s wife Elizabeth Orgill, a teacher and a “a public spirited lady” according to newspaper articles, opened a hydropathic hospital in Dandenong called Gladstone House.

Elizabeth Gladstone Orgill:

 

On the Old Dandenong website:

Gladstone House hydropathic hospital on the corner of Langhorne and Foster streets (153 Foster Street) Dandenong opened in 1896, working on the theory of water therapy, no medicine or operations. Her husband passed away in 1911 at 77, around similar time Dr Barclay Thompson obtained control of the practice. Mrs Orgill remaining on in some capacity.

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).

Around 1912 Dr A. E. Taylor took over the location from Dr. Barclay Thompson. Mrs Orgill was still working here but no longer controlled the practice, having given it up to Barclay. Taylor served as medical officer for the Shire for before his death in 1939. After Taylor’s death Dr. T. C. Reeves bought his practice in 1939, later that year being appointed medical officer,

Gladstone Road in Dandenong is named after her family, who owned and occupied a farming paddock in the area on former Police Paddock ground, the Police reserve having earlier been reduced back to Stud Road.

Hydropathy (now known as Hydrotherapy) and also called water cure, is a part of medicine and alternative medicine, in particular of naturopathy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy, that involves the use of water for pain relief and treatment.

Gladstone House, Dandenong:

 

 

John’s brother Robert Orgill 1830-1915 also emigrated to Australia. I met (online) his great great grand daughter Lidya Orgill via the Old Dandenong facebook group.

John’s other brother Thomas Orgill 1833-1908 also emigrated to the same part of Australia.

Thomas Orgill:

 

One of Thomas Orgills sons was George Albert Orgill 1880-1949:

 

A letter was published in The South Bourke & Mornington Journal (Richmond, Victoria, Australia) on 17 Jun 1915, to Tom Orgill, Emerald Hill (South Melbourne) from hospital by his brother George Albert Orgill (4th Pioneers) describing landing of Covering Party prior to dawn invasion of Gallipoli:

 

Another brother Henry Orgill 1837-1916 was born in Measham and died in Dandenong, Australia. Henry was a bricklayer living in Measham on the 1861 census. Also living with his widowed mother Elizabeth at that address was his sister Sarah and her husband Richard Gretton, the baker (my great great grandparents). In October of that year he sailed to Melbourne.  His occupation was bricklayer on his death records in 1916.

Two of Henry’s sons, Arthur Garfield Orgill born 1888 and Ernest Alfred Orgill born 1880 were killed in action in 1917 and buried in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France. Another son, Frederick Stanley Orgill, died in 1897 at the age of seven.

A fifth brother, William Orgill 1842-   sailed from Liverpool to Melbourne in 1861, at 19 years of age. Four years later in 1865 he sailed from Victoria, Australia to New Zealand.

 

I assumed I had found all of the Orgill brothers who went to Australia, and resumed research on the Orgills in Measham, in England. A search in the British Newspaper Archives for Orgills in Measham revealed yet another Orgill brother who had gone to Australia.

Matthew Orgill 1828-1907 went to South Africa and to Australia, but returned to Measham.

The Orgill brothers had two sisters. One was my great great great grandmother Sarah, and the other was Hannah.  Hannah married Francis Hart in Measham. One of her sons, John Orgill Hart 1862-1909, was born in Measham.  On the 1881 census he was a 19 year old carpenters apprentice.  Two years later in 1883 he was listed as a joiner on the passenger list of the ship Illawarra, bound for Australia.   His occupation at the time of his death in Dandenong in 1909 was contractor.

An additional coincidental note about Dandenong: my step daughter Emily’s Australian partner is from Dandenong.

 

 

Housleys

Charles Housley 1823-1856

Charles Housley emigrated to Australia in 1851, the same year that his brother George emigrated to USA.  Charles is mentioned in the Narrative on the Letters by Barbara Housley, and appears in the Housley Letters chapters.

 

Rushbys

George “Mike” Rushby 1933-

Mike moved to Australia from South Africa. His story is a separate chapter.

The Measham Thatchers

Orgills, Finches and Wards

Measham is a large village in north west Leicestershire, England, near the Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire boundaries. Our family has a penchant for border straddling, and the Orgill’s of Measham take this a step further living on the boundaries of four counties.  Historically it was in an exclave of Derbyshire absorbed into Leicestershire in 1897, so once again we have two sets of county records to search.

ORGILL

Richard Gretton, the baker of Swadlincote and my great grandmother Florence Nightingale Grettons’ father, married Sarah Orgill (1840-1910) in 1861.

(Incidentally, Florence Nightingale Warren nee Gretton’s first child Hildred born in 1900 had the middle name Orgill. Florence’s brother John Orgill Gretton emigrated to USA.)

When they first married, they lived with Sarah’s widowed mother Elizabeth in Measham.  Elizabeth Orgill is listed on the 1861 census as a farmer of two acres.

Sarah Orgill’s father Matthew Orgill (1798-1859) was a thatcher, as was his father Matthew Orgill (1771-1852).

Matthew Orgill the elder left his property to his son Henry:

 

Sarah’s mother Elizabeth (1803-1876) was also an Orgill before her marriage to Matthew.

According to Pigot & Co’s Commercial Directory for Derbyshire, in Measham in 1835 Elizabeth Orgill was a straw bonnet maker, an ideal occupation for a thatchers wife.

Matthew Orgill, thatcher, is listed in White’s directory in 1857, and other Orgill’s are mentioned in Measham:

Mary Orgill, straw hat maker; Henry Orgill, grocer; Daniel Orgill, painter; another Matthew Orgill is a coal merchant and wheelwright. Likewise a number of Orgill’s are listed in the directories for Measham in the subsequent years, as farmers, plumbers, painters, grocers, thatchers, wheelwrights, coal merchants and straw bonnet makers.

 

Matthew and Elizabeth Orgill, Measham Baptist church:

 

According to a history of thatching, for every six or seven thatchers appearing in the 1851 census there are now less than one.  Another interesting fact in the history of thatched roofs (via thatchinginfo dot com):

The Watling Street Divide…
The biggest dividing line of all, that between the angular thatching of the Northern and Eastern traditions and the rounded Southern style, still roughly follows a very ancient line; the northern section of the old Roman road of Watling Street, the modern A5. Seemingly of little significance today; this was once the border between two peoples. Agreed in the peace treaty, between the Saxon King Alfred and Guthrum, the Danish Viking leader; over eleven centuries ago.
After making their peace, various Viking armies settled down, to the north and east of the old road; firstly, in what was known as The Danelaw and later in Norse kingdoms, based in York. They quickly formed a class of farmers and peasants. Although the Saxon kings soon regained this area; these people stayed put. Their influence is still seen, for example, in the widespread use of boarded gable ends, so common in Danish thatching.
Over time, the Southern and Northern traditions have slipped across the old road, by a few miles either way. But even today, travelling across the old highway will often bring the differing thatching traditions quickly into view.

Pear Tree Cottage, Bosworth Road, Measham. 1900.  Matthew Orgill was a thatcher living on Bosworth road.

 

FINCH

Matthew the elder married Frances Finch 1771-1848, also of Measham.  On the 1851 census Matthew is an 80 year old thatcher living with his daughter Mary and her husband Samuel Piner, a coal miner.

Henry Finch 1743- and Mary Dennis 1749- , both of Measham, were Frances parents.  Henry’s father was also Henry Finch, born in 1707 in Measham, and he married Frances Ward, also born in 1707, and also from Measham.

WARD

 

The ancient boundary between the kingdom of Mercia and the Danelaw

I didn’t find much information on the history of Measham, but I did find a great deal of ancient history on the nearby village of Appleby Magna, two miles away.  The parish records indicate that the Ward and Finch branches of our family date back to the 1500’s in the village, and we can assume that the ancient history of the neighbouring village would be relevant to our history.

There is evidence of human settlement in Appleby from the early Neolithic period, 6,000 years ago, and there are also Iron Age and Bronze Age sites in the vicinity.  There is evidence of further activity within the village during the Roman period, including evidence of a villa or farm and a temple.  Appleby is near three known Roman roads: Watling Street, 10 miles south of the village; Bath Lane, 5 miles north of the village; and Salt Street, which forms the parish’s south boundary.

But it is the Scandinavian invasions that are particularly intriguing, with regard to my 58% Scandinavian DNA (and virtually 100% Midlands England ancestry). Repton is 13 miles from Measham. In the early 10th century Chilcote, Measham and Willesley were part of the royal Derbyshire estate of Repton.

The arrival of Scandinavian invaders in the second half of the ninth century caused widespread havoc throughout northern England. By the AD 870s the Danish army was occupying Mercia and it spent the winter of 873-74 at Repton, the headquarters of the Mercian kings. The events are recorded in detail in the Peterborough manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles…

Although the Danes held power for only 40 years, a strong, even subversive, Danish element remained in the population for many years to come. 

A Scandinavian influence may also be detected among the field names of the parish. Although many fields have relatively modern names, some clearly have elements which reach back to the time of Danish incursion and control.

The Borders:

The name ‘aeppel byg’ is given in the will of Wulfic Spot of AD 1004……………..The decision at Domesday to include this land in Derbyshire, as one of Burton Abbey’s Derbyshire manors, resulted in the division of the village of Appleby Magna between the counties of Leicester and Derby for the next 800 years

Richard Dunmore’s Appleby Magma website.

This division of Appleby between Leicestershire and Derbyshire persisted from Domesday until 1897, when the recently created county councils (1889) simplified the administration of many villages in this area by a radical realignment of the boundary:

 

I would appear that our family not only straddle county borders, but straddle ancient kingdom borders as well.  This particular branch of the family (we assume, given the absence of written records that far back) were living on the edge of the Danelaw and a strong element of the Danes survives to this day in my DNA.

 

Ellastone and Mayfield
Malkins and Woodwards
Parish Registers

 

Jane Woodward

It’s exciting, as well as enormously frustrating, to see so many Woodward’s in the Ellastone parish registers, and even more so because they go back so far. There are parish registers surviving from the 1500’s: in one, dated 1579, the death of Thomas Woodward was recorded. His father’s name was Humfrey.

Jane Woodward married Rowland Malkin in 1751, in Thorpe, Ashbourne. Jane was from Mathfield (also known as Mayfield), Ellastone, on the Staffordshire side of the river Dove. Rowland was from Clifton, Ashbourne, on the Derbyshire side of the river. They were neighbouring villages, but in different counties.

Jane Woodward was born in 1726 according to the marriage transcription. No record of the baptism can be found for her, despite there having been at least four other Woodward couples in Ellastone and Mayfield baptizing babies in the 1720’s and 1730’s.  Without finding out the baptism with her parents names on the parish register, it’s impossible to know which is the correct line to follow back to the earlier records.

I found a Mayfield history group on Facebook and asked if there were parish records existing that were not yet online. A member responded that she had a set on microfiche and had looked through the relevant years and didn’t see a Jane Woodward, but she did say that some of the pages were illegible.

The Ellasone parish records from the 1500s surviving at all, considering the events in 1673, is remarkable. To be so close, but for one indecipherable page from the 1700s, to tracing the family back to the 1500s! The search for the connecting link to the earlier records continues.

Some key events in the history of parish registers from familysearch:

In medieval times there were no parish registers. For some years before the Reformation, monastic houses (especially the smaller ones) the parish priest had been developing the custom of noting in an album or on the margins of the service books, the births and deaths of the leading local families.
1538 – Through the efforts of Thomas Cromwell a mandate was issued by Henry VIII to keep parish registers. This order that every parson, vicar or curate was to enter in a book every wedding, christening and burial in his parish. The parish was to provide a sure coffer with two locks, the parson having the custody of one key, the wardens the others. The entries were to be made each Sunday after the service in the presence of one of the wardens.
1642-60 – During the Civil War registers were neglected and Bishop Transcripts were not required.
1650 – In the restoration of Charles they went back to the church to keep christenings, marriages and burial. The civil records that were kept were filed in with the parish in their registers. it is quite usual to find entries explaining the situation during the Interregnum. One rector stated that on 23 April 1643 “Our church was defaced our font thrown down and new forms of prayer appointed”. Another minister not quite so bold wrote “When the war, more than a civil war was raging most grimly between royalists and parliamentarians throughout the greatest part of England, I lived well because I lay low”.
1653 – Cromwell, whose army had defeated the Royalists, was made Lord Protector and acted as king. He was a Puritan. The parish church of England was disorganized, many ministers fled for their lives, some were able to hide their registers and other registers were destroyed. Cromwell ruled that there would be no one religion in England all religions could be practiced. The government took away from the ministers not only the custody of the registers, but even the solemnization of the marriage ceremony. The marriage ceremony was entrusted to the justices to form a new Parish Register (not Registrar) elected by all the ratepayers in a parish, and sworn before and approved by a magistrate.. Parish clerks of the church were made a civil parish clerk and they recorded deaths, births and marriages in the civil parishes.

 

Ellastone:

“Ellastone features as ‘Hayslope’ in George Eliot’s Adam Bede, published in 1859. It earned this recognition because the author’s father spent the early part of his life in the village working as a carpenter.”

Adam Bede Cottage, Ellastone:

“It was at Ellastone that Robert Evans, George Eliot’s father, passed his early years and worked as a carpenter with his brother Samuel; and it was partly from reminiscences of her father’s talk and from her uncle Samuel’s wife’s preaching experiences that the author constructed the very powerful and moving story of Adam Bede.”

 

Mary Malkin

1765-1838

Ellen Carrington’s mother was Mary Malkin.

Ellastone:

 

 

 

Ashbourn the 31st day of May in the year of our Lord 1751.  The marriage of Rowland Malkin and Jane Woodward:

The Housley Letters

FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS

from Barbara Housley’s Narrative on the Letters:

 

George apparently asked about old friends and acquaintances and the family did their best to answer although Joseph wrote in 1873: “There is very few of your old cronies that I know of knocking about.”

In Anne’s first letter she wrote about a conversation which Robert had with EMMA LYON before his death and added “It (his death) was a great trouble to Lyons.” In her second letter Anne wrote: “Emma Lyon is to be married September 5. I am going the Friday before if all is well. There is every prospect of her being comfortable. MRS. L. always asks after you.” In 1855 Emma wrote: “Emma Lyon now Mrs. Woolhouse has got a fine boy and a pretty fuss is made with him. They call him ALFRED LYON WOOLHOUSE.”

(Interesting to note that Elizabeth Housley, the eldest daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth, was living with a Lyon family in Derby in 1861, after she left Belper workhouse.  The Emma listed on the census in 1861 was 10 years old, and so can not be the Emma Lyon mentioned here, but it’s possible, indeed likely, that Peter Lyon the baker was related to the Lyon’s who were friends of the Housley’s.  The mention of a sea captain in the Lyon family begs the question did Elizabeth Housley meet her husband, George William Stafford, a seaman, through some Lyon connections, but to date this remains a mystery.)

Elizabeth Housley living with Peter Lyon and family in Derby St Peters in 1861:

 

A Henrietta Lyon was married in 1860. Her father was Matthew, a Navy Captain. The 1857 Derby Directory listed a Richard Woolhouse, plumber, glazier, and gas fitter on St. Peter’s Street. Robert lived in St. Peter’s parish at the time of his death. An Alfred Lyon, son of Alfred and Jemima Lyon 93 Friargate, Derby was baptised on December 4, 1877. An Allen Hewley Lyon, born February 1, 1879 was baptised June 17 1879.

 

Anne wrote in August 1854: “KERRY was married three weeks since to ELIZABETH EATON. He has left Smith some time.” Perhaps this was the same person referred to by Joseph: “BILL KERRY, the blacksmith for DANIEL SMITH, is working for John Fletcher lace manufacturer.” According to the 1841 census, Elizabeth age 12, was the oldest daughter of Thomas and Rebecca Eaton. She would certainly have been of marriagable age in 1854. A William Kerry, age 14, was listed as a blacksmith’s apprentice in the 1851 census; but another William Kerry who was 29 in 1851 was already working for Daniel Smith as a blacksmith. REBECCA EATON was listed in the 1851 census as a widow serving as a nurse in the John Housley household. The 1881 census lists the family of William Kerry, blacksmith, as Jane, 19; William 13; Anne, 7; and Joseph, 4. Elizabeth is not mentioned but Bill is not listed as a widower.

Anne also wrote in 1854 that she had not seen or heard anything of DICK HANSON for two years. Joseph wrote that he did not know Old BETTY HANSON’S son. A Richard Hanson, age 24 in 1851, lived with a family named Moore. His occupation was listed as “journeyman knitter.” An Elizabeth Hanson listed as 24 in 1851 could hardly be “Old Betty.” Emma wrote in June 1856 that JOE OLDKNOW age 27 had married Mrs. Gribble’s servant age 17.

Anne wrote that “JOHN SPENCER had not been since father died.” The only John Spencer in Smalley in 1841 was four years old. He would have been 11 at the time of William Housley’s death. Certainly, the two could have been friends, but perhaps young John was named for his grandfather who was a crony of William’s living in a locality not included in the Smalley census.

TAILOR ALLEN had lost his wife and was still living in the old house in 1872. JACK WHITE had died very suddenly, and DR. BODEN had died also. Dr. Boden’s first name was Robert. He was 53 in 1851, and was probably the Robert, son of Richard and Jane, who was christened in Morely in 1797. By 1861, he had married Catherine, a native of Smalley, who was at least 14 years his junior–18 according to the 1871 census!

Among the family’s dearest friends were JOSEPH AND ELIZABETH DAVY, who were married some time after 1841. Mrs. Davy was born in 1812 and her husband in 1805. In 1841, the Kidsley Park farm household included DANIEL SMITH 72, Elizabeth 29 and 5 year old Hannah Smith. In 1851, Mr. Davy’s brother William and 10 year old Emma Davy were visiting from London. Joseph reported the death of both Davy brothers in 1872; Joseph apparently died first.

Mrs. Davy’s father, was a well known Quaker. In 1856, Emma wrote: “Mr. Smith is very hearty and looks much the same.” He died in December 1863 at the age of 94. George Fox, the founder of the Quakers visited Kidsley Park in 1650 and 1654.

Mr. Davy died in 1863, but in 1854 Anne wrote how ill he had been for two years. “For two last winters we never thought he would live. He is now able to go out a little on the pony.” In March 1856, his wife wrote, “My husband is in poor health and fell.” Later in 1856, Emma wrote, “Mr. Davy is living which is a great wonder. Mrs. Davy is very delicate but as good a friend as ever.”

In The Derbyshire Advertiser and Journal, 15 May 1863:

 

Whenever the girls sent greetings from Mrs. Davy they used her Quaker speech pattern of “thee and thy.”  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.”

Mrs. Davy later remarried. Her new husband was W.T. BARBER. The 1861 census lists William Barber, 35, Bachelor of Arts, Cambridge, living with his 82 year old widowed mother on an 135 acre farm with three servants. One of these may have been the Ann who, according to Joseph, married Jack Oldknow. By 1871 the farm, now occupied by William, 47 and Elizabeth, 57, had grown to 189 acres. Meanwhile, Kidsley Park Farm became the home of the Housleys’ cousin Selina Carrington and her husband Walker Martin. Both Barbers were still living in 1881.

Mrs. Davy was described in Kerry’s History of Smalley as “an accomplished and exemplary lady.” A piece of her poetry “Farewell to Kidsley Park” was published in the history. It was probably written when Elizabeth moved to the Barber farm. Emma sent one of her poems to George. It was supposed to be about their house. “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.”

Kiddsley Park Farm, Smalley, in 1898.  (note that the Housley’s lived at Kiddsley Grange Farm, and the Davy’s at neighbouring Kiddsley Park Farm)

 

Emma was not sure if George wanted to hear the local gossip (“I don’t know whether such little particulars will interest you”), but shared it anyway. In November 1855: “We have let the house to Mr. Gribble. I dare say you know who he married, Matilda Else. They came from Lincoln here in March. Mrs. Gribble gets drunk nearly every day and there are such goings on it is really shameful. So you may be sure we have not very pleasant neighbors but we have very little to do with them.”

John Else and his wife Hannah and their children John and Harriet (who were born in Smalley) lived in Tag Hill in 1851. With them lived a granddaughter Matilda Gribble age 3 who was born in Lincoln. A Matilda, daughter of John and Hannah, was christened in 1815. (A Sam Else died when he fell down the steps of a bar in 1855.)

From Tanganyika with Love

continued part 9

With thanks to Mike Rushby.

Lyamungu 3rd January 1945

Dearest Family.

We had a novel Christmas this year. We decided to avoid the expense of
entertaining and being entertained at Lyamungu, and went off to spend Christmas
camping in a forest on the Western slopes of Kilimanjaro. George decided to combine
business with pleasure and in this way we were able to use Government transport.
We set out the day before Christmas day and drove along the road which skirts
the slopes of Kilimanjaro and first visited a beautiful farm where Philip Teare, the ex
Game Warden, and his wife Mary are staying. We had afternoon tea with them and then
drove on in to the natural forest above the estate and pitched our tent beside a small
clear mountain stream. We decorated the tent with paper streamers and a few small
balloons and John found a small tree of the traditional shape which we decorated where
it stood with tinsel and small ornaments.

We put our beer, cool drinks for the children and bottles of fresh milk from Simba
Estate, in the stream and on Christmas morning they were as cold as if they had been in
the refrigerator all night. There were not many presents for the children, there never are,
but they do not seem to mind and are well satisfied with a couple of balloons apiece,
sweets, tin whistles and a book each.

George entertain the children before breakfast. He can make a magical thing out
of the most ordinary balloon. The children watched entranced as he drew on his pipe
and then blew the smoke into the balloon. He then pinched the neck of the balloon
between thumb and forefinger and released the smoke in little puffs. Occasionally the
balloon ejected a perfect smoke ring and the forest rang with shouts of “Do it again
Daddy.” Another trick was to blow up the balloon to maximum size and then twist the
neck tightly before releasing. Before subsiding the balloon darted about in a crazy
fashion causing great hilarity. Such fun, at the cost of a few pence.

After breakfast George went off to fish for trout. John and Jim decided that they
also wished to fish so we made rods out of sticks and string and bent pins and they
fished happily, but of course quite unsuccessfully, for hours. Both of course fell into the
stream and got soaked, but I was prepared for this, and the little stream was so shallow
that they could not come to any harm. Henry played happily in the sand and I had a
most peaceful morning.

Hamisi roasted a chicken in a pot over the camp fire and the jelly set beautifully in the
stream. So we had grilled trout and chicken for our Christmas dinner. I had of course
taken an iced cake for the occasion and, all in all, it was a very successful Christmas day.
On Boxing day we drove down to the plains where George was to investigate a
report of game poaching near the Ngassari Furrow. This is a very long ditch which has
been dug by the Government for watering the Masai stock in the area. It is also used by
game and we saw herds of zebra and wildebeest, and some Grant’s Gazelle and
giraffe, all comparatively tame. At one point a small herd of zebra raced beside the lorry
apparently enjoying the fun of a gallop. They were all sleek and fat and looked wild and
beautiful in action.

We camped a considerable distance from the water but this precaution did not
save us from the mosquitoes which launched a vicious attack on us after sunset, so that
we took to our beds unusually early. They were on the job again when we got up at
sunrise so I was very glad when we were once more on our way home.

“I like Christmas safari. Much nicer that silly old party,” said John. I agree but I think
it is time that our children learned to play happily with others. There are no other young
children at Lyamungu though there are two older boys and a girl who go to boarding
school in Nairobi.

On New Years Day two Army Officers from the military camp at Moshi, came for
tea and to talk game hunting with George. I think they rather enjoy visiting a home and
seeing children and pets around.

Eleanor.

Lyamungu 14 May 1945

Dearest Family.

So the war in Europe is over at last. It is such marvellous news that I can hardly
believe it. To think that as soon as George can get leave we will go to England and
bring Ann and George home with us to Tanganyika. When we know when this leave can
be arranged we will want Kate to join us here as of course she must go with us to
England to meet George’s family. She has become so much a part of your lives that I
know it will be a wrench for you to give her up but I know that you will all be happy to
think that soon our family will be reunited.

The V.E. celebrations passed off quietly here. We all went to Moshi to see the
Victory Parade of the King’s African Rifles and in the evening we went to a celebration
dinner at the Game Warden’s house. Besides ourselves the Moores had invited the
Commanding Officer from Moshi and a junior officer. We had a very good dinner and
many toasts including one to Mrs Moore’s brother, Oliver Milton who is fighting in Burma
and has recently been awarded the Military Cross.

There was also a celebration party for the children in the grounds of the Moshi
Club. Such a spread! I think John and Jim sampled everything. We mothers were
having our tea separately and a friend laughingly told me to turn around and have a look.
I did, and saw the long tea tables now deserted by all the children but my two sons who
were still eating steadily, and finding the party more exciting than the game of Musical
Bumps into which all the other children had entered with enthusiasm.

There was also an extremely good puppet show put on by the Italian prisoners
of war from the camp at Moshi. They had made all the puppets which included well
loved characters like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and the Babes in the Wood as
well as more sophisticated ones like an irritable pianist and a would be prima donna. The
most popular puppets with the children were a native askari and his family – a very
happy little scene. I have never before seen a puppet show and was as entranced as
the children. It is amazing what clever manipulation and lighting can do. I believe that the
Italians mean to take their puppets to Nairobi and am glad to think that there, they will
have larger audiences to appreciate their art.

George has just come in, and I paused in my writing to ask him for the hundredth
time when he thinks we will get leave. He says I must be patient because it may be a
year before our turn comes. Shipping will be disorganised for months to come and we
cannot expect priority simply because we have been separated so long from our
children. The same situation applies to scores of other Government Officials.
I have decided to write the story of my childhood in South Africa and about our
life together in Tanganyika up to the time Ann and George left the country. I know you
will have told Kate these stories, but Ann and George were so very little when they left
home that I fear that they cannot remember much.

My Mother-in-law will have told them about their father but she can tell them little
about me. I shall send them one chapter of my story each month in the hope that they
may be interested and not feel that I am a stranger when at last we meet again.

Eleanor.

Lyamungu 19th September 1945

Dearest Family.

In a months time we will be saying good-bye to Lyamungu. George is to be
transferred to Mbeya and I am delighted, not only as I look upon Mbeya as home, but
because there is now a primary school there which John can attend. I feel he will make
much better progress in his lessons when he realises that all children of his age attend
school. At present he is putting up a strong resistance to learning to read and spell, but
he writes very neatly, does his sums accurately and shows a real talent for drawing. If
only he had the will to learn I feel he would do very well.

Jim now just four, is too young for lessons but too intelligent to be interested in
the ayah’s attempts at entertainment. Yes I’ve had to engage a native girl to look after
Henry from 9 am to 12.30 when I supervise John’s Correspondence Course. She is
clean and amiable, but like most African women she has no initiative at all when it comes
to entertaining children. Most African men and youths are good at this.

I don’t regret our stay at Lyamungu. It is a beautiful spot and the change to the
cooler climate after the heat of Morogoro has been good for all the children. John is still
tall for his age but not so thin as he was and much less pale. He is a handsome little lad
with his large brown eyes in striking contrast to his fair hair. He is wary of strangers but
very observant and quite uncanny in the way he sums up people. He seldom gets up
to mischief but I have a feeling he eggs Jim on. Not that Jim needs egging.

Jim has an absolute flair for mischief but it is all done in such an artless manner that
it is not easy to punish him. He is a very sturdy child with a cap of almost black silky hair,
eyes brown, like mine, and a large mouth which is quick to smile and show most beautiful
white and even teeth. He is most popular with all the native servants and the Game
Scouts. The servants call Jim, ‘Bwana Tembo’ (Mr Elephant) because of his sturdy
build.

Henry, now nearly two years old, is quite different from the other two in
appearance. He is fair complexioned and fair haired like Ann and Kate, with large, black
lashed, light grey eyes. He is a good child, not so merry as Jim was at his age, nor as
shy as John was. He seldom cries, does not care to be cuddled and is independent and
strong willed. The servants call Henry, ‘Bwana Ndizi’ (Mr Banana) because he has an
inexhaustible appetite for this fruit. Fortunately they are very inexpensive here. We buy
an entire bunch which hangs from a beam on the back verandah, and pluck off the
bananas as they ripen. This way there is no waste and the fruit never gets bruised as it
does in greengrocers shops in South Africa. Our three boys make a delightful and
interesting trio and I do wish you could see them for yourselves.

We are delighted with the really beautiful photograph of Kate. She is an
extraordinarily pretty child and looks so happy and healthy and a great credit to you.
Now that we will be living in Mbeya with a school on the doorstep I hope that we will
soon be able to arrange for her return home.

Eleanor.

c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 30th October 1945

Dearest Family.

How nice to be able to write c/o Game Dept. Mbeya at the head of my letters.
We arrived here safely after a rather tiresome journey and are installed in a tiny house on
the edge of the township.

We left Lyamungu early on the morning of the 22nd. Most of our goods had
been packed on the big Ford lorry the previous evening, but there were the usual
delays and farewells. Of our servants, only the cook, Hamisi, accompanied us to
Mbeya. Japhet, Tovelo and the ayah had to be paid off and largesse handed out.
Tovelo’s granny had come, bringing a gift of bananas, and she also brought her little
granddaughter to present a bunch of flowers. The child’s little scolded behind is now
completely healed. Gifts had to be found for them too.

At last we were all aboard and what a squash it was! Our few pieces of furniture
and packing cases and trunks, the cook, his wife, the driver and the turney boy, who
were to take the truck back to Lyamungu, and all their bits and pieces, bunches of
bananas and Fanny the dog were all crammed into the body of the lorry. George, the
children and I were jammed together in the cab. Before we left George looked
dubiously at the tyres which were very worn and said gloomily that he thought it most
unlikely that we would make our destination, Dodoma.

Too true! Shortly after midday, near Kwakachinja, we blew a back tyre and there
was a tedious delay in the heat whilst the wheel was changed. We were now without a
spare tyre and George said that he would not risk taking the Ford further than Babati,
which is less than half way to Dodoma. He drove very slowly and cautiously to Babati
where he arranged with Sher Mohammed, an Indian trader, for a lorry to take us to
Dodoma the next morning.

It had been our intention to spend the night at the furnished Government
Resthouse at Babati but when we got there we found that it was already occupied by
several District Officers who had assembled for a conference. So, feeling rather
disgruntled, we all piled back into the lorry and drove on to a place called Bereku where
we spent an uncomfortable night in a tumbledown hut.

Before dawn next morning Sher Mohammed’s lorry drove up, and there was a
scramble to dress by the light of a storm lamp. The lorry was a very dilapidated one and
there was already a native woman passenger in the cab. I felt so tired after an almost
sleepless night that I decided to sit between the driver and this woman with the sleeping
Henry on my knee. It was as well I did, because I soon found myself dosing off and
drooping over towards the woman. Had she not been there I might easily have fallen
out as the battered cab had no door. However I was alert enough when daylight came
and changed places with the woman to our mutual relief. She was now able to converse
with the African driver and I was able to enjoy the scenery and the fresh air!
George, John and Jim were less comfortable. They sat in the lorry behind the
cab hemmed in by packing cases. As the lorry was an open one the sun beat down
unmercifully upon them until George, ever resourceful, moved a table to the front of the
truck. The two boys crouched under this and so got shelter from the sun but they still had
to endure the dust. Fanny complicated things by getting car sick and with one thing and
another we were all jolly glad to get to Dodoma.

We spent the night at the Dodoma Hotel and after hot baths, a good meal and a
good nights rest we cheerfully boarded a bus of the Tanganyika Bus Service next
morning to continue our journey to Mbeya. The rest of the journey was uneventful. We slept two nights on the road, the first at Iringa Hotel and the second at Chimala. We
reached Mbeya on the 27th.

I was rather taken aback when I first saw the little house which has been allocated
to us. I had become accustomed to the spacious houses we had in Morogoro and
Lyamungu. However though the house is tiny it is secluded and has a long garden
sloping down to the road in front and another long strip sloping up behind. The front
garden is shaded by several large cypress and eucalyptus trees but the garden behind
the house has no shade and consists mainly of humpy beds planted with hundreds of
carnations sadly in need of debudding. I believe that the previous Game Ranger’s wife
cultivated the carnations and, by selling them, raised money for War Funds.
Like our own first home, this little house is built of sun dried brick. Its original
owners were Germans. It is now rented to the Government by the Custodian of Enemy
Property, and George has his office in another ex German house.

This afternoon we drove to the school to arrange about enrolling John there. The
school is about four miles out of town. It was built by the German settlers in the late
1930’s and they were justifiably proud of it. It consists of a great assembly hall and
classrooms in one block and there are several attractive single storied dormitories. This
school was taken over by the Government when the Germans were interned on the
outbreak of war and many improvements have been made to the original buildings. The
school certainly looks very attractive now with its grassed playing fields and its lawns and
bright flower beds.

The Union Jack flies from a tall flagpole in front of the Hall and all traces of the
schools German origin have been firmly erased. We met the Headmaster, Mr
Wallington, and his wife and some members of the staff. The school is co-educational
and caters for children from the age of seven to standard six. The leaving age is elastic
owing to the fact that many Tanganyika children started school very late because of lack
of educational facilities in this country.

The married members of the staff have their own cottages in the grounds. The
Matrons have quarters attached to the dormitories for which they are responsible. I felt
most enthusiastic about the school until I discovered that the Headmaster is adamant
upon one subject. He utterly refuses to take any day pupils at the school. So now our
poor reserved Johnny will have to adjust himself to boarding school life.
We have arranged that he will start school on November 5th and I shall be very
busy trying to assemble his school uniform at short notice. The clothing list is sensible.
Boys wear khaki shirts and shorts on weekdays with knitted scarlet jerseys when the
weather is cold. On Sundays they wear grey flannel shorts and blazers with the silver
and scarlet school tie.

Mbeya looks dusty, brown and dry after the lush evergreen vegetation of
Lyamungu, but I prefer this drier climate and there are still mountains to please the eye.
In fact the lower slopes of Lolesa Mountain rise at the upper end of our garden.

Eleanor.

c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 21st November 1945

Dearest Family.

We’re quite settled in now and I have got the little house fixed up to my
satisfaction. I have engaged a rather uncouth looking houseboy but he is strong and
capable and now that I am not tied down in the mornings by John’s lessons I am able to
go out occasionally in the mornings and take Jim and Henry to play with other children.
They do not show any great enthusiasm but are not shy by nature as John is.
I have had a good deal of heartache over putting John to boarding school. It
would have been different had he been used to the company of children outside his
own family, or if he had even known one child there. However he seems to be adjusting
himself to the life, though slowly. At least he looks well and tidy and I am quite sure that
he is well looked after.

I must confess that when the time came for John to go to school I simply did not
have the courage to take him and he went alone with George, looking so smart in his
new uniform – but his little face so bleak. The next day, Sunday, was visiting day but the
Headmaster suggested that we should give John time to settle down and not visit him
until Wednesday.

When we drove up to the school I spied John on the far side of the field walking
all alone. Instead of running up with glad greetings, as I had expected, he came almost
reluctently and had little to say. I asked him to show me his dormitory and classroom and
he did so politely as though I were a stranger. At last he volunteered some information.
“Mummy,” he said in an awed voice, Do you know on the night I came here they burnt a
man! They had a big fire and they burnt him.” After a blank moment the penny dropped.
Of course John had started school and November the fifth but it had never entered my
head to tell him about that infamous character, Guy Fawkes!

I asked John’s Matron how he had settled down. “Well”, she said thoughtfully,
“John is very good and has not cried as many of the juniors do when they first come
here, but he seems to keep to himself all the time.” I went home very discouraged but
on the Sunday John came running up with another lad of about his own age.” This is my
friend Marks,” he announced proudly. I could have hugged Marks.

Mbeya is very different from the small settlement we knew in the early 1930’s.
Gone are all the colourful characters from the Lupa diggings for the alluvial claims are all
worked out now, gone also are our old friends the Menzies from the Pub and also most
of the Government Officials we used to know. Mbeya has lost its character of a frontier
township and has become almost suburban.

The social life revolves around two places, the Club and the school. The Club
which started out as a little two roomed building, has been expanded and the golf
course improved. There are also tennis courts and a good library considering the size of
the community. There are frequent parties and dances, though most of the club revenue
comes from Bar profits. The parties are relatively sober affairs compared with the parties
of the 1930’s.

The school provides entertainment of another kind. Both Mr and Mrs Wallington
are good amateur actors and I am told that they run an Amateur Dramatic Society. Every
Wednesday afternoon there is a hockey match at the school. Mbeya town versus a
mixed team of staff and scholars. The match attracts almost the whole European
population of Mbeya. Some go to play hockey, others to watch, and others to snatch
the opportunity to visit their children. I shall have to try to arrange a lift to school when
George is away on safari.

I have now met most of the local women and gladly renewed an old friendship
with Sheilagh Waring whom I knew two years ago at Morogoro. Sheilagh and I have
much in common, the same disregard for the trappings of civilisation, the same sense of
the ludicrous, and children. She has eight to our six and she has also been cut off by the
war from two of her children. Sheilagh looks too young and pretty to be the mother of so
large a family and is, in fact, several years younger than I am. her husband, Donald, is a
large quiet man who, as far as I can judge takes life seriously.

Our next door neighbours are the Bank Manager and his wife, a very pleasant
couple though we seldom meet. I have however had correspondence with the Bank
Manager. Early on Saturday afternoon their houseboy brought a note. It informed me
that my son was disturbing his rest by precipitating a heart attack. Was I aware that my
son was about 30 feet up in a tree and balanced on a twig? I ran out and,sure enough,
there was Jim, right at the top of the tallest eucalyptus tree. It would be the one with the
mound of stones at the bottom! You should have heard me fluting in my most
wheedling voice. “Sweets, Jimmy, come down slowly dear, I’ve some nice sweets for
you.”

I’ll bet that little story makes you smile. I remember how often you have told me
how, as a child, I used to make your hearts turn over because I had no fear of heights
and how I used to say, “But that is silly, I won’t fall.” I know now only too well, how you
must have felt.

Eleanor.

c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 14th January 1946

Dearest Family.

I hope that by now you have my telegram to say that Kate got home safely
yesterday. It was wonderful to have her back and what a beautiful child she is! Kate
seems to have enjoyed the train journey with Miss Craig, in spite of the tears she tells
me she shed when she said good-bye to you. She also seems to have felt quite at
home with the Hopleys at Salisbury. She flew from Salisbury in a small Dove aircraft
and they had a smooth passage though Kate was a little airsick.

I was so excited about her home coming! This house is so tiny that I had to turn
out the little store room to make a bedroom for her. With a fresh coat of whitewash and
pretty sprigged curtains and matching bedspread, borrowed from Sheilagh Waring, the
tiny room looks most attractive. I had also iced a cake, made ice-cream and jelly and
bought crackers for the table so that Kate’s home coming tea could be a proper little
celebration.

I was pleased with my preparations and then, a few hours before the plane was
due, my crowned front tooth dropped out, peg and all! When my houseboy wants to
describe something very tatty, he calls it “Second-hand Kabisa.” Kabisa meaning
absolutely. That is an apt description of how I looked and felt. I decided to try some
emergency dentistry. I think you know our nearest dentist is at Dar es Salaam five
hundred miles away.

First I carefully dried the tooth and with a match stick covered the peg and base
with Durofix. I then took the infants rubber bulb enema, sucked up some heat from a
candle flame and pumped it into the cavity before filling that with Durofix. Then hopefully
I stuck the tooth in its former position and held it in place for several minutes. No good. I
sent the houseboy to a shop for Scotine and tried the whole process again. No good
either.

When George came home for lunch I appealed to him for advice. He jokingly
suggested that a maize seed jammed into the space would probably work, but when
he saw that I really was upset he produced some chewing gum and suggested that I
should try that . I did and that worked long enough for my first smile anyway.
George and the three boys went to meet Kate but I remained at home to
welcome her there. I was afraid that after all this time away Kate might be reluctant to
rejoin the family but she threw her arms around me and said “Oh Mummy,” We both
shed a few tears and then we both felt fine.

How gay Kate is, and what an infectious laugh she has! The boys follow her
around in admiration. John in fact asked me, “Is Kate a Princess?” When I said
“Goodness no, Johnny, she’s your sister,” he explained himself by saying, “Well, she
has such golden hair.” Kate was less complementary. When I tucked her in bed last night
she said, “Mummy, I didn’t expect my little brothers to be so yellow!” All three boys
have been taking a course of Atebrin, an anti-malarial drug which tinges skin and eyeballs
yellow.

So now our tiny house is bursting at its seams and how good it feels to have one
more child under our roof. We are booked to sail for England in May and when we return
we will have Ann and George home too. Then I shall feel really content.

Eleanor.

c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 2nd March 1946

Dearest Family.

My life just now is uneventful but very busy. I am sewing hard and knitting fast to
try to get together some warm clothes for our leave in England. This is not a simple
matter because woollen materials are in short supply and very expensive, and now that
we have boarding school fees to pay for both Kate and John we have to budget very
carefully indeed.

Kate seems happy at school. She makes friends easily and seems to enjoy
communal life. John also seems reconciled to school now that Kate is there. He no
longer feels that he is the only exile in the family. He seems to rub along with the other
boys of his age and has a couple of close friends. Although Mbeya School is coeducational
the smaller boys and girls keep strictly apart. It is considered extremely
cissy to play with girls.

The local children are allowed to go home on Sundays after church and may bring
friends home with them for the day. Both John and Kate do this and Sunday is a very
busy day for me. The children come home in their Sunday best but bring play clothes to
change into. There is always a scramble to get them to bath and change again in time to
deliver them to the school by 6 o’clock.

When George is home we go out to the school for the morning service. This is
taken by the Headmaster Mr Wallington, and is very enjoyable. There is an excellent
school choir to lead the singing. The service is the Church of England one, but is
attended by children of all denominations, except the Roman Catholics. I don’t think that
more than half the children are British. A large proportion are Greeks, some as old as
sixteen, and about the same number are Afrikaners. There are Poles and non-Nazi
Germans, Swiss and a few American children.

All instruction is through the medium of English and it is amazing how soon all the
foreign children learn to chatter in English. George has been told that we will return to
Mbeya after our leave and for that I am very thankful as it means that we will still be living
near at hand when Jim and Henry start school. Because many of these children have to
travel many hundreds of miles to come to school, – Mbeya is a two day journey from the
railhead, – the school year is divided into two instead of the usual three terms. This
means that many of these children do not see their parents for months at a time. I think
this is a very sad state of affairs especially for the seven and eight year olds but the
Matrons assure me , that many children who live on isolated farms and stations are quite
reluctant to go home because they miss the companionship and the games and
entertainment that the school offers.

My only complaint about the life here is that I see far too little of George. He is
kept extremely busy on this range and is hardly at home except for a few days at the
months end when he has to be at his office to check up on the pay vouchers and the
issue of ammunition to the Scouts. George’s Range takes in the whole of the Southern
Province and the Southern half of the Western Province and extends to the border with
Northern Rhodesia and right across to Lake Tanganyika. This vast area is patrolled by
only 40 Game Scouts because the Department is at present badly under staffed, due
partly to the still acute shortage of rifles, but even more so to the extraordinary reluctance
which the Government shows to allocate adequate funds for the efficient running of the
Department.

The Game Scouts must see that the Game Laws are enforced, protect native
crops from raiding elephant, hippo and other game animals. Report disease amongst game and deal with stock raiding lions. By constantly going on safari and checking on
their work, George makes sure the range is run to his satisfaction. Most of the Game
Scouts are fine fellows but, considering they receive only meagre pay for dangerous
and exacting work, it is not surprising that occasionally a Scout is tempted into accepting
a bribe not to report a serious infringement of the Game Laws and there is, of course,
always the temptation to sell ivory illicitly to unscrupulous Indian and Arab traders.
Apart from supervising the running of the Range, George has two major jobs.
One is to supervise the running of the Game Free Area along the Rhodesia –
Tanganyika border, and the other to hunt down the man-eating lions which for years have
terrorised the Njombe District killing hundreds of Africans. Yes I know ‘hundreds’ sounds
fantastic, but this is perfectly true and one day, when the job is done and the official
report published I shall send it to you to prove it!

I hate to think of the Game Free Area and so does George. All the game from
buffalo to tiny duiker has been shot out in a wide belt extending nearly two hundred
miles along the Northern Rhodesia -Tanganyika border. There are three Europeans in
widely spaced camps who supervise this slaughter by African Game Guards. This
horrible measure is considered necessary by the Veterinary Departments of
Tanganyika, Rhodesia and South Africa, to prevent the cattle disease of Rinderpest
from spreading South.

When George is home however, we do relax and have fun. On the Saturday
before the school term started we took Kate and the boys up to the top fishing camp in
the Mporoto Mountains for her first attempt at trout fishing. There are three of these
camps built by the Mbeya Trout Association on the rivers which were first stocked with
the trout hatched on our farm at Mchewe. Of the three, the top camp is our favourite. The
scenery there is most glorious and reminds me strongly of the rivers of the Western
Cape which I so loved in my childhood.

The river, the Kawira, flows from the Rungwe Mountain through a narrow valley
with hills rising steeply on either side. The water runs swiftly over smooth stones and
sometimes only a foot or two below the level of the banks. It is sparkling and shallow,
but in places the water is deep and dark and the banks high. I had a busy day keeping
an eye on the boys, especially Jim, who twice climbed out on branches which overhung
deep water. “Mummy, I was only looking for trout!”

How those kids enjoyed the freedom of the camp after the comparative
restrictions of town. So did Fanny, she raced about on the hills like a mad dog chasing
imaginary rabbits and having the time of her life. To escape the noise and commotion
George had gone far upstream to fish and returned in the late afternoon with three good
sized trout and four smaller ones. Kate proudly showed George the two she had caught
with the assistance or our cook Hamisi. I fear they were caught in a rather unorthodox
manner but this I kept a secret from George who is a stickler for the orthodox in trout
fishing.

Eleanor.

Jacksdale England 24th June 1946

Dearest Family.

Here we are all together at last in England. You cannot imagine how wonderful it
feels to have the whole Rushby family reunited. I find myself counting heads. Ann,
George, Kate, John, Jim, and Henry. All present and well. We had a very pleasant trip
on the old British India Ship Mantola. She was crowded with East Africans going home
for the first time since the war, many like us, eagerly looking forward to a reunion with their
children whom they had not seen for years. There was a great air of anticipation and
good humour but a little anxiety too.

“I do hope our children will be glad to see us,” said one, and went on to tell me
about a Doctor from Dar es Salaam who, after years of separation from his son had
recently gone to visit him at his school. The Doctor had alighted at the railway station
where he had arranged to meet his son. A tall youth approached him and said, very
politely, “Excuse me sir. Are you my Father?” Others told me of children who had
become so attached to their relatives in England that they gave their parents a very cool
reception. I began to feel apprehensive about Ann and George but fortunately had no
time to mope.

Oh, that washing and ironing for six! I shall remember for ever that steamy little
laundry in the heat of the Red Sea and queuing up for the ironing and the feeling of guilt
at the size of my bundle. We met many old friends amongst the passengers, and made
some new ones, so the voyage was a pleasant one, We did however have our
anxious moments.

John was the first to disappear and we had an anxious search for him. He was
quite surprised that we had been concerned. “I was just talking to my friend Chinky
Chinaman in his workshop.” Could John have called him that? Then, when I returned to
the cabin from dinner one night I found Henry swigging Owbridge’s Lung Tonic. He had
drunk half the bottle neat and the label said ‘five drops in water’. Luckily it did not harm
him.

Jim of course was forever risking his neck. George had forbidden him to climb on
the railings but he was forever doing things which no one had thought of forbidding him
to do, like hanging from the overhead pipes on the deck or standing on the sill of a
window and looking down at the well deck far below. An Officer found him doing this and
gave me the scolding.

Another day he climbed up on a derrick used for hoisting cargo. George,
oblivious to this was sitting on the hatch cover with other passengers reading a book. I
was in the wash house aft on the same deck when Kate rushed in and said, “Mummy
come and see Jim.” Before I had time to more than gape, the butcher noticed Jim and
rushed out knife in hand. “Get down from there”, he bellowed. Jim got, and with such
speed that he caught the leg or his shorts on a projecting piece of metal. The cotton
ripped across the seam from leg to leg and Jim stood there for a humiliating moment in a
sort of revealing little kilt enduring the smiles of the passengers who had looked up from
their books at the butcher’s shout.

That incident cured Jim of his urge to climb on the ship but he managed to give
us one more fright. He was lost off Dover. People from whom we enquired said, “Yes
we saw your little boy. He was by the railings watching that big aircraft carrier.” Now Jim,
though mischievous , is very obedient. It was not until George and I had conducted an
exhaustive search above and below decks that I really became anxious. Could he have
fallen overboard? Jim was returned to us by an unamused Officer. He had been found
in one of the lifeboats on the deck forbidden to children.

Our ship passed Dover after dark and it was an unforgettable sight. Dover Castle
and the cliffs were floodlit for the Victory Celebrations. One of the men passengers sat
down at the piano and played ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’, and people sang and a few
wept. The Mantola docked at Tilbury early next morning in a steady drizzle.
There was a dockers strike on and it took literally hours for all the luggage to be
put ashore. The ships stewards simply locked the public rooms and went off leaving the
passengers shivering on the docks. Eventually damp and bedraggled, we arrived at St
Pancras Station and were given a warm welcome by George’s sister Cath and her
husband Reg Pears, who had come all the way from Nottingham to meet us.
As we had to spend an hour in London before our train left for Nottingham,
George suggested that Cath and I should take the children somewhere for a meal. So
off we set in the cold drizzle, the boys and I without coats and laden with sundry
packages, including a hand woven native basket full of shoes. We must have looked like
a bunch of refugees as we stood in the hall of The Kings Cross Station Hotel because a
supercilious waiter in tails looked us up and down and said, “I’m afraid not Madam”, in
answer to my enquiry whether the hotel could provide lunch for six.
Anyway who cares! We had lunch instead at an ABC tea room — horrible
sausage and a mound or rather sloppy mashed potatoes, but very good ice-cream.
After the train journey in a very grimy third class coach, through an incredibly green and
beautiful countryside, we eventually reached Nottingham and took a bus to Jacksdale,
where George’s mother and sisters live in large detached houses side by side.
Ann and George were at the bus stop waiting for us, and thank God, submitted
to my kiss as though we had been parted for weeks instead of eight years. Even now
that we are together again my heart aches to think of all those missed years. They have
not changed much and I would have picked them out of a crowd, but Ann, once thin and
pale, is now very rosy and blooming. She still has her pretty soft plaits and her eyes are
still a clear calm blue. Young George is very striking looking with sparkling brown eyes, a
ready, slightly lopsided smile, and charming manners.

Mother, and George’s elder sister, Lottie Giles, welcomed us at the door with the
cheering news that our tea was ready. Ann showed us the way to mother’s lovely lilac
tiled bathroom for a wash before tea. Before I had even turned the tap, Jim had hung
form the glass towel rail and it lay in three pieces on the floor. There have since been
similar tragedies. I can see that life in civilisation is not without snags.

I am most grateful that Ann and George have accepted us so naturally and
affectionately. Ann said candidly, “Mummy, it’s a good thing that you had Aunt Cath with
you when you arrived because, honestly, I wouldn’t have known you.”

Eleanor.

Jacksdale England 28th August 1946

Dearest Family.

I am sorry that I have not written for some time but honestly, I don’t know whether
I’m coming or going. Mother handed the top floor of her house to us and the
arrangement was that I should tidy our rooms and do our laundry and Mother would
prepare the meals except for breakfast. It looked easy at first. All the rooms have wall to
wall carpeting and there was a large vacuum cleaner in the box room. I was told a
window cleaner would do the windows.

Well the first time I used the Hoover I nearly died of fright. I pressed the switch
and immediately there was a roar and the bag filled with air to bursting point, or so I
thought. I screamed for Ann and she came at the run. I pointed to the bag and shouted
above the din, “What must I do? It’s going to burst!” Ann looked at me in astonishment
and said, “But Mummy that’s the way it works.” I couldn’t have her thinking me a
complete fool so I switched the current off and explained to Ann how it was that I had
never seen this type of equipment in action. How, in Tanganyika , I had never had a
house with electricity and that, anyway, electric equipment would be superfluous
because floors are of cement which the houseboy polishes by hand, one only has a
few rugs or grass mats on the floor. “But what about Granny’s house in South Africa?’”
she asked, so I explained about your Josephine who threatened to leave if you
bought a Hoover because that would mean that you did not think she kept the house
clean. The sad fact remains that, at fourteen, Ann knows far more about housework than I
do, or rather did! I’m learning fast.

The older children all go to school at different times in the morning. Ann leaves first
by bus to go to her Grammar School at Sutton-in-Ashfield. Shortly afterwards George
catches a bus for Nottingham where he attends the High School. So they have
breakfast in relays, usually scrambled egg made from a revolting dried egg mixture.
Then there are beds to make and washing and ironing to do, so I have little time for
sightseeing, though on a few afternoons George has looked after the younger children
and I have gone on bus tours in Derbyshire. Life is difficult here with all the restrictions on
foodstuffs. We all have ration books so get our fair share but meat, fats and eggs are
scarce and expensive. The weather is very wet. At first I used to hang out the washing
and then rush to bring it in when a shower came. Now I just let it hang.

We have left our imprint upon my Mother-in-law’s house for ever. Henry upset a
bottle of Milk of Magnesia in the middle of the pale fawn bedroom carpet. John, trying to
be helpful and doing some dusting, broke one of the delicate Dresden china candlesticks
which adorn our bedroom mantelpiece.Jim and Henry have wrecked the once
professionally landscaped garden and all the boys together bored a large hole through
Mother’s prized cherry tree. So now Mother has given up and gone off to Bournemouth
for a much needed holiday. Once a week I have the capable help of a cleaning woman,
called for some reason, ‘Mrs Two’, but I have now got all the cooking to do for eight. Mrs
Two is a godsend. She wears, of all things, a print mob cap with a hole in it. Says it
belonged to her Grandmother. Her price is far beyond Rubies to me, not so much
because she does, in a couple of hours, what it takes me all day to do, but because she
sells me boxes of fifty cigarettes. Some non-smoking relative, who works in Players
tobacco factory, passes on his ration to her. Until Mrs Two came to my rescue I had
been starved of cigarettes. Each time I asked for them at the shop the grocer would say,
“Are you registered with us?” Only very rarely would some kindly soul sell me a little
packet of five Woodbines.

England is very beautiful but the sooner we go home to Tanganyika, the better.
On this, George and I and the children agree.

Eleanor.

Jacksdale England 20th September 1946

Dearest Family.

Our return passages have now been booked on the Winchester Castle and we
sail from Southampton on October the sixth. I look forward to returning to Tanganyika but
hope to visit England again in a few years time when our children are older and when
rationing is a thing of the past.

I have grown fond of my Sisters-in-law and admire my Mother-in-law very much.
She has a great sense of humour and has entertained me with stories of her very
eventful life, and told me lots of little stories of the children which did not figure in her
letters. One which amused me was about young George. During one of the air raids
early in the war when the sirens were screaming and bombers roaring overhead Mother
made the two children get into the cloak cupboard under the stairs. Young George
seemed quite unconcerned about the planes and the bombs but soon an anxious voice
asked in the dark, “Gran, what will I do if a spider falls on me?” I am afraid that Mother is
going to miss Ann and George very much.

I had a holiday last weekend when Lottie and I went up to London on a spree. It
was a most enjoyable weekend, though very rushed. We placed ourselves in the
hands of Thos. Cook and Sons and saw most of the sights of London and were run off
our feet in the process. As you all know London I shall not describe what I saw but just
to say that, best of all, I enjoyed walking along the Thames embankment in the evening
and the changing of the Guard at Whitehall. On Sunday morning Lottie and I went to
Kew Gardens and in the afternoon walked in Kensington Gardens.

We went to only one show, ‘The Skin of our Teeth’ starring Vivienne Leigh.
Neither of us enjoyed the performance at all and regretted having spent so much on
circle seats. The show was far too highbrow for my taste, a sort of satire on the survival
of the human race. Miss Leigh was unrecognisable in a blond wig and her voice strident.
However the night was not a dead loss as far as entertainment was concerned as we
were later caught up in a tragicomedy at our hotel.

We had booked communicating rooms at the enormous Imperial Hotel in Russell
Square. These rooms were comfortably furnished but very high up, and we had a rather
terrifying and dreary view from the windows of the enclosed courtyard far below. We
had some snacks and a chat in Lottie’s room and then I moved to mine and went to bed.
I had noted earlier that there was a special lock on the outer door of my room so that
when the door was closed from the inside it automatically locked itself.
I was just dropping off to sleep when I heard a hammering which seemed to
come from my wardrobe. I got up, rather fearfully, and opened the wardrobe door and
noted for the first time that the wardrobe was set in an opening in the wall and that the
back of the wardrobe also served as the back of the wardrobe in the room next door. I
quickly shut it again and went to confer with Lottie.

Suddenly a male voice was raised next door in supplication, “Mary Mother of
God, Help me! They’ve locked me in!” and the hammering resumed again, sometimes
on the door, and then again on the back of the wardrobe of the room next door. Lottie
had by this time joined me and together we listened to the prayers and to the
hammering. Then the voice began to threaten, “If you don’t let me out I’ll jump out of the
window.” Great consternation on our side of the wall. I went out into the passage and
called through the door, “You’re not locked in. Come to your door and I’ll tell you how to
open it.” Silence for a moment and then again the prayers followed by a threat. All the
other doors in the corridor remained shut.

Luckily just then a young man and a woman came walking down the corridor and I
explained the situation. The young man hurried off for the night porter who went into the
next door room. In a matter of minutes there was peace next door. When the night
porter came out into the corridor again I asked for an explanation. He said quite casually,
“It’s all right Madam. He’s an Irish Gentleman in Show Business. He gets like this on a
Saturday night when he has had a drop too much. He won’t give any more trouble
now.” And he didn’t. Next morning at breakfast Lottie and I tried to spot the gentleman in
the Show Business, but saw no one who looked like the owner of that charming Irish
voice.

George had to go to London on business last Monday and took the older
children with him for a few hours of sight seeing. They returned quite unimpressed.
Everything was too old and dirty and there were far too many people about, but they
had enjoyed riding on the escalators at the tube stations, and all agreed that the highlight
of the trip was, “Dad took us to lunch at the Chicken Inn.”

Now that it is almost time to leave England I am finding the housework less of a
drudgery, Also, as it is school holiday time, Jim and Henry are able to go on walks with
the older children and so use up some of their surplus energy. Cath and I took the
children (except young George who went rabbit shooting with his uncle Reg, and
Henry, who stayed at home with his dad) to the Wakes at Selston, the neighbouring
village. There were the roundabouts and similar contraptions but the side shows had
more appeal for the children. Ann and Kate found a stall where assorted prizes were
spread out on a sloping table. Anyone who could land a penny squarely on one of
these objects was given a similar one as a prize.

I was touched to see that both girls ignored all the targets except a box of fifty
cigarettes which they were determined to win for me. After numerous attempts, Kate
landed her penny successfully and you would have loved to have seen her radiant little
face.

Eleanor.

Dar es Salaam 22nd October 1946

Dearest Family.

Back in Tanganyika at last, but not together. We have to stay in Dar es Salaam
until tomorrow when the train leaves for Dodoma. We arrived yesterday morning to find
all the hotels filled with people waiting to board ships for England. Fortunately some
friends came to the rescue and Ann, Kate and John have gone to stay with them. Jim,
Henry and I are sleeping in a screened corner of the lounge of the New Africa Hotel, and
George and young George have beds in the Palm Court of the same hotel.

We travelled out from England in the Winchester Castle under troopship
conditions. We joined her at Southampton after a rather slow train journey from
Nottingham. We arrived after dark and from the station we could see a large ship in the
docks with a floodlit red funnel. “Our ship,” yelled the children in delight, but it was not the
Winchester Castle but the Queen Elizabeth, newly reconditioned.

We had hoped to board our ship that evening but George made enquiries and
found that we would not be allowed on board until noon next day. Without much hope,
we went off to try to get accommodation for eight at a small hotel recommended by the
taxi driver. Luckily for us there was a very motherly woman at the reception desk. She
looked in amusement at the six children and said to me, “Goodness are all these yours,
ducks? Then she called over her shoulder, “Wilf, come and see this lady with lots of
children. We must try to help.” They settled the problem most satisfactorily by turning
two rooms into a dormitory.

In the morning we had time to inspect bomb damage in the dock area of
Southampton. Most of the rubble had been cleared away but there are still numbers of
damaged buildings awaiting demolition. A depressing sight. We saw the Queen Mary
at anchor, still in her drab war time paint, but magnificent nevertheless.
The Winchester Castle was crammed with passengers and many travelled in
acute discomfort. We were luckier than most because the two girls, the three small boys
and I had a stateroom to ourselves and though it was stripped of peacetime comforts,
we had a private bathroom and toilet. The two Georges had bunks in a huge men-only
dormitory somewhere in the bowls of the ship where they had to share communal troop
ship facilities. The food was plentiful but unexciting and one had to queue for afternoon
tea. During the day the decks were crowded and there was squatting room only. The
many children on board got bored.

Port Said provided a break and we were all entertained by the ‘Gully Gully’ man
and his conjuring tricks, and though we had no money to spend at Simon Artz, we did at
least have a chance to stretch our legs. Next day scores of passengers took ill with
sever stomach upsets, whether from food poisoning, or as was rumoured, from bad
water taken on at the Egyptian port, I don’t know. Only the two Georges in our family
were affected and their attacks were comparatively mild.

As we neared the Kenya port of Mombassa, the passengers for Dar es Salaam
were told that they would have to disembark at Mombassa and continue their journey in
a small coaster, the Al Said. The Winchester Castle is too big for the narrow channel
which leads to Dar es Salaam harbour.

From the wharf the Al Said looked beautiful. She was once the private yacht of
the Sultan of Zanzibar and has lovely lines. Our admiration lasted only until we were
shown our cabins. With one voice our children exclaimed, “Gosh they stink!” They did, of
a mixture of rancid oil and sweat and stale urine. The beds were not yet made and the
thin mattresses had ominous stains on them. John, ever fastidious, lifted his mattress and two enormous cockroaches scuttled for cover.

We had a good homely lunch served by two smiling African stewards and
afterwards we sat on deck and that was fine too, though behind ones enjoyment there
was the thought of those stuffy and dirty cabins. That first night nearly everyone,
including George and our older children, slept on deck. Women occupied deck chairs
and men and children slept on the bare decks. Horrifying though the idea was, I decided
that, as Jim had a bad cough, he, Henry and I would sleep in our cabin.

When I announced my intention of sleeping in the cabin one of the passengers
gave me some insecticide spray which I used lavishly, but without avail. The children
slept but I sat up all night with the light on, determined to keep at least their pillows clear
of the cockroaches which scurried about boldly regardless of the light. All the next day
and night we avoided the cabins. The Al Said stopped for some hours at Zanzibar to
offload her deck cargo of live cattle and packing cases from the hold. George and the
elder children went ashore for a walk but I felt too lazy and there was plenty to watch
from deck.

That night I too occupied a deck chair and slept quite comfortably, and next
morning we entered the palm fringed harbour of Dar es Salaam and were home.

Eleanor.

Mbeya 1st November 1946

Dearest Family.

Home at last! We are all most happily installed in a real family house about three
miles out of Mbeya and near the school. This house belongs to an elderly German and
has been taken over by the Custodian of Enemy Property and leased to the
Government.

The owner, whose name is Shenkel, was not interned but is allowed to occupy a
smaller house on the Estate. I found him in the garden this morning lecturing the children
on what they may do and may not do. I tried to make it quite clear to him that he was not
our landlord, though he clearly thinks otherwise. After he had gone I had to take two
aspirin and lie down to recover my composure! I had been warned that he has this effect
on people.

Mr Shenkel is a short and ugly man, his clothes are stained with food and he
wears steel rimmed glasses tied round his head with a piece of dirty elastic because
one earpiece is missing. He speaks with a thick German accent but his English is fluent
and I believe he is a cultured and clever man. But he is maddening. The children were
more amused than impressed by his exhortations and have happily Christened our
home, ‘Old Shenks’.

The house has very large grounds as the place is really a derelict farm. It suits us
down to the ground. We had no sooner unpacked than George went off on safari after
those maneating lions in the Njombe District. he accounted for one, and a further two
jointly with a Game Scout, before we left for England. But none was shot during the five
months we were away as George’s relief is quite inexperienced in such work. George
thinks that there are still about a dozen maneaters at large. His theory is that a female
maneater moved into the area in 1938 when maneating first started, and brought up her
cubs to be maneaters, and those cubs in turn did the same. The three maneating lions
that have been shot were all in very good condition and not old and maimed as
maneaters usually are.

George anticipates that it will be months before all these lions are accounted for
because they are constantly on the move and cover a very large area. The lions have to
be hunted on foot because they range over broken country covered by bush and fairly
dense thicket.

I did a bit of shooting myself yesterday and impressed our African servants and
the children and myself. What a fluke! Our houseboy came to say that there was a snake
in the garden, the biggest he had ever seen. He said it was too big to kill with a stick and
would I shoot it. I had no gun but a heavy .450 Webley revolver and I took this and
hurried out with the children at my heels.

The snake turned out to be an unusually large puff adder which had just shed its
skin. It looked beautiful in a repulsive way. So flanked by servants and children I took
aim and shot, not hitting the head as I had planned, but breaking the snake’s back with
the heavy bullet. The two native boys then rushed up with sticks and flattened the head.
“Ma you’re a crack shot,” cried the kids in delighted surprise. I hope to rest on my laurels
for a long, long while.

Although there are only a few weeks of school term left the four older children will
start school on Monday. Not only am I pleased with our new home here but also with
the staff I have engaged. Our new houseboy, Reuben, (but renamed Robin by our
children) is not only cheerful and willing but intelligent too, and Jumbe, the wood and
garden boy, is a born clown and a source of great entertainment to the children.

I feel sure that we are all going to be very happy here at ‘Old Shenks!.

Eleanor.