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  • #7276
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      Wood Screw Manufacturers

      The Fishers of West Bromwich.

       

      My great grandmother, Nellie Fisher, was born in 1877 in Wolverhampton.   Her father William 1834-1916 was a whitesmith, and his father William 1792-1873 was a whitesmith and master screw maker.  William’s father was Abel Fisher, wood screw maker, victualler, and according to his 1849 will, a “gentleman”.

      Nellie Fisher 1877-1956 :

      Nellie Fisher

       

      Abel Fisher was born in 1769 according to his burial document (age 81 in 1849) and on the 1841 census. Abel was a wood screw manufacturer in Wolverhampton.

      As no baptism record can be found for Abel Fisher, I read every Fisher will I could find in a 30 year period hoping to find his fathers will. I found three other Fishers who were wood screw manufacurers in neighbouring West Bromwich, which led me to assume that Abel was born in West Bromwich and related to these other Fishers.

      The wood screw making industry was a relatively new thing when Abel was born.

      “The screw was used in furniture but did not become a common woodworking fastener until efficient machine tools were developed near the end of the 18th century. The earliest record of lathe made wood screws dates to an English patent of 1760. The development of wood screws progressed from a small cottage industry in the late 18th century to a highly mechanized industry by the mid-19th century. This rapid transformation is marked by several technical innovations that help identify the time that a screw was produced. The earliest, handmade wood screws were made from hand-forged blanks. These screws were originally produced in homes and shops in and around the manufacturing centers of 18th century Europe. Individuals, families or small groups participated in the production of screw blanks and the cutting of the threads. These small operations produced screws individually, using a series of files, chisels and cutting tools to form the threads and slot the head. Screws produced by this technique can vary significantly in their shape and the thread pitch. They are most easily identified by the profusion of file marks (in many directions) over the surface. The first record regarding the industrial manufacture of wood screws is an English patent registered to Job and William Wyatt of Staffordshire in 1760.”

      Wood Screw Makers of West Bromwich:

      Edward Fisher, wood screw maker of West Bromwich, died in 1796. He mentions his wife Pheney and two underage sons in his will. Edward (whose baptism has not been found) married Pheney Mallin on 13 April 1793. Pheney was 17 years old, born in 1776. Her parents were Isaac Mallin and Sarah Firme, who were married in West Bromwich in 1768.
      Edward and Pheney’s son Edward was born on 21 October 1793, and their son Isaac in 1795. The executors of Edwards 1796 will are Daniel Fisher the Younger, Isaac Mallin, and Joseph Fisher.

      There is a marriage allegations and bonds document in 1774 for an Edward Fisher, bachelor and wood screw maker of West Bromwich, aged 25 years and upwards, and Mary Mallin of the same age, father Isaac Mallin. Isaac Mallin and Sarah didn’t marry until 1768 and Mary Mallin would have been born circa 1749. Perhaps Isaac Mallin’s father was the father of Mary Mallin. It’s possible that Edward Fisher was born in 1749 and first married Mary Mallin, and then later Pheney, but it’s also possible that the Edward Fisher who married Mary Mallin in 1774 was Edward Fishers uncle, Daniel’s brother.  (I do not know if Daniel had a brother Edward, as I haven’t found a baptism, or marriage, for Daniel Fisher the elder.)

      There are two difficulties with finding the records for these West Bromwich families. One is that the West Bromwich registers are not available online in their entirety, and are held by the Sandwell Archives, and even so, they are incomplete. Not only that, the Fishers were non conformist. There is no surviving register prior to 1787. The chapel opened in 1788, and any registers that existed before this date, taken in a meeting houses for example, appear not to have survived.

      Daniel Fisher the younger died intestate in 1818. Daniel was a wood screw maker of West Bromwich. He was born in 1751 according to his age stated as 67 on his death in 1818. Daniel’s wife Mary, and his son William Fisher, also a wood screw maker, claimed the estate.

      Daniel Fisher the elder was a farmer of West Bromwich, who died in 1806. He was 81 when he died, which makes a birth date of 1725, although no baptism has been found. No marriage has been found either, but he was probably married not earlier than 1746.

      Daniel’s sons Daniel and Joseph were the main inheritors, and he also mentions his other children and grandchildren namely William Fisher, Thomas Fisher, Hannah wife of William Hadley, two grandchildren Edward and Isaac Fisher sons of Edward Fisher his son deceased. Daniel the elder presumably refers to the wood screw manufacturing when he says “to my son Daniel Fisher the good will and advantage which may arise from his manufacture or trade now carried on by me.” Daniel does not mention a son called Abel unfortunately, but neither does he mention his other grandchildren. Abel may be Daniel’s son, or he may be a nephew.

      The Staffordshire Record Office holds the documents of a Testamentary Case in 1817. The principal people are Isaac Fisher, a legatee; Daniel and Joseph Fisher, executors. Principal place, West Bromwich, and deceased person, Daniel Fisher the elder, farmer.

      William and Sarah Fisher baptised six children in the Mares Green Non Conformist registers in West Bromwich between 1786 and 1798. William Fisher and Sarah Birch were married in West Bromwich in 1777. This William was probably born circa 1753 and was probably the son of Daniel Fisher the elder, farmer.

       

      Daniel Fisher the younger and his wife Mary had a son William, as mentioned in the intestacy papers, although I have not found a baptism for William.  I did find a baptism for another son, Eutychus Fisher in 1792.

      In White’s Directory of Staffordshire in 1834, there are three Fishers who are wood screw makers in Wolverhampton: Eutychus Fisher, Oxford Street; Stephen Fisher, Bloomsbury; and William Fisher, Oxford Street.

      Abel’s son William Fisher 1792-1873 was living on Oxford Street on the 1841 census, with his wife Mary  and their son William Fisher 1834-1916.

       

      In The European Magazine, and London Review of 1820  (Volume 77 – Page 564) under List of Patents, W Fisher and H Fisher of West Bromwich, wood screw manufacturers, are listed.  Also in 1820 in the Birmingham Chronicle, the partnership of William and Hannah Fisher, wood screw manufacturers of West Bromwich, was dissolved.

       

      In the Staffordshire General & Commercial Directory 1818, by W. Parson, three Fisher’s are listed as wood screw makers.  Abel Fisher victualler and wood screw maker, Red Lion, Walsal Road; Stephen Fisher wood screw maker, Buggans Lane; and Daniel Fisher wood screw manufacturer, Brickiln Lane.

       

      In Aris’s Birmingham Gazette on 4 January 1819 Abel Fisher is listed with 23 other wood screw manufacturers (Stephen Fisher and William Fisher included) stating that “In consequence of the rise in prices of iron and the advanced price given to journeymen screw forgers, we the undersigned manufacturers of wood screws are under the necessity of advancing screws 10 percent, to take place on the 11th january 1819.”

      Abel Fisher wood screws

       

      In Abel Fisher’s 1849 will, he names his three sons Abel Fisher 1796-1869, Paul Fisher 1811-1900 and John Southall Fisher 1801-1871 as the executors.  He also mentions his other three sons, William Fisher 1792-1873, Benjamin Fisher 1798-1870, and Joseph Fisher 1803-1876, and daughters Sarah Fisher  1794-  wife of William Colbourne, Mary Fisher  1804-  wife of Thomas Pearce, and Susannah (Hannah) Fisher  1813-  wife of Parkes.  His son Silas Fisher 1809-1837 wasn’t mentioned as he died before Abel, nor his sons John Fisher  1799-1800, and Edward Southall Fisher 1806-1843.  Abel’s wife Susannah Southall born in 1771 died in 1824.  They were married in 1791.

      The 1849 will of Abel Fisher:

      Abel Fisher 1849 will

      #6350
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        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:

        Justitia

        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:

        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.”

         

        Lady Nugent record book

         

        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.

        Glenmore Church

         

        From the Wollondilly museum April 2020 newsletter:

        Glenmore Church Stokes

         

        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.”

        Isaac Stokes directory

        #6300
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          Looking for Carringtons

           

          The Carringtons of Smalley, at least some of them, were Baptist  ~ otherwise known as “non conformist”.  Baptists don’t baptise at birth, believing it’s up to the person to choose when they are of an age to do so, although that appears to be fairly random in practice with small children being baptised.  This makes it hard to find the birth dates registered as not every village had a Baptist church, and the baptisms would take place in another town.   However some of the children were baptised in the village Anglican church as well, so they don’t seem to have been consistent. Perhaps at times a quick baptism locally for a sickly child was considered prudent, and preferable to no baptism at all. It’s impossible to know for sure and perhaps they were not strictly commited to a particular denomination.

          Our Carrington’s start with Ellen Carrington who married William Housley in 1814. William Housley was previously married to Ellen’s older sister Mary Carrington.  Ellen (born 1895 and baptised 1897) and her sister Nanny were baptised at nearby Ilkeston Baptist church but I haven’t found baptisms for Mary or siblings Richard and Francis.  We know they were also children of William Carrington as he mentions them in his 1834 will. Son William was baptised at the local Smalley church in 1784, as was Thomas in 1896.

          The absence of baptisms in Smalley with regard to Baptist influence was noted in the Smalley registers:

          not baptised

           

          Smalley (chapelry of Morley) registers began in 1624, Morley registers began in 1540 with no obvious gaps in either.  The gap with the missing registered baptisms would be 1786-1793. The Ilkeston Baptist register began in 1791. Information from the Smalley registers indicates that about a third of the children were not being baptised due to the Baptist influence.

           

          William Housley son in law, daughter Mary Housley deceased, and daughter Eleanor (Ellen) Housley are all mentioned in William Housley’s 1834 will.  On the marriage allegations and bonds for William Housley and Mary Carrington in 1806, her birth date is registered at 1787, her father William Carrington.

          A Page from the will of William Carrington 1834:

          1834 Will Carrington will

           

          William Carrington was baptised in nearby Horsley Woodhouse on 27 August 1758.  His parents were William and Margaret Carrington “near the Hilltop”. He married Mary Malkin, also of Smalley, on the 27th August 1783.

          When I started looking for Margaret Wright who married William Carrington the elder, I chanced upon the Smalley parish register micro fiche images wrongly labeled by the ancestry site as Longford.   I subsequently found that the Derby Records office published a list of all the wrongly labeled Derbyshire towns that the ancestry site knew about for ten years at least but has not corrected!

          Margaret Wright was baptised in Smalley (mislabeled as Longford although the register images clearly say Smalley!) on the 2nd March 1728. Her parents were John and Margaret Wright.

          But I couldn’t find a birth or baptism anywhere for William Carrington. I found four sources for William and Margaret’s marriage and none of them suggested that William wasn’t local.  On other public trees on ancestry sites, William’s father was Joshua Carrington from Chinley. Indeed, when doing a search for William Carrington born circa 1720 to 1725, this was the only one in Derbyshire.  But why would a teenager move to the other side of the county?  It wasn’t uncommon to be apprenticed in neighbouring villages or towns, but Chinley didn’t seem right to me.  It seemed to me that it had been selected on the other trees because it was the only easily found result for the search, and not because it was the right one.

          I spent days reading every page of the microfiche images of the parish registers locally looking for Carringtons, any Carringtons at all in the area prior to 1720. Had there been none at all, then the possibility of William being the first Carrington in the area having moved there from elsewhere would have been more reasonable.

          But there were many Carringtons in Heanor, a mile or so from Smalley, in the 1600s and early 1700s, although they were often spelled Carenton, sometimes Carrianton in the parish registers. The earliest Carrington I found in the area was Alice Carrington baptised in Ilkeston in 1602.  It seemed obvious that William’s parents were local and not from Chinley.

          The Heanor parish registers of the time were not very clearly written. The handwriting was bad and the spelling variable, depending I suppose on what the name sounded like to the person writing in the registers at the time as the majority of the people were probably illiterate.  The registers are also in a generally poor condition.

          I found a burial of a child called William on the 16th January 1721, whose father was William Carenton of “Losko” (Loscoe is a nearby village also part of Heanor at that time). This looked promising!  If a child died, a later born child would be given the same name. This was very common: in a couple of cases I’ve found three deceased infants with the same first name until a fourth one named the same survived.  It seemed very likely that a subsequent son would be named William and he would be the William Carrington born circa 1720 to 1725 that we were looking for.

          Heanor parish registers: William son of William Carenton of Losko buried January 19th 1721:

          1721 William Carenton

           

          The Heanor parish registers between 1720 and 1729 are in many places illegible, however there are a couple of possibilities that could be the baptism of William in 1724 and 1725. A William son of William Carenton of Loscoe was buried in Jan 1721. In 1722 a Willian son of William Carenton (transcribed Tarenton) of Loscoe was buried. A subsequent son called William is likely. On 15 Oct 1724 a William son of William and Eliz (last name indecipherable) of Loscoe was baptised.  A Mary, daughter of William Carrianton of Loscoe, was baptised in 1727.

          I propose that William Carringtons was born in Loscoe and baptised in Heanor in 1724: if not 1724 then I would assume his baptism is one of the illegible or indecipherable entires within those few years.  This falls short of absolute documented proof of course, but it makes sense to me.

           

           

          In any case, if a William Carrington child died in Heanor in 1721 which we do have documented proof of, it further dismisses the case for William having arrived for no discernable reason from Chinley.

          #6286
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            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”

            Matthew Orgill window

            Matthew orgill window 2

             

            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:

            Measham Wharf

             

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

            Old Measham wharf

             

            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!

            #6263
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              From Tanganyika with Love

              continued  ~ part 4

              With thanks to Mike Rushby.

              Mchewe Estate. 31st January 1936

              Dearest Family,

              Life is very quiet just now. Our neighbours have left and I miss them all especially
              Joni who was always a great bearer of news. We also grew fond of his Swedish
              brother-in-law Max, whose loud ‘Hodi’ always brought a glad ‘Karibu’ from us. His wife,
              Marion, I saw less often. She is not strong and seldom went visiting but has always
              been friendly and kind and ready to share her books with me.

              Ann’s birthday is looming ahead and I am getting dreadfully anxious that her
              parcels do not arrive in time. I am delighted that you were able to get a good head for
              her doll, dad, but horrified to hear that it was so expensive. You would love your
              ‘Charming Ann’. She is a most responsible little soul and seems to have outgrown her
              mischievous ways. A pity in a way, I don’t want her to grow too serious. You should see
              how thoroughly Ann baths and towels herself. She is anxious to do Georgie and Kate
              as well.

              I did not mean to teach Ann to write until after her fifth birthday but she has taught
              herself by copying the large print in newspaper headlines. She would draw a letter and
              ask me the name and now I find that at four Ann knows the whole alphabet. The front
              cement steps is her favourite writing spot. She uses bits of white clay we use here for
              whitewashing.

              Coffee prices are still very low and a lot of planters here and at Mbosi are in a
              mess as they can no longer raise mortgages on their farms or get advances from the
              Bank against their crops. We hear many are leaving their farms to try their luck on the
              Diggings.

              George is getting fed up too. The snails are back on the shamba and doing
              frightful damage. Talk of the plagues of Egypt! Once more they are being collected in
              piles and bashed into pulp. The stench on the shamba is frightful! The greybeards in the
              village tell George that the local Chief has put a curse on the farm because he is angry
              that the Government granted George a small extension to the farm two years ago! As
              the Chief was consulted at the time and was agreeable this talk of a curse is nonsense
              but goes to show how the uneducated African put all disasters down to witchcraft.

              With much love,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate. 9th February 1936

              Dearest Family,

              Ann’s birthday yesterday was not quite the gay occasion we had hoped. The
              seventh was mail day so we sent a runner for the mail, hoping against hope that your
              parcel containing the dolls head had arrived. The runner left for Mbeya at dawn but, as it
              was a very wet day, he did not return with the mail bag until after dark by which time Ann
              was fast asleep. My heart sank when I saw the parcel which contained the dolls new
              head. It was squashed quite flat. I shed a few tears over that shattered head, broken
              quite beyond repair, and George felt as bad about it as I did. The other parcel arrived in
              good shape and Ann loves her little sewing set, especially the thimble, and the nursery
              rhymes are a great success.

              Ann woke early yesterday and began to open her parcels. She said “But
              Mummy, didn’t Barbara’s new head come?” So I had to show her the fragments.
              Instead of shedding the flood of tears I expected, Ann just lifted the glass eyes in her
              hand and said in a tight little voice “Oh poor Barbara.” George saved the situation. as
              usual, by saying in a normal voice,”Come on Ann, get up and lets play your new
              records.” So we had music and sweets before breakfast. Later I removed Barbara’s
              faded old blond wig and gummed on the glossy new brown one and Ann seems quite
              satisfied.

              Last night, after the children were tucked up in bed, we discussed our financial
              situation. The coffee trees that have survived the plagues of borer beetle, mealie bugs
              and snails look strong and fine, but George says it will be years before we make a living
              out of the farm. He says he will simply have to make some money and he is leaving for
              the Lupa on Saturday to have a look around on the Diggings. If he does decide to peg
              a claim and work it he will put up a wattle and daub hut and the children and I will join him
              there. But until such time as he strikes gold I shall have to remain here on the farm and
              ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’.

              Now don’t go and waste pity on me. Women all over the country are having to
              stay at home whilst their husbands search for a livelihood. I am better off than most
              because I have a comfortable little home and loyal servants and we still have enough
              capitol to keep the wolf from the door. Anyway this is the rainy season and hardly the
              best time to drag three small children around the sodden countryside on prospecting
              safaris.

              So I’ll stay here at home and hold thumbs that George makes a lucky strike.

              Heaps of love to all,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate. 27th February 1936

              Dearest Family,

              Well, George has gone but here we are quite safe and cosy. Kate is asleep and
              Ann and Georgie are sprawled on the couch taking it in turns to enumerate the things
              God has made. Every now and again Ann bothers me with an awkward question. “Did
              God make spiders? Well what for? Did he make weeds? Isn’t He silly, mummy? She is
              becoming a very practical person. She sews surprisingly well for a four year old and has
              twice made cakes in the past week, very sweet and liberally coloured with cochineal and
              much appreciated by Georgie.

              I have been without George for a fortnight and have adapted myself to my new
              life. The children are great company during the day and I have arranged my evenings so
              that they do not seem long. I am determined that when George comes home he will find
              a transformed wife. I read an article entitled ‘Are you the girl he married?’ in a magazine
              last week and took a good look in the mirror and decided that I certainly was not! Hair dry,
              skin dry, and I fear, a faint shadow on the upper lip. So now I have blown the whole of
              your Christmas Money Order on an order to a chemist in Dar es Salaam for hair tonic,
              face cream and hair remover and am anxiously awaiting the parcel.

              In the meantime, after tucking the children into bed at night, I skip on the verandah
              and do the series of exercises recommended in the magazine article. After this exertion I
              have a leisurely bath followed by a light supper and then read or write letters to pass
              the time until Kate’s ten o’clock feed. I have arranged for Janey to sleep in the house.
              She comes in at 9.30 pm and makes up her bed on the living room floor by the fire.

              The days are by no means uneventful. The day before yesterday the biggest
              troop of monkeys I have ever seen came fooling around in the trees and on the grass
              only a few yards from the house. These monkeys were the common grey monkeys
              with black faces. They came in all sizes and were most entertaining to watch. Ann and
              Georgie had a great time copying their antics and pulling faces at the monkeys through
              the bedroom windows which I hastily closed.

              Thomas, our headman, came running up and told me that this troop of monkeys
              had just raided his maize shamba and asked me to shoot some of them. I would not of
              course do this. I still cannot bear to kill any animal, but I fired a couple of shots in the air
              and the monkeys just melted away. It was fantastic, one moment they were there and
              the next they were not. Ann and Georgie thought I had been very unkind to frighten the
              poor monkeys but honestly, when I saw what they had done to my flower garden, I
              almost wished I had hardened my heart and shot one or two.

              The children are all well but Ann gave me a nasty fright last week. I left Ann and
              Georgie at breakfast whilst I fed Fanny, our bull terrier on the back verandah. Suddenly I
              heard a crash and rushed inside to find Ann’s chair lying on its back and Ann beside it on
              the floor perfectly still and with a paper white face. I shouted for Janey to bring water and
              laid Ann flat on the couch and bathed her head and hands. Soon she sat up with a wan
              smile and said “I nearly knocked my head off that time, didn’t I.” She must have been
              standing on the chair and leaning against the back. Our brick floors are so terribly hard that
              she might have been seriously hurt.

              However she was none the worse for the fall, but Heavens, what an anxiety kids
              are.

              Lots of love,
              Eleanor

              Mchewe Estate. 12th March 1936

              Dearest Family,

              It was marvellous of you to send another money order to replace the one I spent
              on cosmetics. With this one I intend to order boots for both children as a protection from
              snake bite, though from my experience this past week the threat seems to be to the
              head rather than the feet. I was sitting on the couch giving Kate her morning milk from a
              cup when a long thin snake fell through the reed ceiling and landed with a thud just behind
              the couch. I shouted “Nyoka, Nyoka!” (Snake,Snake!) and the houseboy rushed in with
              a stick and killed the snake. I then held the cup to Kate’s mouth again but I suppose in
              my agitation I tipped it too much because the baby choked badly. She gasped for
              breath. I quickly gave her a sharp smack on the back and a stream of milk gushed
              through her mouth and nostrils and over me. Janey took Kate from me and carried her
              out into the fresh air on the verandah and as I anxiously followed her through the door,
              another long snake fell from the top of the wall just missing me by an inch or so. Luckily
              the houseboy still had the stick handy and dispatched this snake also.

              The snakes were a pair of ‘boomslangs’, not nice at all, and all day long I have
              had shamba boys coming along to touch hands and say “Poli Memsahib” – “Sorry
              madam”, meaning of course ‘Sorry you had a fright.’

              Apart from that one hectic morning this has been a quiet week. Before George
              left for the Lupa he paid off most of the farm hands as we can now only afford a few
              labourers for the essential work such as keeping the weeds down in the coffee shamba.
              There is now no one to keep the grass on the farm roads cut so we cannot use the pram
              when we go on our afternoon walks. Instead Janey carries Kate in a sling on her back.
              Janey is a very clean slim woman, and her clothes are always spotless, so Kate keeps
              cool and comfortable. Ann and Georgie always wear thick overalls on our walks as a
              protection against thorns and possible snakes. We usually make our way to the
              Mchewe River where Ann and Georgie paddle in the clear cold water and collect shiny
              stones.

              The cosmetics parcel duly arrived by post from Dar es Salaam so now I fill the
              evenings between supper and bed time attending to my face! The much advertised
              cream is pink and thick and feels revolting. I smooth it on before bedtime and keep it on
              all night. Just imagine if George could see me! The advertisements promise me a skin
              like a rose in six weeks. What a surprise there is in store for George!

              You will have been wondering what has happened to George. Well on the Lupa
              he heard rumours of a new gold strike somewhere in the Sumbawanga District. A couple
              of hundred miles from here I think, though I am not sure where it is and have no one to
              ask. You look it up on the map and tell me. John Molteno is also interested in this and
              anxious to have it confirmed so he and George have come to an agreement. John
              Molteno provided the porters for the journey together with prospecting tools and
              supplies but as he cannot leave his claims, or his gold buying business, George is to go
              on foot to the area of the rumoured gold strike and, if the strike looks promising will peg
              claims in both their names.

              The rainy season is now at its height and the whole countryside is under water. All
              roads leading to the area are closed to traffic and, as there are few Europeans who
              would attempt the journey on foot, George proposes to get a head start on them by
              making this uncomfortable safari. I have just had my first letter from George since he left
              on this prospecting trip. It took ages to reach me because it was sent by runner to
              Abercorn in Northern Rhodesia, then on by lorry to Mpika where it was put on a plane
              for Mbeya. George writes the most charming letters which console me a little upon our
              all too frequent separations.

              His letter was cheerful and optimistic, though reading between the lines I should
              say he had a grim time. He has reached Sumbawanga after ‘a hell of a trip’, to find that
              the rumoured strike was at Mpanda and he had a few more days of foot safari ahead.
              He had found the trip from the Lupa even wetter than he had expected. The party had
              three days of wading through swamps sometimes waist deep in water. Of his sixteen
              porters, four deserted an the second day out and five others have had malaria and so
              been unable to carry their loads. He himself is ‘thin but very fit’, and he sounds full of
              beans and writes gaily of the marvellous holiday we will have if he has any decent luck! I
              simply must get that mink and diamonds complexion.

              The frustrating thing is that I cannot write back as I have no idea where George is
              now.

              With heaps of love,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate. 24th March 1936

              Dearest Family,
              How kind you are. Another parcel from home. Although we are very short
              of labourers I sent a special runner to fetch it as Ann simply couldn’t bear the suspense
              of waiting to see Brenda, “My new little girl with plaits.” Thank goodness Brenda is
              unbreakable. I could not have born another tragedy. She really is an exquisite little doll
              and has hardly been out of Ann’s arms since arrival. She showed Brenda proudly to all
              the staff. The kitchen boy’s face was a study. His eyes fairly came out on sticks when he
              saw the dolls eyes not only opening and shutting, but moving from side to side in that
              incredibly lifelike way. Georgie loves his little model cars which he carries around all day
              and puts under his pillow at night.

              As for me, I am enchanted by my very smart new frock. Janey was so lavish with
              her compliments when I tried the frock on, that in a burst of generosity I gave her that
              rather tartish satin and lace trousseau nighty, and she was positively enthralled. She
              wore it that very night when she appeared as usual to doss down by the fire.
              By the way it was Janey’s turn to have a fright this week. She was in the
              bathroom washing the children’s clothes in an outsize hand basin when it happened. As
              she took Georgie’s overalls from the laundry basket a large centipede ran up her bare
              arm. Luckily she managed to knock the centipede off into the hot water in the hand basin.
              It was a brute, about six inches long of viciousness with a nasty sting. The locals say that
              the bite is much worse than a scorpions so Janey had a lucky escape.

              Kate cut her first two teeth yesterday and will, I hope, sleep better now. I don’t
              feel that pink skin food is getting a fair trial with all those broken nights. There is certainly
              no sign yet of ‘The skin he loves to touch”. Kate, I may say, is rosy and blooming. She
              can pull herself upright providing she has something solid to hold on to. She is so plump
              I have horrible visions of future bow legs so I push her down, but she always bobs up
              again.

              Both Ann and Georgie are mad on books. Their favourites are ‘Barbar and
              Celeste” and, of all things, ‘Struvel Peter’ . They listen with absolute relish to the sad tale
              of Harriet who played with matches.

              I have kept a laugh for the end. I am hoping that it will not be long before George
              comes home and thought it was time to take the next step towards glamour, so last
              Wednesday after lunch I settled the children on their beds and prepared to remove the ,
              to me, obvious down on my upper lip. (George always loyally says that he can’t see
              any.) Well I got out the tube of stuff and carefully followed the directions. I smoothed a
              coating on my upper lip. All this was watched with great interest by the children, including
              the baby, who stood up in her cot for a better view. Having no watch, I had propped
              the bedroom door open so that I could time the operation by the cuckoo clock in the
              living room. All the children’s surprised comments fell on deaf ears. I would neither talk
              nor smile for fear of cracking the hair remover which had set hard. The set time was up
              and I was just about to rinse the remover off when Kate slipped, knocking her head on
              the corner of the cot. I rushed to the rescue and precious seconds ticked off whilst I
              pacified her.

              So, my dears, when I rinsed my lip, not only the plaster and the hair came away
              but the skin as well and now I really did have a Ronald Coleman moustache – a crimson
              one. I bathed it, I creamed it, powdered it but all to no avail. Within half an hour my lip
              had swollen until I looked like one of those Duckbilled West African women. Ann’s
              comments, “Oh Mummy, you do look funny. Georgie, doesn’t Mummy look funny?”
              didn’t help to soothe me and the last straw was that just then there was the sound of a car drawing up outside – the first car I had heard for months. Anyway, thank heaven, it
              was not George, but the representative of a firm which sells agricultural machinery and
              farm implements, looking for orders. He had come from Dar es Salaam and had not
              heard that all the planters from this district had left their farms. Hospitality demanded that I
              should appear and offer tea. I did not mind this man because he was a complete
              stranger and fat, middle aged and comfortable. So I gave him tea, though I didn’t
              attempt to drink any myself, and told him the whole sad tale.

              Fortunately much of the swelling had gone next day and only a brown dryness
              remained. I find myself actually hoping that George is delayed a bit longer. Of one thing
              I am sure. If ever I grow a moustache again, it stays!

              Heaps of love from a sadder but wiser,
              Eleanor

              Mchewe Estate. 3rd April 1936

              Dearest Family,

              Sound the trumpets, beat the drums. George is home again. The safari, I am sad
              to say, was a complete washout in more ways than one. Anyway it was lovely to be
              together again and we don’t yet talk about the future. The home coming was not at all as
              I had planned it. I expected George to return in our old A.C. car which gives ample
              warning of its arrival. I had meant to wear my new frock and make myself as glamourous
              as possible, with our beautiful babe on one arm and our other jewels by my side.
              This however is what actually happened. Last Saturday morning at about 2 am , I
              thought I heard someone whispering my name. I sat up in bed, still half asleep, and
              there was George at the window. He was thin and unshaven and the tiredest looking
              man I have ever seen. The car had bogged down twenty miles back along the old Lupa
              Track, but as George had had no food at all that day, he decided to walk home in the
              bright moonlight.

              This is where I should have served up a tasty hot meal but alas, there was only
              the heal of a loaf and no milk because, before going to bed I had given the remaining
              milk to the dog. However George seemed too hungry to care what he ate. He made a
              meal off a tin of bully, a box of crustless cheese and the bread washed down with cup
              after cup of black tea. Though George was tired we talked for hours and it was dawn
              before we settled down to sleep.

              During those hours of talk George described his nightmarish journey. He started
              up the flooded Rukwa Valley and there were days of wading through swamp and mud
              and several swollen rivers to cross. George is a strong swimmer and the porters who
              were recruited in that area, could also swim. There remained the problem of the stores
              and of Kianda the houseboy who cannot swim. For these they made rough pole rafts
              which they pulled across the rivers with ropes. Kianda told me later that he hopes never
              to make such a journey again. He swears that the raft was submerged most of the time
              and that he was dragged through the rivers underwater! You should see the state of
              George’s clothes which were packed in a supposedly water tight uniform trunk. The
              whole lot are mud stained and mouldy.

              To make matters more trying for George he was obliged to live mostly on
              porters rations, rice and groundnut oil which he detests. As all the district roads were
              closed the little Indian Sores in the remote villages he passed had been unable to
              replenish their stocks of European groceries. George would have been thinner had it not
              been for two Roman Catholic missions enroute where he had good meals and dry
              nights. The Fathers are always wonderfully hospitable to wayfarers irrespective of
              whether or not they are Roman Catholics. George of course is not a Catholic. One finds
              the Roman Catholic missions right out in the ‘Blue’ and often on spots unhealthy to
              Europeans. Most of the Fathers are German or Dutch but they all speak a little English
              and in any case one can always fall back on Ki-Swahili.

              George reached his destination all right but it soon became apparent that reports
              of the richness of the strike had been greatly exaggerated. George had decided that
              prospects were brighter on the Lupa than on the new strike so he returned to the Lupa
              by the way he had come and, having returned the borrowed equipment decided to
              make his way home by the shortest route, the old and now rarely used road which
              passes by the bottom of our farm.

              The old A.C. had been left for safe keeping at the Roman Catholic Galala
              Mission 40 miles away, on George’s outward journey, and in this old car George, and
              the houseboy Kianda , started for home. The road was indescribably awful. There were long stretches that were simply one big puddle, in others all the soil had been washed
              away leaving the road like a rocky river bed. There were also patches where the tall
              grass had sprung up head high in the middle of the road,
              The going was slow because often the car bogged down because George had
              no wheel chains and he and Kianda had the wearisome business of digging her out. It
              was just growing dark when the old A.C. settled down determinedly in the mud for the
              last time. They could not budge her and they were still twenty miles from home. George
              decided to walk home in the moonlight to fetch help leaving Kianda in charge of the car
              and its contents and with George’s shot gun to use if necessary in self defence. Kianda
              was reluctant to stay but also not prepared to go for help whilst George remained with
              the car as lions are plentiful in that area. So George set out unarmed in the moonlight.
              Once he stopped to avoid a pride of lion coming down the road but he circled safely
              around them and came home without any further alarms.

              Kianda said he had a dreadful night in the car, “With lions roaming around the car
              like cattle.” Anyway the lions did not take any notice of the car or of Kianda, and the next
              day George walked back with all our farm boys and dug and pushed the car out of the
              mud. He brought car and Kianda back without further trouble but the labourers on their
              way home were treed by the lions.

              The wet season is definitely the time to stay home.

              Lots and lots of love,
              Eleanor

              Mchewe Estate. 30th April 1936

              Dearest Family,

              Young George’s third birthday passed off very well yesterday. It started early in
              the morning when he brought his pillow slip of presents to our bed. Kate was already
              there and Ann soon joined us. Young George liked all the presents you sent, especially
              the trumpet. It has hardly left his lips since and he is getting quite smart about the finger
              action.

              We had quite a party. Ann and I decorated the table with Christmas tree tinsel
              and hung a bunch of balloons above it. Ann also decorated young George’s chair with
              roses and phlox from the garden. I had made and iced a fruit cake but Ann begged to
              make a plain pink cake. She made it entirely by herself though I stood by to see that
              she measured the ingredients correctly. When the cake was baked I mixed some soft
              icing in a jug and she poured it carefully over the cake smoothing the gaps with her
              fingers!

              During the party we had the gramophone playing and we pulled crackers and
              wore paper hats and altogether had a good time. I forgot for a while that George is
              leaving again for the Lupa tomorrow for an indefinite time. He was marvellous at making
              young George’s party a gay one. You will have noticed the change from Georgie to
              young George. Our son declares that he now wants to be called George, “Like Dad”.
              He an Ann are a devoted couple and I am glad that there is only a fourteen
              months difference in their ages. They play together extremely well and are very
              independent which is just as well for little Kate now demands a lot of my attention. My
              garden is a real cottage garden and looks very gay and colourful. There are hollyhocks
              and Snapdragons, marigolds and phlox and of course the roses and carnations which, as
              you know, are my favourites. The coffee shamba does not look so good because the
              small labour force, which is all we can afford, cannot cope with all the weeds. You have
              no idea how things grow during the wet season in the tropics.

              Nothing alarming ever seems to happen when George is home, so I’m afraid this
              letter is rather dull. I wanted you to know though, that largely due to all your gifts of toys
              and sweets, Georgie’s 3rd birthday party went with a bang.

              Your very affectionate,
              Eleanor

              Mchewe Estate. 17th September 1936

              Dearest Family,

              I am sorry to hear that Mummy worries about me so much. “Poor Eleanor”,
              indeed! I have a quite exceptional husband, three lovely children, a dear little home and
              we are all well.It is true that I am in rather a rut but what else can we do? George comes
              home whenever he can and what excitement there is when he does come. He cannot
              give me any warning because he has to take advantage of chance lifts from the Diggings
              to Mbeya, but now that he is prospecting nearer home he usually comes walking over
              the hills. About 50 miles of rough going. Really and truly I am all right. Although our diet is
              monotonous we have plenty to eat. Eggs and milk are cheap and fruit plentiful and I
              have a good cook so can devote all my time to the children. I think it is because they are
              my constant companions that Ann and Georgie are so grown up for their years.
              I have no ayah at present because Janey has been suffering form rheumatism
              and has gone home for one of her periodic rests. I manage very well without her except
              in the matter of the afternoon walks. The outward journey is all right. George had all the
              grass cut on his last visit so I am able to push the pram whilst Ann, George and Fanny
              the dog run ahead. It is the uphill return trip that is so trying. Our walk back is always the
              same, down the hill to the river where the children love to play and then along the car
              road to the vegetable garden. I never did venture further since the day I saw a leopard
              jump on a calf. I did not tell you at the time as I thought you might worry. The cattle were
              grazing on a small knoll just off our land but near enough for me to have a clear view.
              Suddenly the cattle scattered in all directions and we heard the shouts of the herd boys
              and saw – or rather had the fleeting impression- of a large animal jumping on a calf. I
              heard the herd boy shout “Chui, Chui!” (leopard) and believe me, we turned in our
              tracks and made for home. To hasten things I picked up two sticks and told the children
              that they were horses and they should ride them home which they did with
              commendable speed.

              Ann no longer rides Joseph. He became increasingly bad tempered and a
              nuisance besides. He took to rolling all over my flower beds though I had never seen
              him roll anywhere else. Then one day he kicked Ann in the chest, not very hard but
              enough to send her flying. Now George has given him to the native who sells milk to us
              and he seems quite happy grazing with the cattle.

              With love to you all,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate. 2nd October 1936

              Dearest Family,

              Since I last wrote George has been home and we had a lovely time as usual.
              Whilst he was here the District Commissioner and his wife called. Mr Pollock told
              George that there is to be a big bush clearing scheme in some part of the Mbeya
              District to drive out Tsetse Fly. The game in the area will have to be exterminated and
              there will probably be a job for George shooting out the buffalo. The pay would be
              good but George says it is a beastly job. Although he is a professional hunter, he hates
              slaughter.

              Mrs P’s real reason for visiting the farm was to invite me to stay at her home in
              Mbeya whilst she and her husband are away in Tukuyu. Her English nanny and her small
              daughter will remain in Mbeya and she thought it might be a pleasant change for us and
              a rest for me as of course Nanny will do the housekeeping. I accepted the invitation and I
              think I will go on from there to Tukuyu and visit my friend Lillian Eustace for a fortnight.
              She has given us an open invitation to visit her at any time.

              I had a letter from Dr Eckhardt last week, telling me that at a meeting of all the
              German Settlers from Mbeya, Tukuyu and Mbosi it had been decided to raise funds to
              build a school at Mbeya. They want the British Settlers to co-operate in this and would
              be glad of a subscription from us. I replied to say that I was unable to afford a
              subscription at present but would probably be applying for a teaching job.
              The Eckhardts are the leaders of the German community here and are ardent
              Nazis. For this reason they are unpopular with the British community but he is the only
              doctor here and I must say they have been very decent to us. Both of them admire
              George. George has still not had any luck on the Lupa and until he makes a really
              promising strike it is unlikely that the children and I will join him. There is no fresh milk there
              and vegetables and fruit are imported from Mbeya and Iringa and are very expensive.
              George says “You wouldn’t be happy on the diggings anyway with a lot of whores and
              their bastards!”

              Time ticks away very pleasantly here. Young George and Kate are blooming
              and I keep well. Only Ann does not look well. She is growing too fast and is listless and
              pale. If I do go to Mbeya next week I shall take her to the doctor to be overhauled.
              We do not go for our afternoon walks now that George has returned to the Lupa.
              That leopard has been around again and has killed Tubbage that cowardly Alsatian. We
              gave him to the village headman some months ago. There is no danger to us from the
              leopard but I am terrified it might get Fanny, who is an excellent little watchdog and
              dearly loved by all of us. Yesterday I sent a note to the Boma asking for a trap gun and
              today the farm boys are building a trap with logs.

              I had a mishap this morning in the garden. I blundered into a nest of hornets and
              got two stings in the left arm above the elbow. Very painful at the time and the place is
              still red and swollen.

              Much love to you all,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate. 10th October 1936

              Dearest Family,

              Well here we are at Mbeya, comfortably installed in the District Commissioner’s
              house. It is one of two oldest houses in Mbeya and is a charming gabled place with tiled
              roof. The garden is perfectly beautiful. I am enjoying the change very much. Nanny
              Baxter is very entertaining. She has a vast fund of highly entertaining tales of the goings
              on amongst the British Aristocracy, gleaned it seems over the nursery teacup in many a
              Stately Home. Ann and Georgie are enjoying the company of other children.
              People are very kind about inviting us out to tea and I gladly accept these
              invitations but I have turned down invitations to dinner and one to a dance at the hotel. It
              is no fun to go out at night without George. There are several grass widows at the pub
              whose husbands are at the diggings. They have no inhibitions about parties.
              I did have one night and day here with George, he got the chance of a lift and
              knowing that we were staying here he thought the chance too good to miss. He was
              also anxious to hear the Doctor’s verdict on Ann. I took Ann to hospital on my second
              day here. Dr Eckhardt said there was nothing specifically wrong but that Ann is a highly
              sensitive type with whom the tropics does not agree. He advised that Ann should
              spend a year in a more temperate climate and that the sooner she goes the better. I felt
              very discouraged to hear this and was most relieved when George turned up
              unexpectedly that evening. He phoo-hood Dr Eckhardt’s recommendation and next
              morning called in Dr Aitkin, the Government Doctor from Chunya and who happened to
              be in Mbeya.

              Unfortunately Dr Aitkin not only confirmed Dr Eckhardt’s opinion but said that he
              thought Ann should stay out of the tropics until she had passed adolescence. I just don’t
              know what to do about Ann. She is a darling child, very sensitive and gentle and a
              lovely companion to me. Also she and young George are inseparable and I just cannot
              picture one without the other. I know that you would be glad to have Ann but how could
              we bear to part with her?

              Your worried but affectionate,
              Eleanor.

              Tukuyu. 23rd October 1936

              Dearest Family,

              As you see we have moved to Tukuyu and we are having a lovely time with
              Lillian Eustace. She gave us such a warm welcome and has put herself out to give us
              every comfort. She is a most capable housekeeper and I find her such a comfortable
              companion because we have the same outlook in life. Both of us are strictly one man
              women and that is rare here. She has a two year old son, Billy, who is enchanted with
              our rolly polly Kate and there are other children on the station with whom Ann and
              Georgie can play. Lillian engaged a temporary ayah for me so I am having a good rest.
              All the children look well and Ann in particular seems to have benefited by the
              change to a cooler climate. She has a good colour and looks so well that people all
              exclaim when I tell them, that two doctors have advised us to send Ann out of the
              country. Perhaps after all, this holiday in Tukuyu will set her up.

              We had a trying journey from Mbeya to Tukuyu in the Post Lorry. The three
              children and I were squeezed together on the front seat between the African driver on
              one side and a vast German on the other. Both men smoked incessantly – the driver
              cigarettes, and the German cheroots. The cab was clouded with a blue haze. Not only
              that! I suddenly felt a smarting sensation on my right thigh. The driver’s cigarette had
              burnt a hole right through that new checked linen frock you sent me last month.
              I had Kate on my lap all the way but Ann and Georgie had to stand against the
              windscreen all the way. The fat German offered to take Ann on his lap but she gave him
              a very cold “No thank you.” Nor did I blame her. I would have greatly enjoyed the drive
              under less crowded conditions. The scenery is gorgeous. One drives through very high
              country crossing lovely clear streams and at one point through rain forest. As it was I
              counted the miles and how thankful I was to see the end of the journey.
              In the days when Tanganyika belonged to the Germans, Tukuyu was the
              administrative centre for the whole of the Southern Highlands Province. The old German
              Fort is still in use as Government offices and there are many fine trees which were
              planted by the Germans. There is a large prosperous native population in this area.
              They go in chiefly for coffee and for bananas which form the basis of their diet.
              There are five British married couples here and Lillian and I go out to tea most
              mornings. In the afternoon there is tennis or golf. The gardens here are beautiful because
              there is rain or at least drizzle all the year round. There are even hedge roses bordering
              some of the district roads. When one walks across the emerald green golf course or
              through the Boma gardens, it is hard to realise that this gentle place is Tropical Africa.
              ‘Such a green and pleasant land’, but I think I prefer our corner of Tanganyika.

              Much love,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe. 12th November 1936

              Dearest Family,

              We had a lovely holiday but it is so nice to be home again, especially as Laza,
              the local Nimrod, shot that leopard whilst we were away (with his muzzleloader gun). He
              was justly proud of himself, and I gave him a tip so that he could buy some native beer
              for a celebration. I have never seen one of theses parties but can hear the drums and
              sounds of merrymaking, especially on moonlight nights.

              Our house looks so fresh and uncluttered. Whilst I was away, the boys
              whitewashed the house and my houseboy had washed all the curtains, bedspreads,
              and loose covers and watered the garden. If only George were here it would be
              heaven.

              Ann looked so bonny at Tukuyu that I took her to the Government Doctor there
              hoping that he would find her perfectly healthy, but alas he endorsed the finding of the
              other two doctors so, when an opportunity offers, I think I shall have to send Ann down
              to you for a long holiday from the Tropics. Mother-in-law has offered to fetch her next
              year but England seems so far away. With you she will at least be on the same
              continent.

              I left the children for the first time ever, except for my stay in hospital when Kate
              was born, to go on an outing to Lake Masoko in the Tukuyu district, with four friends.
              Masoko is a beautiful, almost circular crater lake and very very deep. A detachment of
              the King’s African Rifles are stationed there and occupy the old German barracks
              overlooking the lake.

              We drove to Masoko by car and spent the afternoon there as guests of two
              British Army Officers. We had a good tea and the others went bathing in the lake but i
              could not as I did not have a costume. The Lake was as beautiful as I had been lead to
              imagine and our hosts were pleasant but I began to grow anxious as the afternoon
              advanced and my friends showed no signs of leaving. I was in agonies when they
              accepted an invitation to stay for a sundowner. We had this in the old German beer
              garden overlooking the Lake. It was beautiful but what did I care. I had promised the
              children that I would be home to give them their supper and put them to bed. When I
              did at length return to Lillian’s house I found the situation as I had expected. Ann, with her
              imagination had come to the conclusion that I never would return. She had sobbed
              herself into a state of exhaustion. Kate was screaming in sympathy and George 2 was
              very truculent. He wouldn’t even speak to me. Poor Lillian had had a trying time.
              We did not return to Mbeya by the Mail Lorry. Bill and Lillian drove us across to
              Mbeya in their new Ford V8 car. The children chattered happily in the back of the car
              eating chocolate and bananas all the way. I might have known what would happen! Ann
              was dreadfully and messily car sick.

              I engaged the Mbeya Hotel taxi to drive us out to the farm the same afternoon
              and I expect it will be a long time before we leave the farm again.

              Lots and lots of love to all,
              Eleanor.

              Chunya 27th November 1936

              Dearest Family,

              You will be surprised to hear that we are all together now on the Lupa goldfields.
              I have still not recovered from my own astonishment at being here. Until last Saturday
              night I never dreamed of this move. At about ten o’clock I was crouched in the inglenook
              blowing on the embers to make a fire so that I could heat some milk for Kate who is
              cutting teeth and was very restless. Suddenly I heard a car outside. I knew it must be
              George and rushed outside storm lamp in hand. Sure enough, there was George
              standing by a strange car, and beaming all over his face. “Something for you my love,”
              he said placing a little bundle in my hand. It was a knotted handkerchief and inside was a
              fine gold nugget.

              George had that fire going in no time, Kate was given the milk and half an aspirin
              and settles down to sleep, whilst George and I sat around for an hour chatting over our
              tea. He told me that he had borrowed the car from John Molteno and had come to fetch
              me and the children to join him on the diggings for a while. It seems that John, who has a
              camp at Itewe, a couple of miles outside the township of Chunya, the new
              Administrative Centre of the diggings, was off to the Cape to visit his family for a few
              months. John had asked George to run his claims in his absence and had given us the
              loan of his camp and his car.

              George had found the nugget on his own claim but he is not too elated because
              he says that one good month on the diggings is often followed by several months of
              dead loss. However, I feel hopeful, we have had such a run of bad luck that surely it is
              time for the tide to change. George spent Sunday going over the farm with Thomas, the
              headman, and giving him instructions about future work whilst I packed clothes and
              kitchen equipment. I have brought our ex-kitchenboy Kesho Kutwa with me as cook and
              also Janey, who heard that we were off to the Lupa and came to offer her services once
              more as ayah. Janey’s ex-husband Abel is now cook to one of the more successful
              diggers and I think she is hoping to team up with him again.

              The trip over the Mbeya-Chunya pass was new to me and I enjoyed it very
              much indeed. The road winds over the mountains along a very high escarpment and
              one looks down on the vast Usangu flats stretching far away to the horizon. At the
              highest point the road rises to about 7000 feet, and this was too much for Ann who was
              leaning against the back of my seat. She was very thoroughly sick, all over my hair.
              This camp of John Molteno’s is very comfortable. It consists of two wattle and
              daub buildings built end to end in a clearing in the miombo bush. The main building
              consists of a large living room, a store and an office, and the other of one large bedroom
              and a small one separated by an area for bathing. Both buildings are thatched. There are
              no doors, and there are no windows, but these are not necessary because one wall of
              each building is built up only a couple of feet leaving a six foot space for light and air. As
              this is the dry season the weather is pleasant. The air is fresh and dry but not nearly so
              hot as I expected.

              Water is a problem and must be carried long distances in kerosene tins.
              vegetables and fresh butter are brought in a van from Iringa and Mbeya Districts about
              once a fortnight. I have not yet visited Chunya but I believe it is as good a shopping
              centre as Mbeya so we will be able to buy all the non perishable food stuffs we need.
              What I do miss is the fresh milk. The children are accustomed to drinking at least a pint of
              milk each per day but they do not care for the tinned variety.

              Ann and young George love being here. The camp is surrounded by old
              prospecting trenches and they spend hours each day searching for gold in the heaps of gravel. Sometimes they find quartz pitted with little spots of glitter and they bring them
              to me in great excitement. Alas it is only Mica. We have two neighbours. The one is a
              bearded Frenchman and the other an Australian. I have not yet met any women.
              George looks very sunburnt and extremely fit and the children also look well.
              George and I have decided that we will keep Ann with us until my Mother-in-law comes
              out next year. George says that in spite of what the doctors have said, he thinks that the
              shock to Ann of being separated from her family will do her more harm than good. She
              and young George are inseparable and George thinks it would be best if both
              George and Ann return to England with my Mother-in-law for a couple of years. I try not
              to think at all about the breaking up of the family.

              Much love to all,
              Eleanor.

               

              #6259
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                George “Mike” Rushby

                A short autobiography of George Gilman Rushby’s son, published in the Blackwall Bugle, Australia.

                Early in 2009, Ballina Shire Council Strategic and
                Community Services Group Manager, Steve Barnier,
                suggested that it would be a good idea for the Wardell
                and District community to put out a bi-monthly
                newsletter. I put my hand up to edit the publication and
                since then, over 50 issues of “The Blackwall Bugle”
                have been produced, encouraged by Ballina Shire
                Council who host the newsletter on their website.
                Because I usually write the stories that other people
                generously share with me, I have been asked by several
                community members to let them know who I am. Here is
                my attempt to let you know!

                My father, George Gilman Rushby was born in England
                in 1900. An Electrician, he migrated to Africa as a young
                man to hunt and to prospect for gold. He met Eleanor
                Dunbar Leslie who was a high school teacher in Cape
                Town. They later married in Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika.
                I was the second child and first son and was born in a
                mud hut in Tanganyika in 1933. I spent my first years on
                a coffee plantation. When four years old, and with
                parents and elder sister on a remote goldfield, I caught
                typhoid fever. I was seriously ill and had no access to
                proper medical facilities. My paternal grandmother
                sailed out to Africa from England on a steam ship and
                took me back to England for medical treatment. My
                sister Ann came too. Then Adolf Hitler started WWII and
                Ann and I were separated from our parents for 9 years.

                Sister Ann and I were not to see him or our mother for
                nine years because of the war. Dad served as a Captain in
                the King’s African Rifles operating in the North African
                desert, while our Mum managed the coffee plantation at
                home in Tanganyika.

                Ann and I lived with our Grandmother and went to
                school in Nottingham England. In 1946 the family was
                reunited. We lived in Mbeya in Southern Tanganyika
                where my father was then the District Manager of the
                National Parks and Wildlife Authority. There was no
                high school in Tanganyika so I had to go to school in
                Nairobi, Kenya. It took five days travelling each way by
                train and bus including two days on a steamer crossing
                Lake Victoria.

                However, the school year was only two terms with long
                holidays in between.

                When I was seventeen, I left high school. There was
                then no university in East Africa. There was no work
                around as Tanganyika was about to become
                independent of the British Empire and become
                Tanzania. Consequently jobs were reserved for
                Africans.

                A war had broken out in Korea. I took a day off from
                high school and visited the British Army headquarters
                in Nairobi. I signed up for military service intending to
                go to Korea. The army flew me to England. During
                Army basic training I was nicknamed ‘Mike’ and have
                been called Mike ever since. I never got to Korea!
                After my basic training I volunteered for the Parachute
                Regiment and the army sent me to Egypt where the
                Suez Canal was under threat. I carried out parachute
                operations in the Sinai Desert and in Cyprus and
                Jordan. I was then selected for officer training and was
                sent to England to the Eaton Hall Officer Cadet School
                in Cheshire. Whilst in Cheshire, I met my future wife
                Jeanette. I graduated as a Second Lieutenant in the
                Royal Lincolnshire Regiment and was posted to West
                Berlin, which was then one hundred miles behind the
                Iron Curtain. My duties included patrolling the
                demarcation line that separated the allies from the
                Russian forces. The Berlin Wall was yet to be built. I
                also did occasional duty as guard commander of the
                guard at Spandau Prison where Adolf Hitler’s deputy
                Rudolf Hess was the only prisoner.

                From Berlin, my Regiment was sent to Malaya to
                undertake deep jungle operations against communist
                terrorists that were attempting to overthrow the
                Malayan Government. I was then a Lieutenant in
                command of a platoon of about 40 men which would go
                into the jungle for three weeks to a month with only air
                re-supply to keep us going. On completion of my jungle
                service, I returned to England and married Jeanette. I
                had to stand up throughout the church wedding
                ceremony because I had damaged my right knee in a
                competitive cross-country motorcycle race and wore a
                splint and restrictive bandage for the occasion!
                At this point I took a career change and transferred
                from the infantry to the Royal Military Police. I was in
                charge of the security of British, French and American
                troops using the autobahn link from West Germany to
                the isolated Berlin. Whilst in Germany and Austria I
                took up snow skiing as a sport.

                Jeanette and I seemed to attract unusual little
                adventures along the way — each adventure trivial in
                itself but adding up to give us a ‘different’ path through
                life. Having climbed Mount Snowdon up the ‘easy way’
                we were witness to a serious climbing accident where a
                member of the staff of a Cunard Shipping Line
                expedition fell and suffered serious injury. It was
                Sunday a long time ago. The funicular railway was
                closed. There was no telephone. So I ran all the way
                down Mount Snowdon to raise the alarm.

                On a road trip from Verden in Germany to Berlin with
                our old Opel Kapitan motor car stacked to the roof with
                all our worldly possessions, we broke down on the ice and snow covered autobahn. We still had a hundred kilometres to go.

                A motorcycle patrolman flagged down a B-Double
                tanker. He hooked us to the tanker with a very short tow
                cable and off we went. The truck driver couldn’t see us
                because we were too close and his truck threw up a
                constant deluge of ice and snow so we couldn’t see
                anyway. We survived the hundred kilometre ‘sleigh
                ride!’

                I then went back to the other side of the world where I
                carried out military police duties in Singapore and
                Malaya for three years. I took up scuba diving and
                loved the ocean. Jeanette and I, with our two little
                daughters, took a holiday to South Africa to see my
                parents. We sailed on a ship of the Holland-Afrika Line.
                It broke down for four days and drifted uncontrollably
                in dangerous waters off the Skeleton Coast of Namibia
                until the crew could get the ship’s motor running again.
                Then, in Cape Town, we were walking the beach near
                Hermanus with my youngest brother and my parents,
                when we found the dead body of a man who had thrown
                himself off a cliff. The police came and secured the site.
                Back with the army, I was promoted to Major and
                appointed Provost Marshal of the ACE Mobile Force
                (Allied Command Europe) with dual headquarters in
                Salisbury, England and Heidelberg, Germany. The cold
                war was at its height and I was on operations in Greece,
                Denmark and Norway including the Arctic. I had
                Norwegian, Danish, Italian and American troops in my
                unit and I was then also the Winter Warfare Instructor
                for the British contingent to the Allied Command
                Europe Mobile Force that operated north of the Arctic
                Circle.

                The reason for being in the Arctic Circle? From there
                our special forces could look down into northern
                Russia.

                I was not seeing much of my two young daughters. A
                desk job was looming my way and I decided to leave
                the army and migrate to Australia. Why Australia?
                Well, I didn’t want to go back to Africa, which
                seemed politically unstable and the people I most
                liked working with in the army, were the Australian
                troops I had met in Malaya.

                I migrated to Brisbane, Australia in 1970 and started
                working for Woolworths. After management training,
                I worked at Garden City and Brookside then became
                the manager in turn of Woolworths stores at
                Paddington, George Street and Redcliff. I was also the
                first Director of FAUI Queensland (The Federation of
                Underwater Diving Instructors) and spent my spare
                time on the Great Barrier Reef. After 8 years with
                Woollies, I opted for a sea change.

                I moved with my family to Evans Head where I
                converted a convenience store into a mini
                supermarket. When IGA moved into town, I decided
                to take up beef cattle farming and bought a cattle
                property at Collins Creek Kyogle in 1990. I loved
                everything about the farm — the Charolais cattle, my
                horses, my kelpie dogs, the open air, fresh water
                creek, the freedom, the lifestyle. I also became a
                volunteer fire fighter with the Green Pigeon Brigade.
                In 2004 I sold our farm and moved to Wardell.
                My wife Jeanette and I have been married for 60 years
                and are now retired. We have two lovely married
                daughters and three fine grandchildren. We live in the
                greatest part of the world where we have been warmly
                welcomed by the Wardell community and by the
                Wardell Brigade of the Rural Fire Service. We are
                very happy here.

                Mike Rushby

                A short article sent to Jacksdale in England from Mike Rushby in Australia:

                Rushby Family

                #6252
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  The USA Housley’s

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

                  GEORGE HOUSLEY 1824-1877

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

                  Doylestown

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                  #6249
                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    Grettons in USA and The Lusitania Survivor

                    Two of my grandmothers uncles emigrated to New Jersey, USA,  John Orgill Gretton in 1888, and Michael Thomas Gretton in 1889.  My grandmothers mother Florence Nightingale Gretton, born in 1881 and the youngest of eight,  was still a child when they left.  This is perhaps why we knew nothing of them until the family research started.

                    Michael Thomas Gretton

                    1870-1940

                    Michael, known by his middle name of Thomas, married twice. His occupation was a potter in the sanitary ware industry. He and his first wife Edith Wise had three children, William R Gretton 1894-1961, Charles Thomas Gretton 1897-1960, and Clara P Gretton 1895-1997.  Edith died in 1922, and Thomas married again. His second wife Martha Ann Barker was born in Stoke on Trent in England, but had emigrated to USA in 1909.  She had two children with her first husband Thomas Barker, Doris and Winifred.  Thomas Barker died in 1921.

                    Martha Ann Barker and her daughter Doris, born in 1900, were Lusitania survivors.  The Lusitania was a British ocean liner that was sunk on 7 May 1915 by a German U-boat 11 miles (18 km) off the southern coast of Ireland, killing 1,198 passengers and crew.  Martha and Doris survived, but sadly nine year old Winifred did not. Her remains were lost at sea.

                    Winifred Barker:

                    Winifred Barker

                     

                    Thomas Barker sailed to England after the disaster to accompany Martha and Doris on the trip home to USA:

                    Lusitania

                     

                    Thomas Gretton, Martha’s second husband, died in 1940.  She survived him by 23 years and died in 1963 in New Jersey:

                    Lusitania

                     

                    John Orgill Gretton

                    1868-1949

                    John Orgill Gretton was a “Freeholder” in New Jersey for 24 years.  New Jersey alone of all the United States has the distinction of retaining the title of “FREEHOLDER” to denote the elected members of the county governing bodies. This descriptive name, which commemorates the origin of home rule, is used by only 21 of the nation’s 3,047 counties.  In other states, these county officials are known as commissioners, supervisors, probate judges, police jurors, councilors and a variety of other names.

                    John Orgill Gretton

                     

                    John and his wife Caroline Thum had four children, Florence J Gretton 1893-1965, George Thum Gretton 1895-1951, Wilhelmina F Gretton 1899-1931, and Nathalie A Gretton 1904-1947.

                    Their engagements and weddings appear on the society pages of the Trenton Newspapers.  For example the article headline on the wedding in 1919 of George Thum Gretton and his wife Elizabeth Stokes announces “Charming Society Girl Becomes Bride Today”.

                    #6240
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      Phyllis Ellen Marshall

                      1909 – 1983

                      Phyllis Marshall

                       

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      Bryan continues reminiscing about Phyllis in further correspondence:

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

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

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

                      Phyllis William and Mary Marshall

                       

                      Bryan continues:

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

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

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

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

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

                      He replied:

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

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

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

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

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

                      Such a pleasant walk through the past. 

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

                      Ripping Time

                      #6236
                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        The Liverpool Fires

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

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

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

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

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

                        Fatal Fire Liverpool

                         

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

                        Liverpool fire

                         

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

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

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

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

                        Byrom Terrace, Liverpool, in 1933

                        Byrom Terrace

                         

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

                        Scalded to Death

                         

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

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

                         

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

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

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

                        #6219
                        TracyTracy
                        Participant

                          The following stories started with a single question.

                          Who was Catherine Housley’s mother?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                          Elizabeth Brookes

                           

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

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

                          Marshalls

                           

                           

                          The Search for Samuel Housley

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

                          Elizabeth death

                           

                          Where was Samuel?

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

                          Where was Samuel?

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

                          Samuel Housley 1850

                           

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

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

                          Belper Workhouse:

                          Belper Workhouse

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

                          But where was Samuel?

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

                          Samuel Housley 1871

                           

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

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

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

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

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

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

                           

                           

                          #6065

                          Those last few days have been hectic. But we finally arrived. I can’t believe we survived all those police controls and those christian mobs, and I didn’t know Kady was a adept at car borrowing.

                          I forgot my journal because it was on the computer and I didn’t take the computer. So I don’t know how to contact you, Whale, other than using the old method: with a pen and a sheet of paper. Max gave me this piece of wrapping in which Kady had put the chocolate. He said he can still reuse it later with the writing. He’s nice, although he doesn’t look like it. I think I like him.

                          However, the whole thing is not like I expected. Oh sure, the pistil itself is quite impressive: that lone and long stem coming out of that canyon and surrounded by those mountains in the distance. I’m talking about the camp. It’s like a refugee camp, and all of them avid to be able to go in somehow. I’m not sure what they expect. Kady hasn’t been in a sharing mood lately, and I haven’t asked that many questions. But she told Max we had to discuss before we go in tomorrow. So I’m feeling nervous about what I’ll learn tonight.

                          I’ve been told once: ask and you will receive. What am I supposed to know now? What am I supposed to do? Maybe that’s not the right question because I just got my voice telling me that I’m not supposed to know or do anything. Maybe supposed is not the right word. I’m too tired and excited at the same time to figure it out, but you get the gist I’m sure.

                          I didn’t have any more dreams. I’ve been watching the drawings in that book religiously every night of that trip before I go to sleep. Although I’m not truly sincere when I say that I didn’t have any more dreams. I had at least one that I recall. It was like some news about a parallel self, one that got the virus. I dreamt about that other me before, he couldn’t breath and it hurt. I had wondered if he had died because I didn’t have any more dreams about him, until last night. He seemed ok, he had recovered quite well considering the difficulties. He was at a gathering with other people at some kind of Lebanese buffet. I’m not too fond of the spicy merguez sausages, I prefer the hummus.

                          Max is calling, diner is ready. He’s made lasagna, apparently he makes the the best lasagna in the whole camp. I’m not sure when will be the next time I contact you so far Whale.

                          #4954
                          TracyTracy
                          Participant

                            Aunt Idle:

                            Bert tells me it’s Christmas day today.  Christmas! I just looked at him blankly when he told me, trying to bring to mind what it used to be like. I can’t remember the last time Christmas was normal. Probably around fifteen years ago, just before the six years of fires started. It’s a wonder we survived, but we did. Even Mater.  God knows how old she is now, maybe Bert knows. He’s the one trying to keep track of the passing of time.   I don’t know what for, he’s well past his sell by date, but seems to cling on no matter what, like Mater. And me I suppose.

                            We lost contact with the outside world over ten years ago (so Bert tells me, I wouldn’t know how long it was).  It was all very strange at first but it’s amazing what you can get used to.  Once you get over expecting it to go back to normal, that is.  It took us a long time to give up on the idea of going back to normal.  But once you do, it changes your perspective.

                            But don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t been all bad.  We haven’t heard anything of the twins, not for a good ten years or more (you’d have to ask Bert how long) but I hear their voices in my head sometimes, and dream of them.  In my dreams they’re always on the water, on a big flat raft boat.  I love it when I dream of them and see all that water. Don’t ask me how, but I know they’re alright.

                            Anyway like I said, it hasn’t been all bad. Vulture meat is pretty tasty if you cook it well.  The vultures did alright with it all, the sky was black with them at times, right after the droughts and the fires. But we don’t eat much these days, funny how you get used to that, too.  We grow mushrooms down in the old mines (Bert’s idea, I don’t know what we’d do without him).  And when the rains came, they were plentiful. More rain than we’d ever seen here.

                            Well I could go on, but like I said, it’s Christmas day according to Bert.  I intend to sit on the porch and try and bring Prune and Devan and the twins to mind and see if I can send them a message.

                            Prune’s been back to see us once (you’d have to ask Bert when it was).  She was on some kind of land sailing contraption, no good asking me what was powering the thing, there’s been no normal fuel for a good long time, none that’s come our way. Any time anyone comes (which is seldom) they come on camels or horses. One young family came passing through on a cart pulled by a cow once.  But Prune came wafting in on some clever thing I’d never seen the likes of before.  She didn’t stay long, she was going back to China, she said.  It was all very different there, she said. Not all back to the dark ages like here, that’s what she said.  But then, we were here in the first place because we liked a quiet simple life. Weren’t we? Hard to remember.

                            #3790

                            In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                            EricEric
                            Keymaster

                              For all her wired cleverness, there was something that the central intelligence had seemingly forgotten to take into account in her parameters.

                              Eb woke up in a sweat, barely remembering bits of a horrible dream of being chased and banging on a closed door for escape from a herd of phombies (those guys who had their phones implanted under their skins and would often have a creepy vacant look while in communication).

                              The banging on the door. According to his mother, if there was something that her nurse Fancy Woo was better at than cooking rice, it was at interpreting dreams. But he didn’t need her expert advice on this one.

                              His mind was aching from the lack of alcohol, but at least he could think quite clearly.
                              There weren’t many accesses to enter the simulation, for obvious reasons. Continuity had to be maintained at all costs, to preserve the sanctity of the experiment. That motto had survived the multiple iterations of the simulation since its inception.

                              Eb knew of most of them, even if he’d wondered about the presence of backdoors. He had not been able to find any since his many years of service. So for all he knew, there were only two ways to get in and out: up and down. “Up” through the fake ships, with the whole stasis protocol, and “down”, through the mines were they would usually send agents from time to time, mostly for reconnaissance purposes.

                              He looked at the screen, and as he had feared, the explosion triggered in the tunnels by Finnley had sealed their main exit point.

                              “You underestimate me, my dear Eb” the voice of Finnley merrily bounced on the insulated walls.

                              Eb was startled. Hadn’t he known that Finnley was just a program, he could have sworn her synthetic voice had a trace of menace in it.

                              Finnley” he regained his composure as much as he could “Haven’t the thought occurred to you that the tunnels are now sealed? We cannot let your blue aliens go in and out as easily now!”
                              “Eb, you do know I do not think.” Her voice was still slightly ominous. “But I ran multiple simulation, and this one still yields the best possible outcome.” she continued more cheerily.
                              “How so?”
                              “It is evident. Many of the earlier settlers, still know about the simulation, even if they self-programmed themselves to accept the illusion as better than outside reality. They can become a problem for the evacuation protocol. With the tunnels’ exit collapsed, they have no other way than to comply. Besides, what good plausible aliens come out from the ground, really. We don’t want to miss their grand entrance.
                              And don’t be such a worrywort about budget, Eb.”

                              #3763

                              In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                              EricEric
                              Keymaster

                                “I won’t mince my words.” Finnley’s gravitas in the bright blue light made Eb shiver.
                                She didn’t wait for him to continue. “I’ve received orders to termitate the program in two weeks.”

                                “T… ter…?” Eb almost started to voice his concerns.

                                “Before you say anything, need I remind you I personally supervised most of the program since probably before you were born. I know the variables, I know the consequences.” She sighed, and drew deep breaths from her chamomile vaporazor —it would help alleviate her manic attacks and panic depressive impulses (she was beyond bipolar, she would say, probably multipolar).

                                “It’s a done deal, Eb. With the impossible influx of refugees after the latest floods around the world’s coastal areas, the water increase, people fleeing, and all that… Well, seems the governments wanted the space. I won’t draw you a picture, you’ve read the news in your cubicle, haven’t you?”

                                Eb was speechless. He couldn’t imagine they could clear the space in such short time. That, and dealing with another set of refugees. What would the Mars settlers do,… if they survived the trauma of finding out they were lied to—like billions of people too. The implications were far-reaching. Two weeks, more than a stretch.

                                But termitate?… Nobody could wish such dreadful end to a program… He ventured “With all due respect, Ma’m, are you sure there’s no better way than termitation?”

                                She turned at him with a surprised look on her face. “Where do you get those funny ideas Eb? We’re humane, nobody wants a termitation on top of our problems.”

                                Eb sighed of relief. She might have made a Tea-pooh (TP for short).
                                He didn’t realize that he had just agreed to the two weeks deadline.

                                #115
                                EricEric
                                Keymaster

                                  2049. 22 years after the original settlers had landed on Mars, where they had since been followed by more and more pioneers looking for the next frontier of civilization.

                                  A lot had changed since they arrived, they were now a few hundred strong, and the first generation of Martian born babies were entering adulthood.

                                  Maia would celebrate her 50th birthday tonight. In Earth years. By Mars’ count, she was younger by half. Still, she was the eldest of the mission, and had learnt so much during these years. Her son, John had grown into a fine young man. He was named after John Carter of course. He wasn’t the first born here, but was the first to have survived. He always had the will to explore more, despite the dangers, he wanted to make the planet his own.

                                  She knew he was destined to greatness. She had a dream a long time ago, one dream that made her enlist into the program. She’d dreamt of Mars as a lush planet, that mankind had managed to terraform with a vaporous atmosphere, more dense than on Earth, but breathable. The light of the evening sky was misty and a pale grey-green. Maia hoped she would live to see her dream come true, that somehow they found a way to venture out and breathe the new air, having succeeded in making the best out of the immense resources of the red dust planet.

                                  #3000

                                  “How do you feel now?”
                                  “Not so bad, considering I just survived a slug indigestion…”
                                  Ernie and Jett were giving sad glances at their nearly empty glasses of Bourgogne red wine. Ernie’s plate of snails au beurre persillé was barely touched, and Jett who was eyeing at it for a while now as he was sucking on his empty shells decided now was a good time to grab it and switch it with his own empty one while continuing to rant loudly in the French restaurant with his mouth full.
                                  “You see, that’s why I don’t like those bloody Chinese greasy spoons, especially after a surge. You never know what you’re goin’ to get. Me in’ haffin’ none of it sea bloody bottom-feeders cucumber…”

                                  Ernie was still looking a bit pale, except for the occasional patches of purple hematomata, that the doctor mentioned would disappear once the body manages to expel the impossible to digest slug.
                                  “Should have had that blessed surgery, would have been faster” he moaned.
                                  “Are you kiddin’? Look, don’t want to be gross or anythin’ but last time I had things expelled too fast, it wasn’t a pretty sight!”
                                  “Oh stop it again with your oily shit fish, that’s a blessin’ disgusting memory I would merrily forget!”.
                                  “L’addition!” Ernie had had enough of Jett’s snail munching. It was time to get to their next assignment. Even if the occupational medicine doctor had tried to deter him resuming work too quickly, it was better that than dragging around an empty house in flip-flops and pajamas.
                                  The good thing was that the Disaster Damage Team was never short of assignments. Most of the time they were working in locksteps with the Surge Team, clearing the aftershocks, so they didn’t have to fear about boredom.

                                  #895

                                  The woman’s voice raised softly in the dark, like a velvet caress, or the sound of a purring cat.

                                  Life was long before I met Georges. Not unbearable, but so long and lifeless. Days would pass, and nothing new would happen but the same matter the previous days were made of.
                                  Though I no longer align to these limitations, I was once human, born to Earth, as Georges was, in a not so distant past. Like most of my people, I was not feeling special. But my will was strong and my desire to survive too. I survived poverty, lust and violence. In the crucible of these emotions I’ve melted my fears, and it was there I found Georges too.

                                  A curtain raises in the dark. A palace in an exotic tropical place. Brunei? Al doesn’t know this place…
                                  A young dark haired woman in a small room, around sixteen, perhaps a bit less, disheveled. She looks wildly around her, her rags stained with dust and dirt.

                                  Enters a tall woman. She doesn’t seem local. British perhaps. She’s elegantly dressed, thin mouth, high cheekbones, apparently in charge. A maid follows her. She can speak the girl’s language.

                                  Where is my mother? Let me out of here! she starts to cry
                                  I’m afraid this is not possible, Salome. For your safety,…
                                  What do you care about my safety!
                                  For your safety, Salome, hear me, try to behave. The Sultan is not a man without a heart. He loves beautiful women, and that is what probably saved your neck, considering what all what your mother did wrong to him refusing to pay taxes and her obstinate and bare-faced smuggling. Listen Salome, this might save you, and might save your mother as well.

                                  The curtain falls on the scene, where Salome hopes to have found a friend of captivity with this woman.

                                  A few years later, still in the golden cage of the harem, occasionally asked to service the lustful and violent Sultan, I start to go explore the depths of my misery. My inner world was a safe sanctuary, a haven from the pit of hell where I was now living, after my childhood years of hard work in the forest. There, where no one was given the key to enter, I became aware of him. I first thought he was an imaginary friend, a messenger from the other world, greeting me to a sure death. But he was real. He started to talk to me. About what I could do, like him, be a Traveler, if I wanted to.

                                  The curtain raises again. Young Salome is lying on her straw mat, in a seeming delirium. She moans, whispers, weeps, laughs. No one in the harem seem to care any longer. She is probably possessed, but the Sultan still find her suitable, she can’t be touched.

                                  A roar can be heard in the palace. The big black-bearded Sultan Ojylam the Second, ogre look on his face, summons his guard.

                                  — Don’t worry Salome, the voice of Georges whispers in the dark. The Sultan is mad at Madame Chesterhope. She has just fled with his precious crystal skull, but he won’t find her. She’s a skilled Traveler too, as soon you will be dear Salome, once you have learnt my last tricks, and we soon will be united.
                                  — Why that stupid crystal skull?
                                  — Don’t worry about it… This one is the Birds Skull. It carries lots of information and magic in relation to the Birds Realm, but it should be the least of your concerns. We’ll find Madame Chesterhope even if she’s clever at hiding between dimensions. Only concern for you must be to get out of here.
                                  — The Sultan will know I told her about it… I should have known, he was so proud of this object, and so protective too… And she was so curious…
                                  — That’s why we must hurry now.

                                  And so we were united for the first time. Lots of other lives have occurred afterwards, different paths at times, but always we have found each other again. Eternally bound, in a most sacred bound…

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