A family secret - the shocking truth (Part 2)

©Courtesy of British Newspaper Archive

If you've read Part 1 of this distressing story you'll know that my 3x great-grandfather, Thomas Shelley, disgraced himself in 1856 by failing to protect his wife, Bessie, from the bullying and cruelty at the hands of their housekeeper, Martha Cotterill.

Martha Cotterill was found guilty as charged and fined £5, only avoiding a spell in the "house of correction" because Thomas paid her fine.

You would think that given the community outrage and the sheer embarrassment of being hauled up in front of the magistrates court, Thomas would have seen the error of his ways and dismissed Martha from his household forthwith.

But not a bit of it. Martha appears on both the 1861 and 1871 census still living with the Shelley family, no doubt because (as the evidence I've uncovered appears to confirm) Martha was more than a mere servant. As for poor Bessie, she was yet to suffer further trauma.

The immediate aftermath

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Firstly, there was the immediate aftermath of the court case.

Whether as a result of his clients' humiliation or through his own professional loss of face, the solicitor who'd represented Thomas and Martha wrote to the Staffordshire Advertiser, threatening to sue the journalist who'd written the report of the case for the newspaper, on the grounds it was a libellous misrepresentation of the facts.

The solicitor in question, Mr B. H. Smallwood, of Newport, Shropshire, alleged that the report was "grossly inaccurate" and that it contained serious omissions. The newspaper disputed this but Smallwood persisted in hounding the paper with letters of complaint.

Morally guilty

On 6th December 1856, the Staffordshire Advertiser decided to "go public" and published all the
correspondence between itself and Smallwood, followed by the newspaper's counter to the objections Smallwood had raised. It defended the so-called "omissions" on the grounds that including anything further would only have strengthened the case for the prosecution.

However, the editor did make the point that the magistrate who'd delivered the decision had said that, in the opinion of the bench, Thomas Shelley was morally guilty of participating in the offence and it was only because they had no legal proof of him having actually assaulted his wife, that they'd not convicted him as well as Martha Cotterill.

But Smallwood (clearly getting up a head of steam by now!) continued with his grievance.

Lost patience

Finally, on 20th December, the newspaper lost patience. It published a long ranting letter from Smallwood, dated 11th December, in which he nit-picked his way through both their comments in their own defence and on items of evidence presented at the hearing. He challenged the court on allowing Bessie to be called to give evidence, given the reporter had described her as having "rather feeble intellect". (If she was being bullied by Martha Cotterill to the extent alleged, I'm sure her state of mind could be explained by her terror at any repercussions she might suffer.) He also dismissed the reliability of one witness because he was a convicted felon (for poaching, apparently) and complained that the evidence of Bessie's daughter, Emma (my 2x great-grandmother) aged 15, stating her mother had "never complained" to her about Cotterill "ill-using" her, had been deliberately omitted from the newspaper report.

© courtesy of British Newspaper Archive

The newspaper followed this with an editorial, describing Smallwood's letter as being unreasonable in length and unjustifiable in manner. The editor also declared that he was no longer prepared to sacrifice any further column space on the subject. He admitted only to their original report being necessarily curtailed (as in, being a summary, as usual in such cases, rather than ad verbatim) but reiterating that any omissions were "quite as much against, as in favour of the defendants", despite Mr Smallwood "with all the cleverness of a shrewd member of his profession" endeavouring "to show the contrary."

Reading the detail, it's clear that Smallwood, as well as citing legal 'technicalities' (he states, for example that information presented was outside the allowed 6 month period from when the offence was committed), is peeved that a) his arguments presented at the hearing were disregarded by the magistrates, b) they over-ruled his legal objections and c) his closing speech was not published in the press. Perhaps he saw himself as a great orator with the skill to persuade all to his way of thinking, and that having presented himself as such to his clients and then promptly failing to deliver, he was desperate to redeem himself by calling "foul"!

Move away

I should imagine that life was somewhat uncomfortable for Thomas following the hearing and when Sutton Mill, Claverley, became vacant soon afterwards, in January 1857, he decided to move his family out of Shebdon and away from prying eyes (or possibly worse).

© courtesy of British Newspaper Archive

But sadly, as I mention above, Bessie was not able to put the past behind her and start afresh. Not only would Martha Cotterill move with them, remaining in the household for many years to come, but also life had yet further misery to inflict on poor Bessie.


To follow  - The truth about Martha and What became of Bessie. 

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A family secret - the shocking truth (Part 1)

The secrets revealed during our family history research are often fascinating, sometimes surprising and occasionally tragic. However what I stumbled upon while browsing the British Newspaper Archive recently can only be described as shocking.

We tend to regard our ancestors with a degree of benevolence, even those we discover on the criminal lists, we might try and justify their actions, that they stole the loaf of bread to feed their hungry family, for instance. But I'm not about to make any excuses for the behaviour of my 3x Great-grandfather Thomas Shelley!

The 1851 census finds Thomas living with his wife, Bessey (nee Holland) and their six children - Emma, my great-great grandmother, aged 9, William 7, Mary Ann 6, Martha 5, Eliza 3 and Joannah 1 - along with Thomas's mother, 54 year old Phoebe in the small hamlet of Doley, Adbaston, Staffordshire. Thomas is listed as a farmer with 45 acres and has one live-in servant, John Lee.

Dirty Linen

But 5 years later would see the family's dirty linen washed in public as Thomas Shelley, then living in Shebdon, was brought before magistrates at a

The Royal Oak , Eccleshall, where magistrates sat
(geograph.org.uk © David Weston)

hearing held in The Royal Oak, Eccleshall, on 31st October 1856, accused of "Cruelty and Assault" to his wife Elizabeth Shelley,  along with co-defendant, Martha Cotterill, his housekeeper.

The details of the case were reported in weekly newspaper The Staffordshire Advertiser on 8th November 1856 (and at least two other local papers) under the heading, UNNATURAL AND CRUEL TREATMENT.

A Younger Woman

According to the evidence put before the magistrates, Martha Cotterill had been engaged as a housekeeper about 4 years previously. Ten years younger than Bessey, and in her early thirties, it seems that Thomas became smitten with the younger woman.

Whether he'd engaged her and then fallen for her charms afterwards, or whether he'd known her beforehand, is hard to know for sure, though events might suggest the latter. It transpires that not only did Martha Cotterill move in assuming the role of mistress of the house, rather than servant, but she subjected Mrs Shelley to "the most disgusting treatment and on one occasion Cotterill had struck her on the head with a knife, causing the blood to flow profusely."

Further accusations included kicking, thrusting a mop soaked with horse manure into Mrs Shelley's face, threatening her with a stick, pulling her into the house by her hair, pushing excrement from a chamber pot into her mouth and "inflicting severe pain on some of the most sensitive parts of the body with a bunch of nettles."

Report of trial in Birmingham Gazette
(courtesy of British Newspaper Archive)

Witnesses

A former servant at the farm, James Turner, corroborated Mrs Shelley's statement, saying he had brought the cruelty to the attention of Mr Shelley who had merely laughed and told him if he didn't like it, he could leave. Another servant, Thomas Davis, had heard Cotterill threaten to "knock the complainant's brains out" and that he'd seen Mrs Shelley locked up several times and was never allowed to eat her meals with the family. He also said that Mr Shelley had told him that Cotterill was mistress of the house.

The case, it seems, had so appalled the local community that on the day of the hearing, both defendants had been followed up and down the street by an angry crowd of between 200 and 300 people, shouting and pelting them with rubbish.

After the evidence had been given, the court was cleared for the magistrates to consider their decision. They declared that no case of assault had been proved against Thomas Shelley but that Martha Cotterill was guilty of common assault and fined £5.

Angry Crowd

The waiting crowd were outraged at the verdict, considering it to be a far too lenient. I suspect they were even more incensed when Thomas paid Cotterill's fine to prevent her being sent to the house of correction. It's probably not surprising therefore, that the newspaper reported the crowd had "followed the defendants two miles out of the town, sainting them with no very complimentary epithets." I'll bet they did! One newspaper noted that the defendants had had to be escorted back to Shebdon by a "strong body of police."

No Remorse

It would be nice to report that following such a public condemnation of his behaviour, Thomas Shelley was shamed into treating his wife with a little more respect. But sadly, the evidence suggests otherwise. While I've uncovered no further clashes with the law (on this particular matter, anyway - the other is a different story altogether), it's obvious from what follows that Thomas, no doubt blinded by his infatuation for his housekeeper, considered he'd been treated unjustly.

And as for Martha Cotterill... you'll have read Part 2 to find out more.

Panto time!

As I have mentioned before in a previous post (see Strictly Music Hall) my grandmother, Winifred Griffiths was a professional singer. Her talent as a soprano was spotted at a young age and she toured with the Carl Rosa Opera Company.

But after a few years, she left opera behind to follow a different career path, performing in variety acts at repertory theatres all over the country, including pantomimes.

Here she is as the Fairy Queen, both panto and date unknown.










She appears in the photograph below in a production of Babes in the Wood, performed at the Hippodrome in Birkenhead in 1927. (I have another newspaper cutting of an almost identical curtain-call scene from the same year, but this time in Belfast.)

Babes in the Wood, Birkenhead Hippodrome, 1927

But I could do with your help here. The column accompanying the photograph reads, "Another gifted singer is Miss Winifred Griffiths, who makes a demure Maid Marion."  Maid Marion? Call me a traditionalist, but there looks to be way too many flashy head-dresses and posh frocks amongst the outfits for her to be dressed in a modest shift and wimple, as one might expect, so I have no idea which one is her! Any suggestions as to a likely Maid Marion?

Having recently subscribed to The British Newspaper Archive I've been on the search for mentions of Wyn (as she was generally known) in the press so I was delighted to find a review of her performance playing the squire's daughter in Little Red Riding Hood at The Hippodrome, Preston in 1931., "a decided asset to the musical side".

In a report in the entertainment industry's The Era, during the same panto season, she's described as "lovable and sweet".

I also found mention of my grandfather, Herbert Henry Coules Colley, in his guise as "theatrical artiste" under his stage name, Ken Barton. (I wonder whether she called him Bert or Ken?)

Ken's speciality was comedy and regularly played the part of the pantomime dame.

In a clipping my gran had cut out of the Dorset Echo, in 1931, his appearance in Little Red Riding Hood in Weymouth earned the comment, "...no one in the company could have been better chosen to impersonate Granny Matilda than Ken Barton, whose clever make-up deceived a good many."

But, as usual, I'm left with a mystery. According to The Sunderland Echo and Shipping Gazette, Wyn is quoted as saying that she had once been the principle soprano with another opera company in additional to Carl Rosa, alleging that she played in The Bohemian Girl with the O'Mara Company, which I understand was a well-known Irish Opera Company. (Ironically they were running an advertisement in the very paper in which I read Wyn's interview.)

Courtesy of British Newspaper Archives

Her stay at Carl Rosa was legendary in the family but I don't remember her or anyone ever mentioning the O'Mara company before. Why would that be?

Either I've just discovered something new about my grandmother's career or... it's a case of not believing everything you read in the papers!

So, as ever, there's more research to do to establish the true facts...





Finally, a big thanks to all of you who have dropped in on my blog during the year and added your comments. I look forward to welcoming you again in 2016. Until then...

Have a very  

Merry Christmas 

and

 Happy New Year. 

Mystery and scandal

I was intrigued a few months ago when I came across the probate record of Thomas Banner Viner,
the brother of my husband's great-grandmother, who died in 1941 aged 67. Thomas, it seemed, had left all his worldly goods to a spinster called May (surname omitted to protect the innocent!), who was 20 years his junior.

The mystery deepened when I realised his wife Alice was still very much alive, as were his two sons, Harold and Cecil, and his three daughters, Gladys, Doris and Mabel. So was this a case of cherchez la femme? 

St Mary Abbot's Hospital

His death certificate revealed that he'd died in St Mary Abbots Hospital on 19th November 1941, of stomach cancer and "senility."






His address is recorded as 39a Paddington Street, Marylebone, the same address as the informant, who was none other than his lady friend May. The entry beside her name reads, causing the body to be buried. 

Opinions on the meaning of this phrase vary but the usual interpretation is that the deceased has no close family members to arrange the funeral. But as we know, Thomas did have family, which suggests that at the time of his death they were estranged.

I sent for a copy of Thomas's will. It was dated the year before his death and I was puzzled to read the opening paragraph which said, "This is the last Will of Mr Thomas Banner Viner, the husband of Alice Viner..."  It seems bizarre to highlight that he was married to Alice and then promptly declare everything is to go to May! Was he trying to make a point? Was it Alice who had rejected him? I can't quite decipher the actual wording but there's no question of his intentions. Dear Alice doesn't get a look-in.

Doris's marriage certificate showing Thomas's signature
(courtesy of Surrey History Centre)

Browsing through the records of his family, it appears that there was no rift at the time of his
daughter Doris's marriage to Thomas Newnham, in 1934, as the register clearly shows Thomas's signature.

Thomas had strong ties with Marylebone, where he'd apparently lived with May, as he'd been baptised in St Mary's church in 1874. He'd married Alice at St Luke's church and all his children had been born in Paddington.

In later years, however, he'd moved away from this area of London, appearing on the electoral register as living in Harrow along with Alice, as late as 1938. So whatever happened between them must have occurred in those two years between 1938 and writing his will in 1940.

Whether of any relevance or not, it's interesting to note that his elder son, Cecil, emigrated to Australia in January of 1941.

Not a photo of May but
an example of a fox fur.
(I recall my Gran having one.)

Not one to resist a good mystery, I was keen to know more, so I contacted May's family through Ancestry and asked if they knew of any link between her and Thomas Viner.

I had a friendly email from one of her descendants in New Zealand who promised to ask his 90 year old cousin, the only member of the family still living who he thought might remember May well.

And remember her she did, recalling that May was a kind and generous lady who never forgot Christmas and birthdays. My contact's own vague recollections were also confirmed - that May was a large lady who wore fox furs over her shoulders, the sort with a snap-clasp in the fox's mouth which closed over the tail (see photo left of something similar)!

As for her relationship with Thomas Viner, the old lady said that May had "man-friends with whom she lived at different times" and this was frowned upon by certain members of in the family, some even refusing to allow her in the house!

It was known that May had received an inheritance from one of her men-friends and was thought to have been the "other woman" in the case. She used the money to buy herself a house in Wembley where she lived with another gentleman, her final "man-friend" called Basil. He wasn't liked by the family and it seems they might have had a point, as after May died he cleared out the house and promptly disappeared. Perhaps he already knew that May had not remembered him in her will but had left her estate to her brother.

As for why Thomas turned to May for his home comforts, I guess we'll never know, but it's an intriguing story nonetheless and it's been brilliant being able to find out as much as I have.

And it's certainly inspired my mystery writer's brain - I wouldn't be at all surprised if something of a similar nature finds its way into the plot of Esme's next story (wink, wink)!

Top of my mystery list

While I'm deeply immersed in mysteries of the fictional kind, as I beaver away writing the next Esme Quentin novel, I'm stacking up a few real mysteries of a family history nature which I plan to investigate once this first draft is in the bag.

I'm sure this young woman has a tale to tell. I can see by the initials on her epaulettes that she was a member of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps in World War I. I know her name is Nora from the signature in the corner but there after it gets tricky.

The notes accompanying the photo say she was the daughter of Hilary and Alice Griffiths but according to the records I have, their daughter was called Edna and was born in 1910, making her only 8 years old when this photo was taken. So, some significant detective work required there before I even start!








Another mystery on my long term hit list is that of my great aunt, Mary Ann Diggory or Annie, as she was called.

Annie walked out of the family home in 1904 when she was only 16 (shortly after the photograph on the right was taken).

No one heard from her again. Until, in her 90s, shortly before she died, she contacted her younger sister Edith, my grandmother.

I know Annie became a nurse and that she trained at Redhill hospital in Surrey before returning closer to home and living in Shrewsbury. But what was she up to in the intervening years?




The flamboyant Herbert Henry Coules Colley, my grandfather, born in 1871, known by his stage name as Ken Barton, has always been something of an enigma.

According to family lore, he joined Robson's Theatrical Company and travelled to South Africa. The story goes that he became ill and had to stay behind in Johannesburg when the company went on tour. He ended up, as naturally you might if you were a theatrical artiste and performer, as... an officer in a private mounted police force! Really? Now that's something I must get to the bottom of!

image courtesy of en.wikipedia.org

And finally, having written about the Purle family (see Purles of Wisdom, Part 1) and their association with toxophily (i.e. archery), I was contacted by a present day manufacturer of archery equipment who, as an admirer of Harry Purle, the subject of my second post on the Purles (see Searching for Harry), had engaged a genealogist to research the family.

It seems that the name Purle may well be derived from the Purlewents, a well-to-do Somerset family prominent in the 17th century.

A quick check on Somerset's County Records catalogue threw up some interesting hits, so a trip to Taunton for a dig around in the archives looks to be the next stage of that particular journey.


But all that's for another time. For now, I must get back to my fictional secrets and writing the next Esme mystery!

Wedding Photo Quiz

With a family wedding earlier this month, it seemed a good time to dig around in our own archives and look at some of the old wedding photos we're lucky enough to have.

1. The first couple to star are my husband's grandparents, Albert Joseph Saunders, born in 1884 in London and Caroline Matilda Long, born in 1885.

Caroline was born and grew up in the beautiful historic village of Lavenham in Suffolk.  They were married in... well, perhaps you can guess? Answers on a postcard.. no, just joking. Answer is at the bottom of the page.

 Albert was a cabinet maker and made a lot of their furniture, mainly in mahogany. His apprentice piece was a small stool with a drawer in it and remains in the family.

2. I love this next photograph! It's of my own grandparents, Ernest George Shelley, known as George, and Edith Alice Diggory. George was born in Claverley in Shropshire in 1897, and Edith a year later, in 1898. She was grew up in the lodge house of Park Hall, Sedgeley, Staffordshire, where her father worked as a groom. Her brother, Thomas, worked in the house as a footman before the First World War. Park Hall is now a hotel. Love the hats, don't you?



3. Couple number three are my great uncle George Diggory and his bride Ethel Price. George was a twin. He and his sister Hannah were born in 1896, in the same lodge house as my grandmother.
















4. Moving on now, with my husband's parents, Dennis Percival and Eunice Irene Saunders, both born in 1914.

Dennis was a school teacher and a physicist. He built the family's first TV in his garden shed so that they and the neighbours could watch the Queen's coronation in 1953.

5. And then there's my parents, John Shelley and Patricia Barton, bless 'em, a decade or so later.










6. And finally, another of those mystery weddings. It's a picture from that bundle I mention in The Mystery of 138 photographs. I believe it's that of Mabel Maud Talbot and John Herniman Ben Mowels,  a conclusion arrived at due to a note on a scrap of paper I found in the same pouch as the photograph.

Interestingly, having studied it (with a magnifying glass - it's quite small) I think I can see Mabel's sister Nellie (Helena) peering out from behind the groom, wearing her signature Alice band. What do you think?

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Dates to photos - were you right?

1. 1913 2. 1921 3. 1921 4. 1940 5. 1956 6. 1918

Anniversary favourites

This month is the second anniversary of my Family History Secrets blog so I thought I'd celebrate by choosing three of my favourite posts from the last two years.



The first of my choices concerns my husband's grandfather, Alfred Joseph Saunders. Alfred died before my husband was born, at the relatively young age of 45. Compiling the post was like putting together a jigsaw without the box lid and I can recall the shock I felt when all the pieces were in place and the emotional story hit home.

Many of jigsaw pieces were in the form of postcards Alfred had written to his daughter during  and just after World War I and reading them brought a lump to my throat.

Read Alfred's poignant story HERE.







My second choice is the post entitled The Mystery of 138 photographs.

I love old photographs and this bundle was intriguing. I found them in a bulging leatherette pouch and at first glance I didn't think I knew anything about any of them.

When I wrote the post, for instance, I had no idea of the identity of the lady who appeared in several of the pictures but with a little detective work and while on the search for another elusive ancestor, I discovered who she was.

You can read the original post by clicking on the title above and find out who Nellie was by clicking HERE.

And finally, after watching BBC's Countryfile programme the other week about the Welsh sea-side town of Llandudno, I was reminded of another post I'd written about my grandmother, Winifred Griffiths.

Wyn was a professional singer and often performed in Llandudno's famous Happy Valley on the Great Orme during the 1930s.



Read more about her singing career from being discovered as a teenager, touring with a well known opera company and her time in Llandudno, on my post Strictly Music Hall.


I look forward to many more years of sharing the secrets I uncover about my family history and hope that you enjoy reading about them too.