A brush with death

With 2015 being 70 years since the end of the Second World War, this month sees a particularly poignant anniversary - that of the last Nazi bomb attack responsible for civilian deaths. On 27th March 1945 a V2 rocket (the world's first guided ballistic missile) hit London's East End, killing 135 people, the second worst V2 strike on London, in terms of lives lost. One final V2 would fall later that day in Orpington, Kent killing one person.

London, of course, had already suffered the horrifying effects of mass incendiary bombs at the start of the infamous 'Blitz' (a word derived from the German for 'lightning war') and many other British cities would be targeted, including Coventry, a city not so far from Wednesfield, near Wolverhampton where my mother lived with her family during the war.

The devastation in Coventry in 1940

Although bombing raids on Wolverhampton were nowhere as frequent as in Coventry and Birmingham, the risk was considered great enough to install anti-aircraft guns on the edge of the city after the horrific and infamous attack on Coventry in November 1940, and provision had already been made for air-raid shelters.

My mum used to talk about the warning sirens and the drills at school, diving under their desks and the carrying of gas masks. Under the family's house in Wednesfield was a cellar – a small, damp and dingy space at the bottom of a flight of brick steps which ran underneath the stairs – which served as their own air-raid shelter. But on the day disaster struck, no one was using it.

Why Mum and the family were not in the cellar at the time isn't clear. As Wolverhampton appeared

My mum (right) and her sister

not to be a target in the same way as neighbouring cities, perhaps the adults had become jaded about disrupting their sleep to sit in a cold hole in the ground for no apparent benefit.

But whatever the reason, at some point in the evening, with Mum fast asleep in bed and the adults still downstairs, the house took a hit from a rogue incendiary bomb.

My grandmother, Wyn, rushed upstairs into my mum's bedroom which was at the back of the house above the living room. The bomb had come through the roof and landed at the bottom of Mum's bed, setting the floor alight. Having pulled Mum out of bed, Gran dragged the heavy feather mattress on to the burning floor-boards to smother the flames before scooping Mum up and carrying her downstairs.



Mum's wartime ID card

The fire would eventually burn its way through to the ground floor and land on the piano below but not before Gran was able to bustle Mum into the kitchen at the end of a corridor to the rear of the house. She dumped her on a chair and wrapped her in the old mac used for visiting the outside privy in the rain.

By now Mum could hear shouting as help arrived and very quickly the fire was extinguished before it could take hold, aided, no doubt, by Gran's quick thinking with the feather bed. Another house in the street had been similarly attacked and the assumption was that a German bomber had jettisoned what was left of its load as it headed for home.

As children, my sister and I loved to hear this story, particularly when visiting my Gran's house, as the heart-shaped repair in the plaster where the bomb had come through the ceiling was still clearly visible.

Mum said that the overwhelming memory of that night was shivering at the unwelcome chill of the cold mac Gran had draped around her to keep her warm, as she sat in the kitchen in her nightdress. But I'm sure, rather than the mac, it was the shock of the incident which caused her to shiver!

 

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An excellent and detailed account can be found of Coventry's blitz (including other aspects of the city's history) on the Historic Coventry website.

Images of the London Blitz,  "Germany's Campaign of Terror over London", can be viewed on the All Day.com website.

 

 

 

Unravelling who's who - the groom

OK, blog readers. You're going to work for your supper this time. I need some help here!

 

This year I set myself the challenge of working out who's who in this wonderful wedding photograph. The likelihood of identifying everyone pictured is extremely remote, of course, but it would be lovely to put some names to faces, at least. I have a few notes, albeit rather vague ones, plus a few other photographs, to get me started.

 

So... first off - the groom.

 

Underneath a photocopy of the picture, my late aunt had written,

"Groom and Bride 

Arthur & Lillian

or John & Lizzie. (It looks very much like John)"

The 'John' to whom she refers is her grandfather, my great-grandfather, John Griffiths, or Jack as he was more often known, born in 1861. Arthur, born 1872, was her great uncle, John's youngest
brother - sons of Jabez and Mary Ann Griffiths (nee Dukes).

Clue One: Comparing faces.

Here are Jack and Arthur photographed together (date unknown). Jack is seated.

Brothers John and Arthur Griffiths

The close-ups:

John (Jack), from photo above                                     - the groom -                                           Arthur, from photo above

 Mmmm. Looking at this evidence, the groom looks much more like John than Arthur.

Clue Two: The wedding date.

 

John married Sarah Eliza "Lizzie" Baugh in 1894. Arthur married Lillian Clay in 1903.

 

According to Jayne Shrimpton's excellent book How to Get the Most from Family Pictures, a white tie or bow tie became the norm for men at weddings and other formal occasions during the 1890s, as can be seen in this photograph.

 

For women, elaborate lace and frills on bodices were becoming popular, as were increasingly decorative hats with flowers, ribbons and feathers, along with ever wider brims.

 

On the other hand, the trend for vast hats continued into the next decade and, to quote Jayne, "Bridal styles in fact varied widely during the early 1900s", and having studied the examples in her book and on the internet, it's clear that wedding fashions merge during this period, making it harder to differentiate. Even the clothes of the elder ladies give no real clue as they would be more suited to wearing styles from their own era and men's conventions continue much the same as before.

 

 

So if the fashions of the wedding guests can't help, I would have to return to the photographs and conclude that the marriage is of John Griffiths and Sarah Eliza Baugh.

 

 

However, there's one small fly in the ointment. Why did my aunt limit her suppositions to only two possibilities? All in all, Jabez and Mary Ann Griffiths had seven sons. For all I know, it could be any of them!

 

 

So, dear readers, what do you make of it? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

 

Meanwhile, I'd better get back on the case. Perhaps the other brothers never married...

 

 

 

 

 

Mystery children and missing siblings

The headstone of Thomas Shelley (d.1881) and
his wife Bessey (d.1877) in Claverley churchyard.

This week I've been tracking the wayward offspring of my 3x great-grandparents Thomas and Bessey Shelley, who lived in Staffordshire and Shropshire.

Thomas and Bessey (nee Holland) married in 1840 and in the 1841 census, were living in Cheswadine, Shropshire along with Thomas's widowed mother, Phoebe.

By 1851, they're residing in Adbaston in Staffordshire and have a sizable family -

Emma, aged 9 (my great-great grandmother)
William, aged 7
Mary Ann, aged 6
Eliza, aged 5
Martha, aged 3
and Joanna, aged 1

 

Move on 10 years and the family is scattered. Emma is servant at a farm near Market Drayton, Thomas appears to be working away from home (on census night, at least) as a farm bailiff and Bessey is on her own with Eliza in Church Aston, Shropshire. I'm uncertain about William's whereabouts - it's possible he could be working as an apprentice. But I could find no census record for Martha, Joanna or Mary Ann.

It's common knowledge that childhood in Victorian England was a precarious existence so I checked the death registers and sadly, found both Joanna, who died aged 6 in 1858 and Mary Ann who died in 1860, aged 15. There's also the death of a William Shelley listed in 1859 but as there are several William Shelleys, without further information, I don't know yet if he's Thomas and Bessey's son.

But at least, Martha is alive and well, as she pops up again on the 1871 census back home with her parents in Claverley, Shropshire. Although she gives her surname as Shelley, she'd actually married Charles Dawber in 1868 and has her daughter with her (10 month old Rosa Vida Dawber) who is listed as grand-daughter to Thomas, head of the family.

Also back in the fold is Emma, along with her illegitimate son, my great-grandfather George, aged 1, and there are two new additions to the family, Mary J C, aged 9, and grand-daughter, Agnes, aged 5. But who are Agnes's parents? There's no sign of Eliza, though she may be working away from home. (An Eliza Shelley of the correct age is listed as a servant in a village called Moseley near Brewood, Staffordshire but no place of birth is recorded for her to cross reference.)

 

By 1881, Emma has left home to marry George Wenlock, leaving little George behind with her parents, presumably because Mr Wenlock is not prepared to take on a son who is not his own. But by 1881 Thomas is now a widower, as Bessey died in 1877, the year after Emma got married.

George, aged 11, and Agnes, now 15 are listed, not as grandchildren though, but as son and daughter to Thomas. And another daughter is now back in residence - Eliza - presumably returned to help look after the family following her mother's death. Mary J C, who would now be 19, does not appear. Perhaps she married, though I haven't located her yet.

As I discovered a few months ago (see blog post Out of the woodwork and on to the tree), Emma had another illegitimate son called Charles, born in 1873, who was adopted by a local family. And it transpires that she was not the only sister to have a child out of wedlock, as Agnes's birth certificate shows that her mother was the unmarried Martha Shelley. No father is recorded.

Like George Wenlock, it seems Charles Dawber was not prepared to take on another man's daughter and Martha has no option but to leave Agnes in the care of her parents when she married.

If the William listed in the death records was Thomas and Bessey's son, it would mean that Thomas and Bessey lost a child on three consecutive years. Even if it wasn't, losing Joanna and then Mary Ann, would be traumatic enough. Did their loss influence their decision to take on the illegitimate offspring of their daughters? Or did they do so simply out of a sense of duty?

I'm not yet clear as to the parentage of Mary "J C". Although she's recorded as a daughter in the 1881 census, Bessey would have been 46 when she was born. While that's perfectly feasible, I do wonder, given that the 1881 census records George and Agnes as son and daughter when we know they weren't, whether Mary J C's mother wasn't Bessey at all. And if not, who was she?

I can see I've got more digging to do before this muddle is unravelled!

 

 

 



A poignant Christmas list

 

Merry Christmas 1948

 

  

According to the small pocket diary my mum kept in 1948, when she was 13 years old, her Christmas presents were a handbag, a film book, a pair of fur gloves, a paint box, the novel 'Little Women', six hankies and two brooches.

(Most 13 year olds these days would be baffled as to why receiving six paper tissues constituted a Christmas present!)

The paint box in the list reminds me of a story Mum told of when she entered a painting competition (perhaps using this very box of paints). Having carefully completed her work of art, she was mortified when she knocked over the water pot and it flooded the picture. One of the adults came to her rescue (she lived with her mother, grandparents and an aunt) and managed to mop up the worst, creating an interesting effect across the sky. When she won the competition, she was convinced the disastrous flood had actually improved the painting!

It was no surprise to see 'film book' on the list. Mum was an avid cinema goer. Her diary is littered with names of the films she'd been to see. Sometimes with a comment added, other times with no indication as to whether she'd enjoyed it or not. For Great Expectations, though, which she'd seen earlier that year, she's shared her thoughts. Very frightening, she'd written. Not keen. I know which bit frightened her as she told me about it years later - it was when the convict emerged from behind a gravestone in the churchyard, grabbed young Pip and demanded food, having escaped from one of the rotting hulks moored in the Thames, waiting to be transported to Australia.

Mum's father, Herbert Colley, or Kendal Barton as he was more commonly known (his stage name), was a theatre actor. He often played the part of The Dame during the panto season.

My aunt, Mum's elder sister, recalled him making a puppet theatre for the girls from a box on its side, with cut-out characters glued on to long strips of cardboard. These characters would enter 'stage right' and 'stage left' by sliding them through a gap in the box sides to play out a panto story to an invited audience.

It was something that, in turn, my mum did with my sister and I, and we would spend hours making the theatre and the players associated with whatever pantomime we'd chosen to enact. As I recall, the joy was as much in the making as the performance.


Whatever your Christmas presents contain this year, and whether or not you'll be enjoying a pantomime, either visited or created, do have a very

Happy Christmas

 

and a successful 2015 in your family history searching.


I look forward to sharing more of my stories with you in the coming year.

 

More questions than answers

My grandfather, (Ernest) George Shelley

With Armistice Day upon us, it seemed appropriate to dig out the bundle of my grandfather's WW1 service records. As most WW1 service records were lost in bombings during WW2, I know I'm fortunate in having what documents and photographs that I do.

Soldier's little brown Pay Book

One of the most treasured items is his original Soldiers' Service and Pay Book. A small brown notebook with a hard cover, it has a pocket in the back in which I found various slips of paper relating to demob clothes, ID certificates and pay allowances. In the front of the book is his name (Ernest George Shelley, always known as George), his trade (blacksmiths striker) and his unit (Sherwood Foresters).





I also have several group photographs of him with his unit, including this of him and colleagues in full uniform...

Granddad is standing on the far right

 ...and in shirt sleeves with bayonetted rifles on display...

Seated, far right, middle row.

... as well as portraits of him in uniform, seated as well as standing.

I also have a collection of postcards my granddad had written home. They were all dated 1918 and postmarked Newcastle upon Tyne. Some were addressed to his mother and others to my grandmother (they weren't yet married and didn't do so until 1921). Many show views of Whitley Bay but others depict a place called Backworth.

In his correspondence he talks of receiving (or more often, not receiving!) letters or parcels and says he'll learn more soon about where he is to be sent.

But having imagined that with all this information it would be easy to piece together his role in the war, I realised on closer inspection that what was there only told a patchy story.

First of all I noticed in his service book that the date of enlistment was given as April 1918. Surely he'd joined up before then? Yes, he had. A ragged postcard, dated 11^th December 1915, stated that he'd been 'attested' (enlisted) and transferred to the army reserve until required for service. So what had happened then? And why hadn't it been recorded  in his service book?

As I studied the photographs of my granddad in uniform, I realised that the cap badges weren't all the same. I scoured through the remaining paperwork and discovered his demob certificate, which confirmed that while he had indeed been in the 1^st Battalion Notts and Derby regiment (also known as the Sherwood Foresters) when he'd originally joined up, he'd been in the South Staffordshire regiment.

Now this is where it gets complicated. According to the Staffordshire Regiment's website, the South Staffs had only two battalions, 1st and 2nd. But on further investigation, it seems there was a plethora of other battalions within the regular army, plus the territorials and the 'new armies', as well as other service, reserve and labour battalions.

The 3rd (reserve) ended up in November 1916 in Forest Hall, Newcastle - the post mark on my granddad's postcards - and at least one battalion of The Sherwood Foresters also ended up in Newcastle. Did he transfer there? Were the regiments merged? As I'm no aficionado on the British Army and its structure, I suspect it will take me while to unravel the implications of this confusing information!

However I can leave you with one final snippet of intrigue.

When I returned to my granddad's service book, I noticed the name 'Boesinghe' (a village north of Ypes where battles had taken place earlier in the war) and the words '284 P.O.W. Company'. This suggested to me that my granddad could have been guarding prisoners of war.

However when I posted a photograph of him (with his service details) on the Postcard Photos of the Notts & Derbyshire Regiment's Facebook Page  a kind contributor confirmed the 284 P.O.W. Company information I'd read in his records, but added that my granddad was in 'B' company and would have been posted to Abancourt, France.

A browse on the internet suggests that Abancourt did have a prison, but that it was a military prison, holding soldiers charged with insubordination, mutiny and desertion - which would include those poor unfortunates awaiting execution for "cowardice".

Was this where my grandfather was posted? I think I need the assistance of a military expert! 

My search for information continues...

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If you'd like to research your own WW1 ancestors, a good place to start is the Tracing World War 1 Family History page of The Great War 1914-1918 website, www.greatwar.co.uk, which lists the places where you might find the information you need (nothwithstanding that large gap in records I mention at the start of this post).

The National Archives also has information on the relevant records it holds on its WW1 page.

If you have ancestors who were in The Sherwood Foresters, you might like  also to check out the Postcard Photos of the Notts & Derbyshire Regiment's Facebook Page.

The BBC have set up an interactive page 'I wonder about WW1' taking you through various routes to uncover information about your WW1 ancestor.

The Lace Lady Mystery Solved

Mrs. Percival

Those who have read my blog before may recall  my stumbling upon a photograph of a Mrs Percival, taken in the 1950s, making Coggeshall lace. The post told the story of Coggeshall lace and can be read here.

But who was she? And was she a relation of my husband's?

I enquired at the museum at Coggeshall and received an enthusiastic reply but after browsing all through their information there was little more they could add. As I was busy with other projects at the time, the query was shelved, until I mentioned it to "Percival Family Expert" John Priestly (with whom my husband shares a twice great grandfather), who recalled seeing the photograph himself when he visited another of the Percival clan, Evelyn Beard, nee Percival.

Evelyn (sadly no longer with us) told him more about lace-making in the district as her grandmother, Emma Percival (nee Mann) was also a lace maker, as was her aunt Rosa.

The custom was for the lace makers in nearby Great Tey to deliver their finished work to a Miss Surridge in Coggeshall. The job was given to a boy in the family and Evelyn knew that when her father, Albert, was a lad he had the job of taking the lace to Coggeshall on Saturday mornings. It was a walk of about three miles there, and three back and he earned a small fee which he used to buy himself a custard tart for the journey home.

Evelyn presumed that he wasn't alone in this task, that there would be a small army of boys also making the journey delivering lace on behalf of their respective families. John (perhaps thinking back to his own days as a small boy!) speculated, "A party of small boys in a remote country lane must have found a few adventures as they progressed, but we can imagine that dropping the precious cargo in the mud was something they dared not risk and any skylarking was confined to the return journey!"

Coggshall lace

Evelyn said that her "Aunt Rose" (Rosa Louisa Thorp, nee Percival) was particularly skilled in her craft and it's said in family circles that some articles she made ended up in royal households. She even won an award for her work as far away as Belgium, though was unable to go and receive it until after the end of WW1.

As far as our mystery lady goes, Evelyn identified her as Mrs "Percy" Percival, who lived in Chappel Road, in Great Tey and she assumed there must be a family connection. However, the records list several Percy Percivals, so there's some sifting to do yet before our mystery is completely solved.

But, as I mentioned in my previous post, there's another family connection here, not necessarily with Mrs Percy Percival, the lace lady, although that's quite feasible, but with Evelyn herself and my previous post.

As I said above, Evelyn's father was Albert Percival, born in Great Tey in 1880, the son of Walter and grandson of Alfred, who was born around 1830.

 Alfred was the elder son of Hannah Rayner and our old friend, the transported convict Moses Percival, making Evelyn Moses' great-great granddaughter!

John didn't reveal whether the old lady had any qualms about being related to a convicted felon...

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If you have relatives in the Coggeshall area, there's a wealth of information and some useful links to other family history sources on the Coggeshall Museum website.

Happy hunting!

Convict mystery - the full story

My second Esme Quentin novel, The Indelible Stain, published on 26th September, was inspired by reading an article about researching convict ancestry.

The Indelible Stain

So it seemed appropriate in this post to write about the Percival black sheep and transported felon, to whom I dedicated the book - Moses Percival.

I am indebted to John Priestley, with whom my husband shares a great-great-grandfather, William Percival, as it was he who passed on Moses’ story. William's father James was Moses' elder brother.

Moses’ story starts ordinarily enough. He was born in 1802 in Great Tey, Essex, to parents Edward and Susannah Percival, one of 13 children. He started at the village school at the age of six, learning at least to  write his name, for in 1826 when he married Hannah Rayner he was able to sign the register.

Moses was recorded as being a ploughman and likely came from a family of agricultural workers. By 1831 he and Hannah had baptized three children and it was at this point that Moses disappeared from the parish records. When Hannah remarried in 1844, the assumption was that Moses had died, though there was no record of his burial.

It wasn't until some time later we discovered the truth, that in 1831, Moses was convicted of the theft of a sack of barley. The Chelmsford assizes records of 7^th March make particular note of his crime as being the theft of barley… and a sack. Perhaps, I mused, if he’d have brought his own sack along to steal the grain the punishment wouldn’t have been so harsh!

However it turns out that, according to the records in Kew, that the sack had been stolen on a separate occasion, after the barley! So, it being a 'second offence', may explain why Moses was sentenced to fourteen years exile to Van Diemans Land, present day Tasmania.

image courtesy of Ancestry.com

 

Moses spent the first three months of his sentence on board the hulk ship, Cumberland before being shipped across the world on 11^th June on the convict ship the Larkins, arriving in Hobart on 19^th October.



An example of a 'hulk' ship
image courtesy of en.wikipedia.org

His description is recorded (for identification purposes, should he abscond) as 5ft 5½ inches tall, brown complexion (possibly tanned from sailing through the tropics on the voyage), small head, brown hair and eyes, small whiskers, a large mouth, thick lips, a long chin and a mole on his cheek.



The book in which Moses' description is recorded
image courtesy of Archive Office of Tasmania

Unless convicted of a violent crime, most convicts were put to work rather than being incarcerated and Moses is recorded as working for Mr Andrew Tolnie or Tolmey. He was granted a free pardon on 31^st May 1838, having served only half of his sentence. No doubt his willingness to work hard, coupled with good behaviour were contributory factors in his early release.

Moses continued in the employ of Mr Tolmey after his pardon, as a horseman. His name appears in The Hobart Town Courier newspaper later that year, announcing his rounding up of stray cattle at the public pound in a place called Jerusalem and declaring they would be sold by him if not claimed by their owners.

Business was going well and soon Moses had made enough money to buy 50 acres of land and a quantity of stock.

But sadly, he had little time to enjoy his freedom, as a few months later in early 1839, he was injured when a tree fell on him and crushed his leg. The leg became gangrenous and he died.

Mr Tolmey, clearly an honest man and, it would seem, aware of Moses' family back in England, wrote to Moses' wife Hannah to tell her not only of the death of her husband, but to inform her that she'd inherited the value of the land Moses had bought, worth between £200 and £300. Quite a considerable sum at that time to someone of her modest means.

I wonder whether, had Moses lived, the family planned to join him for a new life in Van Diemans Land. I guess we'll never know.

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There’s a postscript to this story which links neatly with the photograph of the "Mystery Mrs Percival", photographed making Coggeshall lace in the 1950s, the subject of an earlier post. But more on that next time.

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A useful starting point for researching your own convict ancestors, including those transported to America as well as Australia, is The National Archives website  where you can read various helpful research guides on the subject. 

For information on crime and punishment or to read the details of past trials, go to Old Bailey Online which holds some fascinating stories.