I made another long journey from central London out to the Kew Archives. Not that I made such grand discoveries as last time. Seeking my ancestral Maxteds in a big book of Nine Elms railway employees yielded nothing. But I did find a few things which had so far eluded me. And that was just by accessing Find My Past, information I'd not been able to find on the Ancestry website. I had already sussed out, by deduction, that my ancestor Robert Bunney (Senior) had married an Ann Aylward, but had never found a marriage record confirming this till now (my deduction had been due to Alyward being used down generations as a middle name for various children). It was at the church of Mary Magdalene (of course lol) that they had married one another on 26th February 1764 in Bermondsey. And I found my Welsh ancestor John Harrisons school admissions for the hamlet of Pwlldu, , in both 1876 and 1877, recording that the familys adress was at 'Lower Bank' and that his father worked as (yes I knew) an ostler. What I was really pleased with was at last finding Thomas Sugrues baptism, which was in Greenwich in 1854 at the Roman Catholic church of Our Lady of the Sea. Thomas's birthday was here recorded (a good find) as being on 24th Febfuary (making him an Aries), the baptism having been on 26th March. His godparents were Michael and Maria MacDonnell. I found Roman Catholic baptisms for Thomas's siblings too, for Joanna, Catherine, Jacobus, Edmund and the twins Daniel and Bartholomew. Interestingly I discovered also that the childrens father, Bartholomew Sugrue, had also had a child with his first wife, Ellen, who had died of Asiatic cholera. I'd never seen anything to prove before that they'd had a baby together, but there she was, a daughter, Anna, born in 1847, her godparents being Corey Malvina and Margaret Gallachan.
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The impulse to check out the Kew Archives got me and so out to Kew Gardens Station I travelled (rather a long way from Whitehchapel). Kew Gardens was a grand establishment and all was free. I had to get a readers ticket, coats and bags had to be in a locker, and a specific researcher was on hand for advice (somewhat grumpy and reticient). I'd come to check out why my ancestor John Harrison ended up in an asylum, but this was the wrong place for that (Kentish Archives had those records), but I could research more about my mariner, Philip Barton, and so this was what I did. Straight away the researcher could see that the ship Philip had been on at the battle of Trafalgar was the Thunderer. Wow! Like up until now I'd simply been going on a P Barton listed as being at Trafalgar and nothing more precise than that. So this was like gold for me. I had to order upon one of the many computers the specific document. At the same time as ordering the sailors book for the Thunderer I ordered documents for one of Philips children on his admittance into the Greenwich school for sailors children. Having an hour to wait for these documents I looked up what else I could for Philip. On a link to 'Find My Past' there were certain brief records. Philip Barton was adlitted to the Greenwich Hospital at the age of 54. He was at that time an out pensioner. He had served in the Marines for 15 years and 10 months, the pension having been granted to him back in 1815, when he was 40, it being £13.12 for life. The pension was awarded due to his arm having been fractured while on service. He was also wounded in the chest and in his wrists. The records say he was born in Bermondsey, London, and that he left service because of the left arm fracture. The £13.12 was an annual payment. The musters of the Thunderer I now got to look through in a special research room, taking a while to find Philips name in a huge old book listing the sailors names. Twice I found him listed and it was clearly him, on the ship the Thunderer in 1805 during the battle of Trafalgar, listed in May and then in september and October, and for that with not made of him being paid a bounty of £2.10. This was too amazing. And I looked up for a picture of the Thunderer and there it was in a painting in wild seas. This was the stuff of legends and he was there. The Thunderer was the first boat to sight the Franco-Spanish fleet: Battle of Trafalgar 1805 21st October. And now on the Greenwich School records, which were in a box on another level of the Archives, much other information was given, like all the ships Philip had served on and when, they being the Reunion, the Bellerophon, the Renown, the Thunderer, the Mercurius, and the Mermaid. For this I was later able to work out all the campaigns and locations associated with him. Along Philips childrens school admittance documents were various other pieces of information, such as the childrens birth/baptism certificates and lists giving their ages along with current address in Greenwich at different times. For instance, there was that curiosity (for me) of how it was that Philips wife Hannah resorted to the workhouse when giving birth to one of her children, Philip George Barton (as I have seen, Philip Barton went off to live in the Greenwich Hospital in March of that year which would have been when Hannah was five months pregnant with their child): At the time of daughter Hannahs entrance into the Greenwich school for sailors children, which was in around 1830, the Bartons are written to be living at the Royal Hospital of Greenwich (rather Philip himself would have been but not the others), there being at that time five chidren in the family, and Philip himself has given a list of the ships he served on, not being by memory so accurate ahout the dates. This next paper would be from 1832, being from son James Bartons entrance into the Greenwich School. Philips family were at that time living in Rose Place in Greenwich and there were six children, listed with their ages as James, age 9; Christian, age 16; Anna, age 14; Thomas, age 6; Philip, age 4; and Joseph, age 15 months. Another paper in the school dossiers is from when Philip Barton had died and Hannah was still alive. This shows that it was in the Greenwich Hospital that Philip had died. As I know from other records this was in 1837. So it would have been just after Philip Bartons death, still in 1837, that his son carrying his name, Philip George Barton (it being he who had been born in a workhouse), was the next of the children to be admitted into the Greenwich School for sailors children. The family was now living at 3 York Place, as it is specified this being at the back of a pub called the Beehive. The children still at home were Joseph and Caroline (poor little Eleanor Caroline was about to be sent off to an orphanage in Whitechapel so her mother could work as a nurse in the very same Greenwich Hospital) and Thomas, aged 11, who remained at home (no school for him) as it is said he was 'afflicted' which would mean that he had learning diffifulties or a physical challenge, for instance he could have had downs syndrome (which was unrecognised as a medical condition back then). In 1841 it was the turn of Joseph Barton, aged 10, to be schooled at the Greenwich School for sailors children. All the children of the family who were as yet unmarried were listed with their ages, whether they lived at home with Hannah or not: Hannah, 22; James, 18; Thomas, 16; Philip, 14, and Caroline (Eleanor), age 7 (I know from the 1841 census etc that ony the sons lived with their mother now, Eleanor being in the orphanage and Hannah living out as a servant in a pub called the Portland Hotel). The family was still living at York Place. The parish of settlement for the family is mentioned as being St Anne's, Blackfriars (this being the original home of Philip Bartons ancestors). I was pretty thrilled with this research.
And I drew a line there. I met Darren, who was my daughter Eleanors boyfriend. He had some tattoos, both gentle and strong, from Basildon in Essex. As I would see, on beginning to suss out his genealogy, as of course I would, with him phoning his parents for information, he was descended from lorry drivers and even they were from the same areas of London as our own ancestors, that is Greenwich (well, Lewisham really) and Lambeth. There were many Londoners in general in his genealogy. One, edward Ryde of Isleworth, was even an undertaker. One ancestress, Esther York, looked of interest for having had two children out of wedlock. Still single at the age of 30, her youngest child, by then five, at last was baptised. I wonder, did her then husband, Edward Ryde, even know about her children, who certainly weren't living with them upon the beginning of their married life together. These were the days of 'skeletons in the cupboards', when it was shameful of one didn't tow the line with what was considered 'normality'. And there were Stafford ancestors not sending their children to school (which as I have seen was actually pretty normal) and one Stafford lad getting smallpox for which he was shut up in the pest house, as were other smallpox sufferers. There were a couple of drunkard ancestors in Warminster who were much in the papers for their shennagins. One of these fellows even died from fighting with his nephew after a drunken altercation in the pub. The landlord had told them to take their quarrel outside, whereon they had fallen into a quarry and the nehew, Uriah, had savagely stamped on his uncles chest. He was acquitted of murder, though, because the specifically fatal injuries could rather have come from falling into the quarry. Another Warminster ancestor, along with his pals, was into dog drawn carts (which was illegal and for which they all got in trouble). He cared not for societies rules and was in and out of gaol. He was a chimney sweep and even got int trouble for using one of his sons (who was underage) to climb the chimneys (which had also been made illegal). They were a fighting hard-drinking bunch. More scandal I found in Darrens family, there being an ancestor who was a philanderer and an adulterer, Charles William Allett, who had children by many women. One of his ladies was Darrens ancestress, Elizabeth Ann Smith who had four sons with him, all out of wedlock. It was of quite some interest to unravel his story.
I worked on my genealogy website, looking at my nanny Eileen's quite vague Irish origins from Westmeath, and at her half Irish mother Florence whose school, which she'd attended in the poor streets of Lambeth, was so bad for bullying that one girl even died as a consequence, her head bashed on stone steps and upon a desk. Before that, and only briefly, Florences schooling was at the convent of the Sisters of Mercy in Sunderland, those same nuns infamous for their Magdalene laundries and rough treatment of single mothers. 1901 Florence started school at Lambeth in the Springfield School on her birthday 18th March. Information given: Florence Maxted, daughter of Willilam Maxted, boiler maker, address of 18 Springfield Place. Former school marked as none, then changed later to The Convent, Sunderland Violent School Children
While at Springfield School, South Lambeth, one day last August, Grace Smith, aged 8 years, was pushed down the steps at the school. She complained of pains in her head; but the mother did not find any mark of violence. On 20th October, however, she again complained, saying another child had struck her head on a desk. In more detail, another schoolgirl had 'pulled her hair until her head struck the desk'. Eventually she died in St Thomas's hospital, from pressure on the brain set up by an abscess, 'of delirium and hemorrhage', the abscess having formed behind her ear. At the inquest, the class teacher and one of the school managers, a curate of All Saints, South Lambeth, was called. The teacher said she did not hear anything about the pushing downstairs. The curate said he had been unable to obtain any trace of the children who pushed Grace or struck her head on the desk. He quite understood the possibility of pushing taking place on the stone steps, as there was only one exit for 500 children, and much crushing was inevitable. The jury found a verdict of death from misadventure. |
AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Categories
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