It was in beginning to read a book passed onto me by a neighbour 'Revelation' by C J Sansom, a thriller set in Tudor times, that I came upon a reference to a barber surgeon of Cheapside who fashioned false teeth, recycled from dead people, and set into wood, detachable and quite the French fashion. Ok, now this was interesting, as I had just been, in my genealogy research, noting this very profession of barber surgeon to be in my own London based Aylward family and with my Bunney lineage too. I'd assumed this to be olden terminology for a hairdresser and not looked more into that. But now, as I realised, caring for ones hair and shaving off stubble was but one part of a barber surgeons role. Indeed they did dentistry too, as the book had referenced, and more than that, as the very word surgeon suggested they also performed surgery, and bloodletting, either with leeches or the cut of a razor, and they were called upon to care for soldiers wounds in battle. And where were the actual doctors in such times; well, they were more about providing intellectual insight rather than hands on practicalities. This was a fascinating subject really, although somewhat gory and demanding of ones trust, as maybe it still is with medical matters today, and anyway, when one is desperate one surrenders regardless, even if it is ones limb being sawn off to avert gangrene. Body snatchers, such as the resurrectionists, would raid graveyards and in this way provide corpses for surgeons to practise on. Such a profession was surely not for the faint hearted. The Aylwards of London did appear to have a penchant for this, at least as far back as a Thomas Aylward of the late 1600's. My ancestress Ann Aylward had a brother, John Godson Aylward, who apprenticed in 1768 to their uncle Robert Aylward, although at such a late date the surgeon aspect had finally been separated from the work of a barber. Uncle Robert himself though, born in 1720 in Bermondsey, trained to be a traditional barber surgeon from the young age of 13, in 1733. And what I found most interesting was the discovery that Ann Aylwards husband, Robert Bunney, my direct ancestor, had himself begun an apprenticeship as a barber surgeon when a teenager, even though he later changed course and became a cooper instead. The apprentice information matched up to him entirely, the correct place, time, name of father (William Bunney), all revealing this was indeed his earliest career choice. He would have been 14 when beginning his apprenticeship in 1743, his guide and teacher being Samuel Hucks, who was also a skilled cooper, reverting to that trade himself. Why did they both change tack? I imagined the dissecting of animals and human cadavers to be somewhat off-putting for young Robert, but in reality times were changing, doctors pressuring for the prestige of surgery for themselves, such as that in 1745, just two years into Robert's apprenticeship, the barber surgeon combination was rent asunder, from which date barbers were no longer to exercise their medical skills; all was ended. Hence why Robert would have switched to learning of Samuels barrel and cask constructing skills instead. What would Robert have been learning in those two years of his youth. the apprenticeship should have lasted for seven years. During that time he would have sutured wounds, set broken bones, assisted in surgical care, bloodletting and other medical procedures, along with pulling teeth, shaving and hair dressing. Human dissections would take place in the company of other barber surgeons at the official Barber Surgeons Hall on Monkwell Street, the only company building to survive the Great Fire of London in 1666 due to a buffer zone created by the surrounding herb garden, the herbs from which would be used in their medicines. Doctors would class this old profession as quackery in time, although actually they were highly trained, their origin having been as assistants to monks in the earliest days of monastic Christianity, seen as pioneers of medical healing and surgery, which anyway would have preserved and advanced centuries of accumulated folk healing and care for the sick. So many days I had been trawling through genealogy records, getting no joy, wondering if there was anything more to learn of my family at all, and then *boom*, there it is, my Robert Bunney had as a teenager begun training in the understood medical care of his time, in the curious profession of the barber surgeon; only for his course to be thwarted by a historical change of roles, by which he instead became a cooper, taking on a different set of his teachers skills, which in turn he would teach to his son Robert the Younger, whose daughter was Hannah Aylward Bunney, who interestingly herself became a nurse at the Sailors Hospital in Greenwich. And a friend wanted me to come out for the day, but I was making too great a discovery in my genealogy. Looking to old newspapers I found some interesting stories in relation to the barber surgeons. The barber surgeons were ever busy and were regarded as important persons. They shaved, dressed hair, drew teeth and bled most of the people at regular intervals. In time past the letting of blood was regarded as a cure-all for any ailment, phlebotomy as it was called, and the people had great faith in this. One article talks of live music being provided for waiting customers, whether lute, violin or even bagpipes, reckoned to be so that the groans of those being seen to would be drowned out. And while ladies would be bled they were soothed and diverted by story telling. Tooth drawing was a painful affair with the crude instruments of the time (it's scary enough even now). In the ballad of the death of Robin Hood it is said that when he took ill he was bled by a prioress who so hated him for his crimes that she bled him to death: 'And hers was the deadliest sin, For she blooded him in the vein of the arm, And locked him up in the room, There he did bleed all the live long day, Until the next day at noon' In 1765 one poor woman of Petticoat Lane was indeed bled to death by a barber surgeon (of little skill) who did a blood letting on one of her arms, cutting into her artery. Before proper assistance could be secured she died. It became kind of a threat to be 'shaved, blooded and have your teeth drawn by a barber surgeon'. In 1738 when the trade was still commonplace and respectable, a story was published about a barber surgeon in Bermondsey who fell foul of the law, no name given, but that was where the Aylwards lived and worked. This barber surgeon and his wife were locked up for two months in the Southwark Bridewell, this being a house of correction, all due to a scam. An 'artful slut' had one day come into their shop complaining of sickness and desiring to be relieved by bleeding. Scarcely had she been punctured when she 'shammed a fainting fit' and upon recovery desired a 'dram' to support her spirits, which they naively fetched for her. And she demanded a second drink, upon declaring the great benefit she had received by the first. She then informed on them to the authorities, the husband having received money from her for one dram and the wife for the other. Thus they were convicted of selling spirit liquors contrary to an act of parliament, and were ordered to the Bridewell to receive their punishment. One job placement for a barber surgeon was put out by a 'nervous invalid' requesting someone of good education and cheerful manners, to eat and ride with him, and to shave and dress him. The payment was high for the time at £50 a year. As it was commented 'the medical profession is looking up'. In one story of 1756 a man among a drunken group of butchers in a pub, for them having found themselves in the company of a notable barber surgeon, proposed all of them should be blooded, which was soon agreed to, sixpence a piece collected from the butchers. The barber surgeon took from each a good quantity of blood, after which the same man to have proposed the blood letting suggested each should next have a tooth drawn. None other agreed to this; their courage had by now left them.
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On meeting an old friend, Dale Topsom, by the lions at Trafalgar Square, I guided us to the church of St Martin in the Fields which was open at last (third time lucky), my inspiration being for Dale and I to kneel at the altar, facing one another, in an enactment of the marriage, which had taken place within this very church, of my ancestors Philip Barton and Hannah Bunney. This did feel quite magical and special. More than any of the other London churches I'd lately visited, this one was especially vibrant, an energy there, maybe the presence of my ancient loved ones. So this little enactment felt quite sacred. Outside Buckingham Palace, in a spirit of fun, I announced that as a more authentic descendant of this lands royals, being myself of the Tudors, that this should rather be my palace but that the Queen has locked me out. Dale Topsom was still into genealogy, like me, he being the one who had introduced me to this. His Topsom male line he had traced back to a foundling left on the churrch steps in the Devon village of Topsham. His DNA was mostly Anglo-Saxon.
The ships my royal marine ancestor Philip Barton served on during the Napoleonic wars: Reunion (boy class) 1796 to 1796 Bellerophon up till 1800 Renown till early 1805 Thunderer 1805 to 1808 Mercurius till 1811 Mermaid till 1812 I swatted up till late about the ships my ancestor Philip Barton had served on. The most exotic location was Egypt and there were many battles. He was wounded but was a survivor, thank ye gods, for if he was not I would not exist. His fractured arm ended his time as a Royal Marine, for which he returned to London and married my ancestress Hannah Bunney. The Réunion was a French warship which harassed British merchant ships in the English Channel until the British captured it in 1793. Philip served on this ship as a 19 year old up until it was accidentally wrecked on sandbars off the English coast. Philip and most of the crew survived, except for three unlucky souls. The Reunion was the fastest of Britain’s ships at the time. The very day after the Reunion was wrecked, Philip was put onto the Bellerophon, where he served from ages 20 to 23. The mariners nicknamed the ship the ‘Billy Ruffian’. The ships mission was firstly to prevent the French ships from joining forces with Irish rebels, in which the stormy weather did its own part in scattering and destroying the enemy ships. The Bellerophon then joined Nelson’s fleet in the battle of the Nile, again successfully defeating the French. The battle took place at Aboukir Bay on the Nile delta. So now our Philip had sailed as far as Egypt. The Bellerophon fought against a much larger ship, The Orient, and in consequence was in serious trouble, the masts collapsing and fires breaking out. 200 of Philips comrades were casualties to this battle. They won the combat against the Orient though, sacking and burning that French ship, blowing it up with over a thousand men on board. The French admiral was killed by a cannonball before that final explosion. The Orient had just come from Malta where it had looted considerable treasure, all being carried on board. For Phillips own ship to survive, there being no masts left and being under fire also from the Tonnant, the anchor cables had to be cut so the ship could drift away from the continuing battle. Philip was for long at Lisbon in Portugal as the ship was made seaworthy once more. Philip now served on the Renown, with more battling ahead of him, again at great peril to his comrades. On attacking a French convoy at the Isle de Noirmoutier many of the mariners were taken prisoner by the French. The following month the Renown attempted an invasion of the Spanish city of Ferrol, there capturing the French ship Guêpe. Another attempt at capturing Cadiz was aborted. Philip was now awarded the Naval General Service medal, a clasp ‘Egypt’ later added for the ships next mission, back in Egyptian waters, as part of the Egyptian Campaign. The ship remained at Malta for a couple of years and finally was sent to Plymouth for repairs. Philip was 29 now and was on the Thunderer for three years. Again he was battling the Franco-Spanish fleet, this time at the battle of Finisterre where Philip and his crew intercepted foreign ships returning from the West Indies. Seven of Philips comrades were killed and eleven were wounded, masts were damaged and several shots were encrusted into the hull. Scurvy was afflicting the men, and not for the first time. And now came the most famed battle of Trafalgar in which Philips ship performed admirably, fighting against the Spanish Principe de Asturias and the French Neptune. Sixteen of Philips comrades died in this battle. The ship stayed intact though and was able to aid other more battered ships. The Thunderer was the first British ship back to Gibraltar, with an enemy ship in tow, the San Juan Nepomuceno. Philips last engagement on the Thunderer was to capture a ship from Dubrovnik, the Nemesis, which was was sailing from Italy to France with a cargo of spices and indigo dye. The cargo was shared as prize money between the Thunderer and ten other British warships. The Thunderer was then decommissioned. For three years Philip was then on the ship Mercurius, he now being aged 32. This was a Danish ship which the British had captured and it’s role was to escort vessels in the North Sea, as also to capture enemy ships, among which it captured the Bonne Mere, the Carolus, the Enigheid, the Larken, the Jupiter and the Ana Catherina. The last ship Philip served on was the Mermaid, up until his left arm was fractured and he had to retire on a pension. The ship transported troops between Britain and Iberia for the Peninsular War. And so ended Philips 15 years of marine service, after which he began his married life in London with his sweetheart, the considerably younger Hannah Bunney. It was they who married in St Martins in the Fields which overlooks Trafalgar Square.
Thank you my dear ancestors. I respect, honour and appreciate you. On yet another day of looking at places of the ancestors I went to Greenwich, heading straight for the church of St Alphege, as that and its surrounding lanes had long been associated with my family. Around the church, St Alphege Passage, my people had lived there, the Harrison's, right by Soames's vicarage, and there was Roan Street, which had been home to both Harrisons and Bartons. They were quiet lanes now and not at all like bustling London just over the river. I passed through Greenwich market where once my Harrison's had sold their fish. I came next to the grand white naval college buildings, this being the old sailors home where had lived Philip Barton and where his wife Hannah née Bunney had worked as a nurse, a beautiful place set among vast lawns. There I roamed, into an old chapel, and around old exhibitions in which could see, for example, a typical sailors room (cabin) in which one would have a bed, chest and seat. Even the robes there one was invited to try on. I tried on the typical tricorne hat, just as my ancestor would have worn. And I looked around the maritime museum. Jack Tarr was a statuette there, a name which the sailors always knew themselves by. I then visited another church associated with the family, Christ Church, where had been baptised some of the Seagrove children. From there I roamed more of our families addresses, where had lived our Seagroves - Lassell Street (their home there was no more standing) and Braddyl Street (still standing) and another of their homes on the Old Woolwich Road (number 57) where I happened to meet the current resident, Sharon, who I got chatting with as she was out in her front garden and who found it interesting that my people had once lived there.
I continued my mission, while in London, to visit places specific to my ancestors and that involved a considerable amount of working around, 19 klms in full. My first port of call was the orphanage with my ancestress Eleanor Caroline Barton had grown up in, close to where I was staying in Whitechapel, at 66 Great Prescott Street. Nothing is as it was. Modernity has crushed all that was for my peoples homes. Just a grand building with no antiquity. The man at reception knew nothing of the history of this place. I carried on retracing the steps of my ancestors. I was excited to at last approach the church of St Sepulchre, family church to my Bartons, when they had lived in Cock Lane just beyond. Quite a lovely church, associated with blessing those being taken from the jail to their execution, the bell which rung for them still to be seen in a glass case. A grand organ. The fine baptismal font with its faces of cherubims where our Barton babes were baptised. Cock Lane was again ultra modern and lost to its past, although one building retained the name of an old inn 'The Saracens Head' and at the other end of Cock Lane was reference to another old pub 'The Fortune of War', a golden statue of a naked boy high up there on a plinth, he being a symbol of gluttony (it was gluttony which was thought to be the cause of the Fire of London). This last mentioned pub had been a hang out for former body snatchers. As I had researched, body snatching was quite a thing locally in days gone by. The pub had a special room in which the dead bodies were laid upon benches around the walls, bearing the names of those who had stolen them from whichever graveyard, awaiting surgeons to come and buy whichsoever they wanted. Cock Lane was not only famed for its ghost called 'Scratching Fanny', but was another locale associated with prostitiutes. One prostitute, named Clarice, born in 1732, was early on educated in the finer arts of the profession (a courtesan one may say then) and was the areas most famous 'harlot'. She died of the pox at the age of 43. Just a little further along was the old Smithfield live animal market (now of dead animals only). This used to be the place of execution. Even wives would be sold here till as much as the early 1800's. Further beyond still was Cowcross Street, where also my people had lived. Cocks and cows, all connected since very old times to livestock sales. More of my families lanes I now walked, again all modernised and lost to their past - the former Field Lane where had lived my Bartons and Bunneys. Only their family church of St Andrew had kept its historical roots. I had another church to visit, that one overlooking Trafalgar Square, St Martin in the Fields, which by the time I got there was closed. This was where my Hannah Bunney married her sailor Philip Barton in 1814.
Back to my absorption in genealogy, I finally completed two website pages for Lndon ancestors Philip Barton and Hannah Bunney, and her parents Robert Bunney and Sarah Harbridge, all of whom I had researched so intensely. I was pretty pleased that my godparents, Chris and Carol Peck (Chris being my mothers cousin) applauded me for this work. They're the only relatives ever to have done so. Even my mother gives no recognition to all I have done and shows no interest. To her I just waste my time. So for someone in the family to say good things about what I do is really cool.
I have it in mind to write a book, nothing new for me really as ideas have often come and yet don't practically manifest. Bartholome Sugrue's tragic life as an Irish immigrant in Greenwich, with all his dysfunctionalism, is inspiring me now. This would be a historical novel. Although, with their not having been a happy ending I'd need to explore the jollity and love and depth of positive life experience inbetween all the sufferings. And do I tie in the parallel Harrison and Barton families, also of Greenwich, who had their own tragedies. Between these two families have been a bucket load of difficulties. There was Eleanor Caroline Barton growing up in a London orphanage, away from her mother, and dying so young of tuberculosis; her mother Hannah taking care of the old and wounded seamen in the Greenwich hospital where once Eleanors own father had lived; and Eleanors partner John William Harrison's brushes with the law, his imprisonment and then joining his daughter Maria in the workhouse, his temporary insanities and ultimately dying from cancer of the tongue; Bartholomew Sugrue's first wife dying from asiatic cholera, and his second wife Catherine going to prison for trying to conceal her daughters theft of a purse; exposure in all Britains newspapers when he is prosecuted for the manslaughter of his own child, revealing their poor standards of life and his drunknness, the child really having wasted away in a refusal to eat out of upset for losing his mother; later, their squatting with other Irish in tumbledown cottages with the authorities trying to throw them out; their residing at Pesters boarding house for the poor in which Catherine worked as a servant in return for lodgings, where also lived for a while one of the prostitutes murdered by Jack the Ripper; Bartholomew eternally in and out of the workhouse, being sent onwards to Poplar for hard labour and severity, and his demise from tuberculosis, dying while coughing up blood; Catherines stroke which paralysed her down one side; young Maria Harrison in and out of the workhouse and into the arms of their son Thomas, himself all too familiar with the workhouse and for a fresh new start they changing the surname from Sugrue to Seagrove, and then their own exposure in newspapers for their dirty home and scruffy children running wild. So, how does one weave a story through all that? And of happier times, hop picking adventures in the Kent countryside, romantic strolls in Greenwich park, for 'there is always the garden', the gaiety of the Greenwich fair and arrival by boat (sailed by my ancestors) of grand functionaries and aristocrats who would feast in the Greenwich inns on whiting (fished by my ancestors) and champagne, rich benefactors joining the workhouse poor at xmas for seasonal celebrations, the songs my ancestors may have sung and the music they danced to. AuthorAuthor Susie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. ![]() I was up so late with my genealogy work. The file is close to completion, temporary completion that is, as the subject goes on and on and on. There are then other branches of the tree to make files of, but this poorer London side has fascinated me lately. I even cry, because our family often suffered so much. I'd never known before what was Hannah Bunney's destiny, her life already being so full, first in London, then Greenwich, three husbands that died on her, and her career nursing at the Greenwich Hospital. But now I have found her in later life, at the Bethnal Green workhouse, and living in one of London's lowest slums, the Old Nichol Street Rookery. After 11 years of living in the Rookery slum a removal order was made, and Hannah was next seen at the Southwark workhouse, in her 70's, and there she died. Poverty and the workhouse is a big theme for my London ancestors. Life was so tough then, hard survival. How can I not weep for all they went through. File Project Ancestral Paupers completed. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. ![]() I have another genealogical breakthrough, hurray, this being finding out why my ancestor, John William Harrison, was put in prison for half a year back in 1871. Oh, how so long to find this. But there it was. Being a waterman/bargeman John had crossed the Thames from Greenwich to the Isle of Dogs, whereon he began loading his barge with iron from the Samuda wharf at Blackwall. Half a ton he got into his barge when he was spotted by a man who he then set to wrestling with. As it is said, he tried to throw the fellow in the water and would have succeeded if not for another person spotting the fracas. He was given six months hard labour in prison, hence his daughter, my great great grandmother Maria, having to go into the workhouse at the age of 11, her mother already having died from tuberculosis. And for Maria's deceased mother, Eleanor Caroline Barton, who'd been raised in an orphanage, I found newspaper clips about the Sailors Female Orphan Home where she grew up, of her singing along with the other girls for the public 'Oh Where is the Guide of my Infant Years'. Even back then, when Eleanor was 7, it was reported that one of the other girls of the orphanage had died of consumption (tuberculosis). I researched more, looking at where in London my people lived and what those areas were like. When my ancestors lived at Cock Lane, beside St Sepulchre church, I do think that unlike now this was a colourful and stimulating place to be. St 'Pulchre, as it was known, was right by a prison, the Old Bailey, and the cells of those condemned to die. It was inseparable from those surrounds, tolling the bells and praying for the souls of all those condemned ones who would stop there on the way to the gallows, having a gift of flowers presented to them. But a walk away from there were other homes for my family, in more notorious areas, Field Lane with its plethora of resold stolen handkerchiefs, Plum Tree Court which was an escape route for thieves, and its neighbouring Shoe Lane, being by St Andrews Church, where priests needed bodyguards for this being such a rough place. My ancestress Sarah Bunney died in the workhouse just by there, though of a good old age. She was a survivor, and her daughter Hannah Bunney had by now long gone to Greenwich. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. I worked on my website, trying to put together a piece on the hardships which my Greenwich ancestors had to experience, which involved having to download supporting papers and documents. There in the workhouse had gone a lineage of my women, Maria Harrison as child and grown-up, Eleanor Barton in an orphanage, Hannah Bunney in the Blackfriars workhouse, giving birth to one of her children there, which I now realise was at the time when her husband had departed central London for the care and comforts of the Greenwich Hospital. So he too had left his family, temporarily, in destitution, after which they came to live by him, living outside the hospital while he was within, as so many ex sailors families apparently did. And I do wonder, was the workhouse always such a rock bottom humiliation of the people anyway. Pregnant girls whose lovers failed to marry them would find a place there to give birth. People were clothed and fed. Sick people were given medical care. The discipline and regimes were hated, but still people in need would go there. When I see Maria's children going in there for but one hour, may she not even have designed it to get a good full meal in them for once. Who is to know what was really in the hearts and minds of all these people. The workhouse was equivalent to the modern old peoples home too, and in that manner it carries on, as too for a free medical facility, like our National Health today. We look back on it all so bleakly and fail to see what an invaluable support it was to those who were passing through hard times. Before the workhouses, the parish's gave handouts to the struggling poor and saw that they were clothed and fed, like the dole now, not even any work being required and no rules to follow. So I understand the workload and regimes were generally an irritating sacrifice one had to comply with, an exchange of sorts. One irritation would be the harsh discipline within the workhouse schools. A poor child would learn to read and write, but would get whacked about in the process. For girls it may have been easier. Eleanor Barton's orphanage taught her to read and write and how to be thoroughly and efficiently domestic, to be a good and valued servant girl, which was the path most women took before they found themselves a husband and became queens of their own household, he working tirelessly long hours, and she creating a brood of children. If he strayed for a while, if he was unable to work, there was the workhouse, the last resort. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. |
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