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.
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I found a whole new genealogical revelation, yet another prison sentence for my ancestor John Harrison of Greenwich. I'd actually been looking up references to Jubilee Terrace where my Sugrue's had lived, when up came John Harrison also living there and his having been caught with suspected stolen wood. He was a 'dredger' it is noted in the newspaper, and he said he'd found the wood, but with mention in the court of his former theft and of at that time his attempt to throw a man in the river, his word was not taken in trust and he was sent back to gaol, his young daughter Maria being left alone yet again. So, more than one of my ancestors has lived at Jubilee Terrace, but a few years apart. I have wondered if the Harrison and Sugrue families knew each other. At some point their children, Maria Harrison and Thomas Sugrue would become sweethearts, and maybe their friendship began when they were still children. Young Thomas may have learnt from Maria's father, John, his skills on the Thames river, for which he would not follow the path of his own father in building work. AuthorAuthor Susie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. 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 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. The British newspaper archives have opened up a whole new world. I keep on seeking articles relating to any of my family, and its not so easy, but I did find a story, this time on my Maxted line. It regarded the death of my ancestor George Maxted of Kent, whose native villages of Pluckley and Hothfield I have been to see (I have to see Westwell too). It was in Hothfield that George died, apparently falling from a haystack, which he was thatching, landing onto a big stick which pierced through his leg and into his bowels. I kept on looking through newspaper articles. Both my Irish Bartholomew Sugrue and his wife Catherine were partial to the bottle, I now read. Oh dear, this gets worse. I mean, here I am seeing drunkard Irish expats in my village, mirroring my own ancestors. It's a shock indeed. And yet another of their children had been caught stealing, James Sugrue, during the case of which it was mentioned that another of his brothers was already in prison. It's impossible to gloss any of this over, I have very dysfunctional family roots, part of a vast melange, from royal privilege to utter desolation. I had a browse for my friends genealogies too. For Akila I found family divorces, for Trebha, his grandfather being caught with stolen fish, Jeremy's drunkards, and Liz's posh side. To find all was so compelling. This is time consuming too, as genealogy is anyway. I sought more old family newspaper articles. So long one looks, coming up with nothing, and then a gem flashes up. I found the death inquest for one of my ancestresses, Maria Ann Harrison of Greenwich, already a widow, who had dropped dead after complaining of a bilious attack. Every organ in her body was said to be diseased. This, it was claimed, was in consequence of her intemperance. Oh dear, another one. A heart attack caused her death, such was the verdict. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. More death certificates of my ancestors have come. Surprisingly, my waterman ancestor, John William Harrison, died from tongue cancer. His mother, Maria Ann Harrison, had a sudden death for which there had to be an inquest, this concluding that she'd had a heart problem. Maria Seagrove died of chronic bronchitis. And I still await John William Harrison's fathers death certificate. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Back to researching, I try to order a death certificate for Eleanor Caroline Harrison nee Barton, with no success, after three wrong attempts to put in the numbers my card being withdrawn. And I so want to know why she died so young. Women tended to die young from childbirth complications, so I have thought this, but this is presumption and the need is really there to research. She left her daughter, Maria, an orphan at the age of 5. So, I had found out that this Maria, was as a grown up, destitute, in the workhouse and even in prison. Well, I now discovered she had also been in the workhouse as a child, her own father, John William Harrison, at that time having a spell in prison too. When he was released he joined her in the workhouse. I start to understand that the contrariness of family experiences has impacted on me. The traumatic lives they led, the weight of the world on them, tough survival, and the unfairness of it all, I feel I have come into this world with these imprints. I have royals in my tree and I have destitutes, a total medley, and maybe I am and have been all that too. I carry it all, somehow. The emotion and sensitivity is in me. This is actually very interesting. To somehow understand it, at last, feels so very therapeutic. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Back to the old genealogy research, always clues to more information here and there, always embellishments to add. I found another son for Eleanor Caroline and her husband John William Harrison, a baby boy who would quickly lose his mother, for she died while he was still tiny and I need to buy that certificate of hers to find out why. For her husband, who was for long a fishmonger, I at last found him in the 1851 census, with his parents, revealing that the fish trade had already been a family concern, with his father John fishing in Greenwich and the family selling the fish, firstly on the streets and later from a shop. The family was totally Greenwich born and bred, always living in the vicinity of the St Alfege church. And Eleanor Caroline's family, the Barton's, I found out more about them too, her parents being Philip Barton and Hannah Bunney. I had already much researched them, had known he was a London brass founder, much older than Hannah, who ended up in the Greenwich ex seaman's home, and that Hannah remained living outside the hospital with her children, and married at least twice more after his death, abandoning Eleanor who was sent upon her fathers death to an orphanage in London. I now came to understand that in all those years prior to marriage Philip Barton had sailed the stormy seas in quest for adventure. I have found a list of people admitted to the Greenwich Naval Hospital and there he was on it, with his age, and last place of residence being st Luke's in London. There was more information on the register, which I could not access, but in messaging a gentleman, one of those who had compiled the list, without too much delay he replied, sending me a photo of the original paper. How happy I was for this. And so a little more information came to light, which I may otherwise never have known. There it was written, that he served in the Navy for 16 years, in the 'Kings service' as it is noted. The last ship he served on was, attractively I must say, called The Mermaid. In action during his service, as a consequence of performing his duty, he became wounded in both wrists. No further detail about this is given. I found out also that Philip's children, of older age than Eleanor, got an education at the Greenwich Naval School. So this ship, the Mermaid, more than one boat had been given this name. But the one in service prior to Philips marriage, it was engaged in the Napoleonic Wars. It journeyed in the seas around Jamaica, Cuba, and Canada, transported troops to Portugal and to Spain, and in the Mediterranean fought against Italy. More has to be researched here, always more, but anyway this was a pretty good days work. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. |
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