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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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.
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.
While staying in London, I visited the area where had lived my Harbridge ancestors, at St John's Court, just off Half Moon Alley. I had already seen on the map that this place no longer existed, but still I wanted to experience being where once had been their home. On arriving at Half Moon Passage I did indeed locate the original place, although it was not named and was just a dead end way between high ugly modern buildings, a place of bins and extractor fans, with not any clue of its olde worlde past. The dead end, once a throughway, was now blocked off by big buildings, Standon House and the Abokado restaurant beside it. Opposite was the now named Little Somerset Street, the same shape as when it had been the original Harrow Alley and Cimber Yard. Yes I had for sure found my ancestral place. Here had lived William Harbridge and Elizabeth née Minsham (Elizabeth being the furest back I had got on my matriarchal line). Their daughter, Sarah, was 13 when she married 21 year old Robert Bunney, a cooper by profession, the newly wed couple also living with Sarahs parents at St Johns Court. I next walked to the family church close by, that of St Botolph Without Aldgate, which I'd walked past a little earlier and had recognised, yes, this was one of our churches. The church was closed, but on the steps sat a bunch of people listening to a man talking. I assumed they were a study group; it was later, reflecting on his words, that I realised this was a guided Jack the Ripper walk. That which I heard: This church had been a hang out for prostitutes, in that they would continually encircle it, strolling round and round, until clients, who were in the know, would approach them. To be able to even do such a trying profession they would drink cheap gin. That was all I heard. I walked around a little garden area to the side of the church, where maybe tramps slept, and as I observed, youngsters were skateboarding in an adjacent park. William Harbridges family, before living at St Johns Court, lived at Cradle Court, just off Aldersgate Street, where was yet another St Botolph Church (there were four St Botolph churches in London). At the Aldersgate St Botolph Church, William Harbridge was baptised in 1738, his parents being William (senior) and Mary Harbridge. When William (the younger) was 23 he married at this same church to Elizabeth Minsham. Cradle Court, I couldn't locate this time round, but did read a reference to it being in these times occupied by warehouses. Nor did I get to visit that specific St Botolph Without Aldersgate church (they were all called 'Without' due to being just outside the town walls). Elizabeth Minsham was 22 when she married William Harbridge in 1763 and it was a quick wedding, by a paid for allegation rather than banns, because Elizabeth was already four months pregnant and beginning to show. It was then at St Johns Court that this family lived and raised various children, in total six girls and one boy, the address of St Johns Court being mentioned in all their baptisms and the church being St Botolph Without Aldgate. Sarah was their second daughter; the others were Elizabeth, Joseph, Mary Jane, Christian and her twin sister Jane. There is another record showing residence at St Johns Court in regard to Sarahs husband, Robert Bunney, who voted using this address during the Westminster elections in 1874. In politics Robert supported Charles Fox who was a radical whig anti-slavery campaigner, advocating individual liberty and religious tolerance. It was on another day that I returned to St Botolph Without Aldgate church; it now being open.
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.
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AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Categories
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