It's a very interesting story, that of my great great aunt Catherine Sugrue, for her husband Joseph Read proclaiming to be Jack the Ripper, and not only that, and so I made a tikok about her. The story: my great great grandfather, Thomas Seagrove, had a sister, Catherine Sugrue. They were of a very dysfunctional family, totally, in the newspapers for thefts, in prison and in the workhouse. Their father Bartholowe was in and out of the workhouse and died there, coughing up blood from tuberculosis. Catherine got in trouble as a girl, when she saw coal by the riverside and took some, because it was cold and she wanted her family to be warm, they being very poor. Because of this she was taken for the rest of her childhood to a Roman Catholic school for wayward girls run by Saint Francis nuns, a place where destitute children could be guided to a better future. She's a beautiful lady and hers is the only photograph I have of my family from that time. Catherine's life was tragic. She worked in a lead factory and died from the lead poisoning. She herself had described it as 'killing work' and that was what it was indeed. Catherine's husband, Joseph, said there was white powder in his food, which could well have been the lead powder that Catherine would have brought home on her clothes. Joseph went completley crazy and believed himself to be Jack the Ripper. Maybe Catherine believed it too and that's why the white lead was in his food. Joseph was obsessed that he was Jack the Ripper, and that was in 1888, when all those girls were being killed by him, and when Joseph went into the asylum that was the end of it, so who knows. I'm contemplating resuming book writing now and that Bartholomew's Garden should not be about him after all, but about his children and specifically the friendship between brother and sister, Thomas and Catherine, and all their struggles, and yes this Jack the Ripper theme. Well, my astrology hints that I can write books. But can I really?! Even I made a tiktok briefly putting my writing ideas out there, hopefully by this to find motivation, encouragement, guidance, anything by which inspiration may come. For this idea about writing a book, I've had it for a long time now, having the ideas but now knowing how to solidify them into something that would really work as a complete story. As I share on tiktok, I am a genealogist, and I'm finding social history so fascinating, and of how my family had really been in it with their poverty and all the consequences of that, which were quite dramatic. Like I do think this could be an interesting book. I've got two families who became connected in Greenwich. Grandfather Barton was a war hero, from the battle of Trafalgar to Egyptian sea battles, and he ended up his life at the Greenwich hospital and his wife Hannah was a nurse there. It was their daughter Eleanor who was put into an orphanage in Whitechapel in London. She would die of tuberculosis as a young mother, and it was her daughter, Maria, who would make friends with another family, the Sugrue's, who were Irish settlers and who were very scandalous. they had come to England during the potato blight that just was tragic for Ireland. So they'd come to find a new life in London. But their life was full of scandal, really big scandal, one of the littlest children dying when their mother was in prison for theft, and the father being blamed for that, for neglecting his family, the children then being put into the workhouse. The children of these two families, Thomas Sugrue and Maria Harrison, ended up in love and making a life together. Thomas's sister, Catherine, as we have seen, died from lead poisoning in the factory she worked at and as I have also said, her husband was talking of being Jack the Ripper. Despite my inspiration to write a book, it is yet again genealogy work that I deeply immerse in, whereas the book writing I postpone. The fascination for genealogy that I have needs to envelop this book project too and to be non-different from it. On researching a little about Jack the Ripper, looking through old newspapers of the time, one theory proposed for the identity of the killer is that he was a Russian, who before the London killings began, had been doing much the same in Paris, for which he'd been put into an asylum, and upon his release moved to London, which is when the killings began there. His belief was that prostitutes could only atone for their sins by being killed. This theory had been presented in a Russian newspaper, the Novosti, and the man they'd named as Nicolai Vassilyeff. He was born in Tiraspol, it is said. Well I see there were two Tiraspol's, one in Belarus and one in Moldova, but the Moldova is more likely as that is nearer to where he studied in university, at Odessa, in Ukraine. It is said that he was a 'fanatical anarchist'. In the 1870's he had moved to Paris, where he'd become crazy and was placed under restraint. But before being lodged in an asylum, Nicolai murdered several unfortunates in Paris under conditions somewhat similar to those of the Whitehchapel crimes, for which he was arrested and thereby ended up in the asylum. This had happened 16 years previous to the Whitechapel killings. Nicolai, known as the 'Mad Russian', had been dismissed from the asylum as cured, after which he moved to London, moving in with the lower classes of his fellow countrymen. After the first Whitechapel murder Nicolai was lost sight of. This subject I made a popular tiktok about. I was on a roll with this tiktok creativity, making another one talking of Jack the Ripper, again in relation to newspaper articles I was seeing. Jack the Rippers identity is an unsolved mystery that has captivated the imagination up to the current day and in it's own time too. So many crazy stories I was discovering from way back then. One article was about four Spanish sailors being out and about with knives and attacking a woman, who in response was calling out 'Murder', for which four other men came to her rescue, who also got attacked. I read of a Whitechapel gang apprehending one woman, who on coming out of a concert had the company of a man walking along with her for a while, who then grabbed her by the throat and pulled her to a place where there was a gang of both women and ruffian men, the first man holding a knife up against her throat and they all stealing her things. In regard to the article about the Russian possible Jack the Ripper, it is believed by researchers that maybe the story was fabricated or elaborated upon. It's actually difficult to know what information shared at the time was authentic and which was put out by journalists to keep the interest of the public and which was sensationalised.
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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. 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. 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 discovered a free mobile ap which coloured in black and white photos, or at least puroprted to, but on most pictures made little effect. A few though had at least some potential which I then worked on myself.
That was fun. |
AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Categories
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