Filling the Gaps

Last week I wrote essentially about mother and daughter, Mary and Sarah Batley.  This week's story begins with Mary's first son and Sarah's brother, George, who I said had been born in Norwich in 1851.  Having grown up in Norwich and its suburbs, it will be no surprise to learn that it was in St Mark's, Lakenham, on the southern side of the city, that he was married on 13th October 1873 to a Norwich girl, Jemima Green.  She bore him six children but, sadly two of them died shortly after birth.

As I traced the lives of this family through the censuses, gradually certain gaps were isolated, that would need a bit more attention.  Their second son, George William, born 28th July 1876, was an example.  He was missing in 1901, but reappeared in 1911 with a wife and family of three children.  They had been married for just 8 years; his wife Florence Annie had been born in Ireland: could this explain where George had been in 1901?

Another gap in 1901 was George's younger brother William John, born 12th October 1880 (this was the second use of those names: his brother had died just weeks old, and the names re-used ... as was often the case).  This gap was easier to fill, though.  As I had found many years ago in the case of my great-uncle, William had joined the army and was in barracks at Colchester.  This find opened up new lines of investigation as I pursued the answers regarding George.

Although George and Florence had been married in Norwich, their first son was born in ... Colchester, another significant clue.  At this point, discoveries were coming thick and fast and - even thought it was scarcely a week ago - I can't clearly recall their sequence.  I found Florence's baptism record, showing that this took place in Athlone in the county of Roscommon, although my recent Irish holiday told me that Athlone is in Westmeath.  Study of maps new and old, however, revealed that part of the town lies to the west of the Shannon and was therefore correctly described as Roscommon.  Characteristic of many such towns in both countries, the border has since been shifted to tidy things up.  I also found Florence's birth registration, which revealed the address as 'Batteries', which the map confirmed was in that western part of the town.  The name suggested a military connection there, too.

Last weekend found me downloading a score of military records from which I can now report that, having started adult life as a tinker's labourer, George enlisted on 13th October 1896 in the 4th (militia) Bn. of the Norfolk Regiment.  This was a life that he found to his liking, for within the year, now slightly grown in stature and correspondingly a few pounds heavier,  he transferred to the 2nd Battalion on a Short Service enlistment (7 years with the colours followed by 5 on reserve).  The battalion were in South Africa from 4th January 1900 until 10th February 1903, accounting for George's absence from the census.  By the time of his return to these shores, George was a corporal; he and Florence were married shortly after and their first son was born before the end of the year, presumably in married quarters.

George was promoted to Lance-Sergeant in April 1904 and, still so-described, was discharged to the reserve on 28th August 1909.  On the outbreak of war in 1914, he returned to the regiment.  This war was a different one, though.  I haven't discovered what action he saw, if any; a medical report of  March 1915 referred to a bout of influenza in January that had developed into chronic bronchitis, rendering him unfit for military service.  His discharge on medical grounds was confirmed on 22nd March and he died on 31st May.  He was buried with military honours in Norwich cemetery.

Perhaps inspired or encouraged by his brother, William enlisted in the militia on 18th April 1899.  The militia battalion was 'disembodied' in July 1901, a reduction in strength perhaps justified by the progress of the war, but William was re-engaged in April 1905 to complete his term of engagement, having been under regular training in the meantime.  Finally discharged from the regiment on 19th April 1909, on 9th August of that year he signed a Territorial Force attestation with the 1st East Anglian Brigade, Royal Field Artillery.  Like his brother, he seemed set for a military career.  However, he was discharged on 26th May 1911 under 'para 156(3) of Territorial Force Regulations'.  Research tells me that this clause refers to the soldier's own request, so what prompted it remains a mystery.  He was at home in Lakenham at the census two months earlier.

Many questions remain unanswered.  Why did George claim to be two years younger than he actually was (18 instead of 20) when he enlisted?  The medical report in March 1915 gives 'age last birthday' as 39 when in July 1914 he would have been 38.  The civil registration of his death shows age 37 ... still 2 years short.  Another open question is that of Florence's father.  The family appears in the 1901 census in Norwich, showing that he was born in the Norfolk village of Shotesham, and his wife in Ipswich.  I've found no trace of a military record for him, although Florence's birth registration shows his occupation as 'Corpl GR' and they were married in 1875 in Woolwich, another place with military connections.  Over the years I've become familiar with a number of regimental abbreviations but GR is unknown to me.

This whole exercise has revolved around finding people where they aren't expected.  That's a thought that certainly has relevance at this particular weekend and my thoughts go out to all who find themselves 'where they weren't expected' today.  As one friend put it after completing a substantial shopping expedition earlier this week, "I wasn't expecting to be cooking Christmas dinner this year!"

Wherever you are, I wish all my readers all the best for the rest of the festive season and a brighter New Year.

Moving to the City

 A few weeks ago, I wrote about tidying up my family history records, and how that task had been 'agreeably distracted' into tracking one particular family through the 19th and early 20th centuries.  Despite all manner of other interests and seasonal obligations, I'm pleased to say that this has continued and, during the course of this, a number of interesting stories have come to light.

The family I've been looking at is that of my maternal grandfather's maternal grandmother, Eliza Bullingham or Burlingham.  She was the fifth of a family of eight children born to George Burlingham and his wife Mary, formerly Mary Finch, between 1827 and 1844.  In my earlier blog, I wrote of Eliza's eldest sister Sarah, and the discovery that her daughter had married one of Eliza's sons.  This week, I've been following the life and fortunes of Mary, the next of Eliza's siblings.

Mary Burlingham was born in either Thorpe Abbotts or Brockdish (Norfolk villages lying along the Suffolk border in the valley - such as it is - of the river Waveney) and was baptised at Brockdish on 21st October 1832.  At some point in the next two years, the family moved to Wattisfield in West Suffolk, which is where George, her father, had been born and it was there that the rest of the Burlingham children were born.

Meanwhile at South Lopham, just over the border in Norfolk, Norwich-born Thomas Batley (a name sometimes found as Battley or Battely) had married Mary Finch in July, 1825.  William, their first child was born there in 1825 or 6 and then the family moved to nearby Bressingham, where William was baptised on 30th April 1826.  By 1841, they were living in Roydon.  Although about ten miles (depending where their respective houses were located) separate Roydon and Wattisfield, this didn't prevent William Batley and Mary Burlingham meeting and growing attached to each other.  Early in 1849, Mary found herself pregnant and they were married in the June quarter of that year.  Their daughter, named Sarah after her aunt, was born before the year was out.

Much is made of the mid-to-late 19th century being a difficult time for those dependent on agriculture for a living - the 1870s in particular - and the fact that many families moved to the newly industrialised north in search of work.  But it was already difficult for larger families to find work as they grew up in earlier decades.  With their family now complete, late in the 1840s, the Batleys moved to Norwich and at the 1851 census Thomas and Mary and their five youngest children were living at Castle Ditches in the parish of St Michael at Thorn.  William and his wife had left baby Sarah with her grandparents in Wattisfield, and were making a new life for themselves in Norwich, living in Rising Sun Lane in the same parish as William's parents.  Mary, now said to be 21, but in truth somewhat younger, was expecting her second child, George, who was born on 19th May that year.  Both Thomas and William are shown as labourers.

The 1861 census shows that progress had been made in their plans.  By then they were living in Golden Ball Street, William being listed as a shoemaker, while Mary (now revealing her true age, 28) is credited with the occupation of a shoe binder.  Their family then consisted of five children and Mary's 20-year-old sister Maria was also with them, described as a domestic servant.  Whether working for them or outside the family is not indicated.  Most census records list the children in order of age; most that do not show the boys first, followed by the girls.  The sequence of this entry is somewhat strange.  After William and Mary come Sarah, 11, daughter Eliza, 2, and Maria, followed by the boys: Thomas, 6, George, 8 and William, 3.

St Michael at Thorn was close to the centre of the city.  Castle Ditches was, as its name indicates, close to the foot of the great mound on which the Norman castle was built.  By the start of the nineteenth century, it had become a general dumping ground and refuse pit.  The area was levelled and advertised for development in 1826 and it's likely that both Thomas's and William's 1851 homes were part of that development.  Golden Ball Street ran through the middle of the area and obviously the houses there afforded greater accommodation.  As the decades passed, prosperity increased and they moved from parish to parish further out from the city centre.

William and Mary went on to have a family of ten, six sons and four daughters; William died in the summer of 1889 at the age of 62 and later that year daughter Sarah was married.  In the 1891 census Sarah, now the wife of William Meadows, described as a 'Laster and heeler', were living in Quebec Road, while her widowed mother was living with two of her younger sons in nearby Rosary Road, both in St Matthews parish.  William Meadows died in 1906 and Sarah's mother Mary in 1909. In 1911 Sarah was living in the same area, with a teenage lodger, and her brothers and their families close by.  She died in 1925.

Of the parish of St Michael at Thorn, which had played a great part in the family's settling and early life in Norwich, little can be seen today.  The church itself, which stood at the corner of Ber Street and Thorn Lane, was hit by incendiary bombs on 27th June, 1942, leaving only the tower and part of the walls standing.  The whole area was flattened as part of the post-war redevelopment in the 1950s and the church door is the only survivor, having been re-erected in the restored church of St Julian (now something of a tourist attraction) as the entrance to Mother Julian's cell there.

Flat-dwelling

"Curiosity killed the cat" was a proverb often quoted to support not telling children a truth that parents thought was best not shared with them.  I can't vouch for the feline consequences, but curiosity is certainly lethal so far as time is concerned.  I recently wasted an hour or so trying to find out some facts about flat-dwellers.  In particular my quest was simply 'what proportion of people living alone in this country, live in flats?'  Lots of reports touched on one or other characteristic, but nowhere could I find the precise answer to my question ... at least not before giving up the search with the words, 'life's too short!'.

What I did find was that, in 2019, approximately 29.5% of all UK households were single-occupancy, and 'the greater proportion' are men, which could mean as few as 14.8% of households.  But, although owner occupancy by single householders varies from 50% at some ages to 75% at others, nowhere does this seem to be split between flats and detached or semi-detached dwellings.

Whatever that proportion might be, the fact remains that I'm one of them and, in a succession of three dwellings, have been so for the last 21 years.  It's no surprise that, over that time, it's a situation with which I've become familiar and things that others might find peculiar - for example, having two front doors, and hence two front door keys - have become commonplace.

My flat-dwelling familiarity hasn't always been the case.  I'm not suggesting that my parents were snobs - they certainly had no right to be! - but in overheard conversations certain people in the neighbourhood might be referred to thus: 'Old <so-and-so> lives in the flats', the words being uttered in tones that implied that Mr. <so-and-so> was one of a lower class of people, part of a sub-culture that was not to be associated with.  And any suggestion of entering the block of flats to deliver to, or worse, communicate with such people was definitely not to be entertained.

Unquestionably, a block of flats, like any household, has its own smell, that is only noticed briefly on entry and soon becomes part of the normal ambience.  I've noticed this when making deliveries to other blocks on the estate and elsewhere.  Occasionally I've had a visit from a member of the local constabulary, announcing that they've had a report of drugs in the area and asking if I've smelled anything worthy of their attention in this regard.  I'm not sure whether I'm believed, but I usually explain that my sheltered life has meant that I wouldn't be able to identify whether or not an out-of-the-ordinary smell might be drug-related.

I may be fortunate to live in a quiet close, with neighbours who, like me, are busy getting on with their own lives and give me no cause for complaint.  That isn't to say that the place is silent.  In fact, it's quite comforting to have the sound of others nearby.  As I write this I can hear the steady beat of modern music from the flat above, but it's not at a volume to cause interference to my concentration.  Some sounds are of a regular nature, like the couple next door who can be heard nipping outside for a smoke last thing at night, and it's far from uncommon to sit in the toilet and hear a sudden gush in the downpipe just inches from my left ear!  But I know what it is, and that it signifies the existence of life around me, so it's not intrusive.

Occasionally I've developed friendships with my neighbours, but this tends to be the exception rather than the rule.  Usually, the most intense exchanges relate to the taking in of each other's parcels.  The previous owner of the flat next door lived there herself for many years but then moved away and rented it out.  At this point I became her 'eyes and ears' for any threat to her property.  In an earlier flat, I had regularly exchanged greetings with the young lady who lived opposite, but we'd never had a conversation until I was about to move out because my landlord needed to sell the flat.  "I wish I'd known earlier," she told me, "I have a well-paid job in the City and as a result I have savings I want to invest.  I could have bought your flat and you could have stayed there as my tenant."  Such an arrangement would indeed have suited both of us, and that flat was nearer the town centre than my present home, but it wasn't to be.

I think, on balance, that the benefits of not having more rooms to keep clean, having a secure place to park my car - even if I do have to share the closest space on a 'first-come' basis with others who live nearby - and tidy grounds that I don't have to maintain, outweigh the potential of a separate front door onto the street and the constant headache of structural responsibilities.

It Goes Back Centuries!

I've been thinking about words.  Let's face it, despite the variety of our modern lives - or, indeed maybe because of it - they are probably the most common things we have around us ... and that is surely true whether they are in our native tongue, one we've learned at school or since, or one in some foreign language we've never seen before.  Words are words, and we see them on every side.

From time to time I've seen 'tests' on social media that give credence to a calculated claim that the inside of words is far less important than the combination of their length, context and their initial and final letters.  Indeed, a tweet this morning provided me with two examples of this very fact.  It was actually a reply to one I'd spotted yesterday but which, being puzzled by it and unable to understand its point, I had passed over.  Yesterday's section of the story concerned a supermarket's in-store sign showing a glass of milk and the two words 'Lleath' and 'Milk', with the caption 'Another entrant to the milk war!'.  This morning's response cited another sign (no picture this time), saying 'I had a similar argument with <name of national supermarket chain> over Psygod!'

Now, in my travels, I've been into stores in both Scotland and Wales and have seen many signs like this that are written in both English and either Gaelic or Welsh, and the fact that I've now been learning Welsh on and off for three or four years, meant that the words for milk and fish are common to me.  Hence, my puzzlement why there should be consternation over a milk sign bearing both languages.  This morning, however - fish being less common in my lessons than milk - I suddenly realised that 'Psygod' should read 'Pysgod', and I looked back at 'last night's milk'.  Sure enough, it should have read 'Llaeth', and the meaning of the exchange became crystal clear.

Geography isn't the only thing that affects words and their use.  History must bear its share of the blame for word-confusion.  This morning, shortly after reading that second tweet, I was planning what turned out to be quite a busy day and caught myself muttering, 'Now let's set these things in order.'  I've read somewhere that a preposition is not the way to end a sentence; whether true or not, it's stuck in my memory ever since I read it and, if true, it would surely apply to the phrase as much as to the single word, so my mind set about re-phrasing what I'd said: 'Now let's set in order these things.'

You can tell that I was only half intent on what I was doing, for my thoughts drifted further down the revision path.  I realised that, if I were to be more economical and say 'Now let us order these things.', it would convey a totally different meaning, i.e. to requisition goods from an outside source, rather than to arrange things - in this case ideas - already in my possession.

That was all to do with the sequence of the same known words.  It's perhaps coincidence that all these thoughts came in the space of about two hours earlier today.  During my early morning prayers, my mind drifted to a line from a hymn, written only in the nineteenth century by John Bacchus Dykes, but using words common a couple of centuries earlier.  I'd sung it often when I was younger, without giving it a second thought, but today's child might be puzzled by the archaic tenses of "Which wert and art and evermore shalt be."

It's time to draw this 'socially distanced' ramble through the textbooks to a close, before I drift off to Norman-French, Anglo-Saxon and Greek.  But let me just explain those three unusual words in that hymn line.  The 'which' at the beginning is a personal reference to God, to whom the whole hymn is presumed to be addressed; until the seventeenth century - and possibly later - it was common to differentiate between singular and plural in the second person.  This is still the case in many languages (French, German and Welsh, to my knowledge) but English became lazy and now uses 'you', 'your', and 'yours' whether we're talking to one or a hundred people.  The words in this hymn are the archaic forms of 'were', 'are' and 'shall' that would have been used with 'thou', the single word for the second person, that has long since fallen out of use.

The moral of my early morning is therefore not just to be careful what you say, but also the order in which you say it ... and how you spell it as well!