The Candlemas Blacksmith

I'm still grappling with the family of my grandfather's grandmother.  I started adding the results of my research to my family tree charts the other weekend, but soon realised just how many gaps there were left to fill.  I'm not so near the end of the task as I'd thought!  But it does mean that I have more tales to tell here.

Joseph Moor was born in the high summer of 1841 in the Durham village of Hetton le Hole.  He was the son of the unmarried Ann, and first appears in the census of 1851 living with his mother and his grandparents.  Grandfather Anthony was a 'Waggon man at pit'.  This meant that he worked with the waggons drawing coal, either on the surface or below ground.  Ten years later, at the age of 80, he was described as a 'Waggonway repairer'.  Joseph, now 19, was a 'Waggon guard'.  Thus far, the family had lived in Pittington, close to where Joseph had been born.  Ann had worked on the land in the early days to add to their income, but latterly was merely a housekeeper.

Mary Elizabeth Berry was born in Darlington in 1847, the first of six children, and was living in Great Aycliffe in 1861.  Her father, a Yorkshireman, had progressed from railway labourer to being a signalman at that time.  Mary and Joseph married in 1868 in Darlington and the census of 1871 found them living at Royal Oak, where Joseph, perhaps inspired by seeing his grandfather working with the iron fittings of those waggons or the tracks on which they were hauled, had established himself as a blacksmith.  Their son Joseph William had been born on Candlemas, exactly two months earlier.

This place, Royal Oak, presented me with a problem.  Was it a pub, where the child had been born? Was it a road or an area, perhaps of Darlington or Bishop Auckland?  No atlas or index referred to it.  Census after census, though, Joseph's birthplace was given as 'Royal Oak, Durham'. Fortunately, I have a present-day cousin living in the area who pointed me in the right direction.  Today, it is a tiny hamlet comprising only four or five houses, some in ruins.  Its location is where the old Roman road to Scotland, Dere Street, (now B6275) crosses the A68 running from Darlington up to Corbridge and onward to the border at Carter Bar.  There is a place-name; it's on the right-hand side of the B-road as it approaches the junction from the north, so it's not easily noticed.  The most amazing aspect of this, though, is that I actually passed through Royal Oak a number of times during my driving career ... but then, of course, I wouldn't have been looking out for it!

Joseph and his family didn't stay there long, however.  In 1872, they moved to Pocklington in east Yorkshire, where their daughter Mary was born.  The census of 1881 shows them in Market Street, by 1891 they had moved to Deans Lane, where Joseph William was his father's assistant and the 18-year-old Mary a dressmaker.  By 1901 the business was thriving; Mary had left home, and her place had been filled by a 20-year-old boarder, George Duggleby, who, like Joseph and his father, was also described as a blacksmith.  Ten years later, George had moved on and the business was then located in New Street; Joseph senior had retired, and he died later in 1911 at the age of 70.

Emma Burlingham was born in Wattisfield, Suffolk in 1878; her mother was Rosanna, the second wife of James Burlingham, my 3 x great-grandmother's eldest brother.  The family had moved to nearby Redgrave by 1891, where Rosanna and James died in 1898 and 1900 respectively.  Now making her own way in the world, Emma found herself a position in Bournemouth, where her sister Mary and family were already settled.  In 1901, she was a parlourmaid in the house of Robert Maunsell, a retired major in the militia. Robert was born in Canada and his wife and three eldest daughters in Ireland.  The household totalled fifteen altogether, with Emma accompanied 'below stairs' by a cook, housemaid, under-housemaid, children's maid and a nurse.

Maybe, as a country girl, Emma sought somewhere a little less busy.  By 1911 she was a housemaid in a staff of just four, with a cook, ladies' maid and kitchenmaid.  The only family member present at the census was the 30-year-old daughter, Evelyn Maud Calverley Rushton, of independent means.  This family home was Allerthorpe Hall, just two miles from Pocklington!  Needless to say, from time to time they would have dealings with the local blacksmith.

Joseph and Emma were married on 4th February 1913 at St Mary's church in Scarborough.  Joseph's mother died the following summer, and the couple settled eventually in the village of Nunburnholme, just four miles from Pocklington.  Joseph was still running his blacksmith's forge there in 1939, and died in 1943.  Emma died in the summer that the war ended; they had no children.

Joe, Barak and Me

It was impressive.  The White House in all its glory, as if the riot of two weeks ago had never happened, the key people seated in their overcoats (why does this pageant have to be in winter, when Washington DC is so cold? - Didn't I read somewhere that it used to take place in March?) and the touching sight of one of the National Guard crossing himself at the end of the prayer for the victims of Covid-19.

My thoughts went back to the occasion twelve winters ago, when Joe Biden was in the vice-presidential chair.  What a lot has happened in the twelve years since Barak Obama's inauguration.  I don't intend to offer an incompetent summary of world events in that time (you will be pleased to know!).  But, more out of curiosity than with any other intent, I wondered what I was doing at that particular time.  January 20th was a Sunday that year, so I plucked from my records the week either side.

By Wednesday of the first of those two weeks, the furthest I had gone was the Birmingham area, with deliveries in Shirley and Redditch, so on Thursday I was glad to land a pick-up from a railway depot in Hornsey for two drops in Preston.  Full of cheek and more in hope than expectation, I rang in to say, alliteratively, "I've done these ... is there a car-size collection in Kirkintilloch before I head back?"  I was in admiration - as ever - of my boss's wit as, quick as a wink, he responded, "Sorry, there was one, but I gave it away to someone else!"  On the way home I had a call to ask me to repeat a job I'd done on the Tuesday, collecting from RAF Wattisham in Suffolk for one of our customers in Luton.

January was always a slow month for us and some of my colleagues couldn't stand the wait for another job and went home.  Maybe they knew they could be more useful there, with gardening, decorating or whatever.  I was usually content to wait so long as I had a puzzle or a book to read and often my willingness was rewarded with a job no one else wanted.  One night, I recorded, I had taken an evening delivery to a pharmacy in Pinner.  It was a job that paid me just £24, but when I got there - the shop was closed, but the pharmacist had waited and was going to deliver the medication I'd brought to someone's home - he profusely thanked me for coming and said, "You may have saved someone's life tonight!"  Not all the rewards were pecuniary.

January was a slow month; the next week I'd earned about two-and-a-quarter day's income in the first four days ... and, apparently, I was one of the lucky ones.  One who, it seemed, was always luckier, was an ex-police inspector who had no need of the income, so we thought, to supplement his generous pension.  On the previous day, he had enjoyed a convenient pair of deliveries, one in Bristol, the second in Llanelli, and was now moaning because he 'hadn't got in until late', and therefore 'wasn't looking for much today.'  My notes said that I thought of 'Oliver' and the 'privilege of indigestion'.

Even in those slack times, there were good experiences.  I note that I had taken a job from Royston to Harwich: "... a pleasant morning, cruising through Suffolk in the sunshine and then down to Manningtree and Mistley to get there 'the pretty way'."  Regular readers won't be surprised to learn that I had noted my discovery that the distance from Royston to Harwich was the same as from RAF Wattisham to Luton.

On the home front, I had been having a clear-out.  I had long been a subscriber to Freecycle, the forerunner of today's 'Trash nothing' system, and it was often easier for me to deliver to someone wanting my offers, because I could never plan when I was going to be at home for anyone to call.  The previous weekend, I had delivered a 'big black overcoat, symbol of the junior exec.' and a 'made-for-the-RAF' raincoat.  The first of these had cost me £80 in about 1985, I noted, and the second was from a 'staff sale' when I worked for a bespoke clothing firm a couple of years later.  Now, I couldn't get into either of them and they were just cluttering up my wardrobe.

And finally a topical revelation.  Back in November, I wrote here about a traumatic day in which work gave way to an enforced visit to A&E ... all because I wasn't drinking enough.  Twelve years ago, I noted that, "I was going round the M25 this evening when I suddenly felt quite faint.  It's occurred several times over the last number of years always about this time of day, but usually when I've just got home from work.  This was the first time I'd experienced it while driving, though.  It's not a dizzy faintness, simply a weakness in the legs, like I knew that, at that moment, I wouldn't want to get out of the van and stand up."

That had clearly been going on for many years, although I haven't noticed it since I stopped working and life became a little more regular.  I went on, "I think it's just a by-product of self-neglect; I'm usually OK after eating and drinking something."  I called in at the Ram in Hayes (a pub that has long since been demolished for housing), where I knew I could "count on a good plate of 'home cooking'."

I wonder how - if at all - life will change now that Joe Biden has become president. 

Tales From the Shelves

Perhaps it's a reflection of my advancing years that, only days later, I can no longer remember what it was that prompted my curiosity.  Earlier this week, I needed to find out the difference between English Bond and Flemish Bond and, despite having Wikipedia at my fingertips, I walked across the room and picked up Ware & Beatty's 'Short Dictionary of Architecture'.  Now, this slim volume doesn't rank highly on my current reading list - in fact it's not even in the running for the bottom place - but it's been in my possession for well over 50 years, since it was presented to me as the Junior Geography Prize.

This isn't the oldest book in my collection.  That honour probably goes to 'Odham's Encyclopaedia for Children', which lives on the top shelf and pre-dates it by some three years.  As its dust jacket declares, it's profusely illustrated with over 2,500 pictures and I won it for being the highest-scoring boy from my school in the 11-plus examinations that year.  Its partner went to Bridget, who now lives in Australia and whom I met again a few years ago at a high school reunion.

As I put these two memories together, I realised that there are many more tomes lurking on my shelves that have a story to tell.  None is as old as these two veterans, but some of the stories bear re-telling.  Take 'Milk, Muck and Memories', for example.  I bought it because of the picture on the front, which reminded me of my father - not that I ever saw him with a horse - but 'horseman' was his description on his marriage certificate.  It is a selection of memories of country life between the wars.  Along with the two pictures that accompany it, it's a souvenir of a visit to Market Rasen nearly five years ago.

'The Highland Clearances' and the other two small books with them are a reminder of another of my travels, bought in John o' Groats while on a railway weekend in Scotland.  'A History of Ireland in 250 Episodes' is of similar, if more intense, provenance.  It's author, Dr. Jonathan Bardon, was commissioned by BBC Ulster in 2005 to do a series of 240 five-minutes talks on Ireland's history to 1939.  It was a series that was later aired on RTÉ during the time that I could receive their programmes on Long Wave in my van.  I heard many of these talks and appreciated both their content and their concise presentation.  A few years later, I had time on my hands after delivering some flowers to Tesco in Dún Laoghaire and, while browsing in a bookshop, I spotted this publication, for which ten chapters had been added to the radio talks to bring it up to date.  I'd tried without success to obtain the book locally ... and now snapped it up without hesitation.

While on the subject of work, notice the two small books at the back: 'Philip's Street Atlases of Norfolk and Suffolk'.  These are the sole survivors of a whole crate of such atlases, large and small, which I collected over several years, just before and after the arrival of SatNav.  I think my collection covered every county of England, parts of Wales and the major cities of Scotland and Ireland.  At the time, they proved invaluable but, with the exception of these two (kept to help my family history investigations and also transcription work that I have undertaken in retirement), all the rest were a parting gift on the occasion of the sale of my Motor-caravan a few years ago.

Not all of my 'library' offers such pleasant stories, however.  The one to which I have given pride of place in this selection is, in fact, an imposter.  I received a gift of 'Quaker Faith and Practice' after conducting an Examination of the annual accounts of Tivetshall Monthly Meeting in Norfolk back in the 1980s or '90s.  It was duly inscribed with the date and the signatures of the Clerk and Treasurer of the Meeting.  Sadly - for what reason I cannot fathom: vengeance, oversight or anything in between - it was the one missing item from a car-load of books that I received from my ex-wife on a car park in Hitchin after a divorce hearing.  Having already accepted the finality of the situation, I decided that a replacement had to be sought and when next in London, I visited Quaker House opposite Euston Station and duly secured this copy.  Even if it has no 'voice', it can still tell the story.

And finally, swirling back again through the years, I bring you the twin volumes on the extreme left of my picture.  When I was first investigating the possibility of training as a Reader (lay minister) in the church, it was to Canon Frank Colquhoun, the editor of these two collections of 'Parish Prayers,' that I paid a visit at his office in Norwich.  He was at that time the Diocesan Warden of Readers, and he advised me to go away and finish my accountancy exams first and then return.  When I did so a few years later, he had retired, but his books were a 'go-to' resource for a number of years after that.

I challenge you, dear reader, to disagree with a suggestion that I heard many years ago that a good library is a valued friend.

The Dilemma over Children

One of the most talked about side-effects of the Covid pandemic is the effect on, and potential effects of, children.  Notwithstanding the most recent much-belated decision to close all schools (while still requiring them to cater for the children of key workers!), a difficult balance has been hard to achieve over the last ten months.  On one hand is the need for children of all ages to have social as well as academic contact with their peers, and on the other the complex questions of protection.  This has to be taken into account to keep the children safe from each other (albeit perhaps a minimal risk), from the teaching staff, and from passing on infection to teachers or their families.

My attention was drawn recently to the way that, with schools closed, children also impinge on 'normal' adult life.  Of course there is the new challenge of home-schooling.  While some children adapt easily to this, others need almost constant prompting and cajoling to make even the slightest progress.  After all, a day away from school is a great opportunity to do all sorts of other things ... never mind several weeks!  With this unwelcome addition to an existing combination of career, study, and the regular demands of family life and running a home, some young parents are finding it difficult to cope.

Nothing is new in this world, they say.  When I was confronted by similarly conflicting choices in my early adult life, I drifted into, rather than decided on, the simple solution of ignoring children and family and focussed on my career ... a course that had obvious and disastrous consequences and is to be avoided!  Perhaps a closer parallel to today's national situation, with the focus on the children's safety, was the scheme of evacuation that took place in the autumn of 1939.  It had mixed results.  Some children had a miserable time and soon returned to the dangers of home life in a vulnerable city, while others discovered a completely different life that they enjoyed and never looked back.

A few weeks ago, I wrote here about an instance 170 years ago, when a young couple left their daughter Sarah Batley, just over a year old, with her grandparents while they set up home in a new location and, incidentally, welcomed a brother for Sarah.  Soon Sarah returned to her family and all was well.  This week I discovered a parallel situation some fifty years later, where one of Sarah's brothers - named William, after his father - and his wife Jane found themselves in the grandparent role.

William Batley and Jane Elizabeth Canham were married in Norwich in 1878.  In 1881 William was listed as a police officer but, in the ensuing years, perhaps discovered his true vocation for, in 1891, he was working for the Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway as a porter in Melton Constable.  He and Jane had only one child, a daughter Gertrude, who was born shortly after their marriage.

Meanwhile, William Barradell was born in 1867 the son of a shepherd in Throckmorton, Worcestershire.  By the 1891 census he was lodging with his brother in Stourport where both of them were working as 'carmen' ... in other words, the forerunner of today's logistics industry.  His brother was working for a local brewery but William may well have been employed by a railway company.  Somehow his travels took him to Norfolk, where he met and impressed Gertrude, some ten years his junior, whom he married in north Norfolk towards the end of 1898.  By this time, it seems, he had moved to - or at least had probably decided on - a less demanding career with the railway company, for in 1901 he was working as a passenger guard and was in the same role ten years later.

William and Gertrude lived in Mansfield for about ten years.  It was there that their first child, Hilda Mary, was born on 10th October 1899.  It was a busy time for Gertrude.  William was away from home up and down the railway, they were scarcely a year into marriage and she was in a new home and a strange town far from her previous life in rural Norfolk.  Added to that Dorothy, her second child, was born on 26th October 1900.  

Hilda had to go.

By 1901, William and Jane Batley had moved to Cromer.  William had progressed to a foreman porter and their home at no.6, 'M&GN Cottages' had been re-invigorated by the arrival of their granddaughter.  This seemed to work out, for ten years later they were found in Jane's birthplace, Banningham, near Aylsham.  William had forsaken the railway and taken up farming as a new career; he was 53 or 54, and Jane about the same age.  Hilda was still with them, attending school in the village.  She went on to marry William Joseph Timmings in Brentford in 1922.  That was where he had been born and bred, but it was another new life for Hilda.  Like her grandmother, she had just the one child, and the three of them were living in Harrow in 1939.

Gertrude, by contrast, went on to present William with a succession of further children.  After Dorothy, three more arrived while they were living in Mansfield, including a welcome son, named William Edwin after his father and grandfather, and a further four more after they had moved to Nottingham, where the family was recorded in 1911.  William Barradell died in the spring of 1936 and Gertrude's mother Jane early the next year.  Gertrude had moved out of Nottingham to Beeston, and settled in with an unmarried son there.  At the age of 80, William Batley took the great step of moving to be with Gertrude, and it was there that he died almost exactly a year after his wife, early in 1938.  

When War Came Again

I was never a Boy Scout but I believe their motto to be that worthy phrase, 'Be Prepared'.  This hasn't been our present government's position regarding either the pandemic or the problems of cross-channel freight (those thousands of lorries queuing at Dover have dropped out of the news; I wonder whether they have all moved by now).  Despite Churchill's agitations, it wasn't the situation at the outbreak of war in 1939 either.  However, preparations for one upcoming challenge at that time were well in hand, ... the 1941 Census.

Within four weeks of Mr Chamberlain's radio address that Sunday morning, adaptations had been made and forms printed and circulated for the compilation of what we now know as the 1939 Register.  It wasn't a census and the information collected was slightly different but, to genealogists in the last few years, it has proved very helpful, bridging the gap between the latest available census of 1911 and the memories of our oldest relatives today.  And the Register provided the gateway to this week's story from my favourite pastime.

As last week's episode revealed, I was fascinated by the fact that the wife of one of my 3x-great-aunt's extended family had been born in Ireland.  Thwarted in my endeavours to discover a military reason for her East Anglian parents being there, and forsaking any hope of discovering how she met her husband, I decided to move forward in time and see what happened to her children.  George William Batley returned from South Africa on 11th February 1903 and lost no time in marrying his sweetheart.  As noted last week, their first child was born later that year.

By 1911 their family, living at 23 Alderson Street, comprised George, that first son, and siblings Charles, 5, and Florence, 2.  Later searches revealed that Florence and George had another daughter, Elsie, who was born later in 1911.  When confronted by George's illness and later death during the spring of 1915, Florence was pregnant with their fifth child.  Who can imagine her emotions when a healthy daughter Eva was born that October?

As I tried with mixed success to find these children in 1939, I first explored the possibility of a marriage for Florence junior, that 2-year-old of 1911.  Sure enough she had married ... to Frederick David Balls, in 1935.  As is often the case, young men are not to be found in the 1939 Register, because anyone serving in the armed forces was not included in the registration.  I did find Florence, registered at the home they had established in Daplings Buildings, the exact location of which I've been unable to establish.  However, this entry had been ruled through.  I checked out another possibility and found her also entered in the household of steel erector Albert E Cornwell at 5 Alderson Street.

It was an address the familiarity of which escaped me at first.  I thought instead about this 30-year-old whose husband had now been called away on active service.  She had either closed up - or had completely abandoned - their home and now moved to a different part of the city: how had she found somewhere else to live as the unknown fates of wartime unfolded?  As I glanced at this family unit, wondering who else was in the household, I noticed the duplication of her name.  She was Florence A and so was Mrs. Cornwell ... and one of the others had the surname Batley!

Albert Edward Cornwell was born Weasenham in west Norfolk in 1883.  In October 1901, having been working as a groom, he enlisted in the Norfolk Militia; on 5th December, he transferred to the Norfolk Regiment but sadly his service papers don't appear to have survived.  Although, in 1911, he was recorded with the 2nd Battn. in Belgaum, India, any detail of his later service is unknown.  He surfaced again in post-war Norwich, where he met - and clearly made quite an impression upon - a young-looking widow who was actually some four years his senior.

Albert and Florence were married early in 1925, and their daughter Doreen was born that spring.  When the Register was compiled, Florence was shown as only two years older than her husband.  The last member of the household was Eva, the child born after her father's death in 1915.  My question was answered.  What could be more natural for the young wife at the start of the war than to be taken in by her mother's new family?  Sadly, she and Frederick never had children, and I was unable to find a record of his death.  Maybe he didn't return from the war.  If so, Florence didn't re-marry, for her death was recorded as Balls in 1981.

All the rest of the family survived the war.  Florence senior died in 1978, and Albert two years later. Eva married in 1941 and Doreen in 1956; both had families and died early in this century.