"Little Jimmy Sunshine", the hero of Portsmouth, and other tales ...

.

Time to shut the photo box and let it self-refill ... so, for the moment, one last volley of folk from the nineteenth century ...

When I saw this photo, with its inscription, I was expecting to find a tale of an heroic sea captain, safely extricating his ship from a tempest ...

Not so. 'Sunshine' -- James Edward SUNSHINE (b Chipping Norton, Oxon x 11 September 1853; d Portsmouth 1933) son of James Edward Sunshine, hatter and hardware dealer, son of James Edward Sunshine, umbrella-maker of London and Plymouth -- saved his (approx) eighteen souls one at a time. And he was no seafaring man, in spite of living his whole life on England's south coast. Most of it at Portsmouth's 36 White Hart Road. In 1891, he is sharing that address with his widowed father, in 1901 and 1911 with a newly acquired wife (1894), Alice Louisa née Bachelor; his job is corn and coal meterer ... until it becomes general labourer ... or, seemingly, anything handy ...

But, of course, it wasn't his day job that got him photographed. It was that list of rescues, which got him an award from the Royal Humane Society ...

I was weaning his tale from the past, when I found an article on the Portsmouth City Museum's facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/heroesmw?__eep__=6&epa=HASHTAG

There is his picture with his citation:

accompanied by some Jimmy snippets from the local press ...

Jimmy Sunshine died in 1933, Alice in 1937.

My next target also had watery connotations. And a name which, more or less, came to him from father and grandfather (and continued to son). The vendor of this cdv wasn't game to tackle the scrawl on the photo's verso, but I've been doing this since my distant teenage years, deciphering Greek and Latin inscriptions ... 

Atwell [Peregrine McLeod] LAKE (b Madras, India 11 April 1842; d St Arvans, Cheltenham 27 August 1915). Well, you could have guessed from all that frogging ...

Son of Henry Atwell Lake of the Madras Engineers (wife Anne née Curtois), grandson of Sir James Samuel William Lake, baronet, he missed out on the baronetcy, but it devolved upon his son, Sir Atwell Henry Lake.

He's in the Dictionary of National Biography, so that absolves me from detailing his career, but he was a commanding officer on cruisers from 1885, later became Captain of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, served in Gibraltar and at the Coast of Ireland Station, up to his retirement in 1901.  As you can see, this photo dates from February 1883, when (if my memory of maritime insignia serves me right) he was already a naval captain. He ended up an admiral.

He looks like a nice naval captain ...

My next also made it into the reference books, but in New Zealand. I didn't guess when I saw the photo: just a nice, strong-looking young man and his bride, photographed at the time fo their wedding, in my birth-town of Wellington, New Zealand.

The couple are William Kinross WHITE (b Glasgow 22 April 1856; d Omaranui, Napier, Hawke's Bay 15 July 1948) and his first wife, Frances Sophia née Moore (d Highcliffe, Napier 7 April 1899). They were actually married at St Luke's Church, in the bride's home town of Christchurch 27 March 1883, but these photos are by Wellington photographers Wrigglesworth and Binns.

Kinross White, the son of Joseph White and Helen, née Kinross, emigrated to New Zealand where his mother's brother, John Gibson Kinross (d Bedford 10 September 1907), had established himself at Puketapu, in partnership with J M Stuart as shipping agents (Port Ahuriri), estate agents et al in the 1850s. 'His business reached very considerable dimensions, and he also owned at different times several well-known sheep runs'. He latterly (1889) bankrupted and returned to England.

William followed in his uncle's footsteps, reached even more successful dimensions, and very definitely did not go bankrupt. At his death, he left nearly 100,000 pounds. 

Apart from his farming interests (he made the international news by paying a 'world record' 510gns for an Aberdeen Angus bull), and his shipping interests, he was managing director of the New Zealand branch of the North British Freezing Works, 'agent' for insurance companies, ran a wine and spirits business  ... and took an interest in sporting affairs. There were a few Kinross White trophies for swimming and other sports to be seen in his fief in the early twentieth century. And, of course, he gave his name to a street. 

His home life was a little less fortunate. He lost Frances in 1899, and their eldest son, Norman, in the Dannevirke flu epidemic of 1918. And of the three children of his second marriage, both the boys died in airplanes: Adrian 'Pat' in a training crash at Grantham and Rodney over Libya in the War.

He, himself, died at his Omaranui property, at the age of 92, in 1948.

A coherent account of his doings can be found in New Zealand reference books, and a selection of photos of himself and family at https://collection.mtghawkesbay.com/persons/5392 but they havent got these ones. I'm trying to tell them ...

Well, we've had Scotland, Gibraltar, Portsmouth, New Zealand ... how about a little Wales. I had better tidy up the gent I didn't do last night ..

Edward Dumaresq THOMAS (b Hay, Brecon, Wales 1844; d Walford House, Ross 1 March 1911). I'm afraid it's another country mansion job. Son of David Thomas, solicitor, and his wife Julia Sophia née Batt. I see them, in 1851, in their big house in Brecon: papa, mama, eight children, governess, nurse, under nursemaids, cook, parlourmaid, groom ... 

Graduated as a solicitor, clerked for his father, and then in London with Lloyd and Chevallier, married 1869 Violet Isabella Elliot Clare Ouchterloney of Tredilion Park, Llantilio Pertholey Citra, turns up at the odd society ball, and he was for some years involved in the Ceylon tea trade, and there Violet gave birth to a son, and died 18 May 1879. I see he is mentioned in a book enttled Tea Producing Companies of India and Ceylon. Now I know about Ceylon, I find 'Heawood Estate Sungei Siput. Padang Rengas. Proprietors: E Dumaresq Thomas and W Sandys Thomas ...'. Ah, the family business. At some stage, I read, they visited Australia.

In 1891 we see him at Shaw Dean Farm, Newbury, professing 'farmer' with his second (1881) wife, Annina Margaret née de Winton (b 25 Jan 1857; d 1932) and 13 year-old son Edward E Thomas (born Lindula, Ceylon), then at Llandefalog House, Brecon and the only time I spot them is when the missus advertises for a new servant for a household of '2 people, 3 servants'. She insists applicants must be churchgoers and 30ish. Hmmm...  Ah, there he is, breeding prize cattle and ... heavens, Mayor of Brecon!

So, it seems that if we want to know more about Edward D Thomas, we must go to Ceylon ... where the tea comes from ...

My favourite picture of today, though, was this one

Alas, he bears no clues ...

Milko!