Nasty night, grey day, kitty #8 and I both a bit 'off' ... washing on the line ... time to get back into the 19th century ..
First eyecatcher, is this one. With that hairdo and pose he looks in for a life either on the stage or the army. Or maybe he's experiencing the pangs of puberty. He's fifteen years old.
Francis William Galbraith TOTHILL (b Clifton 22 May 1860; Gosport 4 December 1938). And yes, Captain, Royal Artillery. Son of a barrister and JP: 1877, squeaked in (in last qualifying place!) to the Royal Military Academy in 1877, and qualified (in second last place!) for a commission two years later. Lieutenant then Captain in the 1880s, adjutant of militia in Jersey in the 1890s, then Sheerness (now a major) before he was sent to South Africa on Lord Robert's staff, where he was a station commander and made a Deputy Assistant Adjutant General. Apparently, by his retirement, he was a Lieutenant Colonel. Looks like 40 years a soldier and never a shot fired ...? Anyway he duly married Winifred Arnold Pittis), bred ... and I think I'll leave him there ...
Someone liked this childhood photo .. the back is inscribed
Let's try one who clearly isn't army. This chappie looks as if he might be a Rev. And the ladies. No, they are not one and the same woman. They are sisters.
Robert George Young (supervisor, inland revenue) and his wife Isabella née Cousland had ten children as they moved from one of father's postings to another ..
Their eldest was Elizabeth Mary YOUNG (lower), born in Shoreditch 14 July 1857. She married John Edward TRANTER, congregational minister, in Rochdale, where the family had settled, in 1892. The couple had a long married life, and a number of children ... I see them in their eighties in Northampton with grown up son David, a biology teacher. There had been a Marjory Gladys, and a Dorothy Joyce before that ..
Laura Bella YOUNG (upper) was born in Argyll, Scotland 21 September 1863, and went to work as a teenager as a board school teacher. She married William Watkin SHERRIF, pictured with her here, who was not a clergyman but a carpet designer, and later manager of a velvet factory, and they too would have a long married life, punctuated by eight children. I imagine that the rather unhappy looking infant here was their first, William. Sherrif lived till 1940, and Laura till 13 March 1950.
PS I have never been able to spell 'sher(r)if(f)' as in Nottingham, so have followed the inscription here!
Right. Who next. This looks like a fine, upstanding gent. And he's from Kettering, Northants, which used to be my bus-stop.
Samuel Richards, born circa 1804 in Kettering. Like so many in that once-beautiful town he worked in the boot and shoe trade, until he rose to the plutocratic position (see 1871 census) of being a 'sewing machine proprietor'. He married Miss Frances Walker, and together they gave birth to Ann, Jane, Sarah, Caroline, Mary, Martha, Elizabeth ... yes, seven daughters.
Sarah was born in 1837, and like most of the family, also went into the boot and shoe industry. A boot closer, sewing the leather uppers together --- papa's sewing machine probably arrived too late for her! She married before her twentieth birthday, but that didn't put a stop to the boot-closing. Her husband (1856) was an Irish shoemaker! And, I suspect, not very literate. Samuel spells his name KELLY, the Brits marriage and death records spell it KELLEY ... did Martin the married know the difference?
In 1858 the couple had a son, [Samuel] John [Richards] Kelley, before they left Northampton and headed for Westminster, London. Martin made shoes, Sarah closed until 1870. And then Martin died. Aged 40. Sarah went home to Northampton ... but after the 1871 census, I lose her.
Papa Samuel seems to have died in 1879. I see son John ... well, best leave it there ...
I would have liked to have hugged Samuel. A caring papa.
Article abruptly ended. Kitty #8 is getting better, but I, alas, am not.
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