A Rosenbaum grows in Newark, NJ

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I'm staggering. When you are a full-time researcher, you have the habit of plucking facts, tiny crumb by tiny crumb, from the loaf of the past. Today, I've had a whole bakery land on my desk.

I've been reconstructing my ancient Austrian Rosenbaum family for several years. Well, since I finally discovered, in my sixties, that I 'was' a Rosenbaum. Great grandmother was Julie of that name, from Königsberg-an-Eger. She was the daughter of one Adam Rosenbaum, who was the son of Napthali Rosenbaum .. and so forth. Well, reconstructing that tree was quite a job, for folk bred incontinently in those days and, of course, come the rise of the Nazi regime, the family was shattered to all corners of the world: China, North Africa, South America, Australasia, America, Britain ...
I made a fairly good job of it (see Geni), and a little group of we 21st century descendants of the Königsberg tribe are now delighted new friends and 'cousins'.

Adam Rosenbaum's memorial 

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I had a message on Geni. From John Schwarz in Texas. And a whole churchyard of ancestors leaped from their graves ...

I had concentrated, naturally, in my arboristic work, on Adam and his descendants. But I had never got so far as looking into his two sisters, Rosalie and Johanna Rosenbaum, beyond pinning them to their place at his side. John had researched Mrs Johanna Holzner (his great-great-grandmother), without knowing about Adam ... until he bumped into my Geni tree ... and wallop! The two sides of the jigsaw joined up, we both had a hundred new blood relatives and I am diving back into history in pursuit of a hundred more!

HOLZNER, PHILIPP, 1846 in Königsberg 98, 1849: 32 Jahre, 6 Monate (V: Holzner, Jakob, Schutzjud in Königsberg 98, Hausierer; M: Mittwitz, Fani aus Bayern), seine Ehefrau (Heirat 2.9.1849 in Königsberg; Rabbiner: Dr. Sachs, Samuel, Rabbiner in Lichtenstadt: Zeuge: Baumgartl, Moses)

HOLZNER, JOHANNA geb ROSENBAUM, 1846 Wirtschafterin bei Holzner, Philipp, Königsberg 98, 1849: 26 Jahre, 6 Monate (V: Rosenbaum, Naphtali, Handelsmann, gest. 19.12.1866 in Katzengrün19, 96 Jahre+; M: Heller, Sara aus Lichtenstadt), deren Kinder

Rosenbaum, Sophie, geb. 2.7.1844 in Königsberg 189, gehört nach Katzengrün*,
Rosenbaum, Rosi, geb. 13.4.1846 in Königsberg 98*,
Rosenbaum, Jakob, geb. 7.2.1848 in Königsberg 98**,
Holzner, Herman, geb. 9.6.1850 in Königsberg,
Holzner, Adolph, geb. 27.1.1853 in Königsberg 27***
*Namensbeilegung in der Syngog zu Königsberg
**Beschneidung im Holznerischen Hause 95; Beschneider: Simon, Moises aus Schödt 38; Pate: Rosenbaum, Adam aus Katzengrün; Hebamme: Reinold, Anna aus Königsberg 308
***Pate: Holzner, Willhelm, Handelsmann aus Königsberg; Hebamme: Eberl, Margaretha aus Königsberg 27

The Holzners emigrated to America -- Newark, NJ -- and John has just sent me a wonderful photograph from 1913 ... Johanna Holzner's ninetieth birthday party! All the Johanna-family together! I have never seen a family photo so splendid ... and it's MY family!

John has identified most of the folk, and I'm going to attach his 'key' here, so that (a) I don't lose it and (b) in the hope that a name might attract a wandering webwight ..

JOHANNA
Adolph Holzner
Carrie Holzner
Hannah Marx Holzner
Herman Holzner
Unknown woman
Sol Heller
Fannie Helle Blume ( Philip’s mother)
Unknown Man (looks like a Holzner face)
Unknown Woman
Unknown Man
Unknown Woman
Jacob Friedman
Fannie Marx Friedman (Paula’s mother)
Bella Heller
Henry Heller
Bertha (known as Aunt Bertha)
Gustav Heller
Carolyn Heller
Paula Friedman later Blume
Barbara Holzner
Ruth Heller
Philip Moses Blume
Julius Heller
Jennie Heller
Max Gibian
Ann Gibian
Sadie Heller Gibian
Carrie Holzner (Barbara’s mother)
David Holzner (Barbara’s father)
Max Heller (Gustav, Ruth and Carolyn’s father)
Jennie Marx Heller (Gustav, Ruth and Carolyn’s mother)
Edna Jeanette Holzner later Heller
Unknown Man
Unknown Woman
Mark Heller
Rosa Holzner Marx (Jennie and Fannie’s mother)
Franklin Marx (Jennie and Fannie’s father)

And now, to work! And .. yerm ... I suppose I had better get after the descendants of Rosalie Rosenbaum Heller next ...

Waddington

It is always a bit of surprise when someone whose photo I pick out of a pile for my investigation  turns out to be memorable, or to have memorable connections.

On my breakfast-time scout today, while looking at gentry from Essex, I came on this little picture of mother and daughters, sweetly inscribed to 'Aunt Dora' from Nelly and Hilda.

Not far away, amongs the offerings of that always-worth-a-look ebayer known as 'andyguy', was a later portrait of Mamma ...

Well, the Waddington family weren't shy. There they were, in 1871 Southampton: Mamma, Ellen (6), Pomfrett (5), Hilda (4), Quintin (3), Hal (2), Jessie (1). So, in this photo Nelly was ten years old, and Hilda eight. Hmm, I thought: Pomfrett, Quintin, Hal ... a family, shall we say, of some dignity? Papa wasn't at home. And oddly enough he wasn't at home in the 1881 census, or in the 1891 census either. Was he perhaps an hereditary admiral or something else seafaring? But, no. In 1861 he is at home, still laying a yearly babe on the missus. He is William Wilks Waddington BA Oxon (it was Brasenose), from Pontefract York, and a schoolmaster. Curious. He was obviously at home between the two censi, for the baby count continued: John Jarl, Margaret, Abbott Ralph, Joshua. By 1891, Ellen is a widow and seems to be 'professor of history'. She? or her late husband?

Oh, I was right about the gentility. WWW was the son of a Yorkshire landowner, Mamma was Ellen née Capper, a member of a substantial family (with no Dora among its number, however) who were indeed connected with the sea: father was a shipbroker and coal factor in Millbrook.

It didn't seem worthwhile following the family any further, but I still hadn't found Aunt Dora. So I peeked amongst the family historians. Oh! Look, a cute picture of Quintin, Hal and Jessie ...

Goodness, the Geni tree is a mess. The ancestry one calls Abbott (WWW's mother's maiden name) Albert and doesn't seem to have tried very hard ... I'll fix Geni in between the races at Rangiora this afternoon.

I glanced at the whatever-happened to of the babes. Pomfrett (d 1952) predictably became Vicar of the Church of the Annunciation Paddington, Quintin (d 1946) became an engraver, Hal (d 1933) went off to Madras to do tea for a couple of decades, John Jarl died in 1909 and  Jessie at just eighteen years of age. Abbott lasted longer, but died in an asylum. Margaret married Albert Warner. And our two little girls? Nelly died at forty, unmarried, at her forever home at Totton, Hants. Hilda did better. She married a gentleman named Gründler and ... well, by the 1930s she is widowed, living in Godstone and gallivanting round the world ... she died in Worthing, as the classier widows did, in 1943.

Nothing very notable there. But it was coming. Hal and Mary Anne née Warner had a son, named Conrad Hal Waddington. Today, he has his own Wikipedia article as 'a leading embryologist and geneticist from the 1930s to the 1950s'. It is a very learned article, which I can only refer you to if you know what the big scientific words mean.

Amongst the photos, I found this one, which indicates which branch of the family the little bundle comes from. It is a childish portrait of Mrs Hal, mother of Conrad ..

and on the morrow, another. Conrad 'and family'.

Mrs Ellen Waddington died 24 April 1903. I never did find Auntie Dora. Maybe that's she in Harrogate?

Time to do a bit of Geni mending. Then it will be cocktail time!

Post scriptum. Well, I went to work with a will on Geni, and as the tree grew, I came upon another memorable link. Littlest sister Margaret (b Eling 22 April 1873; d Hastings 11 July 1953), who seems to have had a good head on her shoulders, as half the family named her as their executor, wed, at the age of 22 a young man by the name of Alfred Warner (b Stoke Newington 28 May 1868; d Stoke Newington 13 December 1922). Alfred's father was Metford Warner 'paperstainer', and Alfred and younger brother Horace joined and followed him in his business, Jeffrey & Co. 'Paperstaining', at the turn of the century became known as wallpaper-design and manufacture, and if William Morris is the name that is the buzzword today, the Warners were right up there with them.

A number of their designs (colour woodblock prints) are now held by the Victoria and Albert Museum, and are masterpieces of the art of the period. And thereby hangs a whole other tale ...

PPS there is an Auntie Dora in the Warner family!
PPPS I gather the Warners' firm 'developed' into Sanderson's ..

I was a teenage Shakespearian ac-tor!

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Christchurch Civic Theatre 1963. 56 years ago. Henry IV part 1. Given by the laughably-named Canterbury University Drama Society. Most of the leading players hadn't seen University in a year or three. I was a seventeen (just)-year-old first year law student. 

Where are they now? What became of them? Who were they all? Were they any good? Did any (apart from I) become professionals. Have I seen any of them in the half century since? Well, I guess the answer to all that is some and sort of ..

Before: I was at Nelson College behind David Bretton. He won the grown-up singing cup when the vile, lubricious music-master was forcing me to sing falsetto, and I cracked into basso in the middle of my Mendelssohn. I was classmates with Barry Empson in Law Year I. I had met Adrian Burr at the University Bookshop, and I think it was probably due to him that I went to audition. That's all. 

 

Since: I have seen that Huntly Eliott went into TV, and Mervyn Thompson (who was the best actor) into the theatre, everyone knows what became of lawyer Gerry Lascelles, who must be 90 now, and lives too far on the other side of town for us to meet up. I later sang in Amahl (Gerry directed) with Elizabeth Hellawell and Glenn Wilson who had a good baritone, and if Tom Finlayson is the same TF who shared a dressing room with me at the London Palladium .. well, then I re-met him 15 years later! I think Gerald Orchard and Jim Hopkins may have played in my 1-act The Women of Troy a few years later.

Then: What else do I remember? Well, Ngaio in black with a furry waistcoat, covered in cigarette ash, nicely tell me off (in rehearsal!) for interrupting Hotspur while he was doing the fashionable 'mood preparation' nonsense. I had never heard of it, and have continued to find 'method acting' ridiculous to this day. Thanks Dave Hindin.

Better memory? Prince Hal offering me a ride from town out to the showgrounds rehearsal room on the back of his motorbike. Frst time on a moto, first time tightly enlaced ooo err. I was in love in ten seconds. Ian Kirk, I hope you are happy, wealthy, fulfilled and most of all 100% heterosexual.

I have memories of Gwen Chapman as an interesting Quickly, Welsh Mr Orange (a lecturer?) as Welsh Owain, Gerry Lascelles as a hugely-padded Falstaff, and I remember Lady Mortimer and her Welsh song. An important element in the play. A lovely soft contralto ...

Quickly, the King and I

At seventeen years of age, I wasn't about to find fault. But, looking back, I now realise that Ngaio's direction was perhaps less effective than that of many of her local contemporaries, and her casting was perhaps done too much from her inner circle. But what the hell, she (or her circle) picked me ('my next Jon Elsom') to play my only Shakespearian role, I had a great time, my Mum and Dad came down from Nelson and were so proud ... until I subsequently announced my intention of going into the theatre!

Bill Scanelll's costume was vile

Well, I did. And the rest is history. 

 
Oh, chuckle. I was (temporarily) 'Brian Gallas' (shudder) in those days. Reasons to be found in the earlier episodes of this blog.

Ah memories!

I'm just a Bigelow ...

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When a nice nineteenth-century carte de visite from a New Zealandish photographer comes under my eye, especially one bearing a name and a date, I can't help but investigate it ...

Agnes Elizabeth FRENCH apparently born in London in 1852. This photo is marked 1874, so she's 22 years old. Well, I have searched, but apart from a record in the Civil Registration lists, nothing. No baptism, no parents, no 1861 census ... did the family emigrate when Agnes was a child? Indeed, were there official 'parents'? Did she perhaps go to New Zealand on her own ...  Anyhow, there are a number of 'Miss Frenchs' around in Auckland in the 1860s, including one who sings, but the first notice of what is certainly she, is the announcement of her marriage. 22 July 1876 (not 1875), at the Auckland register office, Agnes married one James Amasa Bigelow.

Now the Bigelows of New Zealand and Australia are as full-throated with their family information as the Frenchs are shy. And there a huge numbers of them, and their descendants, around today, lots of whom have taken enthusiastically to geanealogy. Some, alas, with very little accuracy and success, others with much more. There is a whole website devoted to the Bigelows, with a part set aside the descendants of Amasa and Agnes (http://bigelowsociety.com/rod8/jam8c232.htm), and there folk including Robyn Futcher (who has some photos, alas not shared), Leonette Hathorn and Christine Morris have told tales of the family history which colour it up delightfully. Like all family hand-me-down traditions, they have got a little battered by forces of fiction (and copying dud 'truths') over the years ...

I'll start with our man's father. His name was John Bigelow, he came from Nova Scotia, and was apparently born there in 1803 (10 March). As a career, he practised the good Nova Scotian craft of carpentry. Building ships. He married a lady named Smith. Jane Smith so tis said. And their first son, John Smith Bigelow, was born in 1851. James Amasa was born in 1852. (Not in 1862 in Australia). Apparently, in 1853, Jane died. Well, if she did, whence came the rest of John's 'large family'? He must have remarried. Anna Margaret Jane (1853-), Emma Sophia 'second daughter' (1857-) , Mary Elizabeth (1858-4 February 1917) ...
In 1859, John decided to take his family .. the new wife was Mary (d 31 October 1883) ... to the Antipodes. We know that, because he applied for a settler's land grant in New Zealand. And on 27 November 1859 they set forth on the barque George Henderson from hometown Pugwash: John, John (jr), Mary, James A and Ann. But they are not alone! On the same sailing are George, Albert, Sarah J, Ann and Sarah Eaton. Sarah Eaton (née Bigelow, d New Plymouth 10 July 1879) was John's elder sister.  Oh, we know its them, because on the listing for one of his not infrequent incarcerations, Amasa said 'arrived on the George Henderson ...'. There does seem to be a spouse or so missing ...

Sarah Eaton

The Bigelows did splendidly in their new home. John quickly became foreman carpenter for an important boat-building outfit, soon branched out into building on his own account, and his name was attached to some of the stoutest sea-going vessels and the fastest racing yachts in Auckland and, indeed, New Zealand. Son John followed behind as his father's no2. Father and son were active in the community too. They were the leading lights of the Ponsonby Grange Road Baptist Chapel, John jr even becoming the Superintendant of the Sunday School, they were ardent temperance advocates and fluent speakers and lecturers for the Band of Hope Union, and they succeeded in running shipyards for thirty years with little labour troubles in an industry noted, even then, for its suicidal volatility. Mrs Bigelow, and Mrs Bigelow jr (Mary Ann Brown), plus the three Misses Bigelow, were all active in chapel affairs, concerts (Emma was a whiz on the harmonium), dinners, teaparties, and two of the girls found good, sound husbands there. Emma ('second daughter of Mr John Bigelow of Ponsonby') became Mr Charles Abbott in 1887, and in 1885, Mary ('youngest daughter') wed Mr James Edgar of Dunedin. I think I see her delivering a son 23 April 1889. And then there was Amasa. The flop of the family. The mouldy gooseberry.

When John jr, Emma and Mary married, the usual kind of notices appeared in the press: 'son/daughter of ..'. When James married, the fact was baldly recorded: no family names for him or for Agnes. He had apparently gone mouldy already. He soon got out of Auckland and headed for Newcastle, where he set himself up briefly as a builder, went bankrupt, went jail for crime untold, and did the one thing that he would ever be good at: fathered the first of his nine children. When things got too complex in Australia, he disappeared back to New Zealand, where he was soon in court again for debt, and so, with two more children added to the stock, backed on his tracks. In 1886, he was up for fraud in Australia, in 1887 he tried to launch a patent 'beer-engine', in 1891 he was making and advertising 'Dingo annihilator bait' and there were other like fruitless essays, one apparently to do with white lead. In and out of court, of jail, of the Police Gazette ... in 1894 he ('mechanical engineer, 5ft 7ins, stout, long dark beard') was up for a breach of the Education Act. I imagine he hadn't been sending his children to school.

Ernest John (1876-1939), Clifford Miner (1878-1916), Amasa Edgar (1880-1978), Cora Malvena (New Zealand, 1882-1949, Mrs Quinn, Mrs Duffell), Charles Rockwell (New Zealand 1884-1964), Henry Louis (1888-1956), Cyril Albert (1891-1972), Agnes Elizabeth (1893-1959, Mrs Harradine), Lillah Ivy (1895-1971, Mrs Knight).

Amasa the feckless?

Yes, Agnes doubtless had a busy life bringing up nine children with a feckless husband. Lillah was only eight when Amasa died in August 1903. Just three months after his bonny big brother, who had, during his life, rescued men from drowning on seven occasions, had been killed in a fall down a ship's hatch in Auckland. The two brothers' wives would have long widowhoods. Mary Ann died in 1938. Agnes lived until 1939 (21 September), and died at Lillah's home in Ocean Street, Narrabeen aged 86.

Agnes in later life

They left behind them Bigeloads of children, on both sides of the Tasman sea ... I wonder which of them had no use for great-grandma's photo ...

Watermills in Norfolk ..

I didn't get very far with my morning wander through the cartes de visite on ebay today. On page one I struck a fun-looking fellow with a rather familiar name, so I thought I'd stake him out ...

He is lavishly if rather oddly annotated on his verso ...

James Henry Orde might have been a Major in the RVC, but it was the least of his achievements. Born in Jersey, 30 September 1830, educated at Bembridge Parsonage and Oriel, Oxford, he married Margaret Barclay Gurney, the daughter of Daniel Gurney of North Runcton, banker, and his wife, daughter of the Earl of Erroll, and himself became a landowner, JP and personage at Hopton Hall, Great Yarmouth. His genealogical details have, thus, found their way into Burke... seven children, and death at 49 (21 February 1880).

Our penman here seems to have been very proud to have been his friend. But I wish that I understood the subscription 'But for him Old Tom and Old Ned might not have had The Good Old Ship .. what?'

Well, I think I have an idea who the penman may have been, because a little further on I found this chappie ...

He isn't named, but he too was photographed in Great Yarmouth, and the back is heavily inscribed in what looks very like the same hand, and in the same odd style

   

                            

Well, it's father telling son to write to him.  'You must ferret old **** and do so incessantly'. And then the pretentious cod-Latin tag which fits ill with 'I'll thump your skull'. Pater to his Frater? Father to his brother? That fits ill with father dear to his prodigal son.

Well, annie-tique who has posted this wee selection on ebay says that the card is 1880s and that the sitter is connected with the Cookes of Aldborough .. so ... next step ...

Ah! Here's another. With a very firm identification. Henry Carter Cooke. The Mill, Aldborough. 

Yes, indeed, Henry was the Miller at Aldborough, taking over at the death of his ?elder brother, William Carter Cooke, sharing his home with his sister Emily, and running the place up till his death in 1911. Oh, please don't think of a miller as a chappie carrying sacks of flour on his back. Crushed Corn. The major mills of Norfolk and Suffolk were often pendant to sizeable estates (see 'Mill Plantation') and the 'Miller' was an administrator as much as anything.

Anyway the Cooke family had been, for generations, in the Milling business all round the county. Unfortunately for me most of them were called William, Thomas, Henry, even Edward. But repeated over the generations was the name of Robins Cooke. So I delved just a little.... Thornbury, Glanford, Great Livermere, Bury St Edmunds ...

But, the photos. When I looked, there were more. Who is this little lady, 4 years and four months old.

Charlotte Mary Cooke. So where does she fit in? Seems she's a niece of the above Henry, daughter of his younger brother, Robins. Born 9 July 1880. So the photo is 1884. Oh, her mother was Charlotte Hannah Rayner of Chantry Hall, Norwich. The family is getting gentrified! Although father is still listed as 'miller' at Glandford. Charlotte went on to marry Alfred Thomas Ralph Steadman, had three daughters ... 

Another. Hannah Cooke. Hannah C Cooke. The C is probably the Carter that all this generation seem to have popped in to their nomenclature whether thus christened or not. 

This is surely Henry's sister. We can see the family at the Mill in Aldborough in the 1871 census. William born Glandford 54 miller and merchant, wife Elizabeth (née Wigg), and children William, our Henry, Emily and Hannah (13). She looks interesting. I see she married an Edward Burton in 1875. So this photo must be before then.

REVISION!!! Edward Burton of North Walsham, farmer, in the 1881 census with wife Hannah and three children including one year-old Emily Dunning Burton. And here she is! alas, the wee mite only survived to the age of seven...

Then there are two maybes ..

Well, I suppose they are connected, since they come from the same batch. How sad to see a family collection broken up ..

And one last one. Later. Because Sawyer and Bird have now handed over their business to one Albert Coe...   

Well, the part of this little bundle that I've enjoyed the most is finding two grand websites (after I'd finished!) on the Mills of Norfolk

http://www.norfolkmills.co.uk/Watermills/aldborough.html

http://captainahabswaterytales.blogspot.com/2010/01/aldborough-mill-norfolk.html

As usual, I've written this little piece to make sure this little piece of history is preserved. If anyone is connected to the story, I hope they will find me...

And the solution is .....

And here are the results. I wonder if anyone picked them correctly!

In fifth place comes photo number 2.

Edith Elizabeth MACAULAY (b Leeds, 25 November 1872) the daughter of Charles Macaulay, draper, of Baker Street, and his wife, Jane née Clark.

In 1895, she married William Salkield, from York, son of a joiner and himself a railways clerk (d Solihull 12 January 1957). His eldest brother was the assistant city surveyor. They had two sons, Charles Leonard (22 July 1899) and William Harold (29 April, 1900). Edith died 16 May 1943 in Solihull. Charles became ‘works manager for A B Warden Birmingham, bedsteads'), Harold joined the RAF.

In fourth place, photo number 5.

Francis Ormsby INNES (b Esquimault, Victoria, BC 14 October 1877) was born in Canada, to James H Innes of the Royal Navy and his wife, Ann.

Some time in the 1890s, the family returned to Britain, where this photo was taken in 1899 (it’s dated). I’m not sure why Fred is dressed in naval (?) uniform. He was a bank clerk. For many years. Subsequently rising to Bank Manager. He married Ada Emma (née Clement), fathered three sons, and died 24 August 1945.

In third place, photo number 1.

Edith Rose ROBINSON was born in India (b Madras 9 or 19 March 1856), but she was not an army child. Her father, James Douglas Robinson (b Edinburgh 23 April 1821; d Kent 13 July 1894) was sub-collector and joint-magistrate at Canara, his mother (m 7 March 1854) was Gertrude, daughter of the Rev Alfred Fennell BA, and she was the second of their ten offspring. I haven’t properly investigated the other surviving eight, but brother Herbert (b 1859) of the Madras Police married the daughter of a major in the 6th Bengal Cavalry, sister Ethel Leslie (1861-1953) married Bombay-born Henry Oliver Duncan Davidson, who was to become a long-serving schoolmaster at Harrow, sister Mary (1865-1946) married Captain (later vice-admiral and Sir) Randolph Frank Ollive Foote (1853-1931) of the Royal Navy, sister Mabel (1867-1931) wed Hon Frederic Gordon son of Lord Gordon of Drumearn and brigade master of the 6th Gordon Highlanders in Malta …

Edith ‘only’ married a 46-year-old widower with a handful of children, but he was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the 29th Regiment of the MNI. And they were married by the Bishop of Madras at Ootacamund. Edith and James Henry Prendergast added three more children to the family … He died in retirement 12 December 1910, and the much younger Edith lived on till 1944 (4 June), when she died at The Spinney, Camberley.

In second place, photo number 4.

Slade BUTLER (b Rye 1 November 1849) was the son of a provincial solicitor, George Slade Butler, and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Charles Wells Lovell ‘of Pentonville and Gray’s Inn’. He graduated BA from Christ Church, Oxford, in 1874, was called to the bar at Middle Temple in 1877, and spent the whole of his life and career as a barrister in the London Courts without leaving any dramatic marks, merely a mention in week after week after week of law reports, as defending or prosecuting one insignificant wretch or another.

In fact, although he was seen in higher courts than his father, he did not garner a corner in the Dictionary of National Biography as the elder Butler did. George, however, owed this distinction not to his soliciting, but to his activities in the field of antiquities and archaeology.

Butler jr remained, as did both his brother and sister, unmarried, -- all three can be seen with 90 year-old mother in Hampstead in the 1911 census -- and it is to sister Margaret Jane we owe this photo. It is inscribed on the back ‘brother of godmother Jan(i)e’. I see mother died at 98 in 1919. Slade followed her at the same address 67 King Henry’s Road, 6 December 1923. Margaret Jane … I don’t know.

And the baker of the week is … photo number 3.

Yes, that unprepossessing Irish seacadet with the bad haircut. The photo, alas, isn’t dated. It just says he was on the HMS Mars. Arthur John HAMILTON (b Kingstown, Ireland 24 August 1846). Third child and first son of Henry Hamilton, rector of Thomasham, Co Kildare, and his wife Frances Margaret. In the 1861 census he is a naval cadet ‘aged 14’, in 1869 he is promoted Lieutenant, 1870 he is – what?! – presented at court. I think it was a job lot of 240 navy folk. In 1871 he is on board the Lord Warden, in 1881 the Mallard, in 1884 (23 July) he married Eveline Louisa Fryer. Later they would have children, Frances, Hubert... By 1891 he is ‘retired’.

The family shifted from Bournemouth, to Sunninghill, to Hawford, Llandrindod … Arthur died 7 December 1930 at Brislington House, Brislington. Eveline survived him and died in Wales 9 December 1938. I suppose their son Major Hubert Arthur got the fortune.



Well, there we are. Even if no one wants to play my game, if this rain continues, I’ll do another tomorrow …

The winner of this one was the amazing Allister Hardiman who only made one error ... he underestimated the Irish. I, myself, would have picked little Miss Robinson who looked set, even at nine years old, for a wealthy marriage!

A competition: Shuffle, cut ... pick five cards ...

Well, there's 30 minutes between soggy races at Rangiora today, and one can't possibly listen to those chaps wittering on for 25 minutes time ten, so in between times ...  shuffle, cut, pick!  And here are the five cartes de visite that I drew ...

They're a mixture. Rich and not so rich. Upper and lower middle classes (though one is 'related to a peer', if only a Scottish one, and one got presented at court). Two were born outside Britain and, yes there is the usual drenching of servicemen involved. All lived to a good, even grand age. All bar one married, and all bar that one have descendants ... can you guess which?

Very well, here's a little competition. Match the photos to the fortune (or not) each left

(a) over 34,000
(b) 8714
(c) 1075
(d) 320
(e) 173.3.1d

Clarifications and answers in my next ...

Devon's Daughters

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Here's today's picture. Yes, I'm still playing the 'who's who' of Victorian cartes de visite. This lady looked so handsome ... and I had no problem reading her name ... she was photographed in Devonport, and I've always liked Devon ... so she gets today's spot.

Her name was Martha. Martha Bryant, of Tavistock, Devon. Later Mrs Martha Prideaux.  Once again,  I think the name pencilled on the verso of this carte might not be contemporary with its taking. But I suppose .... Martha didn't become Mrs Prideaux until she was 30. But then again, she was 30 in 1854.

The vendor plumps for '1860s' and I suppose it has to be. That seems to be when Blake Brothers floruitted. So Martha, here, would be around forty. And the mother of six daughters! Not bad.

But back to the beginning. Martha was born in Tavistock, 14 February 1824, the daughter of James Bryant (1800-1875) and his wife Sarah Whitchurch Bennett (1800-1866). The family, being rather genteel, can and has traced it roots further back, but I won't go there. I'll just say that Bryant was involved in the sugar trade. The 'Plymouth Sugar Refinery' (Bryant, Burnell & Co) which mutated into a limited liabilty company, in 1856, as the 'British and Irish Sugar Refinery Co Ltd'. 

James describes himself in the1851 census as 'sugar refiner occupying 150 arable 200 acres common land, employing eight labourers'. 

Hedge Barton Farm

The worldwide web tells us that 'a few weeks before that census:

'In the parish of Manaton, near Widdecombe on the moor while some men in the employ of James Bryant, Esq., of Prospect, at his seat, Hedge Barton, were removing some accumulations of way soil, a few days since, they discovered what appeared to be a grave. On further investigation, they found the skeleton of a body, which proved from enquiry to be the remains of Ann Jay, a woman who hung herself some three generations since in a barn at a place called Forder, and was buried at Four Cross Lane, according to the custom of that enlightened age'. 'The grave was opened by order of Mr. James Bryant in the presence of his son-in-law, Mr. J. W. Sparrow, M.R.C.S. Bones were found, examined, and declared to be those of a female. The skull was taken to Hedge Barton, but was afterwards placed with the bones in a box and re-interred in the old grave, a small mound raised with head and foot stones erected at either end. Such is the present appearance of the grave.'. 

The place has apparently become a part of Devonshire folklore and turned into a ghostified tourist spot. 

Mr John Sparrow, who was the husband of Bryant's eldest daughter, Ann, declared on the census sheet that he was a 'lead? and limestone merchant, member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, licenciate Apothecaries Hall'. 'Not in practice'. In that same census, Mrs Bryant, with younger daughter, Martha and baby Sparrow, is at home at Prospect Hall, in the tythinge of Pennycross. As for the sugar, I had some idea that James was growing sugar-beet on his 300 acres with eight labourers, but no .. here, in 1852, is the report of his company's ship arriving at Plymouth carrying 3,000 bags of raw sugar from Mauritius ... so, somewhere in the Plymouth area, Mr Bryant refined it. The newly limited company company went from the control of Bryant sr, to his only son, and to his secretary, George Prideaux, until they dissolved partnership in 1866.

And having spent the afternoon researching that, I find there is an excellent biography of James on line at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bryant-7734. And he's even bigger than I thought. He owned a chunk of St Katherine's Dock, London, which he willed to Martha!

George Prideaux born Plymouth, 16 December 1822, to Phillip Cookworthy Prideaux and his wife Esther née Bowden, declared himself in that same 1851 census to be a 'gentleman' of 7 North Street. Nearly 30, and unemployed? Or a gentleman of leisure? Anyway, by 1854, he was being described as a 'sugar refiner', which I guess he had been for a little while, because he had got to know Miss Martha Bryant sufficiently to marry her. 

So here we are, at Martha Prideaux. Photo. And really nothing more to say, except that she mothered six durable daughters and lost her husband 9 November 1868. He left her a meagre 450L. She lived out her remaining forty years in comfort and died, aged 84, at 1 Mutley Park, Mannamead, Plymouth on 12 May 1908.

Esther Sarah b 25 July 1855; d Newton Ferrars 22 July 1941, unmarried

Alice Gertrude b 14 March 1857; d Millaton, Torquay 1 January 1944 (Mrs John Bennett)

[Anna] Beatrice b  2 November 1858; d Plymouth 29 October 1940 (Mrs James Horsburgh Huttman)

Mary Elizabeth Agnes b 19 August 1860; d Brighton, 15 February 1947 (Mrs Frederick William Denton, divorced)

Mabel Victoria b 14 February 1862; d Thornhill Rd, 16 November 1940, unmarried

Isabelle Winifred b 26 March 1865; d Santa Rosa, Cal 13 January 1949 (Mrs George Edward King)

There's not a lot that I have found amongst the daughters tales to tell. Mary's wine-merchant husband ran away to New Zealand at the start of the war, abandoning her and their daughter Hilda Beatrice (b 5 July 1895; d Hove 1986 Mrs Douglas Walter Adam). Isabelle and her Anglo-German husband quit the country for the sunny sloped of California. Beatrice married ... guess what! A gentleman from Jorehaut, Assam (1845-1899), who I supposed had to be Indian army. But no! He's 'superintendant of the Jorehaut tea company'. The maiden ladies, Esther and Mabel, lived longtime together ...  oh, and once the Bryants had got out of the sugar refinery business, it went down the gurgler.

Pioneers and pumpkins, Paris and Poles ...

An unsuccessful day of searching. Yes, sometimes I do have them.

This was my favourite find. 

Pumpkins! It looks like our back paddock. And, so the vendor says, 'early settlers'. So, my eye having been caught, I looked to see if there were any provenance clues. Just one. The photographer. Standish and Preece of 218 High Street in my city of Christchurch. So, they are not that early settlers! Standish and Preece set up in, I believe, in 1885. But not in High Street: at 262 Montreal Street. However, the following year they moved to 218 and they were still there in 1910. In fact, they were still going in my youth. Without, of course, the original Messrs S and P, whose story can be read on that wonderful NZ photography blog at
http://canterburyphotography.blogspot.com/2008/08/standish-preece-christchurch.html
Actually, I believe I was photographed by the firm whose name still exists! 

I should dearly know who this family are. But I guess I never shall. And I should dearly like to grow pumpkins that size here on the same Canterbury plains ..

I strolled on, page after page after page, and I bumped into this couple. It was easy to tell they were a couple: same mount, same studio, same ... name on the back?

Rather an alarming looking fellow! But I'm stonkered again, because they've been photographed, I think, far from home. Their name is Cox. I think his back says A R Cox. Hers seems to say Mrs Alex Cox.

Date: 1866? English folk on holiday on the Boulevarts of gay Paree? Well, I've looked, and I'll look some more, but I can't find a 30-ish couple of Coxes that fit the bill ...  or is my deciphering wrong ..

I thought I'd better get one right, so for my next I took a really easy one.  Well, her name was scrawled right across the front of the card, and it was Constance Chandos Pole. Haha! How many of THOSE can there have been in C19th Wolverhampton! The answer is, Zeus dammit! ... TWO. And after several hours of trying, I'm damned if I know which of the two is the right one. And there are no relations floating around with her to give a clue, and no date ... for the two Connies were not contemporaries.

Connie I was Anne Constantia Hill, from Tettenhall, daughter of the county deputy lieutenant, until she married barrister Charles Chandos Pole in 1848. And she was Mrs Constance [Chandos] Pole until, after 13 years of widowhood, she died 21 March 1894, aged 66.

Connie II was Constance Marian Schwind (b Bowden Cheshire), daughter of a Brazilian merchant and landowner, and she became Mrs Chandos Pole in 1898, when she married another landed gent Christopher Askew [Chandos] Pole (b Radbourne 14 November 1867; d 18 January 1943) son of the rector of Radbourne. 

So, the question is ... when was the photo taken? Before 1894 or after 1898? Connie I or II? So I thought I'd be smart. I'd follow up the business address of Mrs (!) Williams. The back of the card said Talbot Place, Darlington Street. Guess what. There are TWO Talbot Places in Wolverhampton. But weeding through the censi I found that what became Talbot Place was a court off Darlington Street. And there, in 1861, are Thomas Williams, 21, tea-tray painter, his wife Sarah, 24, from Oaken Gates, Shropshire. By 1871, he is a 'master photographer' and they have a 2-week old daughter, by 1881 they have moved to ... Tettenhall, but are now both listed as photographers. But when they advertise for a 'lady assistant', the ad is in the name of Mrs Williams. For some reason, Mr W seems to have been rather cellophanic. And is that him advertising for a job in 1887?  I can't find them (yet) in the all-important 1891 census, but by 1899 Whitlock Brothers have taken over the studio, the Mrs Williams label has closed down, and in 1901 at The Gables, Penn Road, he lists himself as 'retired photographer'. Sarah lists herself as nothing. There's a story in the Williams family somewhere.

So. Connie II had very little time to get herself photographed under the Mrs Williams régime after she became a Pole. I know the inscription could be from a later date, but .. well ... until I found the beginning of the Whitlock era, I was favouring her. Look at that Chandos 'C', is that an affected signature or a typo? I just don't know. I reckon a signature. Date me a photo! 

Me, I'd date the picture from exactly the four year period when there was no Connie Pole. But by then Connie I would have been in her fifties. And Connie II not a Pole!  Argggggh! Carbon dating needed here. What's your vote?

PS Connie II lived until 1954. Her husband, son (Captain RN, d 9 February 1943 aboard his ship Pacific), and daughter Mary (died in a car crash 3 weeks after her wedding) had all predeceased her ... so where, I wonder, did this photo come from...