Happy Twosomes

Thus week's Sepia Saturday propmpt photograph shows  two women together, perhaops mother and daughter and is that a birthday cake by their side?    I had a trawl thriough my family collection to show lives in twosomes.  

 

My huisband's grandparents, Alice Armitage and Matthews Iley White of South Shields, County Durham, England   - this is believed to be their engagement photograph.   They married in 1906.  

 

 

An elegant wedding photograph of my cousin's Oldham relations  - Sarah Alice Oldham on her wedding to George Butler in Blackpool, Lancashire     and what a showy outfit - magnificently decorated large hat, stylish dress with frills and a large posy set off by  long broad ribbons!   Sarah came from a local family of carters and coal merchants  down three generations and George also worked in the business. Date 1907.  

 

My grest aunt Jennie Danson of Poultonb le Fylde, Lancahsire  married Bill Stemp in 1928  - there is no mistaking that period with her cloche hat and style of dress.

Family LIfe 

  

From my cousin's collection  -  charming picture of  Ellen Florence Coombs nee Hooker with her baby daughter  Hilda Florence. 

  

One of the oldest photograph in my collection shows, on the left, my aunt Edith and on the right my mother Kathleen - taken late 1908. The sisters were born one year and one week apart,  daughters of William Danson and Alice English of Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire.   Aunt Edith played an active role  as my godmother   and the sisters remained close all their lives, often photographed together.  

 

 One of my favourite photographs of my mother. This photograph means a lot of me, as my mother looks so happy and stylish, and I can  only remember Mum with grey hair worn  in a French pleat.  But the picture came as a surprise, as I had  never seen it before,   with no copy in the family album of my childhood.  Just before my marriage in 1971,  my  future husband and I were visiting an old family friend of my parents, when she brought out this picture and gave it to us.  I was delighted to have 

 

Following the deaths of both  my parents, I found a number of letters they exchanged in 1944, whilst my father was serving in the RAF as a Code and Cipher Clerk in France. In one letter, Dad asked for a "Photograph of Baby" - and this studio portrait was the result!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Onto 1973 and here with my own daughter.  

 

Growing Older 

 

 My cousins in Blackpool - Stuart and Gloria Smith in the 1940s.  Their fair hair mirrored that of their father and grandfather.  

 

 

Another  happy picture from my cousin's collection.  The two girls in their knitted dresses  are Dorothy Lilla Oldham (1915-1989) and Edith Nancy Oldham  (1920-2012),  daughters of James William Oldham. and Edith Keymer.  James' parents had  emigrated to New Zealand in 1906 where they ran a wholesale tobacconists and stationery business on Karangahape Road,  Auckland.  

 

 

 

 

William Dower and his wife , ancestors of my cousin.  The emigrated to South Africa where William made a name for himself as a missionary.

Daughter and fond pet.

A lovely picture of my husband  and our pet cocker spaniel, Casmir - on the banks of Loch Etive , near Obam  in the Scottish Highlands

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A post written to the prompt Sepia Saturday to tell family history through photographs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early TV Memories - Sepia Saturday

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt photograph shows a man reclining in a chair by a television set.  I have chosen to look back at my own early  television memories.  

 

1953 was the year television came to our house in the shape of a small 10 inch screen Bush set, so we could watch the Queen Elizabeth’s II  Coronation on June 2nd.   I was nine years old and had been busy making red, white and blue decorations at school, creating a Coronation Scrapbook, collecting my Coronation Mug  (presented to all children)  and playing with the doll my talented mother had made for me -  dressed as the Queen with a white satin dress and long velvet purple train, embroidered in gold thread.  

 

Sadly I kept neither the doll nor the scrapbook   - something I much later regretted, but I still have the official  programme and the mug. 

 

 

 

       

 

So On the day itself we woke up to the news on the radio that Mount Everest had been conquered by Sir Edmnd Hilary and Sherpa Tensing.    We watched the coronation procession and ceremony on our new  black and white TV - one of the first in the  street, with a full household of my grandad, aunt, uncle and neighbours crowding round the small 10 inch screen.  I wore  my yellow taffeta party dress,  with its puff sleeves and long sash,  in honour of the occasion.

A few weeks later we all trooped in a long crocodile from school to a local cinema to see a film of the conquering of Everest (some of the scenes of men crossing deep ravines frightened me), followed by a film  of the coronation, this time  in glorious technicolour. 

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In those days, there was only one television channel and broadcasts were generally just in the evening, introduced by the announcers in dinner jackets (Macdonald Hobley) and evening dress (Sylvia Peters and Mary Malcolm) - talking in  what seemed very pucka la-di-da accents to someone from the North of England. If we switched on too early we got the test card with the little girl with long hair in the centre.  The interludes were as much a delight - the potter's wheel, or horses ploughing a field. 

 

Children's TV seemed to centre on puppets - Muffin the Mule and Sooty (with the spin off toys as Christmas present). I must surely have been too old for Andy Pandy, and Bill and Ben the Flower Pot Men, but perhaps saw them with my younger brother. The forerunner of family soaps The Grove Family and The Appleyards were also favourites; as were were Billy Bunter's Schooldays (I had a crush on Bob Cherry), George Lansdale from London Zoo on Looking at Animals, and Crackerjack, with its Double or Drop challenge. 

 

Saturday and Sunday were treats in that we had tea on the trolley around the television to watch such programmes as the Lone Ranger (Tonto and Hiya Silver!) and Circus Boy - my brother's favourites, and All Your Own presented by Huw Weldon and introducing talented youngsters.

 

Then there were the memorable BBC Sunday serials which we enjoyed so much as a family and which fostered my love of history, costume and reading the classics - Children of the New Forest, David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickelby, Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Count of Monte Chrsto, Railway Children, Pride and Prejudice, Worzel Gummidge. Robin Hood, Emil and the Detectives, and The Silver Sword - which told the story of children caught up in Poland during the war - a time close enough to have meaning of what living during the war must have been like. 

 

When the new ITV channel first came on the scene, our old television could not receive it, so I missed out on the school gossip of the previous night's Emergency Ward Ten and Coronation Street, though once we got a new set, I later became fans along with the other soap Compact, set on a woman's magazine - I was an avid follower of that.

The BBC was the natural channel for current affairs and we always had the news on and special coverage to see Yuri Gargarin, the first man in space, the Amercan space launches, and ocean splash downs; major events such as royal weddings, funeral of Sir Winston Churchill,  assassination of John F. Kennedy. Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. By the time of the first man in the moon, we set the alarm to get up during the middle of the night to see the "first step", and then dashed into the garden to look up at the moon in the sky.

Two programmes my father absolutely refused to have on were the new satirical comedy show "That was the Week that Was" and irreverent comedy Till Death Us Part - the previews were enough for him to ban them. He always had to watch the current affairs programme Panorama - until they were showing a programme on maternity care when he suddenly decided this was not family viewing.

Pop Culture passed me by and I was never into it, though I remember 6.5 Special and Top of the Pops. Of course everything I saw was in black and white, and I did not see colour TV until 1970 which I think was when it reached Scotland. 

American programmes came into vogue:
Doctor Kildare - my favourite
Phil Silvers - my father's  favourite

Perry Como Show  
 Dick van Dyke Show
Jack Benny Show
George Burns and Gracie Allan
I love Lucy

But I was enough of a TV teenager to compile a scrapbook topour over, with cuttings of cast lists and photographs of my favourite actors and performers I had crushes on, 

 

 A hapapy family c. 1953

 

 

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Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers  

to share their family history and memories through photographs

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Click  HERE  to see  posts from other Sepia Saturday bloggers.

 

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Sea Stories of Master Mariners - Week 17 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Working LIves is the theme of Week 17 in the blogging challenge "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks".   I am taking a look at the lives of my husband's ancestors who were 19th century mariners,  sailing  out of the River Tyne at South Shields, County Durham  in north eat England.

A Genealogical Sideline:   To me "snow" was the white stuff falling in winter and a "smack" was a slap to a recaltrant child.  But that all changed,   as I  began researching my husband's maritime ancestors and learnt about the different names for ships in the 19th century - barque or bark or barc, brig, sloop, smack and snow - an illustration of the diverse routes that family history can take you.

Great Great Great Grandfather - Robert Donaldson, Master Mariner  (1801-1878)
Mariner records at the National Archives at Kew  showed that Robert Donaldson was  registered as a mariner on 20th July 1852.

Tyne and Wear Archives provided information on the sea-going  life of Robert Donaldson and the ships he sailed on, listed in "“A Dictionary of Tyne Sailing Ships: a record of merchant sailing ships owned, registered and built at the Port of Tyne 1830-1930”, compiled by Richard Keys. This is a complete A-Z of Ships, master mariners and owners, detailing ships, voyages, disasters and share-ownerships, and much more - a must for anyone with maritime ancestors in this region.

The entries make fascinating reading, with all six ships on which Robert Donaldson sailed, having an eventful history and coming to a sad end  - though not under his charge.  

 

Image - Pixabay

• The Thetis became a wreck after sinking off the Yorkshire coast in 1869.

• The John was stranded in 1861 and became a wreck during a severe easterly gale. Twenty-eight other Tyne ships went ashore in the same area during the same gale.

• The Emerald, in December 1855, when on passage from the Tyne to London, foundered in five fathoms on the Dough Sand (Long Sand) Thames estuary. Three survivors were brought ashore by two Bridlington smacks. Eleven others were unaccounted for, including some of the crew of the rescuing smack who were in a small boat, which disappeared.

• The Hebe was wrecked in Robin Hood’s Bay, along with other vessels on 27 January 1861. The Ann & Elizabeth disappeared after leaving the Tyne in November 1863, with her captain leaving a wife and six children.

• The William Metcalfe was Robert Donaldson's largest ship.  On her maiden voyage, it transported 240 male convicts from Portsmouth to Hobart,TAsmania  on a passage that took 102 days. In January 1855 eight of her crew were sent to goal for three months each by the North Shields magistrates for refusing duty. In October 1858 her master and one man were washed overboard. Nine days later, the ship was abandoned, with the crew taken off.

These incidents were by no means unusual and bring home the hazards our mariner ancestors faced in their daily lives.

Great Great Grandfather John Robert Moffet (1814-1881)   

John Robert Moffet in a Napoleonic pose - the only photograph I have of my husband's mariner ancestors - shared with me by internet contact who was also a descendant of John.  
 

John's family originated from Tynmouuth, north of the river Tyne,  with his father Robert and brother William both mariners. Two puzzles about the family  remain unanswered.   John was born in Chatham, the site of the Royal Navy dockyard on the River Medway on the south  of England.  What had brought his family there?    

John's   wife Frances Dunn Thomas, daughter  and widow of a mariner,   had three children, with two  born in the USA.   It would be wonderful to find the background to that, but nigh impossible without any indication of which state.  The family first settled in the London docklands area before returning to South Shields..   

In the 1861 Census,  John  was listed as master of "The Brotherly Love" sailing off Flamborough Head in the North Sea.     The crew of eight included three young apprentices, four seamen, and a mate, with most born in South Shields.

The caption  reads"The Brotherly Love" model. made for her  master Captain  Moffet."    

llustration supplied by a Moffet descendant. 

In South Shields Museum and Art Gallery, there is  a portrait  " The Brig "Brotherly Love" and the Tug "William" painted by  John Scott (1802-1885).

 Other mariner ancestors of my husband included, on his mother's side:

Great Great Grandfather  Matthew White (1821-1872).   

The 1861 census listed Matthew  as master mariner on board the brig "Caroline" off South Shields.  Lloyd’s Captains’ Register,  recorded the ships he sailed on, travelling as far as the Adriatic, Mediterranean and Baltic ports.

 

From: the National Archives at  Kew, London 

 

Sadly Matthew was, wih others,   drowned at sea  on 10th January 1872 whilst master marinder of the brig "Caroline" - as recorded in    "Births, Marriages and Deaths at Sea",  online on Find May Past.  

 

 Great Grandfather  Matthew Iley White. (1849-1901)

On his marriage to young widow Louisa Moffet Pierce in 1884 at South Shields, Matthew was described as a mariner.  However he had a change of occupation and was next found as a member of the Tyne River Police, along with his brother Henry.

 

A  long-held story in my husband's family recollected a photograph (sadly lost) of a White ancestor in a top hat in the uniform of the River Tyne police.   A silver uniform button  (below) is  still held by the family.   

 

 

 

Tyne and Wear Archives provided some answers. The Nominal Roll of the Tyne River Police gave details that  two sons of Matthew Iley White  (senior),   had been  members of the river police force – but both with rather a chequered career.    Henry White  joined 9^th January 1882 and brother Matthew June 1896.  

 

The Police Defaulters Book recorded on 11^th June 1889 their  misconduct in the same incident -  "for assaulting a seaman A. W. Hanson and other irregularities, whilst off duty".   
 

Matthew was fined 2/6 and transferred to the Newcastle Division at his own expense.  However he resigned a few months later. Henry was fined 2/6 and transferred to Walker Division at his own expense.  The Nominal Roll of 1904 noted his age as 42 and that he had 22 years of service, with a wage of 29/6

 

Storms off South Shields
 "The Shields Gazette" on  (FindMyPast Newspaper Archive)  abounds with  headlines and reports on disasters at sea, storms and gales;  the lifeboat responses. and the ensuing work of the Mariners' benevolent societies in helping families in distress.  Below is one typical  of what mariners faced. 

 

 

  

 

 Image - Pixabay 

 

 

A Fascinating Fact  - one of the first purpose built lifeboats  was constructed in South Shields in 1789, prompted by a tragedy  when a ship with all its crew was  lost  at sea just off shore.  

 

To Conclude -  

My husband's maritime ancestors (Donaldson, White & Moffet)  must have had a streak of Adventure  in them to venture out from South Shields  into the North Sea in all weathers, as they plied their trade as master mariners. They faced storms at sea  as part of their daily lives - as evidenced by local newspaper reports of shipping disasters.   

 

 

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Delivering the Goods - Sepia Saturday

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt image shows a van  with the local business clearly identified on the side and all set to deliver goods,  whether they be coal and timber or food and drink. 

My mind turned immediately to my cousin's Oldham family of Blackpool, Lancashire, who were carters and coalmen down three generations - Joseph Prince Oldham (1855-1921), his son John William Oldham (1880-1939) and his granddaughter Elsie Smith, nee Oldham (1906-1989),The business  went from  using horses to horsepower  - and below is their first lorry purchased in 1921. 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

This Oldham vehicle  was requisitioned during the Second World War by the Government  for use by  the Fire Service. It was never returned.  

 

 The Oldham business was founded around 1890, steadily became prosperous and in 1905 moved to near North Station, Blackpool, Lancashire in a house with a large yard, hay loft, tack room. and stabling for around 7 horses.

 

In the 1901 census Joseph Prince Oldham (below), son of William Oldham and Sarah Prince,  was described as a self-employed carter and coal merchant,  with his 20 year old son John  driver of a coal lorry.  Also in the  household were Joseph's  wife Mary Alice, 3 young daughters, Sarah Alice, Edith and Beatrice, and also mother-in-law Mary Ann Knowles.

Joseph Prince Oldham, with, on the left, his granddaughter Elsie 

who later took over the business. 

 

 

The Oldham family c.1910 - Back: Sarah and John William 

Front:  Father Joseph,  Beatrice, Edith  and mother Mary Alice. 

 

John William Oldham married Mary Jane Bailey (my grandfather's cousin)   in 1905 at St. John's Church, Blackpool.  

   

  

 

 

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From Blackpool to Earlston in the Scottisy Borders and photographs from  my local heritage group. 

 

  

 

 

Two Lorries of the  Brownlie family who have been in the Saw Mill business since the mid 1850s and purchased the Earlston yard in 1920. in July 1988 it became part of BSW Timber Group 

 

 

  Another  Brownlie's lorry negotiating this tight bend 

 

 

 

 

Two lorries from a long standing local business Rodgers, builder, established in 1847  and operated until the 2020s.  Its work in the village included the renovation of the Parish Church in 1891  and the building of the War Memorial in 1921.  

 

 Taylors Grocers opened in Earlston in 1908 and was in business until the mid 1950s with members of the same family.  

 

A Baker's van in Earlston  

 From Baker to Butcher  with Donaldson's (no reelation) still serving customers today in Earlston. 

 

 

 

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And Finally: - My father in law John Robert Donaldson was a signwriter  and this is an example of his work. 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                   

 

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Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers  

to share their family history and memories through photographs

 

 

A Unexpected Discovery - Week 15 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

“The Unexpected” is the theme of week 15 in  the website “52 Ancestors  in 52 Weeks” and here is the story of how I  made the unepected discovery  that I had American relations. 

 My great great aunt Alice Rawcliffe (1853-1930), sister of my great grandmother Maria   of Hambleton, Lancashire, came from a family of    of eight daughters - 5 surviving infancy - born to Robert Rawcliffe and Jane Carr.   In 1873 she married John Mason and over the next eight years had five  children, their names reflecting those of close family members - Robert William, Jane Elizabeth, John Thomas, James Richard,  and Margaret Alice. 

All the research into my mother’s Danson and Rawcliffe families showed them to be very firmly based in The Fylde area of north west Lancashire around the settlements of Poulton-le-Fylde, Fleetwood and Blackpool. 

 

But  I had been unable to trace the family in the Englis1891 and 1901 census returns.  

 For a very long time, I puzzled over  "Who is this striking family group?"   The photograph mounted on heavy dark card,  came to me from  my great aunt Jennie Danson,  of Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire.    Unlike many of Jennie's photographs, she had not written anything on the back - perhaps because of the dark mount, and there was no photographer's name and address  to indicate where it had been taken   But it  must surely be of one of of my great grandmother's sisters - Anne, Jane, Alice, or Jennet?  The composition of the family and ages of the children ruled out Anne, Jane or Jennet. So was  this Alice and John  Mason and family?   This was a mystery.

 

It  came as a complete surprise when  a casual browsing of Rawcliffes on Family Search resulted in an  entry for Alice Mason née Rawcliffe (1853-1930) with the statement that she had died  in  Jamesburg, Middlesex County, New Jersey - the first time I was aware of any potential American connection.  All the information fitted with "my Alice" - dates, names, places etc. 

 

American Research 
I boosted my Ancestry UK subscription for a short term, so I could access American records. The results:

• The  New York Passenger Lists  revealed  that John  Mason had emigrated from Liverpool in 1886, joined a year later by Alice, aged 34  and now with six  children aged from  13 to 10 months (plus two pieces of baggage).   How on earth did she cope on the eight day voyage?  This was the first revelation too  of another son George Rawcliffe Mason, born in 1885 in Fleetwood.  
  

• Between 1888 and 1898, Alice had a further five children, born in the USA - Arthur Valentine (born appropriately 14th February 1888 - (a reunion baby?) ), Harold Arthur Victor, Lillian Eveline, Bessie Irene and the youngest Florence Adelaide - their names in sharp contrast to the family names of their siblings, born in England.  Arthur, Bessie and Lillian sadly all died in infancy. Were  the crowded living conditions in Brooklyn, New York  a factor here? 

• The family took out US citizenship in 1895.  

• The 1900 census for the City of New York, Brooklyn showed a large Mason household of ten living at 72 Hall Street in what was probably an apartment building with four other families at the same address.  John was described as an insurance agent

• The 1910 census for New York still found the family on  Hall Street,  Brooklyn, with John working as a labourer at the Customs House. 

• ·At some point the family moved  across the river to Jamesburg, New Jersey. The 1920 census saw a depleted household with John and Alice, now both 66, with their eldest and youngest daughters (Jane  and Florence), and widowed son Robert with  his baby son, also Robert.  

The  Search for my America Long-Lost Cousins
 
I put enquiries on a range of message boards but with no response.

Then I set up my blog i and posted about my mystery photograph.   A year  later came SUCCESS!!  The granddaughter of Florence Mason (the young girl in the top photograph) was pointed to my blog by another relative.  She got in touch and she had the very same photograph  as mine,  but mounted with the name of a photographer in Brooklyn, New York.

 

We  exchanged e-mails, photographs and information of our ancestors down the generations and remained in touch until her death. Other descendants and I are Facebook friends.

John Mason (Alice's husband)  with hitheir  youngest daughter, Florence

It was special to receive a later photograph of the Mason family (below)  with all eight surviving children. 

 

 Alice and John  in the middle, surrounded by their 8 children. 

 

Alice died in 1930 and John 7 years later, both buried in Fernwood Cemetery, Jamesburg, New Jersey. 

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So it is all thanks to the power of the Internet and of blogging, that my mystery photograph was eventually identified and I discovered the unexpected story of my first  emigrant ancestors. It pays to be patient in family history research!  

If only I could discover why the Mason family  took this step of adventure from the small Lancashire coastal community of Fleetwood to the streets of New York,  and I am now researching  the story of my American cousins.    The challenge remains! 

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