Two's Compamy - Sepia Saturday

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt photograph features a couple side by side.  So take a look at photographs on the theme of "Two's Company."

 

One of the oldest photographs in my family collection of my great grandparents Matilda Such and James Matthews  of Wolverhampton in the English Midlands. 

James (1843-1918) was a man of many parts –  a third son in a large family; under hand roller, underhand shingler and hollow fireman  at an iron works;  a complete change of occupation to that of insurance agent and also shopkeeper; with his wife Matilda, parent to ten children,  and a prominent member of the local Methodist church where he was choir conductor. ]

My great grandmother’s childhood proved to be a challenging research task, complicated by the fact Matilda (1849-1929)  was  the  third illegitimate child of her namesake  mother, whose supposed marriages have not been verified. 

 

 Not family, but a charming photograph in the collection of my great aunt Jennie Danson who had numerous photographs of her friends.

 

Jennie's nieces  - standing my mother Kathleen Danson, born 1908 with her older sister Edith, born 1907.

Someone has been busy knitting here - cousins from the Oldham family of Blackpool, Lancashire.  

A happy  wartime image of my parents Kathleen Danson,  and John Weston who served in the RAF as a code and cipher clerk. 

Two wartime  pictures of my Aunt Peggy Danson who served in the WAAFs (Women's Auxiliary Air Force)  - firstly with her mother (my grandmother Alice English) and again with a friend.

 

 

With my mother in 1971

 

  

January 1975  and a birthday photograph of my daughter -  snow at one stage seemed to be a constant  feature of her birthdays and played havoc with  party arrangements.   The weather here is much the same today as I write this! 

        Helping Daddy unload the logs - granddaughter in 2010.

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Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers 
to share their family history through photographs.

 

 

Click HERE to read more from other Sepia Saturday bloggers.

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A-Z Challenge: Family Traits - P for POETIC

My Theme for the A-Z Challenge 2023

Family Traits, Quirks and Characteristics 

P for POETIC 

 

My Cousin's Ancestor  

 

 

 

How many people can claim to have a published poet amongst their ancestors?

 

That is the case of my cousin whose great great uncle was John Critchley Prince (1808-1866), well known in his time as a POET  in the Lancashire dialect. 

 

 

John was born in Wigan, Lancashire, son of Joseph Prince and his wife Nancy. He received some little formal education at a Baptist Sunday School and at nine years of age began work with his father as a 'reed-maker' - a 'reed' being a tool used by hand-loom weavers to separate threads.

Employment prospects being bleak, John sought work in France.  After suffering much hardship during his return journey, he arrived home to find his family in the Wigan Poorhouse. In later years, John moved around Lancashire, mainly in Blackburn, Ashton and Hyde, searching for casual work. He supplemented his income by contributing poems to local periodicals and accepting help from acquaintances.  At eighteen, John married Ann Orme, a resident of Hyde near Manchester. A family soon followed and by 1830 the couple had a son and two daughters.

John published his first poetry collection, "Hours with the Muses" in 1841. It sold well, running to five editions and attracting attention in London. Other collections followed, some published and sold privately by the author.

Considering John's dismal situation — he borrowed from Shakespeare "my mean estate" to describe his lot — his verse is, for the most part, surprisingly optimistic. A notable exception is "Death of a Factory Child", in which he addressed the social conditions of the time, with these stark lines to end the poem. :

Hard had he labour'd since the morning hour,—
But now his little hands relax'd their pow'r—
Yet, urg'd by curses or severer blows,
Without one moment's brief, but sweet, repose,
From frame to frame the exhausted sufferer crept,
Piec'd the frail threads, and, uncomplaining, wept.

 
John's first wife died in 1858, and he married Ann Taylor in 1862. This apart, his final years were marred by declining health and the financial hardship resulting from the near collapse of the Lancashire cotton industry during the American Civil War, a time known locally as the "Cotton Famine".

John Critchley Prince died at Hyde, in 1866, almost blind and partially paralysed by a stroke suffered shortly after his second marriage. He is buried there in St George's Churchyard,with a memorial to him in the local church.

Fellow poets penned tributes to him including the following:

FAREWELL, thou gifted singer! Thy sweet songs
Have charmed the ears of thousands in our land:

(Samuel Laycock)

Amongst the workmen-poets our land
He stands—a Prince by nature, as by name;

(George Hull)

Postscript:

John's great great nephew (my cousin) has built up a collection of his ancestor's poetry, including a first edition of he "Hours of the Muses" and also has some manuscripts written by him and some letters.

John's sister Sarah Prince was Stuart's great, great grandmother. She married William Oldham, with their son christened Joseph Prince (photograph below) after his maternal grandfather.

More information on poet John Critchely Prince can be found at

http://gerald-massey.org.uk/prince/index.htm

Spanning the generations

John Critchley Prince's nephew - Joseph Prince Oldham

with his granddaughter Elsie Oldham, my cousin's  mother.

 

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ONTO Q for QUESTIONING 

 

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED

A for ADVENTUROUS, B for BIGAMOUS, C for CRIMINAL,  D for DEVOUT

E for ENTERPRISING  & ESTEEMED,   F for FEISTY

  

G for GENIAL & GOOD LOOKING,  H for HEROIC    I  for INSOLVENT  

 J for "JOINER", K for KEEPER OF THE FAMILY ARCHIVES,

 

L for LONG LIVING,  M for MYSTERIOUS, N for NE'ER DO WELL 

 

O for ORPHANED, 

A-Z Challenge 2023: Family Traits- I for INSOLVENT

My Theme for the A-Z Challenge 2023

 Family Traits , Quirks and Characteristics 

I for INSOLVENT 

John Ingram Smith and Samuel Donaldson  

 

 

  

The dictionary defines a person as INSOLVENT  if he cannot pay his debts 

i.e. Become Bankrupt  - such was the  case with two people in my family tree.

 

My Cousin's Grandfather John Ingram Smith (1847-1925)

John Ingram Smith was born in 1847 on  the island of Unst in the Shetland Isles.  He left Unst to go to the mainland to work  in service as a butler at various large houses in the Aberdeen area.   

 

  John looking very smart in formal evening dress

 

By the age of 30, John was a  hotel proprietor at the Gordon Arms, Inverurie. 

 

But success there  did  not last long, as by September 1879, John's business was in  trouble, with the sale of  "the whole Hotel Furnishings and Hiring PLant belonging to the Trust Estate of Mr John Ingram Smith" - as reported in the local press. 

  

    Advertisement in the Aberdeen Journal:  September 1879. 

This must have been a very difficult time for the family, as their three year old son, Hardy had died a month before the sale.  Upheaval followed for John, his wife Ella and their six young children., and John returned to service as a butler. 

(

But by 1882 another move took place, this time, leaving Scotland behind and returning to  the role of hotel keeper in Yorkshire  at the Cattle Market Hotel, New Wortley, Leeds.  Here tragedy again befell the family with the death of young Ella in March 1883, aged nine.  

 

But newspaper reports again showed that John was finding being a business man challenging,  with the report in  "The Yorkshire Post":  2nd August 1895 on John appearing at Leeds County Court with his creditors seeking redress. John attributed his INSOLVENCY  to “illness, coal strikes, the high price of straw and bad trade”. 

 

Did circumstances prompt another move or was John a restless individual always seeking a change?  For by 1896 he was in the seaside resort of Blackpool, running a guest house at various addresses and becoming (according to the family)   the Catering Manager of the Winter Gardens, built in 1896  and still today a major entertainment venue in the town - though I have been unable  to verify Johns’s position there. 

 

But John’s past caught up with him.  For in October 1900 "The Manchester Courier & Lancashire General Advertiser" reported a court case with John Ingram Smith  (53), a waiter at the Tower Restaurant, Blackpool  charged with obtaining credit  without revealing that  he was an undischarged bankrupt.

 

 

In December John was discharged for a technical breach of the law. 

In the 1901 census, John was listed as a caterer, living with his wife Ella and eldest daughter Lily.  Ten years on, however, his occupation in the 1911 census  was given as Furniture Dealer. He was thought to have retired on ill health grounds and went on to help his son in his furniture business. John's  wife Ella died in 1919 and John six years later in 1925,  preceded by the deaths over the years  of  five of their eight children - Hardy, Ella, Edith, Jessie and Edward.  

John Ingram Smith was laid to rest in  in Layton Cemetery, Blackpool.

 

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My husband's gggg grandfather was Samuel Donaldson of South Leith, Midothian, a merchant, property owner and ship master - but also an INSOLVENT.   

 

My father-in-law John Robert Donaldson came from South Shields and often related how his Christian names had been passed down through many generations of the family.  He was proud of his Scottish roots, but vague on the detail, believing his ancestors came from around Edinburgh.

 

Research began by tracing the family back from South Shields, using certificates of birth, marriage and death, and census information. I was delighted to establish the Scottish connection in the 1851 census for South Shields where Robert Donaldson, mariner,  was listed as being born c. 1801 in Leith, Scotland –  this was a real bonus,  as often census returns just say "Scotland" as a birthplace, and not a specific parish.   

 

From there, research using www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk,  traced the family back to Samuel Donaldson, merchant, who in 1759 married Ann Howis at South Leith, Edinburgh's seaport.

 

 Marriage entry for Samuel Donaldson in the 1759 Old Parish Records 

for South Leith, Midlothian. 

I have been unable to trace a birth/baptism record, nor a death/burial record, nor a will, yet other indications were that Samuel at some point in his life had been a man of property and had five sons to inherit  - David, John. Samuel,Thomas, Robert and  three daughter Ann, Marion and Mary.  

 

 

I came across in the British Newspapers Online on findmypast, this advertisement in "The Caledonian Mercury"  of 3rd November 1759: 

"To be  sold by Samuel Donaldson at his shop at the foot of the Broad Wynd, Leith

a Cargo of fine pickled herrings  for wholesale or retail."  

 

But twenty yeas later, a  turn back  into the newspaper archives, revealed that Samuel's business dealings had taken a turn for the worst.  For  in "The Caledonian Mercury" of 8th January  1776 appeared a notice, including  a reference to creditors of Samuel Donaldson. 

 "To be sold by pubic voluntary roup [auction] . the whole HERITABLE SUBJECTS belonging to  SAMUEL DONALDSON, merchant in Leith".

 

But Samuel seems to have recovered from this setback and among the advertisements on the front page of "The Caledonian Mercury":  11th June 1785  was one for a ship of Samuel Donaldson trading between Leith and Hull:"

                                     "At Leith for Hull and Hull for Leith 
WILLIAM HUNTER AND SAMUEL DONALDSON, traders betwixt these two places take this opportunity to inform gentlemen, merchants and others that:........
                                                   THE FRIENDSHIP
                                      SAMUEL DONALDSON, Master

is now loading at Hull  for Leith the  17th instant  and will continue sailing  from each place with the quickest dispatch  in their power and to assure their friends that every attention will  be paid to the forwarding of their goods by applying to them at Leith. " 

 

 

Here my research on Samuel came to a halt.  I am positive that the records I found relate to "my"  Samuel Donaldson, as I have not come across anyone else of that name and dates in Leith. He sounded  an enterprising man not deterred by setbacks, including being cited as an INSOLVENT.

 

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Onto J for JOINER

 

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED

A for ADVENTUROUS

B for BIGAMOUS    

 D for DEVOUT

E for ENTERPRISING  & ESTEEMED 

 

F for FEISTY

  

G for GENIAL & GOOD LOOKING  

 

H for HEROIC 

A-Z Challenge 2023: Family Traits - E for ENTERPRISING & ESTEEMED

My Theme for 2023 A-Z Challenge 

 Family Traits,  Quirks and Characteristics 

E  for ENTERPRISING and ESTEEMED

My Cousin’s Mother & My GGG Grandmother

 

 

 

 

I have chosen to tell  the story of ENTERPRISING hairdresser "Elise" - or more rightly Elsie Oldham of Blackpool, (1906-1989),  my mother's second cousin.  

 

 "Bobbing, Shingling, Marcel Waving and Perming", was the promise of hairdresser "Elise",  whose business in Blackpool, Lancashire  was advertised in this lovely evocative 1920's "blotter above. 

    

Elsie Oldham - "Elise" c. 1920's

Elise's real name was Elsie but perhaps the French adaptation was regarded as more appropriate for a hairdresser.   The business was conducted from the rather less elegant setting of her family home (below) with the large adverts in the windows and on the pole outside. Behind the house were the stables of the family's business of carters and coal merchants.

The Oldham home in Blackpool, Lancashire
with the adverts in the window and  on the garden pole.

 

 

 

 

Elsie set up her hairdresser's in  about 1926 and it continued until the property was sold in 1975. Moving into a bungalow, one of the bedrooms was converted into a hairdresser salon, with Elsie working  until shortly before she died in 1989 - by that time the number of customers had dwindled to about three a week all of whom were as old as she was!  When the house was emptied a cupboard was discovered full of bottles of hair dye  in myriad colours - some of it must have been at least 20 or 30 years old!

Elsie's old set of scissors and hair clippers

Elsie came from an ENTERPRISING family. The Oldham family of Blackpool, Lancashire  were carters and coal merchants for  three generations - Joseph Prince Oldham (1855-1921), his son John William Oldham (1880-1939) a, with his granddaughter Elsie (1906-1989)  then taking over the business. 

 

 Two photographs of the young Elsie - left with her grandfather 

 

Elsie's son Stuart and I are third cousins and share the same Danson great, great grandfather (Henry Danson (1806-1881).  We made contact through my blog and discovered we lived only 50 miles  apart, so it was easy to meet and exchange photographs and memories -  we even discovered  we had been at the same time   to the same primary school in Blackpool! 

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E for ESTEEMED 

My GGG Grandmother

 

 

I came across this short but beautiful testimony to my gggrandmother Elizabeth (Betty)  Danson, née Brown (1766-1840), almost by chance in her death announcements. during a quite casual browslng of British Newspapers Online 1710-1953 on the website Find My Past. -

"Blackburn Standard Wednesday 20 May 1840:  Betty, widow of the late Mr. Henry Danson, yeoman, Trap Estate, Carleton, near Poulton-le-Fylde. She was much Esteemed  and will be greatly regretted by a large circle of acquaintances".

These few lines,  and in particular the word ESTEEMED somehow brought Elizabeth (or the more familiar Betty) alive for me, as no other record had done.  Moreover the  entry was in a newspaper I would not have thought of consulting for Poulton - a lesson to be open minded in a search and search by county.

 

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Onto F for FEISTY

 

 

 

  

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED

A for ADVENTUROUS

B for BIGAMOUS

C for CRIMINAL

D for DEVOUT

 

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