CHARLES AMÉDÉE HENRI DE NOÉ (1818-1879) AND THE ECCENTRICITIES OF THE MOMENT

I don’t know how I am related to Charles de Noé, only that I must be! His mother Frances Caroline Halliday is, somehow, at the heart of the closely knit circle of Hallidays, Tollemaches and Delaps from which my 6x great grandmother Rebecca Delap emerged. Frances’s connections by name, through wills and property are too numerous to be coincidences, but as far as I know, no one has been quite able to pin her to any specific part of the Halliday tree. There have been suggestions that she was the illegitimate daughter of Francis Delap Halliday and Frances Tollemache; but that would make her eventual marriage to the Count Louis Pantaléon Judes Amédée de Noé, a member of the French aristocracy, a socially unlikely union.

That said, scandal was never far from that generation of Tollemaches. Frances Tollemache’s sister Jane eloped with Francis Delap Halliday’s brother John (see my earlier blog about Jane); and Frances Caroline Halliday’s marriage to the Count was witnessed by another Tollemache sister, Louisa. It seems entirely possible that they might all have closed ranks over an illegitimacy in order to see Frances Caroline married off, and married off well at that.

Charles Amédée Henri de Noé (1818-1879)

Charles Amédée Henri de Noé was the fifth son of the marriage, and could therefore have little expectation of inheritance. He was expected to go out and work for a living, and was lined up for a career in engineering after education at an institut de technologie. Instead, he went to painting classes led by Paul Delaroche and Nicolas Charlet and began a hugely successful career as a satirical cartoonist.

In the same way that Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi adapted his initials to sign his work Hergé (the sound of R.G. in French), Charles Amédée took the pen name Ch-Am – Cham. Since his surname is the French for [son] of Noah, Cham was also a  jokey reference to Ham son of Noah. Probably not a belly-laugh even in the 1840s, but perhaps enough to trigger a smile which might become a laugh as you read his cartoons.

"Noah and his family prepare for the rainy season."

Cham wasn’t above inserting his own image into his drawings.

From the rear: Charles, his brothers Franck and William,

and as Noah himself, Charles’s father Louis de Noé

Cham’s strength was as a social rather than a political commentator. In a career lasting 40 years he is credited with over 40,000 drawings, an invaluable resource in the twenty-first century for studying the French nineteenth-century middle class and what one reviewer, R.L. Mayer, describes as “all eccentricities of the moment.”

If your French is better than my schoolboy understanding, you will enjoy http://amedeedenoe.unblog.fr/ a blog dedicated to Cham’s memory.

Cham, son of Noah

ROBERT JOHNSTON BARTON (1839-1879) AND THE BATTLE OF HLOBANE

It doesn’t take long to build up a detailed picture of the prominent Tipperary families of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I have direct lines through the Coopers, Sadleirs, Chadwicks and Massys, who are united frequently by weddings, sometimes in successive generations. The ruling class, the Protestant Ascendancy as they are known, were a tiny self-contained minority in Ireland for hundreds of years. They kept within their own social and political circle of course and so it’s no wonder that the same families repeatedly intermarried. Other names, although not my direct relations, are also interwoven through those lines; and I can’t help but become curious about another family which seems to be an integral part of the same circle as my own.

Captain Robert Johnston Barton (1839-1879)

of the 2^nd Coldstream Guards

commanded the Frontier Light Horse at Hlobane

So it is that I now have a large Barton family tree on file. None of my direct ancestors were Bartons; but for example my 5x great grandfather Hugh Massy’s cousin Grace Massy married William Barton, and Hugh’s wife my 5x great grandmother Rebecca Delap’s aunt Margaret married Thomas Barton. I’m fascinated by such connections – but even I have to admit that it’s a tenuous justification for writing today about Margaret and Thomas Barton’s great grandson Robert Johnston Barton.

Robert’s modest entry in the Barton tree – “killed in action in Zululand 28^th March 1879” – does not begin to tell his story. 1879 was the year of the Zulu War, a year which began disastrously for the British with the events depicted in the films Zulu and Zulu Dawn. 28^th March was the date of the last of three morale-sapping massacres inflicted on the British by the Zulu army.

The slopes of Hlobane

tough on foot, tougher still on horseback

(photo by Neil Aspinshaw)

He was part of a foiled attack against a 3000-strong Zulu stronghold on a plateau called Hlobane Mountain. The British approach, under cover of darkness on the night of the 27^th March, was hampered by the difficult terrain – steep, boulder-strewn slopes – and by a violent storm whose lightning flashes illuminated the British advance to the Zulu guards. At dawn it became clear that the Zulus were fully prepared for the attack with barricades and a network of caves and tunnels from which they were able to attack the British troops with ease.

Despite heavy casualties, the British fought their way onto the plateau. Barton was dispatched with 30 men to bury those who had died on the ascent. As he rode off, his commanding officer was horrified to see in the valley to the south a massive column of Zulu warriors, estimated at 22,000, moving quickly towards Hlobane. Retreat to the north was impossible because of even steeper slopes and the British were faced with having to fight their way back down through the very Zulus whose defences they had breached on the way up – Zulus now much emboldened by the approaching army of reinforcements – and towards the huge force now approaching them.

Massacre on Hlobane Mountain

(known to Zulus since 1879 as “Stabbing Mountain”)

Barton and another officer, Weatherley, joined forces, and with their combined cavalry of some 220 men, tried in vain to find another way off the mountain before forming a line and charging the defenders. Under a hailstorm of assegai spears, only 20, including Barton, survived. They fled down into the valley, straight into the arms of the advance party of the Zulu column. 15 more of them died then. Barton was injured, his horse too; but he paused to scoop up a wounded fellow officer before attempting to outrun the fast-moving Zulu army. After some miles the horse collapsed and they continued on foot; but escape in their condition was impossible.

A year later, with the war won and peace with the Zulus established, a British escort party was led to Barton’s body, still lying where he fell, by the very Zulu who had killed him; and Colonel Wood, who had planned the Hlobane raid, buried him at last.

A great deal has been written about the Zulu War. There are several accounts of the Battle of Hlobane, including vivid descriptions by JohnYoung, and by William Watson Race & Jon Guttman. Whatever you think of warfare, or imperialism, or even the Irish Protestant Ascendancy, there are tales of selfless, hopeless heroism at Hlobane which cannot fail to move you.

ANNE GURNEY SALTER (1839-1925) AND THE TOIL OF MAIDEN AUNTS

Sometimes it seems to me to have been an absolute rule: the eldest daughter was saddled with the role of housekeeper or nursemaid to her elderly parents. There are many examples of this apparently inescapable destiny in my family tree. I sometimes wonder just how explicit the obligation was, not to get married but to remain on the shelf caring for your surviving widowed mother or father. Was it the ordered custom of the day? Or was it a self-imposed fate, simply the inescapable sense of duty and responsibility that any eldest child feels, combined with the passive and nurturing role fostered in women in the 18^th and 19^th centuries?

Anne Gurney Salter (1839-1925)
daughter and artist

My great great aunt Annie was the eldest daughter of my great great grandfather the Rev William Augustus Salter, and she spent her whole life in the service of her parents. I have no doubt that she had been helping her father out at his parishes in Brentwood and Amersham. In 1863, at the age of 23, she stepped up with her sisters Emma and Maria to help him run the school attached to his new chapel in Clarendon Street, Leamington Spa. They taught reading, arithmetic and singing to infants and young girls.

There was one paid teacher (Miss Baker, who worked for less because she was still studying for her certification) and one 13-year old pupil-teacher (paid a nominal sum to supervise the younger children). But the unrewarded labour of the Salter sisters will have made a huge difference to the school’s finances in the days before state provision of education. Parents paid a modest fee (between 2d and 9d) for their children to attend, so the temptation was always to increase the school’s population. But overcrowding at the Clarendon Street school was counter-productive as it often resulted in the withdrawal of the small state subsidy which the establishment received.

Clarendon Street Chapel, Leamington Spa

built for Rev William Augustus Salter in 1863

(a proposed reconstruction of 2009)

By the end of 1863 the school was regularly attracting around 150 children, although it was only permitted to teach 91, based on a calculation of 8 square feet per child. The pupil-teacher Miss Wyatt became ill with the responsibility of looking after them and had to drop out, increasing the workload of the Salters. They learned their teaching skills on the job, and better teaching was also good for the school’s finances. Pupils were regularly tested by external examiners, and poor results could lead to the withholding of part of the grant.

The demands on Anne and Maria increased in 1867 when Emma too became seriously ill. She died that November. Their younger sister Sarah could not help out, having got married earlier that year; and their youngest sister Emily was only 11. In 1869 the school lost almost all its grant because of overcrowding, and another year it received nothing at all because of understaffing.

The graves of William and Emma Salter, and their daughter Emma

in Warwick Cemetery (photographed Nov 2010)

The Rev Salter, perhaps worn out himself by the strains of keeping school and chapel alive, died in 1879. It was probably a blessing that he didn’t live to see the establishment of the Leamington School Board in 1881, which took over the struggling Clarendon Street school and quickly closed it down. Soon afterwards Anne, Maria and Emily moved to London with their mother (also called Emma). But when she died in 1893 (when Anne was 53) and was buried near Leamington beside her husband and daughter Emma, the surviving sisters took rooms again in the town. They never married, and as far as I can tell they lived out their days in the familiar surroundings of those intense years in education.

Their father had at least left them well enough provided for in his will, and I like to think of them passing their days in useful charitable work amongst the former pupils and parishioners of Clarendon Street. Emily was the last of them – she died before I was born, but lived long enough to pass on some family lore and treasure to my father and my uncle, from whom in turn I inherited it. One of my most prized possessions is a set of beautifully hand-painted coffee cups and saucers, decorated by the three maiden aunts with pictures of wild flowers. It’s just the sort of genteel, acceptable activity which one could imagine three conventional spinster sisters pursuing, to while away the long bright hours of the evening of life.

Coffee cups and saucers

 hand painted with pictures of wild flowers

by Anne, Maria and Emily Salter, spinsters of the parish

EYRE MASSEY (1719-1804), THE FALL OF NIAGARA AND THE BIRTH OF CANADA

In 1800 the Acts of Union abolished the Irish parliament in favour of direct rule from London. 26 new peerages, the so-called Union peerages, were created in Ireland to ease the passage of the bill, and one of the very last peers to be so elevated – on 27^th December 1800 – was my 6x great uncle Eyre Massey, 1^st Lord Clarina of Elm Park in Co. Limerick. (There was already another Lord in the family, so after 1800 Eyre added the e to distinguish his lordship from that of his brother Hugh, 1^st Lord Massy of Stagdale.)

It’s claimed that Eyre sought the honour not for himself but for his wife, in an attempt to console her for the early death of their eldest son George. And the title that he sought was not Clarina but Niagara. Not in Limerick but in North America. Why, you may ask?

PRO LIBERTATE PATRIAE

The arms of the Barons Clarina

incorporates two Grenadiers of the 27^th Foot,

Eyre Massey’s regiment of 60 years

As the youngest of six Massy brothers he had lived his life with no prospect of inheritance, and had therefore had to work for a living. This he did by a distinguished military career, serving for over 60 years with his regiment the 27^th Foot, the Enniskillings. He fought campaigns in the West Indies, Spain and Scotland with them and in 1757, on secondment to the 46^th Regiment, he sailed to North America as Major Massy, their second in command.

Britain was embroiled at the time in the Seven Years War (1756-1763) – a world war fought by the forces and allies of Britain and Germany on the one hand and France and Austria on the other. It was conducted on several fronts, in Europe, Scandinavia, Western Africa, India, Central and North America. The diplomatic causes of the war were complex, but the expanding British and French Empires of the time frequently collided in the jostle for control of new overseas territories. This was particularly true in what France was calling New France, the lands of the Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes, which both powers saw as the gateway to further acquisitions in the West.

New France in 1750

(from www.worldatlas.com)

Hostilities had been rumbling on in the region since 1754, largely with French success. But after early British setbacks, the tide turned. Britain was in general more willing than France to send troop reinforcements overseas instead of relying on locally recruited militias. Eyre’s arrival was part of this policy, which resulted two years later in the besieging of a French base on the south shore of Lake Ontario at the mouth of the river Niagara.

There is considerable dispute about who really won the Battle of Fort Niagara for the British. General John Prideaux, the British commander at the beginning of the siege of the fort, was killed early in the siege by shrapnel from one of his own guns. Sir William Johnson, a war hero and former major general who had commanded provincial auxiliaries rather than British Army regulars, assumed command and insisted on retaining it even after a more junior but regular army officer arrived. The fate of the fort was decided by a skirmish on 24^th July called the Battle of La Belle-Famille, which Johnson is supposed to have planned or even led. But there is some question as to whether he was even present and to what extent he overstated his role and abilities in official reports.

left: Major General William Johnson

(in 1756, after a portrait by T. Adams)

and right: Major Eyre Massey

(in 1803, then a general, by Robert Hunter)

Eyre Massey claimed in his (let's face it) self-promoting memoirs that he, not Johnson, was the commander and tactician of the victory, which prevented a much larger French relief force from reaching the fort and resulted in its surrender two days later. It was a decisive engagement, and it allowed Britain to attack the French heartlands of Quebec from the west as well as the east. No doubt Eyre’s desire to become Lord Niagara on his elevation 41 years later was an attempt to cement his claim; and no doubt his elevation instead as Lord Clarina reflects the lack of documentary proof of that claim.

New France fell in September 1760, and Quebec (renamed Canada) began its long relationship with the British Empire and Commonwealth. As I write, 251 years later, the future British king and his new bride are in the middle of a Canadian tour, their first as a royal couple, which began with their celebration of Canada Day.

GEORGE HENRY VERRALL (1848-1911) AND THE FEN FULL OF FLIES

The Verralls of Lewes in Sussex, cousins of mine by marriage, were prominent local auctioneers for five generations, selling everything from wine to houses to the highest bidder – and sometimes that bidder was themselves. By the fifth generation most of the auction house branch of the family had transferred their skills to the more specialised world of horse-racing, or as it’s called in England the Sport of Kings (of queens too, although Elizabeth II has just failed, at time of writing, to become the first monarch since 1909 to own an Epsom Derby winner with her horse Carlton House).

George Henry Verrall was the youngest of five brothers, the sons of John Verrall the fourth-generation auctioneer. Apart from George, John senior took the unusual step of naming all his sons John. Presumably they were known by their middle names! Second son John Marcus picked up the auctioneers’ hammer but the eldest, John Frederick, pursued a career as manager of Lewes Races, Clerk of Croydon Racecourse and a successful racing journalist.

The Grandstand, Lewes Racecourse, 1900

Third son John Claudius compiled an indispensable annual publication, A List of Horses in Training in England. John the fourth, John Hubert, was what the National Archives of Great Britain describe in their records as the black sheep of the family, a pigeon fancier. And then there was George.

George succeeded John Frederick (who died young in 1877) as Clerk of the Course at Lewes, where he was also a partner in Pratt & Co, a firm of turf accountants. George was also Clerk at the Gatwick and Lingfield courses, and he moved in 1878 to Newmarket, then as now the epicentre of British racing. Here he made his mark not only as a racing official but as a county councillor and (briefly) as Conservative MP for Newmarket.

Tabanus sulcifrons, the horse fly

His lasting legacy however arose from his lifelong enthusiasm for entomology. He joined the Entomological Society in 1866 at the age of 18, and in 1899-1900 served as its president. Entomology (not to be confused with etymology, the study of words) is the science of insects, and George’s particular passion was diptera – flies.

George seems to have spent most of his leisure hours in the observation of them, and his interest was almost certainly a factor in his move to Newmarket. In the triangle formed by the towns of Newmarket, Ely and Cambridge lies the irreplaceable natural habitat which is Wicken Fen. Wicken Fen, a wetland world, is an entomologist’s paradise, home to over 4000 species of insect alone. Charles Darwin collected specimens there in the 1820s, and George Verrall was one of many who recognised the area’s importance.

Sedge Cutting in Wicken Fen

(Robert Walker Macbeth RA)

1878

By the end of the nineteenth century, the Cambridgeshire fenland was under threat. The traditional industries of sedge and peat cutting, which had served to preserve the habitat, were becoming obsolete. The process of draining the fens to put them to more productive use had already begun elsewhere. And then, in a remarkable wave of collective environmental conscience, Wicken Fen was gradually saved, by the separate acts of generosity and concern of many men.

On 1^st May 1899, the National Trust bought two acres of Wicken Fen, a first act of rescue which created Britain’s first ever nature reserve. George Verrall was at the forefront of a band of entomologists who knew the value to the nation’s natural wealth of the place, and who began to buy up further parcels of fenland and donate them to the National Trust. Thanks to Verrall and his colleagues the National Trust’s holdings were expanded by more than 55 additions. Wicken Fen, now a UK National Nature Reserve, UK Site of Special Scientific Interest, European Special Area of Conservation and on the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance, extends in 2011 to over 1600 acres. Part of it is still called Verrall’s Fen.

Stratiomyidae and succeeding families

of the Diptera Brachycera of Great Britain (British flies, Vol 5)

Frontispiece (1909)

Besides saving Wicken Fen for the nation, George Henry Verrall made significant contributions to the sciences of entomology and botany. In his exploration of the fens he rediscovered many species of flora previously declared extinct. He published two books on different families of dipterae in collaboration with his nephew James Edward Collin. Between them the pair described over 550 species for the first time, and their collection of specimens (donated to Oxford University in 1967) is the most important in Britain, greater than that of the Natural History Museum in London. If you care about flies, the Verrall-Collin is your Bible of British Flies.

CHARLES CASTLE (1813-1886) AND THE WELL-PRESERVED STOMACH

The death of Catherine Castle, young daughter of my 4x great uncle Michael, triggered an aggrieved, gossipy letter from her cousin Charles, to his sister Julia. Writing on the day of the funeral and will-reading, 28^th December 1834, he speculated that there had been much skullduggery, with undue influence exerted on Catherine over her choice of legatees.

Charles Castle (1813-1886)

amateur crime reporter

It’s good juicy stuff for a family historian, and I almost overlooked a short paragraph in the letter in which Charles broke off from outrage to report on local news from the family’s home city, Bristol. “There has been a horrid murder discovered in Bristol committed by the poisoning of an old woman in Trinity Street; but however you will see a better account in the newspapers than I can give you.”

It was a sensational case, a crime committed in 1833 which only came to light in 1834 and which would not be resolved until 1835. The ghoulish details were published in at least eleven broadsides at the time including

THE EXECUTION OF MRS BURDOCK, Aged 34 Years, Convicted at the Bristol Assizes, of the Wilful Murder of Mrs Clara Ann Smith, an elderly Lady, Lodging at her house No 17, Trinity Street, Bristol, and who was Executed upon the New Drop, Bristol Gaol, this day (Wednesday,) April 15th 1835. With 2 woodcuts, one showing the hanging, the other a portrait of Mrs Burdock. Published by John Bonnor, Printer, Nicholas Steps, Bristol.

60-year old Mrs Smith was a wealthy widow who disliked banks and stocks, and kept her wealth in the room in which she lodged – up to £3000 in jewellery and cash, including more than 600 sovereigns (worth a pound apiece). Mrs Wade her landlady (who remarried after Mrs Smith’s death, to become Mrs Burdock) took to making Mrs Smith a bedtime bowl of gruel, in which unfortunately one of the ingredients was arsenic. In due course, on 28^th October 1833, after much abdominal pain and vomiting of blood, poor old Clara Ann Smith died and her fortune disappeared.

What made the crime less than perfect was the presence on the night Clara died of Mary Ann Allan, a sixteen-year old servant engaged by Mrs Wade (who you’d think would want as few witnesses as possible) to warm Mrs Smith’s bed by sleeping in it with her. Not only did Mrs Wade hire Mary Ann, but she paid her six shillings and told her not to mention the death to anyone. 

It was only a year later in Autumn 1834 that Mary Ann and Charlotte Thomas, another girl hired by Mrs Wade, began to compare notes and find their suspicions raised. Rumours began to circulate, and it was noticed that Mrs Wade, by now Mrs Burdock, was living rather larger since Mrs Smith’s death than before it.

Clara Ann Smith’s body was exhumed on 22^nd December 1834 and an inquest carried out on 1^st January 1835 in the Ship Inn. Her stomach was significantly better preserved than the rest of her, and the cause proved on examination to be the remarkably high level of sulphate of arsenic inside it. (Tests were carried out by Dr William Herapath, a pioneer of such forensic use of medicine in crime-busting; he was also, in 1847, the first man to use ether as an anaesthetic in an operation in Bristol, only a few weeks after its first use in London.)

Bristol was abuzz with the story, and the thrill of suspicion and criminal conspiracy might explain why the Castles were so ready to believe that their cousin's will had been tampered with. Julia Castle wasn’t the only person to be written to about the murder; James Surrage, a medical student from Bristol studying in Paris got a letter on 1^st January 1835 from his surgeon father back home with all the fascinating forensic details!

The ruins of Bristol New Gaol, built in 1820.

A trapdoor was built into the top of one of the towers

above which a gibbet was erected for public hangings.

Mrs Burdock was convicted on 2^nd January 1835 of the willful murder of Mrs Smith and her public hanging on 15^th April that year was attended by a crowd 50,000 strong. Her tombstone was displayed for a while later in the century in the Bristol Antiquities Room of the city’s museum, as an illustration of her notoriety. Unfortunately her crime resulted in at least one copycat murder. Almost exactly a year after Mrs Burdock’s hanging, on 20^th April 1836, twenty-three year old Sophia Edney met the same fate, having read about the landlady’s crime in the newspaper and been inspired to poison John Edney, her husband.

CATHERINE CASTLE (1812-1834) AND THE READING OF THE WILL

My 3x great grandfather Thomas Castle was a partner with his brother Michael in the Bristol Distillery of which I wrote earlier. Along with their brother Robert they were as a result prominent local citizens whom other prominent local citizens wanted to see in positions of power in the community.

At a time before general suffrage, electorates were small and more or less corrupt clubs of privileged burghers. There was in those days (the start of the nineteenth century) a political practice strange to modern minds, of nominating and even electing people for public office without their consent. Thomas, the younger of the three, was not unusual therefore in refusing to serve when he was elected an alderman of Bristol Corporation on two occasions, in 1812 and 1820. Michael also refused when he was voted in twice, in 1798 and 1806, although he relented when elected for a third time in 1809. He remained a member thereafter until his death in 1821, having also served terms as sheriff and mayor of the city. Robert, the eldest, had that eldest-child sense of responsibility and accepted his election from the start, in 1794. He was sheriff twice and as Mayor of Bristol died in office in 1803.

Michael Castle (1768-1821)

died intestate, a warning to us all!

At least his daughter Catherine didn’t make that mistake.

All this power and influence created enormous wealth in the Castle dynasty. Robert and Thomas had large families whose members inherited their wealth and married with many of the other prominent and powerful Bristol families of the day. Michael however left only one child, a daughter Catherine who died, unmarried, on 11^th December 1834, just three weeks after her twenty-second birthday.

Which is where I come in. Having inherited a suitcase full of nineteenth century Castle correspondence, I came across a letter to gladden the heart of any family historian – one dated 28^th December 1834 which begins, “I know you are very anxious to hear the result of today’s proceedings, and I am just returned from the reading of the Will.”

The same letter ends with a postscript – “Do not mention to anyone our suspicions of underhand work with respect to poor Kate’s Will, as it is better that it should not come from us; but you shall hear all particulars when you return and then judge for yourself.” In between, Charles Castle (a son of Thomas) writes to his sister Julia in scandalized tones about its terms. He is convinced that “there is some thing not quite right about the Will …, that there has been some undue influence over Kate’s mind. … [We] have suspicions of some others who shall remain nameless.”

This is all based on the fact that Catherine’s mother’s side of the family, the Kiddells, are rather better provided for than her Castle cousins are. He reports that Julia, Charles and their eight surviving siblings, and perhaps also the surviving children of Robert Castle, will share £11,000 – a pretty large bequest in 1834, I would have thought. But Charles goes on to point out that each Kiddell is getting at least £3000 apiece, as are various family retainers and business associates. One Mr Harris, a much disliked associate of Kate’s late father nevertheless described in the will as “the particular friend of my late father,” gets £10,500, almost as much as the whole Castle tribe. Another, the mysteriously named Sea Griffin, gets £30,000. “There is also a small quantity of plate left to Hinton Castle. That is all the Castles get from their sick relation.”

A hearse and four makes quite a statement at a funeral.

(This one is from horse-drawn carriage specialists Absolutely Fabulous)

There was certainly plenty of money floating about. The will reading immediately followed the funeral, which “was conducted on the most expensive scale. Six coaches and four, a chariot and four and a hearse another, and about six private carriages. In the chariot were Dr Carpenter & Mr Ackland; their followed two coaches filled with pall bearers, then the hearse then a coach containing uncle Henry, Hinton, Robt and Michael. Then a coach with Wm & yr humble servant, Sanders & Harris. How the remaining two were filled I do not know. Harris was “sighing like a furnace” the whole way from Stapleton to Brunswick Square, and I understand from Michael and Uncle Henry, who went up at separate times with him to see the Coffin before the procession started, that he was exercising his bellows in the same manner there.”

Charles and Julia’s father Thomas had died seven years earlier, presumably leaving similar legacies in favour of his own nearest and dearest instead of his brother Michael’s. So I’d say Charles and Julia didn’t have too much to complain about. But there’s nothing like a will for stirring a family up, I’ve found! And in the midst of Charles’s trouble-making, even he is forced to admit that “as far as regards myself I am very well satisfied. It is I think more than we had reason to expect.”

At one point in the letter Charles breaks off from legacy gossip to pass on a snippet of shocking Bristol news. Its nature may explain the readiness of the Castle cousins to believe in skullduggery concerning Kate Castle’s will. More in my next blog!

FREDERICK REYNER (1852-1915) AND THE ASHTON BENCH

Call me romantic or call me nosey, I often find myself wondering how my ancestral couples met – how any two strands of my family tree bumped into each other and became one. In the case of two of my great grandparents for example, what connection was there between William Salter the London-based employee of Gurney & Co, shorthand writers to the Houses of Parliament, and Jane Reyner the daughter of a Midlands cotton mill magnate?

Jane Salter née Reyner, and

William Henry Gurney Salter,

in 1920, 50 years after they got married

The answer, I thought, was the old boy network. I found out that William Salter had exactly the same education as his future brother-in-law, Frederick Reyner. They were both at Amersham Hall, an “Academy for the Sons of Liberal Gentlemen” (by which they meant non-conformist gentlemen); and then both at University College London, the university established by non-conformist gentlemen to give their sons the further education they were barred from at England’s other universities. (William’s grandfather, and perhaps Frederick’s too, had bought shares in its foundation.) Naturally I put two and two together and assumed they were classroom friends.

Unfortunately William was Frederick’s senior by fourteen years. When Frederick was graduating at UCL in June 1869, William had been working at Gurneys for nine years. He and Jane were probably already engaged – they got married the following year – but if William did meet Jane through Frederick, it wasn’t as school or university chums. (Jane, two years older than Frederick, was still twelve years younger than William.)

William’s path at Gurney’s was mapped out. In 1872 he would become head of the firm, following his uncle, grandfather, great grandfather and great great grandfather in the position. Frederick’s future too was assured. Reyner’s Mill in Ashton under Lyne was a large concern, employing (in 1871) 1319 men and women. Frederick’s father took control of the business in 1871 (following the death of Frederick’s uncles), and Frederick and his brother Joseph helped with the running. They ran it together after their father’s death in 1877; and when Joseph died at the age of only 49 in 1891, Frederick was left in sole charge.

The Ashton-under-Lyne Working Men’s Co-operative Society

founded in 1857 by a group of overlookers and weavers

at Reyner’s Mill (pic from Tameside.gov.uk)

Their first joint purchase was a chest of tea

which was sold among the members.

Frederick, an important local employer, was in due course invited to sit on the bench as a magistrate, where he discharged his responsibilities as a pillar of the community. With such a large workforce, he must have known some of the defendants brought before him. Some of his sittings are recorded in issues of the Ashton Reporter newspaper, and some of the cases are more serious than others. Here’s one from the edition of Saturday 10^th October 1903:

THE TRIALS OF A LODGING-HOUSE. — Before the Ashton County Court Justices on Wednesday, Matilda Barlow was charged with being drunk and disorderly at Bardsley on the 18th of September. Matilda, in a confidential tone, told the magistrates that “she had gone down a bit in the world, you know, and she wanted to rise, but she was now living in a lodging-house, and — well, their worships knew what life in a lodging-house was.” — (Laughter.) “Now,” she said in a wheedling tone, “will your worships treat me leniently? You can bind me over for as much as you like.” — (Laughter.)

The Magistrates’ Clerk: You do not seem to know what being bound over means. You have been up before. Mrs Holt, the court missionary, stated that prisoner had a bit of money, but seemed to spend it all in drink. — A constable: She has a bit of property that brings in about 7s a week. — Prisoner, who had been reciting her troubles to Superintendent Hewitt during the evidence, vehemently broke in saying that she would attend chapel while she was in a lodging-house. — (Laughter.) — She was fined 5s 6d for costs.

Thanks to the Rhodes Family for their painstaking work of transcribing the Ashton Reporter.

PLUMER VERRALL (1782-1852) AND THE GOLDEN HAMMER

I was writing here a while back about George Vernon the actor, born George Verrall, and made some poor jokes about the profusion, and confusion, of George Verralls in that branch of my family tree. But the Georges were part of an orderly line of Verralls who were prominent citizens of the Sussex town of Lewes, in their capacity as auctioneers.

Verralls were auctioneers for five generations

It was George Verrall (1716-1801), brother of William Verrall the chef, who founded the auction house. It remained a family business until at least his great great grandsons’ generation. From George it passed to his son, also George (1750-1825), and son George passed it on to his son, Plumer Verrall. To quote from the recent bulletin (no. 10, 6 May 2011) of the Lewes History Society, “Lewes auctioneer Plumer Verrall sold anything he was asked to – estates, individual houses, business stock in trade, wine, investments, standing timber and crops, livestock, farm equipment and furniture. He sold whole households, or individual items such as beds, chairs and pianos. He and his son often bought and sold items in the sales on their own account.”

The bulletin mentions an occasion on 10^th November 1838 when Plumer snapped up a valuable property within the precincts of Lewes Castle when the bidding stalled. Not only did he pick up a bargain, but he sold off the contents at auction a few weeks later for a tidy sum. I suppose it is one of the perks of being the auctioneer! Clearly no one thought any the worse of him for it, and on 21^st March 1842 he was presented with a gold auctioneers’ hammer, “to commemorate the triumph of integrity.”

One of the reasons for the high regard in which he was held was an extraordinary event six years earlier. The winter of 1836-37 was exceptionally harsh. Snow began falling heavily in the south east of England on Christmas Eve 1836 and continued for several days. On 27^th December a large overhanging cornice of snow on the steep chalk cliffs behind the town of Lewes, sculpted by the high winds of the blizzard, gave way and crashed down onto a row of houses below.

The Lewes Avalanche (unknown artist)

a painting now hanging in the Anne of Cleves House Museum 
in the town

Seven houses were destroyed and eight lives lost, although a further seven people were pulled from the avalanche and survived. The Lewes Avalanche of 1836 remains the worst such natural disaster in British history. A pub named the Snowdrop Inn, built soon afterwards on the site of the demolished houses, still stands and trades under that name. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Plumer Verrall was one of several prominent figures in the town to establish a fund in support of survivors and the families of the deceased. His charitable generosity must have earned hm widespread respect.

The Snowdrop Inn, Lewes,

beneath the chalk cliffs from which the snow fell

Plumer’s son William Richard Verrall (born in 1812, the only boy of nine children) took over the family business, by now known as Verrall & Son, when Plumer died in 1852. Richard acknowledged in advertisements “the very extensive patronage his Great-grandfather, Grandfather, Father and Himself had enjoyed for upwards of a century, and trusted by punctuality, perseverance, and prompt settlement of accounts to maintain the high position of his predecessors.” Sadly it was not to be. On 27^th May 1855, Richard was found near the locks of the Ouse Navigation, drowned, with his throat cut.

The business passed to Richard’s cousin John Verrall (1805-1874) brother of George Verrall/Vernon the actor. John's son John Marcus Verrall (1839-1895) inherited the golden hammer and the family business. But when JMV died unmarried aged only 56, I think it was the end of the line for the Verrall auction house. But not for the hammer of for Verrall auctioneers. The hammer passed to JMV's brother George Henry Verrall (1848-1911). 

George was a remarkable man, of whom I will write in a future article. Both brothers were very much involved in the sport of kings, in several capacities including Clerk of the Course at Lewes and elsewhere. Maintaining a tradition begun by Plumer Verrall of striking a golden blow only when lots fetched a thousand guineas or more, George is reputed to have used the golden hammer for horses sold in the ring at Newmarket. I don’t know where the hammer is now!

THOMAS GURNEY (1705-1770) AND THE OFFICIAL RECORD

The last edition of the current series of Word of Mouth (BBC Radio 4’s programme about aspects of the English language) was broadcast earlier this month. It was a brief history of the art of shorthand-writing, in which I have an ancestral interest, so I tuned in out of curiosity.

Thomas Gurney (1705-1770)

with the symbols of his invention

It was a good programme as far as it went – the Romans used shorthand, which I didn’t know; and the Elizabethans reintroduced it, which I did know (all those transcription errors in trying to capture Shakespeare’s scripts from live performances!). However from there it cut straight to some admittedly fascinating archive recordings of the original Mr Pitman, leaving a glaring gap - no reference at all to the Gurney System of Shorthand, the first modern system, invented in 1722 by my 5x gt grandfather Thomas Gurney.

It was the first system used in verbatim reporting of events, in which it was proved to be capable of extremely accurate record. Gurney Shorthand was the official system of both the Old Bailey (from 1750) and of both Houses of Parliament (from 1813) throughout the 19th and early 20th century, presided over by at least six generations of the Gurney family and widely used - not least by Charles Dickens who used it as a young reporter in the House of Commons, and whose firsthand experiences of learning shorthand were quoted in the Radio 4 programme!

Shorthand notes written by Charles Dickens

and preserved in the Dickens Museum, London

My first ever blog post here was about William Brodie Gurney, Thomas’s grandson, who took eye witness statements at the shooting of prime minister Spencer Perceval in 1812. WBG was also present at the trial of Queen Caroline in 1820 and at many other great political events and proceedings. The firm of WB Gurney & Sons still exists, and recorded proceedings at the inquiries into the sinking of the Titanic (1912) and the  Herald of Free Enterprise disaster (1987).

The first edition of Thomas Gurney’s Brachygraphy: Or An Easy And Compendious System Of Shorthand appeared in 1750. By 1924 when his great great grandson William Henry Gurney Salter was writing A History of the Gurney System of Shorthand, Brachygraphy was in its 18^th Edition. WHGS, my great grandfather, also held the official post in the Houses of Parliament; he was succeeded in it by his nephew William Gurney Angus, the last direct descendent of Thomas Gurney to follow in the founder’s footsteps.

Frontispiece of Thomas Gurney’s Brachygraphy:

Or An Easy And Compendious System Of Shorthand

(15^th Edition)

It’s probably just as well that Word of Mouth made no reference to Gurney Shorthand: there’s enough here for a whole other programme. And if anyone from the BBC is reading this, I’m happy to write the script!