Since I began researching my very first postcard – sent to Gilbert Freeman in the Chelsea Barracks – my work has been full of chance findings and coincidences. Researchers will agree with me that our work is never done, and that's certainly true with Gilbert's story. Here's a lovely addition to that story that I've included on my Facebook page as a video. Unfortunately it's too large to upload here but you can click here to go to Facebook.
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| Posted in 1930 in England |
Often a postcard will reveal what are possibly hidden secrets and one card I’m researching for my new book does seem to fall into that category.
When Martha and John married in 1884, she was a spinster and he a bachelor. Over the years that followed, they had at least three children, including a son – Will. Martha doesn’t appear in any census returns with her husband and children. When she died in 1919, she is listed as John’s widow.
In 1910 John sent their son, Will, a postcard with a message that mentions Martha ‘your mother’ in a very sharp comment. At this time, Will is 24 and living with Lucy, his stepmother, and two half-sisters. As Lucy is also mentioned separately, there’s no doubt who ‘your mother’ is.
In 1908 – at a time we know Martha was most definitely alive – John had married Lucy. On the marriage register he declares himself to be a widow.
Had Martha and John divorced? There’s no record of this.
John and Lucy eventually emigrated to America with their two daughters and had several more children in the years that followed. Will and the other children from John’s first marriage remained in the UK.
When I viewed a family tree created by a direct descendant of John and Lucy, they had added a comment that it was ‘strange’ that the couple had married when Martha was still alive. Whether the children of John and Lucy were aware of their parents’ marriage taking place when the first wife was still alive isn’t known, but from the comment on that tree I think it’s likely that if it were known, it wasn’t a story passed down through the following generations.
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| Posted in 1932 in America |
From the postcards researched for my second book, I came across three families that had divorced parents. Of course, there may have been others in the wider trees of those hundred or so cards I chose. Divorce was beyond the reach of most unhappy spouses and it wasn’t until after the First World War that a form of legal aid became available. Even today, in the 21st century, the laws that surround divorce continue to evolve.
Discovering that spouses had ‘misinformed’ the authorities over their true status – when marrying or declaring for a census return – isn’t unknown. Usually, the person had moved away and there would be no one in their new area that would question their status. But until John emigrated to America, both wives and their children lived relatively near to each other.
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| Posted in 1908 in England |
What does surprise me is that given the nature of a
relationship breaking down, of a divorce or bigamy, there were so many cards available
to illustrate this topic and in such a humours manner.
In 1943, a Lancaster bomber from 57 Squadron, manned by a crew from Canada, England and Australia, was returning from a raid in Germany and was brought down by anti-aircraft guns in Paris. The plane crashed onto the roof of a department store, the Grands Magasins du Louvre – a store on par with London’s Harrod’s. All members of the crew were killed and are buried in France. During the war the squadron lost 172 aircraft.
After the war the building was rebuilt – most of it had been destroyed – and the store traded into the 1970s. Later, after a refurbishment, it became home to Louvre des Antiquaires and then redeveloped as a shopping centre.
The postcard of how the building once looked can’t be included in the book but it's such a lovely example that I had to add it to my collection.
Morgan Robertson was born in America in 1861. He wrote short stories and novellas and in 1898, he published Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan. This book’s still available and I guess its main interest is generated by the plot: a passenger liner crossing the Atlantic that hits an iceberg – 14 years before the Titanic disaster. Later issues of the book, post-Titanic, were updated to increase the size of Robertson’s ship to match Titanic.
Robertson died in 1915 during a visit to Atlantic City where he was recuperating from an illness. One obituary mentions that he was found in his hotel room ‘standing up’, another that he was found dead in bed. He was also credited with inventing the periscope. In 1905 the periscope was mentioned in The Submarine Destroyer and, so legend has it, was purchased by a builder of submarines. In fact, the periscope had been invented a few years earlier and Robertson was refused a patent.
The truth is often stranger than fiction, but what of this tale? That Titan’s plot was so similar is certainly stranger than any fiction.
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The couple
appear in records at other addresses. In 1911, they were in Streatham, just before the birth of their first daughter, Margaret.
Frederick was
the son of a saw mill proprietor and he appears with the family in the 1901
census in Finchley. He had at least six siblings, including Cedric who was killed
in the Battle of the Somme. Frederick's wife Margaret also lost a brother in the war – Keith Clayton was killed in August 1918.
According to
the 1911 census, Frederick declared himself to be a professor of music. In 1939
he was a lecturer and teacher.
With the suggestion of a
musical career, I wondered if Frederick might be known to a wider world and
indeed he is.
He was a
conductor and founder of the Goldsmiths Choral Union and was principal
conductor for more than 40 years. He founded the Streatham School of Music in
1919 (in 1923 he appears in the electoral register living in Streatham).
During the
Second World War he continued to rehearse and play in London and after the war, he was presented with an inscribed silver bowl
by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, “In recognition of his outstanding
contribution to choral singing in London during the war”.
He retired from conducting in 1971 at the age of 85 with a celebratory concert at the Royal Albert Hall, conducting the Goldsmiths Choral Union in a performance of The Dream of Gerontius by Edward Elgar.
Over the years, I have been contacted by people who have bought one of my books and realised they were reading about their own ancestors. These readers have always been pleased that their ancestors are being remembered and, I suspect, that I haven't brought their story into the 21st century.
So, with this card of Her Majesty The Queen, I knew when I bought it I wouldn't be able to reveal anything about who received the card. However, because of where they lived, a public house in Devon, I decided to look at who was at the address in earlier years.
In 1911, Eli Owens was a licensed victualler at the Modbury Inn, Modbury, Devon (now a Grade II listed building). He was at the address with his wife and young daughter. Eli was born in Uffculme, Devon and Ellen was born in St Germans, Cornwall. Some records show that their daughter was also born in this village. I came across a great example of how easily errors slip into online trees when I was checking these details. One tree had the daughter being born in Germany.
Eli had at least two brothers. One would become a farmer and another a labourer, living in the cemetery lodge in Uffculme.
While I was looking at the records for this area, I came across a retired police officer, Nutcombe Rogers. That's such an unusual name, I just had to explore a little. Nutcombe, I found, was the son of a thatcher, but I'll leave his story for another day…
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This is one of my favourite kinds of postcards to research. The recipient wasn't at their usual place of residence when they received the card. So would it be possible to confirm their identity?
Although the card's stamp has been removed it's still clear that it was sent from St Albans. So, I began by searching for a child born in St Albans in the first two decades of the 20th century. Fortunately, I only found Phyllis Harris and she was born in 1905. With that information, I searched for her in 1911 and found her with her parents, Frederick Harris and Susan nee Jones, and sister Marjorie. How did I confirm I had the correct family? As head of the household in 1911, Frederick had completed that year's 1911 census and the handwriting on that record was a perfect match for that on the card.
Why was Phyllis in Bournemouth? I couldn't find a close relative being in that area. In 1911, the address was a boarding house. Phyllis's parents were born in Penzance and Liverpool. They also lived in Rodborough, Gloucestershire.
Researching a postcard sent to someone who wasn't at their usual address
(on holiday or working away from home) can create a problem. With this card, I
began by looking for a family in Chesham with daughters named Alice and Mabel.
Fortunately there was only one and I was soon able to research the Arnold
family.
Mabel was born in
1900 and in 1911 she was still living at home with her parents, Joseph and
Annie. Joseph was a postman. The couple had five children, but by 1911 one had
died.
Alice wasn't with her
family in 1911, she was working as a servant for Hannah Hawkins, who was a
widow.
The girls' brother,
Frank, was killed in the First World War in 1917. He was only 19. Their younger
brother, Ralph, became a wood turner.
Of course, given the
message on the postcard – The Peace Celebrations went off A1 – has extra
meaning, once we know of Frank's loss.
In May 2022 I gave a talk to Chesham's U3A group and was able to include the brief story of the Arnold family at the end. Afterwards, a member of the group said they would walk home via the war memorial and look for Frank's name. The next morning I received a lovely email thanking me for the talk and with this:
One of our members contacted me later about the Arnolds on the war memorial in Chesham. Apparently, they were mentioned in a book on local history produced in 2018.
That member, along with others, looked at the memorial on their way home and found Frank's details – and the entry in the book that they owned. It's always very satisfying to know that my research (brief though it was for this postcard) has led to renewed interest in the family and, of course, the losses of the First World War.
Herbert Graham Tidmarsh was born in 1903. His parents, George and Constance, had four children including Wilfred, who travelled extensively (confirmed by passenger lists) and married in Ecuador. Constance became a governess and Herbert, an engineer. Unfortunately, Oliver’s profession wasn’t recorded in any official documents available to me.
George (their father) was a miller’s agent in the corn
industry. Like his children, George was born in Combs, Suffolk. Constance Graham,
their mother, was born in Russia – as were her siblings. In 1881, she is a pupil
in Berkshire with her sister, who was three years older. Their father, William,
was an engineer. He later, in Suffolk, was a farmer, and the family lived in
Crepping Hall, Stutton, now a listed building.
Olive Carvell was born in Bermondsey in 1901. Her father was
a French polisher and maker of pianofortes, and was born in Pimlico. His wife,
Mary Martin, was born in Bermondsey and the couple had three children. Olive
married in 1926 – so despite the stamp being removed, we know the postcard
predates that event. I had hoped the man she married might match the initials
on the card – unfortunately, that wasn’t to be.
There were two George Glovers at the address – father and son.
George senior was born in Southampton in 1861 and worked as a bricklayer. He had married Minnie Henwood in 1882 and the couple had nine children. Minnie was born in Cornwall and it’s likely that her father’s work, as a miner, was the motivation behind the family moving – in fact, I’ve researched several Cornish families who relocated due to mining.
George junior was also a bricklayer. Other sons were miners (above
and below ground) and an omnibus driver. In 1907, George married Hannah Hughill
– could this postcard, sent in 1906, be from her?
Formed in 2009, the Archive Team (not to be confused with the archive.org Archive-It Team) is a rogue archivist collective dedicated to saving copies of rapidly dying or deleted websites for the sake of history and digital heritage. The group is 100% composed of volunteers and interested parties, and has expanded into a large amount of related projects for saving online and digital history.
