Essex Society for Family History
RECENT MEETINGS AT SOUTHEND
DECEMBER 2007 – "Seeing it through their songs". Michael Gandy was looking at the world of music hall and the ones who were its greatest fans.
Music hall was entertainment for the working classes. A rich gumbo of singers, conjurers, strong men, acrobats, illusionists, monologue reciters, the good, the bad, the ugly – just about every act imaginable was treading the boards. And London was the centre of all this; where many a young fledging expected to find fame and fortune and become perhaps another Dan Leno or a Marie Lloyd.
Michael sang songs from the 1890s through to World War One and in between touched on the lives of those who went to see the various acts. For the average Londoner life was tough during this time, but one would not know this from reading the lyrics of many popular pieces. Songs about falling in love, getting married, stealing another man’s wife, laughing at other people’s problems and misfortunes. This was what audiences craved (one could say demanded). “Don’t give us none of that doom and gloom stuff, Mate!” Among the most popular entertainers were Albert Chevalier, Harry Champion, Florrie Forde, Harry Lauder and Vesta Tilley. They all had successful recording careers. But there was no secret formula. They just knew what their audiences wanted. Michael with his usual machine-gun style delivery was brilliant.
Martin Haydn Roberts
NOVEMBER.2007 - "A History of Shoes" a talk by Tom White.
Early man first used the skins of slaughtered animals for clothing, but was quick to realise it had other uses, hence the coming of footwear, which soon evolved into a variety of styles. But it was tanning that preserved the leather, a process which has hardly changed over hundreds of years.
Tom works for Freed of London, who make shoes for the theatre and ballet world. Previously to that he was with Raynes, who in their day were one of the major footwear manufacturers in the UK. Raynes designed the shoes for Princess Elizabeth to wear at her wedding in November 1947.
From a personal point of view this was interesting. My late aunt’s husband, George Jones, was chief accountant, then company secretary with the firm. But this was way before Tom was there.
Fashion is all. Consider the number of females forcing their feet into badly fitting shoes and paying really crazy prices just to be seen sporting the latest styles. Back in the 1960s, my Mum was one of them. Stilettos with five to six inch heels, she had cupboards full of them. It ruined her feet, but then designers have always known how to target women and men for that matter. “Buy yourself a pair of handmade shoes, they’ll last you a lifetime” said Tom to me just before the talk. Sound advice, particularly since quite a lot of us have one foot longer than the other.
OCTOBER. 2007 - Peter Lawrence began his talk – Beneath City Streets – by telling us how he came to be familiar with the unseen parts beneath our pavements when he was involved in the inspection of underground waterways.
He first traced the path of the River Westbourne, or Serpentine, as it is better known, which is now part of the London storm drain system. Queen Caroline was instrumental in adding to this river, which provided fresh water, apart from Artesian wells, which only the rich could afford. The river Tyburn fed ponds in St. James’s Park and Regent’s Park and flowed round the Isle of Thorns and on to Westminster. The River Fleet ran 30 feet under Farringdon Street and Fleet Street and was used to carry goods by barge from the Thames to the one square mile of the City of London.
In order to cater for the wealthy merchants who came to take the waters, a Mr. Sadler founded The Sadler’s Wells Theatre to entertain them. The Victorians built a number of very deep tunnels which have since been used to form our present day underground rail system. They built one tunnel from a train station to the D’Oy1y Carte Opera House and another from Newgate Prison to the local church so a Priest could give the ‘Last Rites’ to prisoners.
1858 was known as the year of ‘the great stink.’ After four week’s of dry, hot, sunny weather, the smell from the sewage deposited on the banks of the Thames as the tide went in and out, became unbearable. This was blamed for causing the outbreak of cholera and resulted in a sewage system being built, taking eight years and now comprising 1100 miles of pipes to serve London.
Peter’s talk was both very interesting and amusing and we learnt so much about the way our ancestors lived in London before ‘Health & Safety’ was invented.
Annette Tidman
SEPTEMBER 2007 - AGM.
I’ve done the maths and the numbers attending over the year (yes, I have kept a log) averages out at 65 per meeting. That’s a healthy figure and I think everyone will agree, we’ve had some excellent speakers. Programme Secretary Jo Sylvester has come up trumps again.
Ken Sylvester has decided to retire as Treasurer. Our Chairman, Beryl Godwin, thanked Ken for all the effort he’s put in over the years taking care of the branch finances. The new Treasurer is Jim Lamborn, to whom Ken and the Society’s Treasurer, Ron Knights, have now offered some guidance. Thanks also went to Linda Medcalf who has recently retired as Southend’s MI Co-ordinator. Without Linda and her team of helpers, hundreds of inscriptions in the Southend area would have stayed unrecorded. Information like this is invaluable.
This was Beryl’s final appearance as Chairman. Five years of dedication and commitment. “I’ve really enjoyed the experience, the responsibilities. The time, well that’s just raced by,” she said, smiling. Beryl spoke of her gratitude to all those within the committee and to other members who have worked tirelessly during her Chairmanship. At the end of the AGM a bouquet of flowers was presented to Beryl, who was clearly very moved. Every success to Heather Feather, who now takes over as Chairman. Around 80 attended the AGM.
OUR man, Peter Dixon, concluded the afternoon’s proceedings with a talk on Railway Ancestors. It began by being more like a train-spotter’s guide to the history of branch lines, but we did eventually steam off in the right direction and arrive at our destination.
First, some background. The years 1835-40 were of immense importance to the development of railways everywhere. Britain was fully launched on the construction of a national network by this time, not through any central co-ordinated plan, but by a series of quite unconnected private enterprises, which achieved the same effect.
London was the focal point, with lines building up a developing network, or proposed, to Dover, Brighton, Southampton, Bristol, Birmingham, East Anglia, Liverpool and Manchester, Leeds, York Newcastle, and, eventually, Scotland. The opportunities were there and plenty of ag labs found work within the industry. Track laying, line side maintenance, that sort of thing. Why stomach yet another agricultural depression, laid off for months, in some places even years, when you can have a regular wage?
And now for the bad news. A considerable amount of railway records have been lost, mostly because of amalgamation. Otherwise a lot of it has been binned. We’re running a railway, not an archive service.
So where might one go from here? Try the various censuses; 1841-1901, available online free at some libraries. Having discovered where that ancestor was living, you can then check with the nearest record office to see what directories they have for the area/period in which you are interested. Information on railway companies should be included in these directories, hopefully located in the town where your ancestor resided. (Most people lived close to their place of employment.) It’s then down to finding which organisation they worked for: assuming, that is, such records survive. Local newspapers can be very useful, particularly with regard to railway accidents, obituaries, coroners’ inquests. Another source is railway magazines and company staff magazines, the latter often carrying obituaries on former employees, those who worked for a company for a long time. Again, check the nearest record office. The National Railway Museum at York has a photo-graphic archive, plus sundry other information and The National Archives at Kew has information on railways. Web sites: www.nrm.co.uk and www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
Many of us would have seen the BBC’ s family history series Who Do Think You Are? There have been some fascinating stories since it first appeared on the box. I particularly liked the one where comedian and TV presenter Griff Rhys Jones, traced his maternal great-grandparents back to Liverpool. In case you haven’t seen it, both died in a railway accident, according to a family rumour. There was a railway connection (great-granddad was an engineer with North Western Railways), but the accident never happened. His great-grandfather, Daniel Price, was the victim of manslaughter.
Griff came across a report in one of the local papers which said that Price was killed outside his brother-in-law’s pub by group of thugs, one of which, John Thomas, beat him repeatedly until he fell to the ground where he hit his head and became unconscious. He was later pronounced dead. The case went before the courts. Summing up, the judge hardly mentioned the victim. Instead he went ranting on about the evils of drunkenness and alcoholism. It took the jury just seven minutes to reach a verdict. John Thomas was found Not Guilty and was free to go. Imagine how Daniel’s widow must have felt when she heard the verdict? Rough justice? You bet it was.
September 4th, 2004. Eurostar sets Paris to London record. Three hundred and seven miles in 2 hours and 3 minutes at a top speed of 186 mph. Those railway ancestors would never have believed it.
SEPTEMBER 11th, 2007 -. Jose Wells had organised another coach trip to the Family Records Centre and London Metropolitan Archives.
In the case of the FRC it won’t be long before everything shuts down and all the archives end up at Kew. This shouldn’t be happening. Something to do with cutting costs, we’re told. Funny how they always come up with this one.
At the LMA there were no spare film readers when I needed one so I casually wandered over to the library. I found a section on Tower Hamlets, which is an area that interests me. I came across a book by Rachel Lichtenstein. I think it was to do with Brick Lane. Rachel gave a talk at one of our meetings, where she began by mentioning that her grand-parents ran a jewellery business in Brick Lane, in an area that was then 100 per cent Jewish.
I was listening to Radio 4 the next day. At 4 p.m., on Thinking Allowed, the presenter, Laurie Taylor, happened to interview Rachel who has just published a book about Brick Lane. It was probably the one I’d looked at briefly. This is all too much of a coincidence.
ULY 2007 - Births, Deaths and Marriages at Sea was the name of the talk given by our July speaker, Paul Blake.
It wasn’t only our naval forebears who were hatched, matched and despatched at sea. Many were passengers leaving the UK for foreign climes, or were on their way back from somewhere. Be warned; there’s a mind-boggling amount of information available, some of it of hardly any use at all. (With births, the parent’s names are given, but not the child’s, only its gender.) Best advice is to look at one or two web sites and once you find what you want, make sure you understand the system; how it works and how to order documents in advance. It will definitely save time on the day of your visit.
Try The National Archives at Kew, the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich and London’s Guildhall Library. Recommended reading: Tracing Your Naval Ancestors by Bruno Pappalardo. Norman Holding also recommended this book, you may recall. When using The National Archives web site, go to Search and type in Deaths at Sea – births, deaths and marriages are listed. Web site: www. nationalarchives.gov.uk
The National Maritime Museum. According to their web site, passengers on ships and liners are difficult to trace before 1890. It does not have any passenger lists in its collection, although there are numerous books listing emigrants to America and First Fleeters who sailed to Australia in the late 18th century. Web site: www.nmm.co.uk
The Guildhall holds records from Lloyds Register of Shipping (including the Captain’s Register) and from Trinity House (including lighthousemen and ship’s logs).
Martin Haydn Roberts
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