1921 Census for Ireland

In the next couple of years we will, hopefully, have access to the 1921 census for England, Scotland and Wales.  Sadly, there will be none for any part of Ireland because, in that year, there was major political changes which precluded the taking of a census.  In 1926 there were two census for Ireland – one for the new Irish Free State and one for Northern Ireland.  The lack of a 1921 census for Ireland is a cause for regret among family historians.  The release date for the two 1926 census is likely to be 2026, although there has been some pressure for an earlier release in the Republic of Ireland.  Some preliminary general documents for the 1926 Northern Ireland census have recently been released

 

https://www.nisra.gov.uk/publications/1926-census-reports

Helen Beauclerk

Helen Beauclerk was born in 1892, the daughter of an Indian army officer Major Sydney Edwin Bellingham 1853-1893 and his wife Mary Dunlop.  Upon her father’s death she was adopted by Ferdinand Beauclerk, an army officer and close family friend.  He had been divorced by his wife a decade earlier and appears to have had no children.  Her name was changed by deed poll from  Bellingham to Beauclerk. She had a number of siblings by her natural parents, it is unclear why she was adopted.   She studied at the Paris Conservatoire, and for a while made her living teaching music and accompanying on the piano.  She returned to England just before WWI and became the companion of the French artist Edmond Dulac staying with him until his death in 1953.  She was a novelist, writing a number of fantasy novels, The Green Lacquer Pavilion (1926) and The Love of the Foolish Angel (1929). She also wrote Mountain and the Tree (1935) and Shadows on the Wall (1941).  Dulac used her as a model for some of his work, along with illustrations for a number of her novels.  She maintained contact with her birth family, since in the 1939 Register of England and Wales she is in Bridport in Dorset with her birth mother, Helen Mary Dunlop and Dulac.  She died in 1953, the same year as Dulac.

George Hoby (1759-1832)

As I research my own family I come across interesting people who are not part of it, or on the very edges.  Some of them are really worth noting,  and one of these is George Hoby (1759-1832).  He was the son of a wealthy man, Richard Hoby (1717-1762)  of  Mansell Lacey, Herefordshire, who had squandered his fortune in gambling, forcing his sons to seek their own fortunes.  George became famous as a boot maker, with premises in Covent Garden and later in St James Street, Westminster.  Hoby was the most fashionable London boot maker of his day, dealing with Royalty, the aristocracy and London’s fashionistas.  He was also  a Methodist preacher.  He was an arrogant, self-confident man – attitudes reflected in his remarks on being told that one of his customers, the Duke of Wellington, had beaten the French at Vittoria

“ If Lord Wellington had any other bootmaker than myself, he never would have had his great and constant successes; for my boots and prayers bring his lordship out of all his difficulties.”

When another customer complained that his new riding boots had split as he walked to the stables, Hoby retorted

“ Walking to your stable! I made the boots for riding, not walking.”

He is credited with innovating the Wellington boot to a design suggested by the Iron Duke himself.  The boots can be seen worn by Wellington in an 1815 portrait by James Londsdale.

His daughter, Elizabeth Hoby was the first wife of Joshua Russell.  Joshua’s son (by his second wife) was to become an apprentice in the Hoby shipyards on the Clyde – from whence one of the great late-19th century shipping fortunes would be made.  The shipyards belonged to a member of the extended Hoby family and the relationship almost certainly did much to further Russell’s career.

Moravians in Malmesbury

I was recently surprised to find a number of Pagenton siblings born in Malmesbury in the last decades of the 18th century were baptised in the Moravian Church.  An investigation established that there was a small Moravian community in Malmesbury.  The Church, in disrepair, is currently subject to restoration and will become part of the Athelstan Museum.

The Moravian movement is the oldest free church in northern Europe, and was founded in Bohemia and Moravia in 1457. In 1742 John Cennick, a follower of George Whitefield  and who knew the Wesleys in Bristol, spent 1740 – 45 as an itinerant preacher in North Wiltshire, establishing a religious society in Malmesbury and invited the Moravian Brethren to take charge of the congregation in 1745.

Connections

Sometimes a family historian will come across something, not directly linked to their family, but so fascinating it begs a bit of research.  So, when I was looking at Census records for Campbeltown, Argyle the mention of ‘West Indies’ as the birthplace of Eliza Ann Cordner drew my eye.  The vast majority of people in the area originated in Scotland and, indeed, most from the near vicinity.  An interesting story emerged that links a small Scottish town to the wider Empire and underlines the links between Scotland and slavery

Eliza Ann Cordner was born Eliza Ann Breakenridge in Jamaica in 1816.  The Breakenridge family had a long  association with Campbeltown; her father was William Breakenridge, a coffee planter in Port Royal Jamaica who had been born in Campbeltown in 1783 where his father was a provision merchant.  He was the brother of Isabella, Ann, Mary and Thomas Breakenridge, all had owned enslaved people in Jamaica.  According his memorial  in Old Kilkerran Cemetary, Argyll, William died  in Jamaica in 1818.  He was an owner of enslaved persons in Port Royal, Jamaica, the 1840 claim notes  ’24 Enslaved  with compensation of £571 3S 10D’.

Eliza Ann’s mother was Dorothy Hall, described as a “free Mustee,” a term that indicates she had Afro-Carribean antecedents in her blood line, it is unclear if William and Dorothy were married but their child clearly was of acknowledged parentage.  William left legacies of £142 17s in his will to his each of  his sisters Isabella  and Mary Breakenridge and to his daughter Eliza Ann, who was residuary legatee to one-third of his estate.  In 1833 the British government paid out £20m to compensate some 3,000 families that owned slaves for the loss of their “property” when slave-ownership was abolished in Britain’s colonies and it was a “compensation” payment of around £500 to William’s estate that boosted his legacy.  This was a tiny sum in comparison to the  £106,796 paid to John Gladstone, the father of prime minister William Gladstone.

Eliza Ann was in Scotland by 1833 where she married Gavin Cordner, a distiller, in Campbeltown in December 1833.  In May 1837 they had a daughter, Ann followed in June 1839 by a son, James.  In 1851 Ann Cordner is living with her Uncle, John Breckenridge, in Campbeltown’s Long Row and is ‘at school.’  In the same year her brother James is living with his mother  and a further sister Isabella born in 1841.  Eliza is a ‘semptress’ and described as ‘born in Jamaica.’  Gavin Cordner is not present.  In 1871 Eliza  was still at Longrow but this time in the household of Duncan McNair, she is described as a ‘Farmers widow.’  By 1881 Eliza is living alone in Longrow Street and an ‘annuiant.’  The last reference to Eliza in the census is 1891 where she is at Glebe Street, Lorne Place, Campbeltown, age 73, with her daughter Ann.  In 1900 she dies in Glasgow and her death is notified by her daughter Isabella McCallum.  Isabella had married Angus McCallum in Campbeltown in 1867.

There appears to have been a family dispute about the estate of William.  Peter Breakenridge, the son of Thomas made a claim.  It was countered by Isabella Breakenridge, a spirit seller in Campbeltown through her lawyer  Charles Harvey, of St Catherine, for a legacy of £142 17s given by William Breakenridge; from John Breakenridge,  a farmer,  and Mary his wife who was William’s sister, for a legacy of £142 17s  and from Gavin Cordner   and his wife Eliza, for ‘one third of the residuary estate devised by her Father’s will’.   A petition by Charles Harvey ‘praying that the claim of Peter Breakenridge may be overruled for want of title and that the counterclaims of Isabella Breakenridge, John Breakenridge, and Mary his wife in respect of their legacies may be preferred and awards made to them and subject thereto that the compensation money may be paid to Charles Harvey.’

 

 

 

 

 

Witches and family history

Buried on Ancestry there are a number of fascinating records relating to witches.  These include Scotland, Names of Witches, 1658.  These are digitalized records in the possession of  the Wellcome Library, providing the names of  women and men who were accused of witchcraft during a period of Scottish history in which persecution of  witches was not uncommon.  The provide names, place of residence and some also have notes about the confession.

Also on Ancestry are North American records relating to the Salem witch trials New England, Salem Witches and Others Tried for Witchcraft, 1647-1697.  During this period over two hundred people were formally accused and tried for witchcraft. The  list is limited to individuals who were formally accused and underwent a trial process in a town court proceeding, many others were informally accused.  The database provides the year the accused stood trial, their first and last name, the place where the trial took place, and the outcome of the trial, which could include execution.

To set this in a more modern context, the last trial for witchcraft in Britain was in 1945 when Helen Duncan was convicted at the Old Bailey under the 1735  Witchcraft Act.   She was found guilty and jailed for nine months.  There is a back story to this case since the authorities seemed to be concerned that she was leaking naval secrets.  The Witchcraft Act was repealed in 1951, Helen continued her career in spiritualism and died in

Wylie Blue

Wylie Blue was born Alexander Wylie Blue in Campbeltown, Argyle on 11 May, 1869.  His father was William, a master baker and his mother Mary Wylie.  He was one of at least six siblings.  He attended Glasgow University and the United Presbyterian Theological College in Edinburgh. 1901 he was Minister in the United Free Church in Glasgow’s Blythswood.  In 1902 he married Dora Gow, she was the daughter of a Chemist in Cupar Angus and, born in 1882,  some years younger than him.

He was in Sunderland for a period where at least two of his daughters were born.  In Sunderland he founded the Sunderland Guild of Help in 1907 following a sermon he preached stressing the plight of the poor in the area and making a special plea “that measures might be taken by voluntary effort to overcome the evils and mitigate the distress”

In 1916 he moved to Belfast, to the post of Minister of May Street Presbyterian Church. A couple of years later he served in France with the YMCA. In Augst 1918 the Cambeltown Courier announced that he had returned to Belfast, adding ‘to see him in his war paint, with steel hat. gas box etc, is to see a man, but to hear him is to hear the voice of the Lord.’  May Street Presbyterian is in Belfast City Centre and in the early 20th century was a popular, fashionable. well-attended Church.  Wylie was an eloquent and admired preacher who, as his career progressed, toured North America and Australia.  He was politically active on the Unionist side of the complex politics of Ireland in the early 20th century, in 1919-20 he visited the United States and Canada as a member of the Ulster Delegation in opposition to Home Rule.   He was an intellectual and literate man with a deep interest in Campbeltown local history and  Scottish dialect.  He was the author of at least one novel, The Quay Head Tryst (1917).  In 1946 he published Fossicker’s Fare, described as ‘ a pastor’s largely humorous account of travels throughout the British Empire.’

 

 

He had five daughters Mabel Elizabeth, Annie Scott, Mary Wylie, Ailsa, and Dora.  Mabel married a Northern Ireland clergyman The Rev. Dr. Robert John Laughlin  and eventually settled in the USA.  She died in Des Moines in 2008.  At least two of his other daughters married.  Wylie Blue stayed in Northern Ireland until his death at his home at 18 Cyprus Avenue, Belfast in 1956.  His wife died on 16 March 1957 at the same address.