Fee's family history blog

Hillingdon Church

2011-07-04T23:46:00.000-07:00


St John's, Hillingdon, seen from Coney Green

I have been meaning for some time to gt to the chuchyard at St John's Hillingdon, and to document the gravestones there. I haven't found any information to lead me to believe that this has been done already - if anyone knows differently, please let me know!

So, I have started to walk for my health, and my first walk was to Coney Green, the green adjoining the church, which is called Coney Green because it used to be a place where rabbits, or coneys, were kept. There are still earthworks around the perimeter of the Green which are apparently the remains of this activity.

It was a pleasant walk, but my daughter and I naturally gravitated to the churchyard of St John's Church, Hillingdon Village. I have been dragging her around graveyards all her life, and so she feels at home in them! She took some artistic pictures of the yew tree in the churchyard and I took a few pictures of the memorials. It reminded me that I took pictures last year, in the snow, which I haven't put up here, but intended to.

St John's used to be the parish church for Uxbridge too, and in the days before St Margaret's Chapel was allowed to conduct funerals and had its own burial ground (sometime in the 16th century), people from Uxbridge were buried here too. There are some old gravestones, but many of these are being eroded and destroyed by the undergrowth.


Overgrown tombstone in St John's churchyard

So, I have only a few pictures, because much of the graveyard is overgrown with ivy and brambles, and even those I took, I have only been able to discern the odd name or date on most of them. However, I plan more walks, and to get more information. In the meantime, I thought I would post a few pictures of the church and graveyard under a creative commons attribution copyright. Please feel free to use these, but credit Fee Berry and this blog?

If anyone has specific wishes in connection with St John's Church or the Hillingdon Village area, do make contact through the comments. If I can fulfil any requests during my evening walks, I will.

Alfred William Weekley 1851

Daniel Buckland 1743

Elizabeth Edmands 1732

George Arliss 1867

Harriett Lowe, 1862

John Buckland 1777

St John's Church, Hillingdon

St John's bell tower

Thomas Smith 1761

Thomas Whittington 1769

I will add another post with my pictures from last December. There were some tombstone pictures I will try to caption.

Writing my history

2010-10-31T06:07:00.000-07:00

Ruth Elizabeth Charlotte Dickins, born 1876

I suddenly realised yesterday, that I will never get to the stage where I feel my family history research is "finished". Even if I exhaust all lines of research in all lines of ascent, I will still be looking for circumstantial information about the places where my ancestors lived... I will still be looking for stories of life in the places where they lived and when they were living.

I have started writing my family history dozens of times, but I soon peter out - it is so hard to know how to present the information. Do I start with me and deal with each generation separately, or start with one line and then work back from there? I start a different way each time, and I am satisfied with none of them.

So. I decided that to start was the important thing, because I am not going to get it done if I do not make a start, and if I have to rework or reorganise at some stage in the future, then fair enough, I will. So... here I am. Starting.

I began my family history over 20 years ago when I was pregnant with my first child. In those days of course I wasn't online, it was 1989 and my grandfather had just died, the last of my grandparents to die, and of course the moment he died I began to think of all the questions I should have asked him about his family.

He was Donald Charles Spivey, born 1905, died 1989, and I spent a lot of my time with him as a child. He was a tall man, and he looked unusual, not odd or strange, but handsome. Certainly his photographs from earlier times looked stunningly attractive, and I spent quite a part of my childhood thinking that everyone's grandfathers looked like film stars, Clark Gable or Cary Grant. I didn't realise that it wasn't like that.

I spent nearly every weekend with my grandparents, and asked a lot of questions about their families, and about their childhoods growing up. I'm ashamed to say that I have forgotten as much as I remember, but from time to time things have surfaced and I have suddenly realised that something my grandparents told me slotted into place.

I started with the documents which he had given me. I knew that these related to my our family, but I didn't know how. I had a baptismal certificate for George Dickins, who was born in 1824 at Woodford Grange, and that seemed like a good place to start. I knew that my grandfather's mother was called Ruth Elizabeth Charlotte Dickins, and I assumed that he must be a relation to her. I knew that she had been an interesting person, a dancer who travelled to America and Australia at a time when most women did not.

So I began my research by doing what everyone tells you to do... I made myself a family tree of all the people I could think of in the family. I could add in my grandfather's parents, my grandmother's parents, and their brothers and sisters, but not their dates and professions.

I read as much as I could about researching family history, and went up to the register office in London to pursue my research. I made a lot of mistakes...I kept a note of which registers I had searched, as advised by numerous books, but it wasn't for years that I realized that my careful recording of what I had searched was more or less useless without knowing what I had searched them for.

Of course, at the time, I knew what I was searching for, but over time, as I made more and more visits, that became less and less obvious. So... if you're searching records, make it plain what they have been searched for - and then you won't have to go back and do it all over again.

Within a few months I had established that Ruth Elizabeth Charlotte Dickins, born 1876 was the daughter of George Robey Dickins born 1850 was the son of George Dickins born 1824. So the baptismal certificate had been for my three greats grandfather, George Dickins.

Over the years I have gathered a lot more information about the family. But nothing beats the first time you make a link like that. It's a combination of detective work, history, research and luck, and it is magical. And has kept me at it ever since.

Richards Family history

2010-08-24T05:59:00.000-07:00

This will be a page of Links to things I have discovered in doing the Richards family history.

The Richards family seem to have come from Tackley in Oxfordshire. They lived in Nethercote Street, although annoyingly the census enumerator hasn't though it worth his while to add numbers or cottage names to the location on the census.

Here it is on Google Streetview

View Larger Map

Cornwall Links

2010-07-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

Great searchable database for parishes in Cornwall.

Visitations of England and Ireland on the Internet Archive

2009-11-17T00:16:00.000-08:00

The visitations of England can provide a wealth of information for the family history researcher. The visitation from 1893 contains not just family history information but also in some cases portraits and silhouettes. It's worth searching quite carefully.

Visitation of England and Wales (1893)

Visitation of Ireland (volume 4)

The visitation of Suffolke volume 1

The Visitation of Suffolke (volume 2)

The visitation of Wiltshire 1623

The Gentleman's Magazine

2009-11-15T02:16:00.000-08:00

Useful free resources

2009-01-27T02:07:00.000-08:00

I have found two brilliant resources in the past week for family history:

The British Genealogy forum, which has a "Brickwalls" section for people who have come up against a brickwall in their research.

That forum has a section to allow people to offer certificates which they have ordered in error. That's also a service on offer at the BMD Certificate exchange site, which is becoming a wonderful resource too.

1911 census released

2009-01-13T00:29:00.000-08:00

The government today releases the 1911 census for searching by family historians. This is thee years ahead of the normal 100 year embargo.

You can find the website here. The major problem is the cost... it costs 10 credits to access a transcript of the information for a particular census return, and 30 credits to look at the original return. 60 credits are £6.95.

This census gives a lot more information than the previous censuses... it tells you how long a couple has been married, and how many children they have had even if they are not with them: it also tells you how many children have died.

The detail on birthplaces means that the street and place are given, which will be a great help.

Visit to the National Archives at Kew, September 13

2008-10-03T01:08:00.000-07:00

To celebrate my fiftieth birthday, my sister Sam took me to the National Archives in Kew, a place I have been meaning to go to for about twenty years and yet have never actually got to.

We arrived early, and parked easily in the (free) car park and made our way around to the building past water features and windy cracking slate pathways. The building is modern and huge, and there isn't much guidance on the surface to tell you where to go.

We arrived upstairs in the open reading room, complete with bags and coats, before realising that we should have left these in lockers downstairs. I tipped out the stuff I had with me and Sam kindly went down to the lockers, while I queued for a reader's ticket. Unfortunately, the system was down that day and so there was an announcement that temporary day tickets only were to be issued, and not permanent tickets. As I had wanted mine to be able to save online searches etc, I decided not to continue queuing, and got on with the research.

The open reading room is vast, with many screens and microfilm readers, bookcases with indexes and series of books, filing drawers, cabinets. There is information around in the form of short leaflets, but things are not well explained. There are a number of very friendly and helpful people around, but we found the quality of the information was quite variable.

I was looking for information about my ancestor John Dickins, whose dates were around 1772-1848, and who served in various regiments between about 1798 and 1827, when he retired. I asked a nice young man, who found me a leaflet on looking up your ancestor in an informal index. I looked: he wasn't there. I'd caught on to using the leaflets however, and selected one on researching your ancestor in the army, which told me to find the indexes for WO 25 and WO 76, both of which I had noted before leaving for Kew.

I searched them thoroughly, but found that there was frustratingly always nothing for the combination of time and place and regiment that I wanted. There would be information before 1798 or after 1827, or a big gap where the 90th Regiment should have been, jumping from 89th to 91st. It was very frustrating!

Eventually I found a leaflet for looking up the discharge and pension details of your ancestor, and we found a microfilm reader and looked at the microfilm. The list went from Deuchars to Dixon with no Dickins in between.

We did confirm the major details of his career by looking at the printed Army Lists for the years he served, and I did learn a lot about the way things are organised, but it seemed like precious little progress for what had felt like such an important visit.

One thing I learned that I shall certainly use, is that access to wills is free in the open reading room at Kew. I had paid £3.50 a shot a couple of years ago to look up total stranger's wills, since one couldn't see until one had paid whether the will was of use or not. In future I will pile up the queries and then spend a day at Kew looking them up online there for free.

Even though it was frustrating, I enjoyed the time at the archives, and hope to return sooner than the 20 years it took to get around to it the first time! I have so much I need to do there....

Surname interests

2008-09-27T01:14:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that I didn't put into my blog a section on the surnames I am studying

ALDRIDGE
London 1850-1950
Hertfordshire before 1850

BENNETT
Bristol before 1810

DICKINS
London 1850-1900
Staffordshire 1800-1850
Everywhere 1600-1800

EARWAKER
Marylebone before 1880

JEARRAD
All

PITT
Devon before 1820

ROBEY
London and elsewhere before 1820

SPIVEY
Harrow 1930s
London 1900s
Aylesbury 1910s
Carmarthen 19th century
Yorkshire before 1800

The History of Church Preen

2008-01-24T12:17:00.000-08:00

The History of Church Preen was written by Arthur Sparrow, who died in 1898. The book is therefore now out of copyright. Arthur Sparrow was the Lord of the manor for Church Preen for roughly 25 years at the end of the 19th century, and seems to have spent a lot of that time investigating the history of the place.

I was excited to find a family history for the Dickins family within the book, although I have yet to prove some of the links between generations to my satisfaction. I do not have a copy of the book; I borrowed it using the inter-library exchange system several years ago, and photocopied as much as I could while I had it. I will type up what I have, in case it is of use to other people, probably one page a day.

The History of Church Preen
by Arthur Sparrow, privately printed.

page 38
William Typper and Robert Dawe were two traffickers in monastic property, and as Edward Dyer's interest in Preen was sold to them 33 Elizabeth (1590), the probabiliy seems to be that a compromise was arranged with William Dyckins, who was at that time in possession of the property, by which he was left in undisturbed possession. It appears that soon after William Dyckins came into possession most of the tenants (who had long leases, generally for eighty-one years, granted to them by Sir John Castle, the last Prior) arranged to surrender their leases and have new ones granted by William Dyckins for a longer perios; and this they did, as they say in their evidence, upon the advice of Judge Leighton, of Plaish, and of Mr Plowden. Evidently William Dyckins thought to strengthen his title and the tenants probably wished to make sure thast their leases were good, as far as William Dyckins was concerned.

The Manor of Preen remain in the Dyckins family from 1560 to 1749, when the mortgagees of John Dickins (the sixth in descent from Humphrey Dickins) sold the manor to Miss Elizabeth Price, granddaughter of Thomas Price of Wabscott, in the parish of Middle, by Margaret, sister and co-heir of THomas Thornes of Shelvoche.

The Dickins family were of Leaton in the parish of Bobbington, co Stafford, where they had been seated from the time of Henry VI; they were also Lords of Churchill, Co Worcester. The first member of the family who lived in the Prior's house at Preen appears to have
page 38 ends
been Richard Dyckins, the younger brother of Humphrey; as, according to the evidence of one of the witnesses at the Hughley Commission, he was living in the house ar that time. Probably the house was occupied by some members of the family continuously after this date, until the time when they ceased to be the owners of Preen.

Thomas Dickins, the great-grandson of Humphrey, lived in the prior's house and his father John may have done so, for in Preen Church are his initials; "I.D. 1646"

This Thomas married Margaret Corfield, who is referred to page 48. I am not sure that John, the son of Thomas Dickins lived at Preen: he probably died in his father's lifetime, but both his two sons, Thomas and Matthew, were buried at Preen.

Thomas, the elder of those two sons, probably lived for some time at Leaton, but Matthew, the younger, certainly lived at Preen, either in the Prior's house of in an old Manor-house described by Mr Hardwick as a large half-timbered structure, and called "The Hall" of Church Preen, and which stood upon the site of the present farmhouse adjoining Preen Manor. In the Index Villaris of "Mr" Adams, of the inner Temple (London, folio 1680), "Prene in the Hundred of Condover~" is described as having the seat of "one gentleman". This doubtless refers to Matthew Dickins: he was churchwarden in 1686.

It may be that the elder bother Thomas was living in the Prior's house at the time of his death in 1710. Matthew had a son named John (churchwarden in 1727), who lived at
end of page 39
Preen and was there buried 5th December, 1762. John Dickins, son and heir of Thomas (cousin of the above John) was of Leaton and Preen. At the latter place he was buried 19th of February 1760. [typer-upper's note: I don't think that's right. That John Dickins died 1744 I believe.]

He married MAry, the daughter of Sir William Fowler, of Harnage Grange. Their only son Richard, was the last member of the Dickins or Dyckins family that lived at Preen, and he was buried there on 28th October 1764. The registers of five of his children are to be found at Preen.

So that it appears for seven generations, lasting one hundred and eighty-nine years, the Dyckins family held the Manor of Church Preen.

The following genealogical account, which I have put together Pedigree of Dickins, compiled from the Records of the Heralds' College, Parish Registers, Inquisitions Post Mortem and other evidences.

Arms: Ermine a cross flory sable.

William Dyckins, of Bobbington, Staffordshire, was father of:
Thomas Dyckins, of Bobbington, who was Lord of Churchill in Worcestershire, in the time of Henry VI. He had issue two sons:
I. John, his heir.
II. Thomas, whose son Richard was father of Thomas of Morehall, Staffordshire. The latter, by Edith his wife, daughter of Thomas Corbin of Morehall,
end of page 40
and his wife who was a Miss More or Morehall, had a daughter Alice, who became heir to her mother. Alice Dickins married Matthew Moreton, of Engleton, Staffordshire, and had issue:
Edward Moreton, living 1583.
Alice, m her third cousin once-removed, William Dickins, ut postea.
Isabel, m John Eggington, of Rodbaston, Penkridge.
Constance,
Mary,
Margaret.

The eldest son:
John Dickins, of Bobbington, m Eleanor Blount, and was father of:
Hugh Dickins, of Bobbington, m Joan daughter of Humphrey Lea of Enville, and had issue three sons:
I. Humphrey, his heir.
II. Thomas William
III. Richard, of Church Preen, living 1590.

The eldest son:
Humphrey Dyckins, of Bobbington, by Elizabeth his wife was father of:
William, the next hold of the Bobbington property.

He bought the manor of Church Preen in 1560 from Richard Coverte, brother and heir of Giles Coverte, who died June 23rd, 1559. (Inquisition post-mortem taken at Southwark). The son of Humphrey
end of page 41

William Dickins, of Bobbington, Lord of the Manor of Churchill, m as already stated, p41, Alice Moreton, and had a son, John. He was living in 1503, and was succeeded by his said son:
John Dickins of Bobbington, and of Newlands in the parish in the parish of Much Malvern; b in the autumn of 1578; m first Elizabeth Mackworth of Betton Grange, Shropshire, and had issue:
I. Thomas, his heir
II. Richard, s.p.
III. Francis, died young
I. Margery, wife of Thomas Perry, of Wergs in the parish of Tettenhall, Staffordshire.

By his second wife, Jane, daughter of Edmund Braddock of Adbaston, Staffordshire, by whom he had issue:

IV John, d 1661, having m. Jane, dau. of Francis Woodhouse, of the Woodhouses, Wombourne, Staffordshire, by whom he had issue--
1. Tomyns, of Morse, Staffordshire, who entered the family pedigree and arms at the Heralds' visitation, April 10th, 1663, being then aged 40. He had previously m. Mary, dau. of John Corbyn, of Aymour, Worcestershire, and had issue Tomyns, b. 1661; John; Mary, b. 1654; Elizabeth; Anne, and Jane.
2.Edward
3.John (2 and 3 bracketed together as citizens of London
1. Elizabeth, m. first, Thomas Perry of Wergs
end of page 42
(cf the marriage of her half-aunt Margery) and secondly Nathaniel Hilton, citizen of London.
V. Gerard
VI. William (bracketed together as citzens of London).
II. Elizabeth, m. Herbert Walwyn, of Newland, Worcestershire.

John Dickins died in April 1656, and was buried in the "lower part of the choir" of Great Malvern church on the 25th of that month. It is probable that "I.D. 1646" on the reading-desk of Preen Church, refers to him (see p. 39).

He was succeeded by--
Thomas Dickins, of Leaton (which property eventually passed to the Moseleys), in the parish of Bobbington, who at the Herald's visitation, April 10th, 1663, was aged 65. He was twice m; first to Margaret, dau. of William Corfield, of Church Preen (see p.48), and had issue by her--
I.John
I.Elizabeth, m. Roger Bird, of Ipsley, Warwickshire.
II. Margaret, m JOhn Lacy, of Feckenham, Worcestershire.
III. Alice, m. John Smallwood, of Middlewich, Cheshire.

He m. secondly, Elizabeth, dau. of Robert Walwyn, of Newland, and had issue--
II. Thomas, b.1637.
III. Herbert.
IV. Robert.
V. William
end of page 43.

IV. Anne, m. John Pratt, of Tuckhill, Staffordshire.
V. Rachel, m. Henry Welwyn of Colwall, Herefordshire.
VI. Elizabeth, m. William Reade, of Manley, Worcestershire.
VII. Jane, died young.

The eldest son--
John Dickins, of Church Preen, b. 1631; m. as a minor, circa 1648, Sarah, dau of Samuel More, of Linley, Shropshire, and had issue by her--
I. Thomas, his heir.
II. Matthew, of Church Preen, churchwarden in 1686, b. after 1663, and was buried at Preen, May 27th 1752, leaving by Mary his wife--
1. John, of Church Preen, churchwarden in 1727; b Dec 31st, 1695; bapt at Preen, Jan 9th, 1696; m. there Nov 5th 1722, Ann Stary (who was buried at Preen in the "desk pew", May 26th, 1773, aged 83). He was also buried there, Dec. 5th, 1762.
2. Matthew, bapt. at Preen, March 22nd, 1700; but there, May 27th 1752 [Fee's note: I wonder if Mr Sparrow got mixed up as he has given this burial date for this matthew and his father Matthew too...]
1. Elizabeth, bapt. there Sept. 19th,1704, and buried Sept. 22nd, 1704.
2. Mary (twin with Elizabeth), bapt. on the same day, and buried Oct. 2nd, 1704.
3. Mary, bapt at Preen, Jan 4th, 1706; m. there May 2nd, 1736, to John Bollen, of Preen, and afterwards of Brockton, in Stanton Long (who was buried in a vault in Preen Church, May 29th, 1782, aged 77); buried in the vault in which her husband was afterwards buried May 2nd, 1773.
4. Ann, bapt. at Preen, June 9th, 1709; m. there, April 21st, 1730, to John acton, of Astley Abbots, and had a dau. Hannah, bapt at Preen, March 9th, 1730.
I. Elizabeth, aged 14, at the 1663 Visitation.

He d. in 1679, probably in his father's lifetime. His will, proved in the same year, names John Turton, of Alderhayes, Robert More of Cheapside, and his wife as executors. [Fee's notes: John Turton was married to one of Sarah Dickins's More sisters, and Robert More was one of her brothers.]

John Dickins's eldest son,
Thomas Dickins of Leaton, b. 1653, borrowed £400 in 1679, and charged his estates with £600 for his younger son, Thomas. He was buried at Preen, December 21st, 1710, leaving issue by Mary his wife,
I. John, his heir.
II, Thomas, of Leebotswood, m. at Preen, May 29th, 1728, Mary Martin of that parish.

The eldest son--
John Dickins of Leaton and Preen, whose mortgagees sold Preen July 30th, 1749, to Elizabeth Price (see page 54). In 1709 he owed £1056 to Joseph Girder, Serjeant-at-Law. He m. Mary, dau of Sir William Fowler, of Harnage Grange, having settled an annuity of £150 upon

(footnote: A John Dickins was buried at Preen May 5th, 1718, but I do not know to whom the entry refers.)
end of page 45

her. He was buried at Preen, February 19th, 1760,(Fee's notes: no, Sparrow got this wrong. John Dickins who owed the money to Joseph Girder died in 1744) having had issue a son and three daughters--
I. Richard, his heir.
I. Mary, m John Moreton of St Giles, weaver
II. Hester, m Mr Wilson.
III. Diana, m Francis Jones, of Lindion, Derbyshire.

The only son--
Richard Dickins, sometime of Preen, was buried there October 28th, 1764, leaving, by Ann, his wife, two sons and four daughters--
I. John, his heir.
II Fowler, bapt. at Preem, June 23rd, 1749.
I. Ann, bapt. there, September 14th, 1746.
II. Elinor, buried there, March 31st, 1751.
III. Ursula, bapt. there, June 26th, 1751.
IV. Mary, m there, July 30th, 1790, John Mansell, of Much Wenlock (who died there and was buried at Preen, April 20th, 1784). She was also buried at Preen, July 30th, 1790.

The elder son--
John Dickins, born in 1737, was father of John Dickins, Captain RN, of Woodford Grange, Staffordshire; b. 1772, m twice and had many children, one of whom was--
Robert Archibald Dickins of Woodford Grange, a Major in the Yeomanry, who died at an advanced age in 1893, and was buried at Trysull, having had an only son, Bramah, who died unmarried in his father's lifetime.

end of page 46

Margaret Corfield, who married Thomas Dickins in or about 1630, was a member of an old Shropshire family, a branch of which had for several generations been tenants at Preen under the Prior.

They traced their descent from one Edward, who held Corve in Stanton Long, in Corve Dale, in the twelfth century; his son, Ralph Fitz-Edward, held Corve in 1180, and from him presumably descended Richard de Corfielde, Lord of the Manor of Longville, who married Abigail Lutwyche.

The eldest son of the said Richard de Corfields was John, of Chatwall, who was buried at Cardington in June, 1561; the youngest son, Thomas, was of Much Wenlock: he was the father of three sons, Sir William Corvehill,"Priest of the service of our blessed Lady St Mary within the church of the Holy Trinity" at Much Wenlock;

(footnote: Copy of entry of Sir William Corvehill's buril in Wenlock Register; "26th May, 1546. Here was buryed out on the Strete called Mardfold out of the two Tenements next unto Sancte Owens Well, on the same side of the well, the body of Sir William Corvehill, Priest of the Service of Our Blessed Lady St Marye, within the Churche of the holy Trinite ~&c which two hows belo'ging to the said S'vice he had i' his occupacion, wt their apparten and parte of his wages, which was viij markes and the said hows in an overplus; whose body was buryed in the chancell of our blessed
Lady before the altar under the stone in the myddle of the said altare, upon the left hande as ye treat and stand on the heighest steppe of the thre, before the said altare, who fete streche forth under the said alter to the wall in the East of the altare, the body there lying within the erth in a tomb of lyme and ston which he caused to be made for himselfe for that intent; after the reryng and building of the new Ruff of the said chansell which rering framyng and new reparyng of the altare and chancell was don throw the councill of the said Dri William Corvehill, who was excellently and singularly experte in dyverse of the vij liberal sciences and especially in geomtre, not greatly by speculacion but by experience; and few or none of handycrafte but that he had a very good insight in them, as the making of Organs, of a clocka and chimes, and in kerving, in Masonrie, and weving of Silke, and in peynting; and noe instrument of musike being but that he could mende it, and many gud gifts the man had, and a very pacient man, and full hineste in his conversacion and lyv'ng; borne here, in the borowe of Moche Wenlock, and sometime monke in the
monastrie of St Mylb'ge here. Two brethren he had. one called Dominus JOhn, Monke in the said Monasterie, and a secular preiste called Sr Andrew Corvehill, who dyed at Croydon beside London, on whose soule and all Christian Soules, Almighty God have m'cy, Ame'. All this country hath a great losse of the death of the gd Sir William
Corvehill for he was a gud Bell Founder and a maker of the frame for bells" Thomas Butler's Register, referered to on

p 23.)

end of page 47

A secular priest called Sir Andrew, who died at Croydon, and Dominus John, monk in the monastery at Wenlock.

To return to the eldest son of Richard, John Corfield: he was also of Longville and Chatwall, and in 1505 received a grant of lease of lands in Preen for eighty-one years from "Sir" ~John Castle, the last Prior of Preen. He was the
father of five sons:--
I. Thomas of Chatwall.
II. William of Church Preen, married Elizabeth Ball, of Bourton and was father of Margaret, married Thomas Dickins, as stated on page 43 and 47. His will, dated December 28th, 17 Elizabeth, 1574, is as follows:--
"I, William Corfeld of Prene in the Countie of Salop and Diocese of Hereford, sick in bodie but in perfitt remembrance in mynde, thankes be given to Allmightie God, doe make this my last Will & testament in manner and forme as

end of page 48

hereafter followeth. first and principallie I comend my soule to Almightie God my Maker and redeamer and my bodie to be buried in the parish church of Preene at my last end. Item I give and bequeath to the people that to my parrishe church will come at the daie of my buriall, my funeral being ended, everie one of them... pence apece. Item my will and entent is and I give and bequeath to Elizabeth my wief my whole tenement with the appurtenances, and all therunto belonging, and all my goodes and cattell mouvable and unmoveable to rear and kepe my children, untill they come to
full age of Twentie and one yeres, with sufficient meat, drinke, and clothe as it mete for their behaviour, as longe as she kepeth her widowhood, and if so be that my foresaid wife list to marie at any time, my will ys that my sone William shall have my foresaid tenement with all meadowes, leasues, pastures with all thereto belonging, as longe as the yeres endure yf he will be ruled and governed by his mother and his frendes. Yf he will not be ruled by his mother and his frendes, my will ys that it shall remaine to one of his brethren which pleaseth his mother best. Also my will
is that if William my foresaid sonne doe not enter of my foresaid tenement within the space of tenne yeres, the I give and bequeath to William my son twentie poundes; yf he doe enter within ten yeres, my will is that his parte do remain amongst his fellowes. Also my will is that if it chance Elizabeth my wief to decease or marrie before my foresaid children come to their full age of xxi yeres, then William my sone to finde my foresaid children sufficient

end of page 49

meat, drink and cloth, according as they had in tymes past, untill they come to the age as is foresaid. Item my will, and entent if and I give and bequeath to John my sone Twentie poundes yf he will be ruled by his mother and his frendes, yf he will not, to have but five pounds. Item I give and bequeath to Richard my sonne Twentie poundes. Item I give and bequeath to Thomas my son Xxvj. Item I give and bequeath to frauncis my sonne Twentie Poundes. ITem I give and bequeath to Elizabeth my daughter ffourtie mearkes if she will be rules by hir mother. Also my will and entent is
that my foresaid children shall have everie one his parte when he cometh to age of Twentie and one yeres. Also my will is that if anye of my foresaid children chance to decease before they come to their age as is aforesaid, my will is that his or her parte to remaine to and amongst their fellowes. Item I give and bequeath to everie godchild of mine iiid. Item I give and bequeath to every brother's child and sister's of myne iiijd. Item I give and bequeath to Majorie Myddleton my servant maid a two yere old heifer and the Croppe of a Cowe. Item I give and bequeath to my sone
in lawe Humfrey James children a two yere old heyfer to be sett forward for them.
Debts owing to the foresaid William Corfield dew to be paid at this tyme, A thousand five hundred and seventie fower.

Imprimis Richard Lee, of Longley, esquier, doth ow

end of page 50

unto me the somme of ten poundes which I lent hi out of my purse. Item William Bickfork, of the parrishe of Hampton, doth owe unto me fouer poundes wanting xvjd for certain cattell which I soulde him. Item William Wollaston, of Trecot Graunge, doth owe unto me iiijli, xiijs iiijd for certaine cattell which I soulde him. Item Richard Baule, of Burton, doth owe unto me xls which I lent him out of my purse. Item Thomas Wollastone doth owe until me xxs for a hore which I soulde unto Thomas Dod, he being suertie. Item Humfrey James doth owe unto me xjli ijs which I lent to him out of my purse. Item John ffarmer, of Broone, doth owe unto me xls for a cowe and a calfe. Item Hugh Hardwick of Pattenham, doth owe unto me xxs I lent him out of my purse. Item William Pidge of Plashe, doth owe unto me Twentie shillings which I lent him out of my purse. Item John Mydleton, of Preene, doth owe unto me Twentie Shillings which I lent him out of my purse. Item iiij heyfors of myne in the custodie of David lloyds, in the parrish of Manava which I sett to him the first milk and calf. Item my will and entent if and I doe make and constitute Elizabeth my wife my true and laufull executrix of this my last will conteyned to see me honestly brought home, my funerall discharged, my debtes paid and Legacies paid which I have given and distributed to my foresaid children.

"This being witnesses, John Pinches th'elder, William Pidge, and John Pinches the younger with others."
Proved on August 25th, 1575, by the representative of the said Elizabeth the relict and Executrix.

end of page 51

From the Prerogative court of the Archbishop of Canterbury, 33 "Pickering".)

III. "Sir" John, vicar of Preen, whose will, in 1548, directs that he shall be buried in the chancel of the church.
IV. Richard and
V. Ralph.

The second son, William (page 48), was father of five sons:-- 1, William, 2, Thonas, 3, John, 4, Francis, and 5, Jasper; the first two of whom, with their widowed mother, Elizabeth Corfield, have evidence at the hughley Commission, in 1590. They were tenants, under an original lease, granted about 1510 for eighty-one years. to their grandfather, John Corfield. The third son on William Corfield, John, was of Hughley and he left the following will:

"in Dei nom' Amen, ijndo die May anno dom' 1556. I John Corfylde of Hughlee within the Dioces of Hereford being of wholle mynde and in good and p'fyte remembrance, laud and prayse be unto Almyghtie God, make and ordaine thys my present testament containing my last wylle in man'r and forme folowing that ys to say; Fyrst I comende my soule unto Almightie God my maker and redemer and my body to be buried in the church of Moche Wenlocke.

"Item I give and bequeath to the Mother Church of Hereford vjd. Item I give and bequeath to William my son my best pane and pewter dish. Item I give and bequeath to my sone Richard my second pane and pewter dyshe. Item I give and bequeath to ... a pewter dyshe and to Alice Taylor a pewter dyshe.

"Item I give and bequeath to Thom' Taylor sone to Thomas Taylor an Haffyer of my cow. Item I given and bequeathe to Elizabeth Corfylde iijs iiijd. Item I give and bequeath to the church of Hughlee xvjd a torch and two tapers. Item my wyll ys that I be brought honestlye home. And the residue of my goods not afore bequeathed I put to the discretion of Margaret my wife helfe takinge during her life and of this my present testament I make and ordene Thomas Corfyle and John Pinchesse myne executors this my last wyll and testament executed accordinglye.

"And I hereby revoke and adnulle all and every other former testaments, wylles, bequests and executors by me in anye wayse before thys time made and named wylled and bequeathed. These being Wytnesses Sir Roger (Stringer), p'son there, Thom Haynes, Thomas Taylor with others."

(Taken from an office copy transcribed from the original in the District Probate Registry at Hereford and lent to me by Colonel Corfield.)

The Corfields remained at Hughley for two centuries; indeed some of the family are still to be fouond lingering in the neighbourhood.

At Preen, the descendants of Thomas and William, the first and second sons ov John Corfield of Longville and Chatwall, remained within the last fifty or sixty years.

Irish Genealogy Resources

2008-01-23T07:34:00.000-08:00

Irish genealogy has been made much more difficult by the destruction of the archive in Dublin in 1922. It seems that the bringing online of Irish records and information has lagged behind the UK, but several projects are beginning to bear fruit in this area.

The National Archive includes a searchable Dublin census for 1911.

The Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives have just reached their first birthday. The aim seems to be to gather free resources for the benefit of other researchers, and it can only get bigger and better.

There is an Irish channel on the RootsChat website which brings together people new to Irish genealogy with more experienced researchers, and offers the chance of look ups.

There is an Irish genealogy forum, which seems fairly quiet but friendly.

There are many clan websites linked to Irish families. I have joined the Fitzpatrick clan, I am sure there are many others, if you only google them.

I plan to update this page as I find new resources, so check back again soon!

London Strays Dickins/Dickens

2008-01-18T04:14:00.001-08:00

These are people who are living in London but aren't born in London, and for whom I have no current information tying them to a place. This is only the case for 1841 census where the question was only whether you were born in the county where you were living.

1841 Census Middlesex St Andrew Holborn
Richard Dickins 30 Chemist
Mary Dickins 20
Charlotte Dickins 2 months born Middlesex
Only baby born in Middlesex

Warwickshire Dickins/Dickens

2008-01-18T02:54:00.001-08:00

A lot of my Staffordshire Dickins will be in this section, because many of them were born in Birmingham.

Some census returns I have stumbled upon:
1841 Census
Warwickshire, St George
Address: Cecil Street
John Dickins 30 Head, Plasterer and Independent Means born Warwickshire

1861 census

1861 Shropshire, Albrighton
Address: unsure, looks like several families have been run together
Richard Dickins 57 Head Married Registrar of Birthd and Death born Birmingham Warwickshire
Anne Dickins 42 Wife born Albrighton, Shropshire
Jane Anne Dickins 23 Daughter Schoolmistress born Wolverhampton, Staffordshire
Harriet Lucy Dickins 19 Daughter born Albrighton, Shropshire
William H.O. Dickins 15 Son, scholar born Albrighton
Frances Dickins 12 daughter, scholar born Albrighton
Mary Howell/Hewitt? Visitor 33 Governess? Tattershall Staffordshire
Elizabeth Haynes 21 Houseservant born Albrighton, Shropshire

1861 Chelsea, Chelsea South
Address: No 4 Vine Cottages, Queen Street? runs on from previous family the Keebles, although Samuel Keeble and Francis Dickins are shown as heads of family.
Francis C, Dickins 49 Head commission Agents born Warwick Birmingham
Matilda M Dickins 45 Wife born Middlesex London
John H Dickins 20 Son Commercial Clerk
Charles Dickins ? Son Chelsea - age unreadable
Harriet Dickins 16 Daughter born Tipton Staffs
Mary A Dickins 14 Daughter Checlsea
Caroline Dickins 10 Daughter Chelsea

1871 Chelsea, Christchurch, London
Address:18 Flood Street, Chelsea
Francis Dickins 59 Head Clerk, Blind Manutacturers born Birmingham, Warwickshire
Matilda Dickins 58 Wife Annuitant born London, City
Sarah Dickins 21 Ward in Chancery born Tipton, Staffordshire
Caroline Dickins 20 Ward in Chancery born chelsea
Charles Dickins 18 clerk in Ball factory born chelsea

The above is an odd one, because I am beginning to thing that this Francis may have been the eldest son of my four greats grandparents. He is born in the right place at the right time, and my great grandmother said that there was an inheritance which was in chancery for decades. Of course, Charles Dickens (far as I know, no relation, notwithstanding he hijacked the family crest) dealt with Chancery courts in Bleak House... I am wondering if he was aware of this family of Dickins.

There's another reason for connecting this family with mine. My five greats uncle, Robert Archibald Dickins, left bequests to his neices Sarah Elizabeth and Caroline Fanny Dickins. These are the only Caroline Fanny and Sarah Elizabeth I can find in the records. He also left the bulk of his estate to Christina Dickins, his neice, who was living with his sisters. I do not know if she was an illegitimate daughter of one of his siblings, I haven't found her birth yet.

Cheshire Dickins/Dickens

2008-01-18T02:32:00.000-08:00

Census records I have come across
1871 Cheshire, Bollington
Address: Oak Fold or Oar Fold
Elizabeth Dickens 38 Wife born Cheshire Adlington
Thomas Dickens 8 Son 1/2 time in cotton mill and scholar born Bollington
Samuel Henry Dickens 5 son scholar born Bollington
Francis Dickens 3 son born Bollington
Joseph Dickens 8 months son born Bollington

Staffordshire Dickins/Dickens

2008-01-18T02:15:00.000-08:00

A note of all the Staffordshire births I have come across, in date order
A note of all the Staffordshire marriages I have come across, in date order
A note of all the Staffordshire Deaths I have come accross, in date order
A note of Staffordshire census returns, in date order
1851 census Dudley, St Edmunds, Staffordshire
Address: New Road, Dudley
John Whitehouse 58 Head proprietor of coal mine
Sarah Whitehouse 55 Wife
Francis Dickins 15 Neice scholar
Esther Butler 66 Servant
Elizabeth Butler 26 Servant

1871 Census Tipton, Wednesbury, Dudley
Address: 51 XX? End Road
Francis Dickin 37 Head Brick manufacturer
Ann Dickin 38 Wife
Joseph Dickin 11 Son scholar
Samuel Dickin 9 Son scholar
Francis Dickin 7 Son scholar
Ann Dickin 4 Daughter scholar
Rosehannah Dickin 1 Daughter
Mary Casline 14 Servant

Shropshire Dickins/Dickens

2008-01-18T02:13:00.000-08:00

A note of all the Shropshire births I have come across, in date order
A note of all the Shropshire marriages I have come across, in date order
A note of all the Shropshire deaths I have come across, in date order
Census information I have come across
1841 census
Albrighton Shropshire
Address: High Street, Albrighton
Richard Dickins 30 Draper not born in Shropshire
Anne Dickins 20 born in Shropshire
Jane Dickins 3 not born in Shropshire
Louisa Dickins 1 not born in Shropshire.

1851 Census
Albrighton Shropshire
Richard Dickins 41 head Maltster (Master)Birmingham Warwickshire
Ann Dickins 32 wife Albrighton
Jane Ann Dickins 13 Daughter scholar at home Wolverhampton, Staffordshire
Harriet Lucy Dickins 9 Daughter scholar at home Albrighton
William HOD Dickins 3 son scholar at home Albrighton
Frances Agnes Dickins 2 Daughter Albrighton
Mary Powis Holt 22 Governess
Sarah Marth 15 House Servant

Letters from Australia

2008-01-14T07:41:00.000-08:00

I have in my archive two letters which were written from Australia by descendants of the Dickins family who emigrated to Australia. Unfortunately someone I think may be a direct descendant of one of the writers contacted me through Genes Reunited while I had allowed my membership to lapse. I hope she contacts me again.

This letter is from Mrs Robert White, Goomalita, and is dated August 30, 1903. I believe it was written to George Dickins, who lived with his son, George Robey Dickins at the end of his life.

My Dear Uncle,
I now take the pleasure of writing you this letter, hoping this will find you well as I am happy to say this leaves us at present. How is Lottie Dickens getting on she promised to come and see us when she was in Melbourne but she did not and we often wondered the reason why. I often think of her and hope she is well. How are cousins George and Herbert also their families. Dear Uncle I hope you will get this letter alright as I am putting on the address that Lottie gave me. We are having a good season this year. Last year was a record one for dryness. The crops and grass never grew except in a few favoured places, and it was worse in NS> Wales and the Maller districts as they had to cart water for miles by the paper reports. The crops everywhere are looking well. I have a brother in N.S. Wales he has been there a great many years, his wife died last January 19 of Tropical Fever and left two little girls, the eldest five years and the other three, it was very sad for him poor fellow, he has a housekeeper looking after the children and they are getting on \lright. Of course you know poor Margaret is dead she has been gone eleven years last December and her husband is dead he died six years ago. The family are all grown up the youngest a boy nearly 14. The eldest girl is married and living in Melbourne. My sister Harriet lives at Jea, she is housekeeping. Is Aunt Harriet still living. I suppose you are the only one of poor father's brothers alive. There is only one brother of my mother's living and one sister. I know Aunt Fanny and Uncle Robert are dead. Uncle Robert died when Lottie was out here and she wrote and told us about it. My brother John's widow lives at Mansfield she had three sons but one died a few years ago he got thrown from a horse, and he never recovered, and the eldest got married a few months ago he lives at Euroa he is the proprietor of the paper and is doing well. Now dear Uncle I must conclude I do hope you ill answer this letter as I would so much like to hear from you I will be anxious to know if this address will find you give my best to Lottie and all the members of the family with dearest love to yourself
I remain
your affectionate neice
Annie White
Benalla
Victoria

Notes: I corresponded for some time with a descendant of Charles John Dickins, who was the Dickins/Dickens who emigrated. Leonie MacDonell gave me some information on the background of the letter writer and the family.

Charles came to Australia in about 1847 with a squatter named Frederick Griffin who took up several acreages, among them "Preston" near Mansfield in north-east Victoria. Charles became manager of "Preston" when Griffin, who went blind while in Australia, returned to England.

Charles married a Scottish lass Mary Clerk/e in Kilmore (not too far from Mansfield) on 19 February 1851 when she was the ripe old age of 15. Their offspring were John Dickens (born 9 February 1852 - from whom Leonie was descended), MArgaret Dickens (born 21 April 1854), Anne Frances Dickens (born 1856 and writer of the letter, she became Mrs Robert White), Mary Dickens (1859), Charles Frederick Dickens(1860), William McKellar Dickens(1863), Louisa Harriet Dickens (1861) James Duncan Dickens (1865) and Sarah Elizabeth Dickens (1867).

James Duncan Dickens died of Diphtheria on MArch 8, 1869 and his mother died of the same (on March 16 that year). Charles died of cancer of the tongue in Violet Town (in the general vicinity of Mansfield) on August 23, 1886.

Charles and Mary's eldest child (Leonie's great grandfather, John) deid of a fever, presumably malaria, in Queensland in June 1886, leaving his widow, the one referred to in Annie White's melancholy letter, with three small boys. The eldest of the children, who Annie reports got married and was living in Euroa, was Leonie's grandfather, Alfred Sydney Dickens.

I only heard from Leonie a couple of times before she moved house... if anyone knows her current whereabouts I would love to fill her in on the progress I have made.

Ruth Elizabeth Charlotte Dickins 1876-1936

2008-01-12T04:23:00.000-08:00

This was the ancestor responsible for my beginning to look into family history. She was on the Music halls as a dancer, and yet married a respectable professional soldier and had five children. She travelled the world as a dancer, including a spell on Broadway in New York and a visit to Australia, at a time when many people hardly even made it to the coast for a day trip.

I have a number of fragmentary and rapidly deteriorating documents for her.

Indenture of apprenticeship to Giuseppe Venuto de Francesco as a dancer. Fragment only, document dated5th april 1889. Giuseppe is mentioned in an article on the Norwood Cemetery site in connection with his dancing partner.

Contract with the Brighton Alhambra, dated 30th June 1902, under the name the Sisters Swinson. I do not know who the other sister was. They were paid the princely sum of £10 less 5% a week, which must have been an amazing salary then, for two performances a day, morning and evening - for comparison a minister would earn around 30s, or £1.50 a week.

Contract with Washington Music hall, Battersea
Sisters Swinson again, engagement as duettists and national dancers. April 29th 1901, at £4 per week.

Fragment of advertisement bill for Abbey Theatre, Broawdway and 38th Street

Lottie is shown under Premieures Danseuses as wood pigeon and fox in the production of cinderella "as played at Mr henry Irving's Lyceum Theatre, London". April 30, 1894. The programme is in two pages, and there is a long list of Immortals, other dancers. The other premiere danseuse is Louie Loveday, and so I wonder if she might be the other sister swinson?

Louie Loveday had already starred in the Lyceum production, as is shown here.

Lottie is mentioned in this scholarly article on pantomime, as taking over the role in Cinderella,

Report on death of W.F. Spivey, 1914

2008-01-11T02:50:00.001-08:00

I was sorting out some family history archive material this morning and realised that there was a brown fatty deposit on many things. This seems to be coming from a folded newspaper from 1914, which is obviously on the point of disintegration. I am therefore typing up the contents of the item, which is about my great-great uncle, W.F. Spivey.

Walthamstow, Leyton and Chingfor Guardian, Friday, September 4, 1914

Death of Mr W.F. Spivey
Headmaster of Monoux Grammar School
Walthamstow's great loss

It is with profound regret that we record the death of Mr William Francis Spivey, M.A., Headmaster of the Monoux Grammer School, Walthamstow, which occurred on Sunday last in a private ward at the National Hospital for Disease of the Heart, Westmoreland Street, W.

The Monoux Grammar School has sustained an almost irreperable loss by the death of Mr Spivey, who had been on the teaching staff for some 26 years, and who by his diligence had won the confidence and esteem of the Governors, and by the exercise of a kind discipline won the respect and love of the many pupils who were under his care.

Mr Spivey's career was lamentably cut short by prolonged illness; which ended fatally on Sunday last, and it was the regret of many scholars and Old Monavians that they could not be present at the graveside to pay their last tribute of respect.

Mr Spivey, who for many years resided at 12, Merton Road, was born at Carmarthen, South Wales, on April 15th, 1867 and was educated at the Grammar School there, taking his M.A. degree at Trinity College, Dublin. He entered the teaching profession at his old school in Carmarthen, and in January 1888 came to Walthamstow, having been appointed first assistant master at the Monoux Grammar School, of which the Rev. H.A. Allpass. was the then headmaster.

Walthamstow was at that time very different to the Walthamstow of today, and the foundation of the Monoux School had but recently been resuscitated the temporary building being in West Avenue.

It was in 1902 that Mr Spivey received the appointment of acting headmaster owing to the illness of the head, and in December 1903, he was given the headmastership.

During the 10 years he was at its head Mr spivey guided the school with remarkable sagacity, and his assiduity was an inspiration to the scholars.

He was well loved by all his pupils and his real and kindly interest in the in the welfare of each of them left its mark on their characters.

Into the Old Monovians Association he put new life for he rcognised the great value of such an organisation in keeping alive the memories of the happy days spent within the walls of the Monous School.

The last time Mr Spivey attended school was on June 26th last and his last public appearance was on the following day at the Hospital Fete, at Highams, where he officiated as one of the judges for the sports. On June 29th he had to take to his bed, from which he never again rose.

Mr Spivey was an arden sportsman and he nourished the love of healthy games in his pupils. He was formerly a valued member of the Upper Clapton Rugby Club, and at one time was a reserve for Wales. He was also a keen cricketer and he was bitterly disappointed because he was unable to take part in the match this year.

The deceased gentlement will be greatly missed also in Masonic circles: he was a member of the Shurmur Lodge. He also belonged to the Headmasters' Association. The funeral took place at Kensal Green Cemetery on Wednesday. The mourners were Mr B. Spivey, Captain I.H. Spivey (brothers) Miss xxxxx spivey (sister) Mrs Richardson (sister)Miss M.H spivey (sister). Mr A.H. Prowse (senior assistant master) also attended, and among others at the graveside were Dr F.P. Elliott, Mr John Higham, Mr J.J. Kenny, Mr T.S. Taylor (clerk to the Governors), Mr Leaondar Adams (a former master), Mr Dicks (Headmaster of the County High School), Mr H.C. Greenwood (hon.secretary of the old Monrovians' Association), Messrs Dickinson, Marchant and H.H. Griffin (old boys), Mr H.H. Dongray (head boy of the school) and other pupils. There was a large number of beautiful floral tributes, including one each from the masters, the boys, the old boys, and the Shurmur Lodge of Freemasons.

This article is followed straight away by this:
A Colleague's Letter
Dear Sir,
There will doubtless be many a sad heart in Walthamstow amongst present boys, parents and especially old boys of the Monoux School when they learn of Mr Spivey's untimely death.

It has occurred to me that it may perhaps be some solace to his many friends in the irreperable loss they have sustained if you will publish the accompanying verses. He drew my attention to them 20 odd years ago and I know that in his view they expressed the finest consoltary simile for death extant. He committed them to memory, and frequently quoted them. They are by J. Buckham and originally appeared in 1891 in the "catholic World". Thanking you in anticipation, I am Sir, yours faithfully, Leonard Adams, Watford, September 2nd, 1914.

The unknown Bound
I watched a sail until it dropt from sight
Over the rounding sea. a gleam of white,
A last far-flashed farewell, and, like a thought
Slipt out of mind, it vanished and was not.
Yet to the helmsman standing at the wheel,
Broad seas still stretched before the gliding keel.
Disaster? Change? he felt no slightest sign;
Nor dreamed he of that dim horizon line.
So may it be, perchance, when down the tide
Our dear ones vanish. Peacefully they glide
On level seas, nor mark the unknown bound.
We call it death - to them 'tis life beyond.

Other headings on the page include THE WAR A Walthamstow hero
Arethusa Seaman who died in action
Big Recruiting meetings to be held
beneath which is a poem called Fall in By Harold Begbie.

poetry seems to feature rather more than it does now in local papers: there is also a poem on "our flag" on the same page, page 5.

Turning to page 6, there are articles about using schools as hospitals, a messae to car owners asking for their cars, an article on what teachers can do for the war effort, and a message from Field Marashal Sir Evelyn Wood, headed Essex hero's message. There are advertisements running down the edged of the page in both cases.

Clearly made of very acidic paper, I suppose it is a wonder it has survived 93 years.

As a footnote to the above:
I searched for Monoux Grammar school and came up with mixed results. On the one hand there is discussion about whether the character of Mr Chips, from the book and film "Goodbye Mr Chips" came from a composite of teachers at the school, which seems in keeping with the general tenor of the article.

However, there is also a page on the Monoux Grammar school which seems to indicate the school was not well run under my great-great uncle's direction and which indicates that there may have been great pressure upon him. Maybe this contributed to his heart problem.... Ah... the answer to this question is elsewhere on the Monoux site, where it says:
"From 1903 to 1914, Mr. W. Spivey, M.A., a colleague of Mr. Allpass from 1888, was the headmaster, and he did all in his power to continue the traditions of the institution. He, however, laboured under great difficulties, and found the resources and staff quite inadequate to keep the school in a state of thorough efficiency. Dr. M. Sadler, who made a report on the school in 1906, (There were then 193 boys in the School. The net income from endowments was £146 7s. ; the Essex Connty Council grant was £250 ; and that of the Board of Education £387. 16)* said that Mr. Spivey "deserves high praise for the pluck and tenacity with which he has contended against adverse conditions, and for the unremitting care which he has devoted to his duties." The governors were unable to provide the funds for the necessary increase of staff and for the proper payment of the masters ; and, as a result, the constant demands of the Board of Education made Mr. Spivey's work very difficult. He fought bravely, however, till the end came in August, 1914. Mr. Spivey's friends and old Monovians have placed a bronze tablet to his memory in the school, and the following is the inscription on it :-
"Sir George Monoux Grammar School. This tablet was erected by Old Monovians in affectionate memory of WILLIAM FRANCIS SPIVEY, M.A., Assistant Master 1888 to 1903. Head Master 1903 to 1914. Died 30th August, 1914. Aged 47 years. ` A good life hath but few days, but a good name endureth for ever."'

Charles Henry Hughes Spivey

2007-06-19T09:35:00.000-07:00

Charles Henry Hughes Spivey was my mother's father's father. He died before my mother was born, and so I never met him at all.

He was the first non-commissioned officer in the Scots Guards. The family tale was that his family didn't approve of his choice of career or choice of bride, but I don't know how true that was. He's shown below with my great grandmother, Lottie Dickins or Dickens.

I don't remember my grandparents talking much about him other than the fact that he was the first non-commissioned officer in the Scots Guards. I remember my grandmother telling me that she and my grandfather and my grandfather's brother got together an impromptu band and she was jazzing up the death march. She could jazz up any tune on the piano.

Apparently my great-grandfather came in, said: "I've heard to many good men go out to that tune to think that funny," and turned and swept out of the room again. They were duly sobered by that.

My mother Diana Spivey, tells me that she remembers her father telling her that C.H.H. (as I think of him) would never let Lottie use serving dishes for food, because they waited such a long time for all their food in the army that it was invariably cold by the time they got it. Also, if anyone complained about the food, he would growl that they ate rats during the seige of Ladysmith and were glad to have them!

He fought in the Boer war, and was in Ladysmith during the seige (shown above), reputedly eating rats and his boots before the end of it. Oh the other hand, the British invented the concentration camp in the midst of that war, so maybe they deserved to be starved, I don't know.

He was awarded a civilian MBE for his work in mobilising the Scots Guards during the First World War. Apparently all the records had been sent to storage and it was going to take months to retrieve them. He remembered the names and addresses of dozens of men. Not sure how happy they will have been to have been located to go fight for their country, but the Prime Minister was grateful. He said that he didn't want any fuss or anyone to go to Buckingham Palace with him, but Laurie, his step-daughter (Caterina Mondioli) managed to be in the right place at the right time to be snapped.

I hold a number of original documents that come from him. I have his Certificate of Education (First class) from the Army Schools, dated 25 October 1904, in which he is named a Colour Sergeant (O/R?S?) C.H. Spivey.

I have a little red card booklet for the Third Guards Club, in which he appear in the list of members, elected 1928.

I have a ticket for the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary, 22 June 1911.

I have the newspaper cutting about his brother's death in 1914, which is all but destroyed.

I have numerous picture of both him and my great grandmother, at various times.

Theodore Richard Clarke

2007-04-19T02:34:00.000-07:00

My father is Theodore Richard Clarke, who was born October 16, 1931. His mother was Irish and his father was from Cheshire. He's shown above after his marriage to my mother. During the war, he was evacuated, and I took some scribbled notes about what happened to him:

I went to East Horsley, to a place above Connersby Butchers, but the husband was ill. Next I was sent to a wealthy couple who had a big garden and taught me how to garden. They sowed some cress in the shape of my name, and "Theo" came up in cress. They taught me that you should never eat until you are full up, and I was expected to push in my chair after dinner and say "I have had an elegant sufficiency...". Of course I hadn't, I did eat until I was full! They had a son in the RAF who was invalided out.

I was sent next to a bungalow in the woods, which was wooden and build on stilts with no electricity. They got a tin bath from the garden shed on bath nights, and were very nice people.

Then I was sent to Shelford, on the other side of Guildford, and went to the village school, which was one master and two classes. He would tell one class to get out their maths books and the other class to get out their English books, and then they would swap round in the afternoon.

Next I was sent to Staines, to a place within 300 yards of a Gasometer. So much for a safer place! Mrs Clarke (no relation) was not a nice woman. She knocked me down a complete flight of stairs, and only had evacuees because she got five bob a week for each of them - she had three boys to stay. Eventually the authorities moved me to Egham, to stay with a nice couple from the City of Durham. They had a son in the Royal navy.

Egham is home to Stroud school, which was established in 1638. I used to go out and watch the air raids. Some of them had a sound like a non-stop train. There were breadbasket bombs too - they were supposed to throw incendiary bombs,500 all over. This one hit the ground and ploughed up the hill, and all the bombs were thrown out.

I was at that place when there were the d-day invasions, from Inglefield Green. As I was going up Egham hill there was a continuous line of lorries. I went to school and the line of tanks and lorries was still going down the hill when I came back. Then the son in the Navy got wounded and came home, and so I had to go to Inglefield Green.

I stayed with Captain Woolf Bernato. His father went to South Africa in the 1890s and he ran a diamond mine. He came to England in 1936 and built a place which cost £136,000 in 1936. The estate had 4 lodges at the gatehouse, 4 bed houses. The valet and his wife and family, the butler had another, I don't know who had the third bothy house, chauffeurs of the people that they used to invite for Ascot week. Guests in the big house, used to house their servants in the Bothy by the drive, at the entrance to the yard.

When a car went through an arch, it went through a beam and broke it, and the lights came on. The house was a combination of Spanish, Modern American and English.

Captain Barnato had been a racing driver before the war. It was a hobby for wealthy rich people and made the news. He raced at Le Mans (and won three times) and at Broadlands etc. Just before the war he was trying to do 200 miles an hour in a bugatti and blew the engine up. He wrote off to Italy got a new engine.

There were 14 cars in the garage. He drove in a little volkswagen car, black and white with a long bonnet and 3 flexible chrome exhausts on each side and black and white leather seats. When the war started he had a lot of jewish friends; children in the Bothy. In 1943 they decided there was no place safe and they were sent to America. There were 14 evacuees in the Bothy and they went to school.

When the war ended, all the others went home. Because my mum was dead and my father was ill, he let me stay. He bought me my first long trouser suit, and I went to Stroud School in Egham. I got picked for the teams there.

In the interim a big argument developed between London County Council and Surrey County Council. He wanted to adopt me, but because he was Jewish and I was Catholic, it wasn't allowed.

The place had a swimming pool, and a cinema, I used to help project the films.

I was taken to an orphanage in Ripley, Surrey at 13 years old. To get money, I had to find a job. In the village was a shop which sold everything. Used to have now and again lyons fruit pies, and I used to get one. I used to deliver goods by bike, Used to take stuff to Wisley Aerodrome and to farmers. There was a woman farmer who had a load of Italian pows and take cigarettes for the Italian POWs. 10 cigarettes were missing and I had to cycle back for them. In Ripley there is a big old pub room which was the last that Nelson slept in before he went off to get killed was left exactly as he left it.

We sent to Send School, which was brand new. On the first day there was Algebra. I had never heard of Algebra. The next lesson was Frnech. The French mistress didn't speak anything but French. Other kids had had years of French, and I had none.

Settled in at that orphanage, and in the meantime, the Catholic Church had enquired (west cathedral school before the war). I was then told they had sorted out the argument about who was responsible for me, and the catholic church sent me to Brentwood in Essex with 500 boys, run by the brothers of St John of God. They were brutes. I saw the head. I was 5 feet seven and a half inches tall, and seven stone.

He told me, we have some boys who do the gardening, and some go to school. I was given the choice, and as I was a bookworm and always avid for knowledge, I chose school. So they sent me to work in the garden.

I went to the greenhouse - there were five boys who were only 14 or 15, but you'd have said they were navvies of 25. Thighs like oak trees and muscles. It wasn't a garden - any normal organisation would have got a tractor to dig it, but we dug it by hand. The gardener would stretch a string out and we had to dig from marker to marker.

I was there for 2 years. I went in as an intellectual boy with no interest in sport, particularly. What got me going with sports was that the gardeners could swim at lunch time and evenings. The other would stop and go off to swim. I carried on digging because I couldn't swim. So in evening sessions, I learned how to swim. In the shallow end the boys punched me in the stomach and so I went to the deep end so they couldn't follow.

I got to the bottom of the steps and thought if I launch myself and thrash... I made it to the other side, so I thought I could swim. So the next night, I climbed onto the 4ft diving board, got on there, bounced around, jumped off, and down I go, when I came up in the deep water in an upright position down I went again. When I came up again, I shouted help! help!

When ~I came up for the third time, five dived in to get me I pulled the trunks off one, and punched another on the nose. One of the brothers came along and started giving respiration with his big hands - I thought he was going to break my ribs. I was taken along to see the nurse.

There were 6 or 7 acres with a building which had three boiler houses, and a hospital which also had a boiler house. In winter had to get whellbarrows and shovels and get sacks of coke and take six to the boilerhouses. It was a good job to be shovelling and a bad job to be holding the sack on a very cold day.

The nurse in the main building had three big bottles. One white peppermint mixture, one castor oil if constipated and other pink gunge. Never discovered what the pink gunge was.

She said: this boys swallowed a bit of water, so I was given a cup of pink gunge to drink and sent to bed.

Within six months of getting there I had shot up two inches and went from a total weed to someone who could pick up big....

I was there two years. Once I was 16 I was moved on to Isleworth, to a working boys hostel. Given living expenses to go out and find a job. I went down the Great West Road, Osterley Road, past Gilette, H&P biscuit, Sperry Gyroscope. I tried there. Wages were 25 shillings in the office, and 25 shillings plus a bonus in the factory. I went to the shop milling depertment. I operated a great big machine like a round tank. There was a door on one side and on the other a window with cl;ass with two holes, and with rubber gloves, a grab nozzle. High power metal shot - shot blaster cleaned metal as if by magic. Big gloves - one of them split; Worked hard for bonus. The blokle I was working under, he got productivity bonus and I just got 25 shillings. I gave a week's notice, went to a firm that made steel twist drills. After a while they asked me if I wanted to go on piece work. Started on piece work. Batch of drills went to the inspector and if nything was wrong had to redo.

I was beavering away doing them very quickly and got a high level of rejects, and after a while realised it was more haste less speed, if you took more time you had less rejects. I earned £2-5s in a week and had to give 27/6 for my room and board.

Chatting to the firm next door, they were getting £3-5s a week at Pepsi Cola. I did any job, and turned out 50K bottles of pepsi a week. I started on the washing machine, dirty bottles cleaned 20 at a time, whip the bottles onto the machine and put a box on the production line. I moved to inspection, never allowed bottles with chips out, and sort out the strangers from other commpanies. Made syrup in a vat 500 gallons of water 200 weight sacks of sugar. secret ingredients tip in and stir for 24 hours and then syrup pumped over. Tank from syrup above labelling machine if pumping up there and didn't look the people doing labels would get covered in syrup. Special lorries panel down the middle and 3 pallets on either side.

Honora Fitzpatrick

2007-04-18T09:41:00.000-07:00

I know nearly nothing about Honora Fitzpatrick, who was my grandmother. She died during the war. If anyone with links to Fitzpatricks is able to put together the facts about my grandmother and identify her family, I shall be very grateful.

The absolute facts are that she married my grandfather William Edward CLARKE in 1931, in London. She said that her father was James Fitzpatrick and a farmer. She had three children, and at the beginning of the second world war, the surviving two children, Phyllis and Theodore, were evacuated separately.

Honora's husband had been admitted to hospital before the war. In 1942 she died, and her sisters came to bury her. All I know about them is that one of them was called Mrs B. Ruth and lived in Doris Street, Ballsbridge, Dublin.

The sisters removed all the personal possessions from the flat and went home to Ireland. They did not see or contact the children, and they left no forwarding address, although I have the address of Mrs B. Ruth as the informant on the death certificate.

The only other thing I know is that Honora had a sister, Mary Fitzpatrick, who emigrated to America and worked at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. She sent occasional parcels to my father and his sister, but those stopped by 1960.

That's it. That's all I know. My father was sent to lots of different places and eventually to a children's home. My aunt was lucky enough to find a good home with the people she was evacuated to, and she stayed there for the rest of the war and some years afterwards.

They lost contact for a number of years, and found each again only in the 1950s, when they used to spend Tuesdays together. Neither of them remembers anything else of use, except my father is convinced that the Fitzpatrick family came from Kilkenny.

I am hoping tht at some stage in the future, someone will research their family tree, and put Honora and her sister Mrs Ruth into it, and I will make the link!

Donald Charles Spivey

2007-04-18T09:34:00.000-07:00

Donald Charles Spivey, known as Don, or Boompa to his grandchildren, was my grandfather. He was born on May 30, 1905. His parents were a most unlikely match, as his father was an officer in the Scot Guards, and his mother was an ex-music hall dancer, but they seem to have been a love match which lasted the whole of their lives.

Unfortunately, I don't think Don's mother was a terribly good mother, and for some reason he was sent to live with an aunt while he attended a cathedral school.

He always had a wonderful singing voice, was able to harmonise with any tune, and could pick up and play almost any musical instrument. He could play the piano wonderfully although he had not had any formal lessons.

He was a qualified chemist and told tales of his life as a dispensing chemist at a chemist's shop near to King's Cross in London, where the prostitutes would come for a spray of scent at a ha'penny a squirt - and squirt it up their skirts, according to him.

He told of the power of placebo, where a patient had a terrible affliction with eyelashes growing into her eyes, she would swear that no one made the eye drops she was prescribed as well as my grandfather, and would insist that he was the only one to make up her drops.

He was an accomplished bowler and archer, and had been an enthusiastic fisherman too.

He became manager of the Sun Printing works in Watford, which printed many magazines and periodicals, using engraved cylinders.

I have a few original documents for Boompa. I have his birth certficate, for Farnham Aldershot.

I have three certificates for the college of preceptors, in 1921, passes in various subjects.

Amy Evelyn Aldridge

2007-04-18T09:25:00.001-07:00

Amy Evelyn Aldridge was my maternal grandmother, and someone I spent a lot of time with as a child. She was always known as Eve or Eva, rather than Amy. To her grandchildren, she was known as Nony.

She was born on March 18, 1908, to Isabel Amy Aldridge (nee Pitt) and Benjamin Aldridge, the eldest of four surviving children of that marriage: Lily, Connie and Bennie being the other surviving children.

Her father was killed within six months of the end of the first world war in 1918, and her mother subsequently married her dead husband's brother, Charlie Aldridge. They then had a daughter, Poppy. I am not sure that this was legal at the time, it's something I need to look at when I don't have anything else to do.

Eve passed the civil service exam and went into the civil service before she married my Grandfather. She later worked as a school secretary at the Primary School I attended. She played the piano, and was an accomplished potter too. The Primary school was rather unusual in that it had its own kiln, it's own swimming pool, and its own sheep.

Eve had a strong interest in health and well being and was years ahead in her thinking on food and nutrition. She enjoyed trips to Switzerland, Austria and Norway with the school, and loved walking.

Family History

2007-04-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

I have been studying my family history for about 20 years. I have dabbled with various programs for family trees etc, but, they are none of them perfect for what I want. Then it occurred to me that what I really wanted was a place where I could gather all the information I had for each person in my family tree. So I decided to blog it.

I don't know if this is going to work, but it will at the very least give me a place to put all my information and photographs etc for reference later.