William Martin died aged 10 in 1890 when he was entrusted with a horse and cart. The Factory Act (1891) could have protected him and many others from a working childhood.
Long before health and safety was invented, before ‘risk assessments’ unified a workforce with a sigh, and compulsory education was implemented, children were commonplace in factories, mines and other workplaces.
An inquest was held at Pyemoor, on the body of William Martin, a boy of ten years of age. He was entrusted, the previous day, with a horse and manure cart. He was lifted on the horse and afterwards found face downwards on the ground with an internal injury and died before the doctor arrived. The jury returned a verdict of “Accidental Death”, expressing their disapproval of children so young being entrusted with a horse and cart, the boy’s master being one of the jury – 31st July 1890.
Like most of those families living in fenland during the 19th century, children working in agriculture meant that the family could afford to keep food on their table and avoid the workhouse.
Whether William, at 10yrs of age, was employed or whether he was just there, is unclear (‘master’ may have been employer or his father), but his accidental death would never have been an easy situation to deal with.
The Factory Act (1878-1901)
The Factory Act (1878) meant that children under the age of 10 could not be employed in any trade, and that compulsory education ran up until the age of 10.
A group of unknown Victorian child workers.
This act was key at keeping the youngest of children away from dangerous environments such as mills, mines, glassworks, and other industries with heavy machinery – or at least it meant that those who continued to employ children under 10 could be prosecuted (and this was quite common).
The act also meant that 10-14yr old children were allowed to work half-days.
The slow pace of laws to protect children in the UK, and the harsh reality of bringing up a family on a railway labourer’s wage, may have contributed to William going to work at aged 10 on that fateful day.
On 6th February 1952, King George VI died, and Queen Elizabeth II began her reign. Elizabeth’s reign is the second longest, beaten by her Great Great Grandmother, Queen Victoria.
The Daily Express front page on Thursday February 7th, 1952.
“The King, who retired to rest last night in his usual health, passed peacefully away in his sleep early this morning”.
Those were the words from Sandringham at 10:45am on 6th February 1952 – the day that Princess Elizabeth became Queen.
Princess Elizabeth and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, were staying in the Treetops Hotel in Kenya – unaware that the King had died during the night at Sandringham. At 2.54pm (11.54am London time), the Duke was told of the King’s death and he delivered the news to is wife.
Delayed by thunderstorms, the new Queen and her husband flew back to London.
Queen Elizabeth II was crowned on 2nd June 1953, also becoming ‘Head of the Commonwealth’ – a title held previously and only by her father. Now at 86 years old, she marks her 60th year as Queen with a 1,000 boat strong floatilla on the River Thames through London, whilst numerous community events are staged up and down the country.
Queen Victoria still the longest reigning monarch
Queen Victoria by George Hayter (1860)
Queen Victoria still holds on to the longest reign – reaching just over 63 years (1837-1901) – with Queen Elizabeth II now just three years behind by celebrating her Diamond Jubilee in 2012. King George III ranks as third with a reign that lasted just over 59 years (1760-1820).
Click the image below for a video of the elderly widowed Queen Victoria arriving at a garden party in her honour.
Click image for a video of Queen Victoria arriving at a Garden Party.
Victoria celebrated her Golden Jubilee in 1887, and her Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Victoria died in 1901, with the throne passing to the current monarch’s grandfather, King George V.
National Mills Weekend 2012 – visiting The Great Mill at Haddenham, Cambridgeshire.
This weekend has been National Mills Weekend in the UK.
The Great Mill at Haddenham, Cambridgeshire.
I only realised that this was the weekend – but I was able to make the journey to The Great Mill at Haddenham, just 5 miles from me. The weekend also coincided with Haddenham’s ‘Blossoms and Bygones’ event, so the village was decked in bunting, musicians, fair rides and vintage vehicles.
I’d been to the Mill a couple of years previously and the current owners were very kind to show me around this 5-storey mill both then and now.
The reason I first went along originally was because of the unfortunate and violent death of my Gt x 5 Grandfather, Philip Newman, a miller and baker, died when he was caught in the workings of a mill.
The mill is essentially a vast wooden machine.
The mill (seemingly known most recently as ‘Neville’s Mill’) where he met his gruesome end no longer stands, but The Great Mill was standing opposite ‘killer mill’ back in 1809 when the accident happened. I wanted to find out what it would have been like to be inside a windmill similar to the one that my ancestor would have worked.
A photo of Neville’s Mill which stood opposite The Great Mill and killed my ancestor in 1809.
The Great Mill was built in 1803 by Daniel Cockle, and it’s still clear today as to what an engineering feat it was, with cogs, wheels, bells, sails all over the place – each with their own specific purpose in cleaning grain, moving it around, grinding it, sifting it etc.
The Mill was handed down through the Cockle family for almost 100 years until 1901 when it passed to the Peters family. It then moved on to the Lawrance family in 1906 until becoming unloved in 1980.
It stood derelict until 1992 when it was restored. 20 years on, and the Mill is undergoing a new restoration with the kerb (the part up in the top that allows the entire cap and sails to change direction) needing some attention.
The current owners are busily restoring it, and hope to one day have it working again like the one a few miles away in Wicken (which i visited on National Mills Weekend in 2010).
The working windmill in Wicken village, Cambridgeshire.
If you’ve never been inside a windmill, i recommend it. It is cramped, there are lots of awkward stairs/ladders to navigate, but it’s a wonderful experience. I imagine that millers like my ancestor Philip, would have been able to quickly ascend and descend those ladders, fueled by necessity.
If you’re lucky to go into a windmill with its sails working, then you will soon realise the sheer power and complexity of them. And you’ll realise too that they aren’t noisy.
Where once every village had a windmill, there are just a scattered few. The cheaper costs of importing grain from the likes of Australia in bulk and then milling it at the UK ports rather than sending vast amount of grain inland, quickly terminated the nation’s windmills and made our millers jobless. By the end of the 1940s/50s, working windmills were all but a thing of the past.
Why I Love The 1851 Census: Despite having used 8 different censuses, the 6th census (1851) is my firm favourite – and here’s why…..
Whilst the 1940 US Census continues to cause a storm with genealogists across the Atlantic, I’ve fondly turned to my favourite UK census of them all – the good ol’ 1851.
The 1851 census builds bridges between data.
I’ve used 8 UK censuses in my research – 1841-1911 – and each one is different – adding or omitting different questions, but it’s the UK Census that took place on the night of the 30th March 1851 that’s my favourite. Here’s why…
Building data bridges
I use the 1851 census to verify information that I’ve picked up from the scant data of the 1841 census. This enables me to build bridges with data – following families from the 1841 census, through to the 1861 census.
The 1851 census also gives the opportunity to verify those people who were alive before 1837 when certification was introduced for births, deaths and marriages. Whilst the 1841 census captures a more of those people, it’s not much more than a head-count with poor spelling and some seriously unreliable ages.
More household detail
The 1851 census was the first to ask and record answers about relationships between household members. This piece is very useful – again helping me decipher the 1841 and pre-certification records.
The 1841 did ask whether people were born in the same county as that which they were being recorded in – so gave a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer in the county box, but the 1851 census goes further by also recording the parish AND county of birth. It also records whether the person had a disability – namely blind or ‘deaf-and-dumb’.
The Great Exhibition took place in 1851.
The 1851 census also asks for more detail about occupations – and it’s here that you can find some interesting insights into what your family members did, and it can give you an insight into where in the social classes they would have sat.
Were people queuing up in the streets in 1912 to read the 1851 census? I’m guessing they probably weren’t.
Why not love the 1911 UK census?
Just for the record, the 1911 census is a close second – for the sentimental moment you see your ancestor’s handwriting, and the very useful ‘years married’, ‘number of children born’ and ‘number of children living’ data.
The reason that the 1911 census is not my first love is partly down to being of an age where I personally knew many people who were alive during this period, and still know relatives whose siblings were born before it took place. Also, being part of a relatively close family, I’ve found the 1911 census not as revelational as it’s 1851 counterpart.
Tombstone Tuesday – A weekly blogging meme. This week it’s an ornately carved tomb of William Heylock in the churchyard of Abbotsley in Huntingdonshire, England.
William Heylock's grave at Abbotsley has ornate carvings.
Spotted this tomb with ornate carvings on it at the weekend in Abbotsley, Cambridgeshire (or Huntingdonshire as it was when the person was buried). The tomb belongs to William Heylock, the son-in-law of the then vicar James Aspinall at the time of William’s burial in 1688.
William’s tomb is part of a memorial to his generosity – he had given £5 per year (remember, this was written in 1688. £5 in 1688 had the same spending worth as £437 in 2005) to the poor people of the parish each year, and £1 to the vicar each year.
Another carving design on William Heylock's tomb
He also gets a mention inside the church. Notes suggest that his family held land in Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire – which probably accounts for his wealth.
The BIG Family History Fair 2012 – the Huntingdonshire Family History Society event took place this weekend.
This weekend I went along to the BIG Family History Fair 2012 at St. Ives, Cambridgeshire (alright, Huntingdonshire).
The demand for that ample free parking was a little underestimated.
The event, which was organised by the Huntingdonshire Family History Society took place at The Burgess Hall and soon packed out their car-park. Fortunately for me, my gym is right next door, so I arrived early for a workout before heading nextdoor for some serious browsing amongst the crowds.
For those of you not in ‘the know’, Huntingdonshire stood as an administrative county until 1974, when it was absorbed by its neighbour and became a district of Cambridgeshire. The up-shot of this is that researching the records means you need to remember that pre-1974 the county is Huntingdonshire, and its records are held in Huntingdon.
As you entered the venue, the team from Family History Magazine were by the door, and everyone was handed a Huntingdonshire Family History Society bag containing a free issue of the magazine (plus some leaflets, a Hunts FHS notebook and pencil – nice!)
Just a few of the stalls – a mixture of societies and commercial companies.
I went along to Maureen Nicholls‘ free ‘Illustrating Your Family History’ talk – a captivating and fun 40 minute talk on ways to bring interest to those data heavy trees, charts and documents that the genealogist spends their time producing. Some great ideas came to light – including the reminder that when you’re lost for a photo of YOUR ancestor doing something – show a representative image of the types of schools, costumes, work that ancestors lived through – instead of admitting defeat because you don’t have a photograph of THEM in that scenario.
Maureen’s delivery was as engaging as her ideas, and she offered an occasional glimpse of her own research – an aunt who died on-board the doomed SS Princess Alice, her family tree cross-stitch that went to the House Of Lords, and her penchant for jellied eels (yuck!).
I bought the Potton parish church registers on CD-rom.
I’d already decided what my purchase of the day was going to be, and so having achieved the largest ‘tweet-up’ that Huntingdonshire has probably ever known by meeting up with fellow twitterer Jane ‘@RamblingGenes‘ Freeman – who proudly showed me her new Flip-Pal Scanner (see, told you I wouldn’t tell anyone you bought one), I moved over to my target – the Bedfordshire Family History Society stand which was busy but very helpful and where I managed to purchase the Potton parish registers on CD-rom.
I was really pleased to see the range of companies and societies represented here – it was always going to feel different from a Who Do You Think You Are? Live, but it seemed to be well organised and attended.
The goodie bag!
I did feel the venue was a bit hot and stuffy, and the bar-staff seemed a little surprised that people wanted drinks and food at the drink and food bar – definitely not the organisers fault here though.
The added bonus for me was that it was very local, and of course FREE to attend!
I look forward to next year’s show – hopefully it will one day be on for a whole weekend, or on for longer than 10am-4pm with lots more useful genealogy talks.
The story of Thomas Yarrow (1832-1914) who went from being a Beer Seller in a small Cambridgeshire village, to being a Sergeant in the Indian Mutiny, and then into poverty in London.
A long-standing puzzle quickly and suddenly unravels to reveal a story of a beer seller from a Cambridgeshire village, who became a Sergeant for his role in the Indian Mutiny.
Thomas Yarrow, born circa 1832, was the youngest of the two children of John Yarrow, a farmer of Little Thetford, Cambridgeshire, and his first wife Ann Whiten. His older brother Owen, was born just two years earlier.
Little Thetford in 1906. The Three Horseshoes on the left, and the Yarrow home in the foreground (right) until it burnt down in 1930.
When Thomas was about 11 years old, his mother Ann died in 1843 at the age of 34 years old. This left her widower John with two growing boys to care for. It was a little over a year later that John re-married to Miss Elizabeth Jeffery of Ely and the couple soon found that they had a baby on the way. Together John and Elizabeth had four children – James, William, Albert and Maria, until John died in 1858 at the age of 52.
By this time, the 1851 census had already shown the Yarrow family holding a number of business in the village, and the family are shown as living at ‘The Wheat Sheaf’ – long since closed. It was here that a 19 year old Thomas Yarrow, beer retailer, was to make what seemed like his final census appearance.
Missing presumed…….?
By the time of the 1861 census, there’s no sign of Thomas, yet his siblings including his older brother Owen could all be found. All of the usual alternative spellings revealed no trace of him in the census, leaving me to assume that he’d either died, or that he’d moved to Ely where a data black-hole was hiding him (the 1861 census for Ely was destroyed in flooding and therefore leaves a hole in most of my family branches).
I checked the 1871 census, in case he had been missed or had indeed been ‘hiding’ in Ely, but there was no sign of him. So then I checked for a death and found one in 1853 in the right district. Ordering the certificate, it arrived a few days later….
Rather than seeing a 20-something Thomas Yarrow, it was a certificate for a 3 day old premature baby Thomas Yarrow from a nearby village.
With Thomas not indexed as dying, and not appearing on the 1871 census it led me to start thinking that maybe he had gone overseas. A quick check on familysearch.org soon found some records that seemed to match, spanning 1867 to 1874 (an explanation why he didn’t appear on the 1871 UK census) and that’s when I noticed the mention of Allahabad.
This came as a surprise as the rest of the Yarrow had stayed local to Little Thetford or at least within the UK. After a few more searches, I found that Thomas was married with at least four children. This was swiftly backed up by the Families In British India Society (FIBIS) who had online records of Thomas and his marriage to Catherine O’Keefe (née Lambert) in Bengal.
Above: Thomas Yarrow (2nd from left) with his wife Catherine (4th from left). Catherine's daughter from her first marriage stands between them, third from left.
The FIBIS site also revealed that Thomas was part of the 35th Foot (Royal Sussex) regiment and was made a Sergeant during the 1857-1859 campaign, and received The Indian Mutiny Medal.
An Indian Mutiny Medal.
I soon located discharge papers dated from 10th March 1875 where it describes Thomas’ conduct.
“his conduct has been very good and he was when promoted in possession of two good conduct badges and would had he not been promoted have been now in possession of five good conduct badges. He is in possession of the Silver Medal for long service and good conduct with our gratuity” – Gen. Hon. A Upton
The papers also describe Thomas as being just 5ft 7″ tall, with a dark complexion, grey eyes, dark hair and fit. The documents also state that he would return to Little Thetford to work as a Labourer.
Coming home
By the time of the UK 1881 census, Thomas and the surviving children of his family have returned to England. A daughter, Frances Maud Yarrow, is listed in 1881 as having been born in 1877, in the village Little Downham, Cambridgeshire. However, at the time of this 1881 census, the family have moved to number 6 Georgina Gardens, Columbia Road, Hackney, London. The youngest child of the family, John, was born in 1879 in Bethnal Green.
Leopold Buildings in 2007 where Thomas lived in 1891 was built on land leased by 'Queen of the Poor' Angela Burdett-Coutts.
By the time of the 1891 census, Thomas is living alone with his youngest son John. Catherine had died and they are living in Leopold Buildings – a block of densely populated tenement flats built by The Improved Industrial Dwellings Company on land leased by the wealthy ‘Queen of the Poor’ Angela Burdett-Coutts . Just 20 years earlier, Bethnal Green was the poorest parish in the whole of London – conditions must have been harsh.
Thomas remarried by 1901 to a woman called Edith Emily Rawlings, who was much younger than himself, and they appear in 1901 in Soho, London.
Thomas also outlived his second wife, and appears to have ended his days in 1914 at about 82 years, living in Forton, Gosport, Hampshire.
Thomas' son, John Yarrow (1879-?)
Whilst Thomas’ children seem to vanish, just as he had in 1861, it’s only his youngest son John (pictured right) who seems to stick around, appearing in Portland, Dorset as an attendant at a Special Naval Hospital, Castletown.
The Little Thetford Yarrow family are not known to have made contact with Thomas after his departure to the Indian Mutiny. Whether there was a feud, or they didn’t agree with his choice of army career, or simply just lost contact – it will remain lost in time. There was certainly no reference made to his existence by his siblings’ descendants.
Surely a story of a sergeant in the family and the battles he fought in would have been handed down, regardless of how people felt towards it?
To mark this day, I thought I would share a few words about three amazing women in my tree.
Ann Bowers
Ann Bowers (1843-1889)
Ann Bowers was born in 1843 in Wicken, Cambridgeshire. She was penultimate of the eight child of Henry Bowers and Ann Bailey.
Marrying labourer James Simpson Bishop in 1860, it wasn’t long before she began their family with the birth of their first child Ann Elizabeth Bishop in 1861. Over the next 26 years she bore another 17 children. It appears that two of these children died in their infancy.
Ann, who must have been exhausted from her continuous pregnancies and looking after an army of children, eventually succumbed to pneumonia in March 1889 and died aged 45 years. Her youngest child was just 2yrs old.
With a total of 16 living children, their labourer father would have struggled immensely to provide and care for them had it not have been for Sarah Farby (née Bowers) – Ann’s married and childless sister.
Sarah Bowers
Sarah Bowers was Ann’s (above) older sister. She married George Farby but the couple never had any children of their own. However, they lived close to the growing Bishop household and therefore Sarah helped Ann to care for her children, and upon Ann’s death in 1889, Sarah was there to help care for the children – the youngest, George Juble Bishop, being just 2yrs old.
As the family grew up and started having their own children and grandchildren, Sarah continued to care for them – earning herself the affectionate name of ‘Granny Farby’. She died just under 2 months after the death of her husband in 1920.
Sarah Elizabeth Giddings
Sarah, born in 1852, was the illegitimate daughter of Elizabeth Giddings of March, Cambridgeshire. The stigma that accompanied this fact will have worked against her and her mother from the moment that the pregnancy became known. Sarah Elizabeth Giddings (1852-1925)
Sarah didn’t just face this hurdle in life – when she was 21 she lost her mother (aged 41-42yrs old). The following year (1874) she married James Martin and the couple bore their first child that year. In total, they had 12 children, but sadly, Sarah was to outlive 6 of her children, and 2 of their spouses.
Son Herbert died in a horrific train accident in France; Albert died in a German hospital; her daughter Emma and Emma’s husband both died in 1917 – leaving their orphaned daughter Mary.
Sarah’s 11yr old son William Martin died after an accident whilst working on a horse and cart in 1890; her daughter Mary died on her day of birth in 1886; and her son Percy died within the first year of his life.
History Repeating 