Though born in Bridlington and moving after marriage to Barnsley to have more children with George MALLORY, Olive Charlotte TRANMER has several generations of Filey forebears (Newton, Fenby, Skelton.) Her parents are disconnected on the Shared Tree – John William TRANMER [MGH3-HBG] and Hannah Mary NEWTON [GQLH-6J3]. Olive’s death at the age of 95 was registered in West Lancashire (June 1982). Filey Genealogy & Connections says she died in Southport. (Olive married George on her 22^nd birthday.)

WOOLVEN is a totally unfamiliar family name to me so I fell upon Leonard Frank like a… oh, never mind. One online distribution map shows an astonishing concentration of Woolvens in Sussex and both of Leonard’s parents were born in that county, only twenty miles apart– Ernest Henry in Cuckfield and Edith Annie HOLLINGDALE in Lancing. They may have known of each other’s existence for years but Ernest’s job as a boatman for the coastguard took him up to East Yorkshire and the banns were read in Kilnsea. However, they married in Lancing at the end of January 1900 and the birth of their first child was registered in Patrington in the final quarter of 1901. Leonard was born in Filey in 1908 and baptised at St Oswald’s. Thereafter, these Woolvens didn’t leave clear tracks for me to follow, so what happened to Leonard for over ninety years is a mystery.

John Thomas JOHNSON and Sarah Elizabeth GEDGE married at Filey St Oswald’s in 1882. FG&C hasn’t much to say about them. John was the son of Simpson, a sea captain, and Kath offers this note for Sarah –

All the Gedge’s have the same Christian names as the Gage’s, come from the same places and were all born at the same time. I rather think that the Gedge’s are the Gage’s!!

The couple isn’t married on the Shared Tree but I have changed Sarah’s “grid name” and given her the Family Search ID. (Canon Cooper put “Gedge” in the marriage register but Sarah was unable to sign her name.)

Kath speculates in FG&C that Mary Ann was Mollie NETTLETON, one of Arthur MUNBY’s “flither lasses”.

Sometimes Munby would hit on an occupation that would probably now be forgotten were it not for his diaries. One such was the work of the ‘flither-lasses’, who gathered winkles and mussels for use as fishing bait. In 1867 he had brought one of them, Molly Nettleton, a new rope measuring twenty-four fathoms. The following year he witnessed its use at Brail Head. These ‘flither-lasses’ had discovered an inaccessible stretch of the beach. To reach it, they tied a rope to a stake, then scaled down the cliff to collect the ‘flithers’ (mussels and winkles) below. Their strength and ability were acrobatic. Munby could see no sign of the girls on his arrival, but waited till they appeared below. He climbed down to the ledge on the cliff face where the stake was secured, then saw the rope begin to tremble. Molly’s bonneted head appeared suddenly over the ledge, grasped the stake and then grasped Munby’s proffered hand. From the ledge she proceeded to haul up the heavy baskets.

Casebook

I am somewhat disconcerted by “Brail Head” but find the photographs of “Molly” here intriguing. (Mary Ann was Mrs WATSON in 1867.)

The Foster Twins

The grave of George Waddingham FOSTER and twin brother William Henry. Their mother is beside them.