Yellow River

Annie Elizabeth TURNBULL (Some Clay Figures, 20 September) was “Nina” when she first married.

John Grant BIRCH was born in Antigua and a brief note in my RootsMagic database indicated his death by drowning – in China. I looked today for details.

We much regret to learn this morning of the death of Mr. JOHN GRANT BIRCH, of the firm of Messrs. John Birch & Co., London, at the age of fifty-three. In this gentleman China has claimed another victim, and Britain has lost a loyal and most patriotic son. Mr. Birch was the eldest son of Colonel J. F. Birch, late 3rd West Indian Regiment. The Times says:- He made the acquaintance of our correspondent, Dr. Morrison, during his frequent journeyings in China in late years, and in our columns have appeared on several occasions letters showing his intimate knowledge of Chinese politics and foreshadowing later untoward events. In his last journey, on or about June 24, he lost his life by drowning through the wrecking of the raft in which he was travelling on the Yellow River, on his way from Lanchow [Lanzhou] to Peking [Beijing], where he had intended making strong representations with a view to the opening of the Yangtsze Valley by railways – a subject on which he was fully informed, and which he advocated in the interests of his country. A further tribute is due to Mr. Birch’s memory in connection with the Soudan expedition, which was rendered possible only by the dessert (sic) railway from Wadi-Halfa to Abu Hamed. Almost the whole scheme of this railway followed a plan drawn up in great detail by Mr. Birch, and submitted by him to Lord Cromer several months before the first advance on Dongola.
London and China Express, 27 July 1900

(Find Wadi-Halfa Railway Station on Google Maps and John on the Shared Tree.)

Measure of Man 63 · Flyers

About Another Boy

Last week, chatting to someone I met while out walking, I briefly told the story of Michael David WARE, the lad who died in a cliff fall (Michael Lost). In response, I was asked if I knew about the boy killed quite close to where I now live. It seems the event had somehow come to the attention of several people but nobody had come up with details. My questioner thought it had happened about 70 years ago.

I don’t know for certain, but the incident recalled may have involved George Gilbank WYVILL, who lost his life in 1917.

FILEY
BOY DROWNED IN A POND.- George Gilbank Wyvill, aged 13, the son of Mr. J.W. Wyvill, of 3, Mitford-street, Filey, was playing with a companion named Frank Appleby, when he slipped into a brick pond, on land in the occupation of Mr. Appleby, of Manor Farm, Muston-road. The body was recovered by the use of grappling irons about an hour later. At the inquest held by Mr. H. Brown, deputy coroner, a verdict was returned that the boy was accidentally drowned.
Driffield Times, 25 August 1917

There is a Frank Appleby, two years younger than George, living a few of stones’ throws from Mitford Street in 1911. His father is not known but his grandfather, James was a farmer, residing in West Parade in 1911 and not on a Manor Farm. There is also an issue with George not being alone when the accident happened. His monumental inscription does not agree with the newspaper account.

‘We shall meet again’
In sad memory of GEORGE GILBANK, the dearly loved son of JOHN & RACHEL WYVILL, who was drowned in a brick pond while sailing a boat, Aug 16th 1917 aged 13 years.
‘No one stood around him
To bid a last farewell
No words of comfort could he leave
To those he loved so well’

The inscription was recorded by John and Maisie Crimlisk in 1977 (G394) but the stone was not found by the East Riding Family History surveyors in 2014 (No.2195).

I cannot find a Manor Farm along Muston Road but across the road from Grange Farm there was a brickyard that was working in 1911 and disused in 1926. Two ponds are shown and overlaying them on the Bing Aerial View gives support to the recently surfacing local memories of George’s drowning.

The fit of the ponds into the grassed amenity areas is almost perfect – but in which might George’s life have ended? He is said to have slipped so the pond by the Brick Works would be more likely. There is no indication of elevation change around the eastern pond.

“Eastern Pond”, between Hindle Drive & Hallam Close

George has an extensive pedigree on Filey Genealogy & Connections. Coincidentally, his grandfather is Crompton Wyvill who featured in a post just a few days ago (A Puzzling Mismatch). Find him also on the FamilySearch Shared Tree.

Wave 47 · Bridge Hole

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Brief Wives

For hundreds of years, women who married inshore fishermen woke each day wondering if they would be a widow by nightfall.

Charles Dickens wrote about one Filey woman who lost her husband to the sea and searched for his body for three months (see A Loving Wife).

Available sources indicate that Elizabeth SPYVEE was 51 years-old when she married Richard RICHARDSON, so the suggestion that they had a child in their four years and eight months together has to be queried.

Born in 1816, Mary ROBINSON may have known Elizabeth, or at least have heard her story. Mary married Richard Anderson CAMMISH in September 1843 when she was 26 years old. Her headstone in St Oswald’s churchyard tells us that he left home one June morning and didn’t return.

Sacred to the memory of MARY CAMMISH, who died on 28th Nov 1882, in the 66th year of her age. She was for 35 years bathing attendant at Filey.
Her husband RICHARD ANDERSON CAMMISH, to whom she was married only 9 months, was drowned at sea and his body never recovered.
This stone was erected by the subscriptions of visitors and residents of Filey as a mark of respect for one who was in every way worthy of it.

In this instance, “written in stone” doesn’t mean that all facts presented are true. The marriage ended after just 155 days.

Richard was skipper of Jerome, a two-masted lugger built in Scarborough by Thomas SMITH in 1838 and purchased in July that year by Jerome VASSALI, a jeweller. An account of the sudden storm can be found at the Scarborough Maritime History website. (Scroll down to the seventh paragraph.)

The two recovered bodies were taken to Filey and buried at St Oswald’s on the 27th. John COWLING junior and Thomas WISEMAN have footholds on the FamilySearch Shared Tree but neither has a memorial in the churchyard.

Widow Mary chose not to marry again and appears to have been self-reliant. I doubt bathing attendants were well-paid but maybe the Vassali family helped out. Roman Catholic immigrants from Switzerland, they appear to have established branches in several Yorkshire towns. Their families are not easy to assemble. A Jerome Vassali aged 38 is a jeweller and master jet manufacturer employing 12 men in Scarborough in 1861 but I haven’t been able to establish who his parents are yet. If he is the son of shipowner Jerome his mother was born Jane ANDERSON and may therefore be related by blood to Richard Anderson Cammish. Captain Syd’s database indicates that Richard’s predecessor as skipper of Jerome was John FELL. A fisherman with that name married Richard’s sister Mary in 1830 and died in 1841 aged 33. Perhaps the respect afforded his widow derived more from a connection to the relatively wealthy “foreigners” than from her service as a bathing attendant.

Beach 131 · Reighton Sands

Elizabeth Resurrected

It seems that most of Filey was disconnected from the Internet for several hours yesterday. With a couple of hours of my online “working day” remaining, I thought I would write a brief post on the anniversary of Michael AGAR’s death. (The newspaper publication date erroneously gives the impression that the event took place on Christmas Day.)

William was the oldest of the children but he would follow his father’s calling – and drown before the age of thirty. Elizabeth, his wife, died with him.

In memory of WILLIAM AGAR, Master Mariner aged 28 years, and ELIZABETH his wife aged 27 years, who were lost on their passage from London to Shields during a severe gale on the 7th of January 1839.

I put this photograph on FamilySearch as a memory over three years ago. Elizabeth CHEW had two existing IDs back then and I chose the one generated by a marriage source to represent her on the Shared Tree. The other ID linked to her christening record and parents Robert and Elizabeth nee COOK.

Yesterday, I discovered that both of these IDs had been merged. “My Elizabeth” had been taken from her husband.

It gets worse. The gravestone memory is currently linked to an Elizabeth Chew who rose from a watery grave, married again and had a child. Look here.

And this is the Tree View –

Searching the GRO Births Index for a minute or two reveals Ann Elizabeth’s mother to be Elizabeth GREAVES. Investing a bit more time will gather up Ann Elizabeth’s eight siblings, all registered in Knaresborough. Then check in Free BMD Marriages –

I went a few extra yards to discover this William Agar was a farmer at Hopperton, near Knaresborough. He died aged 48 on 12 September 1855 and a newspaper notice said he was “highly respected”.

William and Elizabeth’s memorial stone stands at the head of an empty grave. Their bodies were not recovered. I haven’t found a definitive account of their ship’s disappearance, or discovered how many other souls were lost from it. Initially, I thought they were passengers but tantalizing circumstantial evidence points to the vessel being owned by William. Perhaps he had taken Elizabeth down to the capital to see the sights. The Shipping and Mercantile Gazette of 19 February 1839 records several casualties of the gale on 7 January, including Fama,under Captain RUSSELL, which went ashore on Spurn Point. Her cargo had to be unloaded and she did not reach Hull until 18 February, “with loss of foremast, bowsprit etc”. And in the Hull Packet of 22 February –

I will try to do right by William and Elizabeth.

Beach 123 · Filey Sands at Arndale

The Lost Boys

The wooden brig Eugenie was built in Blyth in 1855 and registered in North Shields. On February 2nd, 1886, she left the River Tyne on her final voyage, with a crew of eight and about 360 tons of coal in her hold. Five of the sailors were apprentices, ranging in age from 16 to 21. They reached the estuary of the River Seine without incident and discharged their cargo, replacing it with 86 tons of stone ballast for the return journey. Before departure, the master received instruction to make for Cardiff or the Tyne, “according as the wind might serve”. Eugenie left Honfleur on the 20th and Thomas JONES, 48, decided to go home rather than to Wales. The ship made slow progress up the east coast of England and on the night of the 1st and 2nd of March sailed into a “blinding snowstorm”. Between five and six in the morning, near Craster, Eugenie struck a rock so violently that she broke up and sank almost immediately. All hands were lost.

A few days later the Coroner held an inquest on a body that had been “found on the shore at Howick Burn Mouth”. The father of apprentice James KELLY identified his 17-year-old son.

Beach at the mouth of the Howick Burn
cc-by-sa/2.0 – © John Allan – geograph.org.uk/p/5523421

Another sailor found near Howick Burn was not formally identified but was assumed to be A.B. John Young HINDS, aged about forty. Not far away, recovered papers and a photograph identified Anton Lanitz OLSEN, 21, from Christiania. He had signed A.B. articles and acted as Eugenie’s cook and steward but was still bound as an apprentice. The body of the mate, James PINKNEY (or REDMAID or REDMOND), was not found, and neither were those of the three apprentices, William Charles SCRIVENER, 19, Joseph TAYLOR, 17, and Charles CLEGHORN, 16.

William was the son of Filey doctor, Charles Waters Scrivener. When I researched the family three years ago, I somehow overlooked William. Born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1867, he was with his grandfather Thomas Scrivener on census night 1871 and not christened until later that year – after the death of his mother, Jane Margaret née SWEET. In 1881, William was a boarder at a Scarborough school run by James WALKER in Castle Street. His father had remarried 18 months after Jane’s death and would die in 1882, aged 48, without having children with Mary Ann WOODALL.

The family is well represented on the FamilySearch Shared Tree but some relationships have yet to be fleshed out a bit more clearly. When apprentice William was born, his maternal grandmother Elizabeth Sweet was also his aunt. Another day perhaps…

Field 9 · Filey Fields

On the River

When he married Ann Eliza COOPER in the Church of St Lawrence, York, in 1847, William GREEN gave his address as “on the river”. Within three years the couple had registered the births of three boys but the 1851 census did not record the family as a single unit. Two of the boys, Thomas and Ernest, were with their Cooper grandparents (and Aunt Juliann) at 13 Aldwark in the centre of York. The third boy, William Henry, had died aged about six months in 1850. The boys’ parents had vanished.

I knew William was a waterman and of full age when he married. I knew his father was William, and also a waterman, but a long search for this family failed completely. Yesterday’s post revealed that Ann Eliza lived to a great age and was married to Richard GEOGHAN when the 1861 census was taken. So, I made an assumption that young William Green was the same full age as his wife – 21 – and looked for his death in the 1850s. Several possibilities, based on geography, didn’t work out.

I turned to newspapers and found William in next to no time – on the river.

The mention of oil cake was particularly poignant for me. My childhood was spent in Stoneferry, Hull, where the smell from the oil cake mills was ever-present.

The next report gave the Green family’s address in York. Oh, the irony.

I didn’t find Ann Eliza at this address in 1851. Thomas was with his mother and stepfather in Scarborough in 1861. Ernest was enumerated at the Bluecoat School in York. I may follow his fortunes later.

The fourth child (of the first newspaper snippet) is a mystery.

Metal 13 · Brass Band

Three Widows

On the 5th of November 1852, Flamborough men John BAILEY, John MAJOR and George STEPHENSON went to sea “in pursuit of their calling”. Their fishing coble was turned over by the waves and all three drowned, “each leaving a widow to lament their bereavement”.

John Major’s body was soon recovered and laid to rest on the 7th. Jane, his widow, wasn’t a stranger to the graveyard.

Grave of John Major_straight — Photo courtesy Ann Davies

On his last day, John could not have known he would become a father again. His daughter, Jane, was born the following year, in July.

Widow Jane had been a minor when she married but signed the register with a neat hand (after a false start).

1839_JaneBROOKS_signature

In 1861 she is living in Ship Inn Yard, Flamborough, with three children – Ann (12), William (10) and Jane (7). At the same address ten years later, young Jane is absent on census night, and William, now 20, is supporting the family by fishing. He marries two years later and sets up his own household. The enumerator in 1881 finds Jane in South Dalton, about thirty miles from Flamborough, working as a housekeeper to Henry Llewellyn CHOWEN, a single man, aged 38, and a land agent. He also employs Jane ELLERBY, widow Jane’s 14-year-old granddaughter as a servant. Jane the Elder is still Henry’s housekeeper in 1891. I don’t know if she stayed in post until his death in 1900 but at census the following year she is back in Flamborough with son William, a fish merchant now and a widower. It must have been a comfortable home because William’s three unmarried sons are all working and his daughter, yet another Jane, keeps house.

Widow Jane dies aged 87 in the winter of 1908. Find her on the Shared Tree.

The bodies of John Major’s drowned companions are not recovered for a week or more. John BAILEY is buried on 16 November and George STEPHENSON two days later.

1852_BAILEY_Burial

John married Frances HUNTER in 1849 and the couple had one son before death intervened. Frances is with 10-year-old William Hunter Bailey in Mosey’s Yard, Filey in 1861 but she dies before the next census, aged 50. She is buried somewhere in St Oswald’s churchyard but her headstone has been relocated to the north wall. You can find a photo of it as a memory on the Shared Tree.

Alice COCKCROFT married George in 1850 and only had time to have one child with him, a daughter, Mary. Shortly before she buried her husband she had seen her two sisters laid to rest, Esther in August aged 17 and Hannah in September aged 26. Alice and Hannah’s husband George BIELBY, bereft and both with infant daughters to raise, moved in together. They didn’t marry and it is nobody’s business whether the arrangement ever had a romantic dimension. Six successive census enumerators from 1861 to 1911 noted Alice’s status as George’s housekeeper – and their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Find Alice on the Shared Tree.

Bird 79 · Chiffchaff

19_20200419Chiffchaff♂2_6m

A Watery Grave

I first read The Star Thrower thirty years ago but Albert Mott didn’t catch my imagination back then. I would, though, have been triggered into reminiscence by Alfred Russel Wallace – but mistakenly. Almost fifty years ago I took a photo of a memorial near Point Venus and my flawed memory has long associated it with Alfred. The structure was actually honouring Samuel WALLIS. I discovered this today in a voyage round t’Internet. If there is a photograph of the memorial online, I didn’t find it. At the Captain Cook Society website, Wendy Wales offers a reason why one may not exist…

In 1990, James Dunkley reported that on his recent visit to Point Venus three wooden memorials to Cook, Wallis and Bougainville had disappeared, and, unlike his visit 15 years earlier, the site was now host to hundreds of visitors, with accompanying cars and litter.

I remember having the place to myself, but I digress. I promised an account of Albert Mott’s last day.

He had clearly thought a great deal about the astonishing human cost of populating scraps of land in a vast ocean. Were those families who set out from their homes in out-rigger canoes crazy? But did he ever imagine his departure from this life would involve the air in his lungs being replaced by water? Water from civilized shallows, not the wild, vasty deep.

Disappearance of Mr. A. J. Mott

Found Downed in Glo’ster Canal

The relatives and friends of Mr Albert Julius Mott, of Detmore, Charlton Kings, Cheltenham, on Tuesday became alarmed at the rather sudden disappearance of that gentleman. Mr Mott, who is the head of the firm of Dobell, Mott, and Co., wine and spirit merchants, of Gloucester, was in the city on business as usual on Tuesday, and left the offices in Commercial-road about 3.30, saying he was going for a walk round Hempstead. As he did not return to the office, his son (Mr Leonard Mott) took his bag up to the G.W.R. station, expecting to see his father, who, as a rule, returns to Cheltenham by the 6 p.m. train. Not finding him there, Mr Mott came to the conclusion that he had returned by an earlier train, and proceeded home by the train mentioned. On reaching Detmore, however, he was astonished to learn that his father had not arrived, and immediately returned to Gloucester to ascertain his whereabouts. In this he was unsuccessful, no one having either seen or heard of the missing gentleman since he left the offices in the afternoon. It is well known that Mr Mott is fond of botanising, and it was thought that some accident had befallen him while making researches in the village of Hempstead, a spot he was fond of visiting. Accordingly, Mr Leonard Mott, Mr Roland Mott, and Mr Frederick Trotman (managing clerk to the firm) set out late at night and made diligent search and enquiries in the neighbourhood of Hempstead, but were unsuccessful in their endeavours to find the missing gentleman.

Enquiries up to noon today failed to elicit the gentleman’s whereabouts, all the information received at his home at Charlton Kings being the following telegram from Mr Roland Mott:- “Went by steamer, fear accident; more news soon.”

Our Gloucester correspondent afterwards wired that Mr Mott’s hat and umbrella had been found on the bank of the canal near Stonebench. It was surmised that his body was in the water, and the river was dragged, but up to one o’clock no discovery had been made.

Wiring later, our Gloucester representative informs us that the dead body of the unfortunate gentleman was taken from the canal about 1.30 on Wednesday afternoon near the spot where his hat and umbrella were found. Dragging operations had been carried on by two labourers named W Holland and George Drew, and by P.C.’s Whyton and Gosling under the superintendence of Inspector Elliott. About 12.30 a set of false teeth were brought to the bank, and an hour later the body also, the latter being placed in a boat and taken to Gloucester. P.C. Whyton, however, went on in advance to convey the sad intelligence to Gloucester, and took back a hand stretcher to meet the boat, which pulled up near the lock gates. The body was then got ashore and taken to the mortuary. An examination revealed no marks of violence on the body, which was fully clothed with the exception of the hat, just the same as when deceased left his office on Tuesday afternoon. Neither were there any signs of a struggle, and deceased’s watch (which was stopped at 4.10) and money were still in the pockets. Mrs Mott and her two sons, Roland and Leonard, were at the canal side when the body was recovered, having driven to the place in the morning to assist in the search.

Deceased, who was 76 years of age, was well known in Cheltenham and Gloucester. For many years he carried on a large business as a wine and spirit merchant in the latter town, where he was very highly respected by all who knew him. He was of a retiring and studious disposition, and was an author of some repute, having been a frequent contributor to trade periodicals and having written several books on fruit culture. He was also addicted to scientific pursuits, and it will be remembered that while experimenting at Detmore not long ago he sustained serious injuries to one of his hands by an explosion. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the local archaeological and other learned socities. In politics he was a Conservative, and in 1886 was elected to an aldermanic seat on the Gloucester City Council, retiring on the completion of his six years service. His widow is a sister of the late Sydney Dobell, the well-known poet, with whom deceased was in partnership. He leaves three sons and five daughters. He was a warm friend of Briton Riviere, and the walls at Detmore are covered with the works of the famous artist.

Gloucestershire Echo, 14 June 1899

‘Jack Sled’

26 November 1925: In newspaper reports alerting readers to the disappearance of the steam drifter Research off Flamborough Head, John Robert JENKINSON was referred to as ‘Jack Sleddie’ or ‘Jack Slade’. The Leeds Mercury explained the variant name…

…a characteristic of Filey fishermen, being that all of them and their families are known by a by name.

The Mercury’s Own Correspondent went on to say of Jack…

[he] has saved lives on several occasions at the risk of his own, jumping overboard more than once to rescue men who have been swept off by a wave.

The fear on this day was that Jack had drowned, with two of his sons, two sons in law and two distant cousins. Eight Filey Men in Lost Boat.

There was some confusion initially. The storm that caused the disappearance of Research sank the Scottish boat Ardilley, but its crew was rescued “at the last gasp” by the trawler Beryl and taken safely to Hull.

Confirmation that the fishermen on Research had perished came the next day when objects from the vessel were pulled from the sea at Hornsea. They included a couple of bits of wood, one bearing the letter ‘Y’ and the other ‘42’. Built in 1902, Research had previously been registered at Lowestoft, Peterhead and North Shields. Although a recent arrival to Scarborough, she still carried her Great Yarmouth registration mark, YH421.

Here is the Hull Daily Mail report on the 26th.

FILEY CREW MISSING

FEARED LINK WITH FLAMBOROUGH DISASTER

SCARBOROUGH, Thursday – There is no news up to this afternoon of the steam drifter, Research, which went out of Scarborough, in company with the steam drifter, Boy Hector, on Tuesday night at 11 o’clock, and ostensibly was fishing off Flamborough Head on Wednesday morning, when the fierce gale arose.

There are now grave fears that the Research was the boat that was seen to go down off Flamborough Head, but there is no confirmation as yet.

The Research, which is one of the oldest drifters sailing out of Scarborough, was manned by a Filey crew, under the charge of William Cammish, of Scarborough, as follows:

John Robert Jenkinson, better known as Jack Sleddie;

Robert and George Jenkinson (his sons);

George Cammish and William Colley (sons in law of J. R. Jenkinson);

Ted Colley, and

Ted and George Jenkinson (two brothers, younger members of the family).

The engineer is a North Shields man.

The owners of the vessel are Messrs. T. Melrose and sons Ltd, North Shields, but she is run out of Scarborough under the management of the Filey Utd. Steam Trawling Company Ltd.

VAIN SEARCH ON THE ROCKS

Nothing to trace the identity of the steam drifter which was sunk off Flamborough Head in Wednesday’s storm is yet available (wires the “Mail” Flamborough correspondent).

Searchers have been on the rocks all night, but nothing has been found.

A party of Filey fishermen have just visited Flamborough to gain a description of the craft, as a Filey crew – skipper Jenkinson, his two sons and another six members of the crew are missing.

The reporter got a couple of the crew names wrong. There wasn’t a George Cammish or William Colley aboard. Other newspapers published mangled family names. The most accurate in the first couple of days was a Shields newspaper but they named the only man who wasn’t from Filey as “engineer Southern”, a married man with five children.

Three headstones in St Oswald’s churchyard bear the steam drifter’s name.

20191126JosephEdward_s

Joseph Edward COLLEY was the Mate on Research and not related to the Jenkinsons. Named in some reports as skipper, William Cappleman CAMMISH is remembered on his mother’s stone. She had died nine years earlier. Not surprisingly, the grave of Jane Baxter Crimlisk, Jack Sled’s daughter, remembers most of the drowned fishermen.

F87_CRIMLISKjane_20120807_fst

In loving memory of JANE B. CRIMLISK, born 1885, died Sep 20 1931.

Also of her husband GEORGE J. CRIMLISK, born 1885, and her father and brothers, JOHN R. JENKINSON born 1862, ROBERT JENKINSON born 1890, GEORGE F.B. JENKINSON born 1897, WILLIAM C. CAMMISH born 1895, all drowned in the ‘Research’ disaster, Nov 25 1925.

JAMES H.N. JENKINSON, born 1892, lost at sea 1911

‘Loved in life, treasured

in memory’

Also of FANNY ELIZABETH, widow of JOHN ROBERT JENKINSON, died March 27 1939, aged 75.

‘She suffered much, but murmured not’

Also of LILLIAN her daughter, widow of WM. C. CAMMISH, died Aug 6th 1949, aged 54.

‘Reunited in Heavenly love’

MATTHEW JENKINSON, died in infancy.

aw_JackSled1913_jsws This man, photographed in a group outside the Ebenezer Chapel between 1910 and 1913, is named as “J. Sled” in an album kindly loaned to me some years ago by Ann Wilkie (WILLIS). He would have been about 50-years-old. Photographer: Rev Stanwell.)

Find Jack and his family on the Shared Tree and their story told in more detail here.

Research is constantly remembered on Filey Promenade.

20171125Research1pano

Sarah’s Unfortunate Menfolk

Sarah was the middle child of five born in Flamborough to Tanton CHADWICK and Mary STEPHENSON. When she was eight years old, her father left home one day to fish and didn’t return.

BRIDLINGTON: – On Monday, the body of Tanton Chadwick, one of the fishermen who was missing from Flamborough in the late gale, was washed ashore at Filey bay, near the lighthouse.

Yorkshire Gazette, 18 October 1851.

Tanton was buried in Flamborough St Oswald’s churchyard the following day.

Ten years later Sarah was working in Driffield as a housemaid to Anna Stephenson, a grocer/draper recently widowed (at just 24) and possibly a relative. I don’t know how Sarah met fisherman William SAYERS, but she married him at Filey St Oswald’s in November 1865.

In January 1877, while pregnant with her fifth child, Sarah received news that two of her brothers had drowned.

1877_CHADWICKwm&saml_DROWNED

Baby Susannah would die on the fourth anniversary of the deaths of her uncles. She was old enough to have been excited about welcoming a baby brother into the world. The birth of Thomas was registered in the same quarter as Susannah’s death, but he lived for just nineteen months.

The gales of early March 1883 took the lives of four Filey men, one of them Sarah’s husband.

1883_SAYERSwm_DROWNED

(Horatio WILKINSON and George SCOTTER were the other two fishermen lost on 6 March.)

William’s headstone in Filey St Oswald’s churchyard has a fine carving depicting a yawl.

D297_YawlDetail

Denison (SH88) survived the beaching at Spurn. Built in Rye in 1859, it had a long working life before being wrecked at Saltburn on 4 August 1904.

In 1911, widow Sarah was living in Hope Street with her son William, byname “Ginger Billy”, daughter in law Elizabeth née JAMES and six grandchildren. She had ten more years ahead of her, dying at Seadale in November 1921, aged 78.

I did a few hours of research into the Chadwick family of Flamborough before discovering they were well represented on the Shared Tree.

It isn’t a simple matter to marry Sarah off to William. As the son of yesterday’s fisherman, the union might raise the ghost of the shoemaker. I have messaged a contributor to the pedigree of William Benjamin SAYER and maybe the “issues” will soon be resolved. I will add a photo of William and Sarah’s headstone to FST as soon as I can.

D297_SAYERSsarah_20170504_fst

Looking at Filey REDUX

adventures in the kin trade

drowned