Stonehouse

In Mesopotamia

Eleven British and Commonwealth soldiers buried in Amara War Cemetery, in what is now Iraq, died on this day in 1916. One was Gunner Albert STONEHOUSE, born in Filey in 1883, the fifth of Abraham Waugh Stonehouse and Alice SKELTON’s ten children. He was 32 years old when he succumbed to heatstroke while serving with the Royal Field Artillery, fighting the Turkish Army in Mesopotamia. His unit, 14th Battery, 4th Brigade, was under the command of the  7th Meerut Division of the Indian Army.

In peacetime, Albert had worked in the family business, as a carriage proprietor. He married Elizabeth GASH in 1907 and they saw four children into the world. Their only son, also Albert Charles, would serve as a Navy gunner in the Second World War and be killed in 1942. Two of his uncles, David and Edward GASH, died in the Great War.

The Amara Cemetery was desecrated during the illegal wars that followed 9/11 and only the brave actions of the Cemetery caretaker prevented total destruction of the place. I have plotted the approximate location of Albert’s grave on the 2012 Google Earth satellite image (Source: CWGC).

AmaraCemetery

Albert was remembered on the GASH family grave in St Oswald’s churchyard, on an additional stone that has now disappeared. The discrepancy between his age at death, 32 calculated from his birth registration and 30 on the missing stone transcription (and in the CWGC Index), can’t be resolved.

G493_GASHedmond_20120815_fst

Also of Gunner ALBERT C. STONEHOUSE R.F.A., killed in the Great War Jun 19 1916, aged 30.

Albert is on the FamilySearch Tree and several people have been making contributions to his pedigree in the last few years.

Albert is a nephew of Samuel Stonehouse who killed his wife Maria in 1894. (Some duplicate records need to be merged for this relationship to appear clearly on FST).

Gone For Soldiers, Almost Every One

The 1871 Census found George TAYLOR in Main Street, Seamer, a short distance away from his parents and siblings. He was 16 years old, serving an apprenticeship with Master Boot and Shoemaker John RHODES. About 250 miles away, 14-year-old Ellen TUCKER was enumerated in Philadelphia Terrace, Lambeth, with her mother Elizabeth née HARRIOTT, three sisters and a brother.

Ten years later George and Ellen were in Filey; a shoemaker and a domestic servant. Had they already met? Were they courting? They married in the spring of 1883 and brought six boys into the world. It wasn’t a good time to be a parent in a war-mongering nation.

One boy died before his first birthday, four joined Kitchener’s Army and three were killed.

 

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Photographer unknown, c. 1914, courtesy Keith Taylor

 

Silas, the youngest of the brothers, was the first to be killed – near Auchonvillers in the Somme region of France, on the 3rd February 1917. He was serving with the 2nd Battalion, King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.

In the photograph, Silas is standing behind Fred. To his left are William, Herbert, and Ernest.

Herbert, the eldest, didn’t enlist. Perhaps he wanted to but was already married, with a three-year-old son at the start of the ‘Great War’. Perhaps the authorities thought four Taylor boys were enough and gave him a pass. He would live to celebrate his 90th birthday.

Ernest may also have had a stroke of luck – he was captured by the Germans. I don’t know how long he was a prisoner of war but he eventually came back home. At the beginning of the next war, aged 50, he was a salesman down in London, not far from where his mother, Ellen, had been raised. He was married to Lilian, her maiden surname not yet discovered.

The TAYLORs were not on FamilySearchTree. I had to go back to the grandfather of Herbert’s wife, Lily, to pick up an ancestral thread to which they could all be attached.

Ellen, George and their slaughtered lambs are remembered on a headstone in St Oswald’s churchyard.

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In Loving Memory of GEORGE, beloved husband of ELLEN TAYLOR, died Jan 9th 1928, aged 73.

‘He fought a good fight

He kept the faith’

Also of his wife ELLEN TAYLOR, died Jan 16th 1942, aged 85 years.

‘Re-united’

Also FRED, WILLIAM and SILAS, sons of the above who fell in action in France, 1917-1918.

 

Kicked to Death

On this day 1894, at about seven o’clock in the evening, thirteen-year-old Samuel Dixon STONEHOUSE ran to his half-brother, William PROCTER, for help. When they reached the cottage in Barnett’s Yard, off Queen Street, accompanied a relative, Amos DANBY, and Police Sergeant CLARKSON, William was shocked to see his mother’s bruised and bleeding face. Maria said to him, “He has kicked me to death, I am dying.” William rushed away to seek medical help. Dr. ORR came quickly with parish nurse, Frances JENKINSON, and attempted to revive the woman, but she died within twenty minutes. All the while, Maria’s husband, Samuel STONEHOUSE, sat in a corner chair, proclaiming his innocence.

He was initially charged with wilful murder but at trial the jury quickly arrived at a verdict of manslaughter and the judge handed down a 14-year sentence. Samuel was not a stranger to prison. He had served a six-month sentence for battering his wife, not long before the final assault. He must, however, have behaved himself inside because he was released after nine years, initially into the care of the Filey “Church Army Society”, if the official documentation is a reliable guide. (Source: Prison Register, via Find My Past.)

1894_STONEHOUSEsaml_PRISONreg

I have never had any truck with men hitting women, even though there ain’t no limit to the amount of trouble they bring (B. Dylan), and had imagined Samuel to have been a hulking brute. I was surprised to see he was a “short-arse”.

Before his trial, he wrote to his mother, Elizabeth, and sister Elizabeth Annie, from his cell in Hull Prison:-

Dear mother, and sister and all, – Just a few lines to you, hoping to find you all well, as it leaves me well at present. Thank God for it. I hope my two children are both well. Remember me to them, and by God’s help I hope I may soon be with them again. My aunt was here yesterday, and told me that mother had gone to Filey, and I hope you will all do what you can for me. Will you write and let me know what you have done for me? I do not know whether I shall have anyone to help me at York or not, but I hope that I shall. I do not know when I shall be going from here, but I have been told that they (the Assizes) do commence next Wednesday. Will you let me know if my brother William or Abraham is going to York, and who is going to look after my children this year? It might be a long job for me at York, but I hope it will not. – Your son, SAMUEL STONEHOUSE.

At trial, the children gave evidence. The boy said his mother had asked for his assistance to help her on to the couch and his father had said that if he touched her he would “kick his bowels in”. But this exchange followed:-

Mr. Mellor: Your father was kind to you?

Witness: Yes, a lot better than my mother. Drunk or not, he was always kind to me.

Mr. Mellor: Have you ever seen her lying on the floor before?

Yes.

In what state?

She had been drunk. (Some sensation was caused in court by this statement, and the Judge said he must have silence or he would have the gallery cleared.)

Witness said on this occasion he supposed that his mother was drunk. She had formerly cursed his father when he came home to dinner, and she had thrown pots at him. (The poor lad burst into tears as he left the box.)

Born in Scalby, just outside Scarborough, Samuel Snr returned home after leaving Portsea  Prison. (He may also have spent time in Dartmoor.) His death was registered in the last quarter of 1920. He was 73 years old.

He outlived his son by four years. Samuel Dixon STONEHOUSE was killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme and is remembered in Fricourt New Military Cemetery.

Samuel Jnr had married before he went to war. Maria Louise was living at 32 St James Street in 1916 and at 44 James Street when the Second World War began. She died a Stonehouse in 1960, aged 82. I haven’t been able to find the marriage record or any children she may have had. Sam Jnr’s sister, Sarah, has eluded me too.

The Wayback Machine seems to be working again – it should be safe to access The Woman Who Cried Murder.

The blighted family can be found on Filey Genealogy & Connections and FamilySearch Tree.

The Stonemason’s Wife

Charlotte EMPTAGE died 127 years ago today so I checked on her FamilySearch Tree record. Her pedigree is more substantial than others I have looked at recently (ID: K8KB-WGQ). I wrote a couple of short posts about her father James EMPTAGE and husband John Sumpton FOX on the old Looking at Filey and have copied the latter as a “Memory” to FST rather than give you the link to the Wayback Machine. (John Sumpton’s ID: MGCB-6TX.)

Charlotte’s headstone is by the south-west gate to the churchyard, numbered A1 in the Crimlisks’ Survey of Monumental Inscriptions – reason enough to put a photograph of it on FST as a ‘memory’ to her and infant son Francis. It felt a bit like breaking the ice, though I actually put up my first headstone photograph on FST a few weeks ago. I have well over a hundred stone pictures ready to go so will try to upload more in the coming weeks.

The old LaF post included a link which probably doesn’t work on the UK Web Archive but in my saved Word doc it took me to the LaF Wiki. I’m amazed that website has survived (thanks PB Works) so I feel obliged now to give it a thorough spring clean. There’s plenty of dead wood to clear out but also a lot of information that may be of value to someone, sometime. I have just realised I edited out the reference to the headstone of Charlotte’s father in the Fox Memory so if you are interested in sampling the goods at the Wiki start here. I will, over time, replace the red fctIDs (Filey Community Tree) with FST IDs.

I did about three hours work on the short-lived STONEHOUSEs this morning. John married Isabella THOMPSON in early 1856, taking on, it appears, her illegitimate daughter Selina as his own. John and Bella welcomed their first child into the world towards the end of the year but young Henry Richard died at the age of two. Bella followed him to the next world about four years later. I think John remarried but there are several men with his name on the Yorkshire coast, and of a similar age, and I haven’t been able to sort them out yet. You can check on my FST progress with the family via John’s ID: MGCB-BCZ. (I thought I’d created a record for Selina but she seems to have disappeared.)

I did find some time for my Ain Folk today. I took possession of a copy of my atDNA file and put it on GEDmatch. In a day or two I should be able to access the One to Many Matches. My Heritage has supplied me with about 80 matches so far and it will be interesting to see how much this number will grow. I’m hoping GEDmatch will point me more surely towards the potential cousins I should be contacting as a priority.

The Stonehouse Children

I turn to “On This Day” reports from Kath’s Filey Genealogy & Connections database if I don’t have a subject to write about. There are usually around 70 people listed at the various significant points on their life journeys. I pick one, on a whim rather than blindly with a pin. This morning I chose two, twins Mary and Jane STONEHOUSE, baptized together this day 1826 at St Oswald’s, Filey and, I soon discovered, buried together 65 days later.

There were two other children in the family in FG&C, William and Ann. The boy, firstborn child of Daniel and Jane, lived for about 180 days after his baptism on 14 April 1822. Ann arrived the following year and survived long enough to have an illegitimate daughter, Hannah. This little girl was baptized on 24 August 1845 and committed to the ground 169 days later.

FamilySearch Tree has records for each of the short-lived children and their parents, though for none of the extracted IGI baptisms is Jane’s maiden name given. A separate record of her marriage to Daniel gives her family name as ASHLEBY. Even if you add in ASHELBYs it is not a common name in Yorkshire – or on FST.

In the marriage register on 18 June 1821 Daniel is described as a yeoman, suggesting perhaps that he worked his own land. He made an upright cross, Jane an X. From his Harpham birthplace he had moved about sixteen miles north to marry and attempt to raise a family. He wasn’t with Jane at the 1841 census. She was enumerated at Lebberston Hall, working as a washerwoman and had 12 year old John STONEHOUSE for company. In a separate household at Lebberston Hall was 8 year old George ASHELBY.

I couldn’t find Jane and John in 1851 but at the next census she is Housekeeper to the JEWISONs in Gristhorpe (Filey parish), now 72 years old and a widow for the past sixteen years.

John is married in 1861, living in Cambridge Street, Scarborough and working as a shoemaker. He and his wife Bella (Isabella THOMPSON) have a seven year old daughter, Selina.

I hope to find more about these people in the coming days,  and I’m moved to tidy up their records on FST. Daniel and Jane have at least five duplicate IDs each so there is an amount of merging to be done. (I did manage to enlarge the HUCKS presence on FST, creating new IDs for Bentfield and most of his siblings. The aviator’s is LTFG-18Y if you want to check my work and perhaps correct or add to it!)

Below is John Stonehouse’s small island of pedigree. His siblings are similarly adrift in FST’s genealogical sea. Rather more together on FG & C.

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Crimes & Misdemeanors

At the Bridlington Police Court on Friday 20th July 1883 before Lieutenant-Colonel PRICKETT and the Reverend C. W. HUDSON a Filey STONEHOUSE was charged with a breach of the Local Board Bye-Laws. The report in The Scarborough Mercury ran as follows:-

Abraham Warf Stonehouse, carriage proprietor, Filey, was charged with unlawfully standing in the Foreshore-road, and plying for hire on the 30th of June. In reply to the charge, defendant said he was standing on a piece of private ground, which he had rented for four years. Sergeant Bramley stated that about noon on the day named he saw the defendant standing with his carriage on the Forshore Road, but when he (witness) went towards defendant he drove on a few yards on to the piece of ground he mentioned. He had cautioned defendant a day or two before. Defendant having been convicted last year of a similar offence, was now fined 10s. and 9s. costs.

“Warf” is a local pronunciation of the family name WAUGH. In the early 1820s two WAUGH sisters married STONEHOUSE men whose relationship isn’t clear in Filey Genealogy & Connections (FG & C) – but both couples chose to call their firstborn sons Abraham Waugh.

The Abraham Waugh STONEHOUSE who found himself at odds with Sergeant BRAMLEY 134 years ago was the grandson of Samuel STONEHOUSE and Rachel WAUGH. Here he is (without his middle name) on FamilySearch Tree.

Abraham&AliceAnnSKELTO_fstScreenshot

Names in yellow are on FG& C. I have found GRO records for the 8 children in Kath’s database. FST has six children but the elusive Harry may be Henry.

Some of the girls from this generation of STONEHOUSE families married well in local society. It was the men who got into scrapes – and worse. A couple of them were charged with cruelty to a horse. Samuel, brother to our carriage proprietor, killed his wife. You will find him on FST with the ID L5TZ-8G3. (Daughter Ellen Elizabeth has a “data problem”; her date of death has been wrongly entered. It should be 1889.)

These two scraps of pedigree could be joined fairly easily but it would take more time than I have spare. As with other Filey families, turning to FG & C for help will bring dividends to anyone caring to undertake the task. At some point the STONEHOUSES link with the CRIMLISKS which grows a few more branches on the community tree. One of our cabman’s sons, Albert Charles, married Elizabeth GASH whose brothers were subject of a recent post. Before their deaths on active service in the First World War her husband’s cousin, Samuel D. STONEHOUSE, who ran for help when he witnessed his mother being killed, lost his life on the Western Front.  (There is a another twig in FS Genealogies for Samuel Dixon STONEHOUSE – it is from the Filey Community Tree I started to assemble when running the first incarnation of the Looking at Filey blog. Kath’s is more informative!)