Tout

Young William Tout

On the 3rd April 1881, the census enumerator found William Robert Geatches TOUT boarding with about a dozen other 21-year-old students, at the Diocesan Training College, in York. Three months later he died at the Coastguard House, Cliff Top, Filey.

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Photographed this morning

A week or so before Christmas that year, William was remembered at the College’s Prize Giving Ceremony. The Principal, Rev. G. W. De Courcy BALDWIN, introducing the Very Rev. Dean of York, honoured guest and prize-giver, said that this yearly gathering was in many respects the most pleasing of their College meetings, but continued:

No retrospect, however, could be altogether pleasant in this world of change, and they had had their share of trials. A plain, simple white marble tablet had just been placed in their chapel to the memory of one of the most promising young men he had ever had under his care. William Tout, a senior student of that college, died at his parents’ home in Filey in July last. He was a young man of great intelligence and many virtues, among which moral and physical manliness, unswerving integrity, and, thank God, a deep sense of religion were conspicuous. The simple memorial to which the speaker alluded had been erected at the sole cost of William Tout’s fellow students, by whom he was loved as well as respected.

The College, in Lord Mayor’s Walk,  has been incorporated into York St John University but you can read about its Victorian existence here.

In the spring of 1891, the sadly reduced Tout family was living in Cliff Terrace, part of present-day Belle Vue Street, rather than Cliff Top. The Coastguard house was occupied by the retired surgeon and Justice of the Peace, Claudius Galen WHEELHOUSE. While looking in local newspapers for Tout information, I found an intriguing snippet.

In a report on Local Board business (Miscellaneous Items) –

Mr. Tout, coastguard officer, sent an application to the board for leave to erect a target near Mr. Wheelhouse’s property for the coastguard men to practice at. It was decided that the site be inspected before leave be given.

Scarborough Mercury, 9 February 1878

In 1881, at the age of 54, Claudius was still happily and successfully knifing people in Leeds, but had clearly settled on the place – and the house – in which he wished to end his days.

Geatches Tout

I have been keeping a dream diary for about a year. Last night I was a young man, not prospering financially but befriended by a rich landowner, a few years my senior. His name was Geatches TOUT. He spent most of his time and money designing, building, and competitively rowing single scull boats. He seemed to value my encouragement and limited expertise in this field (or river) of endeavor. All went well until he made an inappropriate advance that I rebuffed. I lost my luxurious accommodation in The Big House and was sent below stairs. Apart from one ancient retainer, the servants treated me very unkindly.

Geatches Tout possibly strikes you as a strange, made-up name, but it may ring a bell with Filey folk who read this post. Towards the end of the 19th century, five children of William TOUT and Elizabeth Spry GEATCHES had to live with the moniker. In order of arrival:- William Robert, Rhoda Bessy, Mary Medga (?) Jessie, Minnie Maud Charlotte, and Rosie Hettie.

Elizabeth Spry gave me the opportunity to add these young people to the FamilySearch Tree. I have carried a candle for Minnie for almost a decade, so she is obviously the spark for the dream name. The watery connection may be a coincidence, rather than obscurely psychological – but paterfamilias William was a Coastguard!

Three of the girls married. Young William died aged 21 and is buried in Filey churchyard.  I went in the rain at lunchtime to photograph his headstone, now sadly lacking its cross.

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His sister Rosie’s husband, Thomas HARRISON, also died quite young, just a few doors down the street from where I’m writing this. The young widow seems to have immediately taken herself and three children to Canada. FamilySearch has a record of the middle child, Mary Eleanor Tout HARRISON dying within months of arrival in North America. She was just fourteen.

From competitive rowing to professional cycling. Today’s Image shows that the work on “re-cobbling” the lower part of Crescent Hill is almost complete. On Saturday 5 May, riders in the  Tour de Yorkshire will pass this way.

On my stroll home this morning, I was pondering more of the dreams I have had recently when a flutter of paper caught my eye in West Avenue. A pair of dessicated wind-blown “leaves” from an old book. I had to smile at the title.

GoodWives

I found a true love late in life and today is the 4th anniversary of his departure to The Big Kennel. I talk to him every day. He was picked up off the street in 2001, when he was about a year old, and named Jude – because his origins were obscure. He was, like his two-legged namesake, something of a philosopher.This photo was taken in March 2009 when we had been living in Filey for about eight months.

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I noticed on FST that the Geatches Tout children’s GIDLEY forebears go back to Walter, born about 1500. The name in the pedigree that most appealed to me, though, belonged to Minnie’s great-grandfather, Robert MEMORY. Perhaps he was a Bad Husband – because his son took a variant of the Wife’s name, Elizabeth GETSIUS.

Families, eh?