Wakefield

What’s in Six Names?

George Jenkinson WATKINSON died 89 years ago at the age of fifty-seven. His wife Annie Ellis PITCHFORD found rest just over two years later.

Row 12 1938 Watkinson E112 Kerb

In loving memory of GEORGE J. WATKINSON, died 9th March 1934, aged 57.

Also his wife, ANNIE E. WATKINSON, died 25th March 1936, aged 57.

‘At rest’

Crimlisk Survey 1977

George is a great-grandson of Joseph, a West Riding man who was verger for a while at Filey St Oswald’s. George’s mother Mary was a JENKINSON and an Anniversary Person on the first day of last year (AP 5 · death · 1 January).

Annie had seven children with George but only one appears on the Shared Tree.

Filey Genealogy & Connections is not the only information source uncertain of Annie’s family name. On the day of her marriage, she was not in doubt.

“Ellis” is a common middle name in this part of the world and is often accompanied by “Alice” in brackets. I have never understood why this is. The poor hearing of registrars, transcriber uncertainty or something else?

On the Shared Tree, Annie’s father is without forebears. FG&C gives him a mother, Ann Pitchforth, and maternal grandparents William Pitchforth and Ruth BEDFORD. What are the chances of her paternal grandfather being Henry ELLIS? (I found a suspect.)

The Watkinsons named their third daughter after Annie’s older sister Charlotte, a witness at their wedding. For British boys of a certain age, the name FROBISHER may cause a frisson of excitement. Nice boys will picture the intrepid seeker of the North West Passage; the not-so-pleasant will imagine the pirate looking for plunder. Perhaps Canadians now in their sixties and seventies will recall Martin of this ilk.

Public domain, Martin Frobisher. (2023, January 27). In Wikipedia.

FG&C takes the Frobisher line no further than William and Agatha née FOXCROFT. The Shared Tree delivers. (Martin is the ninth great-granduncle of Annie Ellis Pitchford.)

What of the other witness at George & Annie’s wedding? FG&C doesn’t have Charles WEBB but I found someone with the name in the 1901 census, about the same age as the groom and from George’s neck of the woods. The best man perhaps. Charles was a railway signalman who had recently married Ada LONGBOTTOM. (A seventh name to conjure with.)

Priest

954 Arnold C12Replacement Stone

Remembered with love, our parents STEPHEN ERIC ARNOLD Priest, 1886 – 1966,

and LILY ARNOLD, 1900 – 1984.

(Stephen’s dates given previously: 18th Sept 1886, 23rd Feb 1966

Crimlisk Survey 1977 updated

Stephen’s father, William Robert ARNOLD, farmed at Notton near Barnsley – and married a farmer’s daughter. In 1901, Stephen was with his maternal grandparents at Wintersett, not far from Wakefield. Their address was “Angler’s Arms”, now the Anglers Retreat. The land nearby is now a Country Park.

Stephen would tend a number of flocks in his lifetime. He attended the College of the Resurrection in Mirfield and at the age of 24 was ordained into the Lincoln Diocese. From the parish of Wildmore in Lincolnshire he returned to his home patch, serving as a curate at Wakefield Cathedral between 1919 and 1924. He married Lily MORLEY in that church in 1924 and then went back to Lincolnshire to undertake pastoral work in a number of villages and hamlets – in roughly chronological order Usselby, New Cleethorpes, Benniworth with Market Stainton, Ranby, and East & West Keal. Stephen and Lily celebrated their Silver Wedding Anniversary in Woodhall Spa and eight years later found themselves in South Kelsey. I wonder what prompted them to cross the Humber and move to Filey.

Some sources

Stephen Eric ARNOLD

BIRTH: ARNOLD, Stephen Eric, Mother’s Maiden Surname: KENYON. GRO Reference: 1886 D Quarter in BARNSLEY UNION Volume 09C Page 164.

MARRIAGE:

DEATH: Free BMD Deaths Mar 1966: ARNOLD Stephen E, Age at Death 79, SCARBORO 1B 1074.

PROBATE:

Cliff Point House, 2018

Lily MORLEY

BIRTH: MORLEY, Lily, Mother’s Maiden Surname: MERCER. GRO Reference: 1900 M Quarter in ASTON Volume 06D Page 419.

CENSUS: 115 Overton Road, Sheffield, Yorkshire, with parents William James and Clara Jane (MERCER), brothers William Henry & Frank. (2 siblings had died before 1911.)

DEATH: 1984, ARNOLD, Lily, Year of Birth: 1900. GRO Reference: DOR  Q3/1984 in BEDFORD (3091C) Volume 9 Page 195.

The Murderer’s Daughter

1879 Filey · Birth  Perhaps it was a blessing. Ellen Elizabeth died at the age of nine, five years before her father, Samuel STONEHOUSE, beat her mother to death. I haven’t been able to find a newspaper account of the young girl’s passing but noticed in the St Oswald’s burial register that her first cousin Edith Annie, aged two years and seven months, had been laid to rest five weeks earlier. The grief experienced by the two Stonehouse families may have been a factor in a flare-up that summer. Abraham Waugh Stonehouse was in court accused of assaulting Samuel and threatening violence towards sister in law Maria.

1819 Filey · Baptism  Ann married fish merchant Benjamin SIMPSON when she was 28 years old. Death took him 27 years and five children later. Ann continued the business and two sons married, presenting her with 12 grandchildren. Seven of them died long before she did.

1740 Pickering · Marriage  Joseph TRAVIS is a great grandfather of Arthur Travis CLAY, the West Riding manufacturer who is buried in St Oswald’s churchyard. But did he marry Sarah EMPSON? Filey Genealogy & Connections didn’t take Arthur’s family further back in time so what is in my RootsMagic database is down to me.

FamilySearch sees things differently.

I’ll let you know when the jury comes back and the judge has delivered a verdict. (Perhaps some private investigators would like to get involved in the meanwhile.)

1761 Filey · Death  Nesfield ranks =280 in the Filey surnames list but is also found as a first and middle name. Wharram is a fraction more common here as a surname (=253). The Surnames Map online echoes this with Nesfield found in 76 places and Wharram in 92. My notion that Wharram is a geographical surname because Wharram Percy (a deserted village) is nearby isn’t supported by the distribution map.

Surname Map

FG&C gives Nesfield WHARRAM a wife, 12 children and no grandchildren (from three marriages). I haven’t added to this complement. The FamilySearch Shared Tree also has twelve children but five are married – and there are 27 grandchildren.

Nesfield’s family doesn’t seem to have strayed far from Langtoft, (which is 12 miles from Wharram Percy and fifteen from Filey).

Measure of Man 74 · Waterworks

Cayton Bay

The Belgian Vice-Consul for Goole

A shipowner, a shipping agent, a father of five, a widower (twice), and an Englishman born in Wakefield, he rests next to George STERICKER in St Oswald’s churchyard.

D26_IBBOTSONjoseph_20170503_fst

His stone is badly eroded and the Crimlisks did well to decipher what they did forty years ago. My digitization has this:

In affectionate remembrance of JOSEPH IBBOTSON of Goole, who departed this life (19 June 1885?), aged [blank] years.

The East Yorkshire Family History Society has the advantage of having the burial record and offers the correct year of Joseph’s death and his age – 1865 and 65.

I wonder what he was doing in Filey. And how much did the Belgians pay him?

I haven’t been able to discover the names of the ships he owned but, as an agent in the 1830s, he was advertising the transport of goods and people from Selby to Yarmouth, calling in at Goole and Hull – on the “first-class steamer” Ormrod and the steam schooner Albatross.

Albatross_image

The Ormrod is an exceedingly strong built Vessel, Copper-fastened, nearly new, and will be found a most efficient Vessel for the Trade.

…

The Packet [Albatross] is neatly fitted up with Berths and every accommodation for Passengers that can conduce to their comfort.

Separate Cabin for Ladies, with respectable Female Attendants.

The fare for the Chief Cabin was 18 shillings, which is about £80 in today’s unreal money.

Joseph was survived by two of his five children, Joseph Henry and Hannah Ellen. Barbara, born to first wife Sarah, was the only one who married but she had died three years earlier, just a few months after plighting her troth to John Shepley ASH.

A couple of days after Joseph’s death, newspapers carried notices that Joseph Henry had taken over the business of Shipping and Forwarding Agent at Custom House Quay in Goole. A couple of weeks later the Belgians appointed him Consular Agent for the Port. John Henry didn’t have time to make his fortune. He died aged 27 in 1869. He seems to have been the end of this Ibbotson line and isn’t blood-connected to many forebears either on FamilySearch Tree.

 In staggering contrast, his father’s first wife, Sarah PITCHFORTH, is super-rich in ancestors, connecting to the fantasy world of European Royalty, going beyond Charlemagne to Emperors of Rome. I haven’t travelled all her byways. Perhaps there are some Plantagenets hidden in there somewhere. I was amused, though, to bump into Baldric of Yorkshire, born 1015 and married to Elica Von Schweinfurt.

I’m not responsible for any of this.

 

 

PC Powell

I wrote on LaF about a slight accident, the report of which prompted a reader of the Scarborough Mercury to write an acerbic letter to the Editor.  Here it is (again) in full:-

Correspondence.

THE CARRIAGE ACCIDENT AT FILEY. 

SIR.-The accident at Filey on Sunday [23 July 1882] is another of the exploits of the “bona-fide traveler.” It is to be hoped that our P. C’s will look after them, as the bona-fide traveler is an insufferable nuisance to all peaceable people who live at Filey. It is very seldom that we have a Sunday at Filey, but we have to witness several parties driving about the place in anything but a respectable manner, and often in such a state as to be a danger to anyone who may be out on a walk. It is high time that Parliamentary attention was turned to Sunday closing of public houses instead of wasting their time and the country’s money over Egypt.-

Yours etc.,

PROGRESS.

Enter PC Powell… I don’t know if he was on duty in and around Filey in 1882 but a studio portrait has been passed to me by Kath Wilkie and I consider him a suspect! Lower ranks of the force don’t seem to have stayed long in the town and many evaded the local Census net. A search for “Police” in Yorkshire in 1881 yields 3134 hits – and one of them is John J. POWELL, age 31, living in Albion Street, Wakefield (PRO ref RG114576 f16). He was born in Scotland, as were his wife and apparent firstborn Ada. Jack arrived next in Halifax and then Elizabeth in Wakefield four years later. A simple search of the GRO births determines the births were in the December Quarter 1874 and June Quarter 1878 and the mother’s maiden name was Tait.

I searched for John J and Augusta on FamilySearch.

John didn’t appear on the first page of returns and there were many more pages to scroll through so I looked for his wife. The third Augusta in the list was married to John Powell and they were in the IGI because a son, George William had been born 18 August 1871 in Hawick, Roxburgh.

The fourth hit gave their marriage on 21 June 1869 in Edinburgh.

The fifth offered the birth of George William Stephen Powell, 21 December 1872 in Govan, Lanark. This record gave the parents middle names – James and Anderson.

The sixth record identifies Ada Catherine (9MTH-19C), born 31 May 1870 in Coldingham, Berwick.

Wee George II must have died before the family came south of the border – I couldn’t find a death registration that fitted him in England and Wales. But I reckon FamilySearch has offered enough evidence to prove that this is our man –

POWELconstableJ

Kath could give me no information about the photograph beyond the “PC J Powell” added in a caption to a digital copy of the image. I think there is a good chance that he was posted to Filey for duty between 1881 and 1891 and might well have been one of the PCs about whom “Progress” was waxing sarcastic.

Wondering what became of John and his family I did a little more research.

He was baptised in “Kirkpatrick Juxta” 10 August 1849 and at the 1851 Scottish Census was living with his parents George W and Catherine, older sister Catherine and two older brothers George W and William Stephen. (Poignant, huh?)

At the 1871 Scottish Census John James and Augusta were living at 7 Wellington Street, Wilton, Roxburghshire with new born Ada Catherine. JJ was employed as a Railway Clerk. (His father was a Stationmaster.) Ten years later, as we already know, he was a police constable in Wakefield, Yorkshire. In 1891 the family was back in Scotland at a confusing address in the Find My Past Transcription – “Montague Street, St Cuthbert Edinburgh, Newington, Midlothian” – John working as a Book Keeper, Ada Kate as a Stationer’s Assistant and Jack as a Packer aged 16.

And that is where I’ll leave them.