William Richardson

A Long Way from Home

Dunn RICHARDSON was born in the summer of 1836 and at the age of fourteen, the census enumerator found him apprenticed to William CAMBRIDGE, boatbuilder, in Murray Street. He probably completed his apprenticeship but a future in Filey building fishing cobles was not the life for him. Ocean waves beckoned and he signed on as a merchant seaman, making his first voyage from London to Scarborough on 27 October 1853 (source: Britain, Merchant Seamen, 1835-1857, The National Archives). How much of the world he saw isn’t known but he died in Rio de Janeiro on 26 February 1860. He is buried in the Cemiterio dos Ingleses Gamboa and remembered on a family headstone in St Oswald’s churchyard.

37 Richardson B11

In memory of DUNN RICHARDSON, son of WILLIAM AND PRISCILLA RICHARDSON, who died at Rio de Janeiro South America, February 26th 1860, aged 23 years.

‘I was not in safety, neither had I rest,

 Neither was I quiet. Yet trouble came’

Job 3. 26 v.

Also, MARY ANN their daughter, who died December 9th 1834, aged 11 years.

Also of five other of their children, MARY, JOHN, JEREMIAH, DUNN AND ELIZABETH, who died in infancy.

Crimlisk Survey 1977

On the FamilySearch Shared Tree, Mary Ann is just Ann. The infant Mary, mentioned on the stone, is missing from the Shared Tree. Also missing are the years in which seven of the children died.

I have added to the information found on Filey Genealogy & Connections.

Not shown in the RootsMagic screenshot above is the woman John the Second married after Ann NICHOLSON died. Mary BARKER, born in Scagglethorpe, was 42 years old when she married, 18 years younger than John. Four years after his death she was living on parish relief but doing a little sewing. She died in 1928 aged 83.

William and Priscilla’s headstone has been moved to the churchyard’s North Wall.

1322 Richardson H34

‘Their voyage of life is o’er’

Another Poisoner

Today’s list of anniversaries offered two fellows by the name of WHITE and both rest eternally in St Oswald’s churchyard. I would have been remiss not to look at them both.

John Henry was no trouble at all. He was born in Wakefield and married Christiana LORRIMAN there in 1883. (Christiana is the brother of Frederick, a sailor on Prince Eugene and the birthday celebrant on 3 June.)

In 1911, John Henry was the postmaster at Ringwood in Hampshire. Following retirement, the couple moved to Filey and lived in Victoria Avenue. Christiana died in 1928 and John just made it to his eighties.

James Ward WHITE was born in Coundon, County Durham and followed his father down a coal mine. I don’t know what brought him to Filey but he married Margaret WILLIS at the Ebenezer chapel on this day in 1912. James took his catch back to Durham and five children were born to them in quick succession, though they lost one, Thomas, before his first birthday. Because of his occupation, James did not have to go to the First War and I looked in the Register at the beginning of the Second, hoping to find the family well-set and comfortable. I found James a widower, living with his as yet unmarried second daughter Ethel in Leeholme. James was still working below ground as a “colliery filler” and Ethel seems to have been a volunteer at a First Aid Post.

Margaret had died six years earlier and I was distressed to learn she had been poisoned. Her killer did not arrive at her door in human form.

James Ward’s death was registered in Scarborough and his last address was given as West Vale, Filey in the St Oswald’s burial register. The Probate notice gives a different address.

Margaret’s mother in Filey Genealogy & Connections is Ann KIRBY, one of Kath’s “guesswork wives”. These are usually correct, as in this instance, but Ann has different parents on the FamilySearch Shared Tree. The muddle is easy to spot in Ann’s sources, but clearing it up would take more time than I have to give. Why not have a go yourself? Start here. I think Margaret’s grandparents are the couple below – but I could be wrong. 

Beach 167 · Filey Sands

Coble Landing