Duncan Dewar and Margaret Leitch, their family’s hard times and survival

Duncan Dewar, the fourth child of Argyll Gamekeeper Donald Dewar and his wife Janet MacCallum, grew up in rural Argyll, in Glassary parish.

In September 1869 he married Margaret Leitch, a labourer’s daughter from Dunoon, in Dunoon and Kilmun, Argyll.  She was already expecting the first of their ten children: Donald was born in December that year in Innellan.  By April 1871 the three of them were living at Craiginewer Cottage, Low Road in the hamlet of Innellan.  Innellan was so small as to not warrant a mention in the extract of John Bartholomew’s Gazetteer of the British Isles, 1887in the parish Genuki entry for Dunoon and Kilmun.

There weren’t just three of them for long: Neil (c1873), Margaret (1873), Janet (c1876) Anne (c1878), Duncan (c1880) had arrived before the 1881 census.  The remaining children were Christine (c1882), Peter (c1884), Mary (1886) and Dugald (1887); all were born in Innellan.  Duncan was a mason and things must have been tight with 10 children.  However things got worse for his wife and children after Duncan died of TB on 3^rd November 1890 in the Dunoon area, aged only 47, after both his legs had been amputated. 

Poor Margaret, a widow at 41 with ten children, that loss was followed the following year by the loss of her son Neil.  Although she saw her daughter Margaret marry in 1892, she herself died the following year, also of TB, on 2^nd December 1893 aged just 43.

 Her eldest son Donald was working locally by 1891 as a Baker’s Vanman, but he too died young, in October 1900, of TB and Bright’s Disease.

Oldest daughter Margaret, prior to her marriage to James Graham, had been working in April 1891 aged 18 as an nurse, the servant of John Irving, Minister.  James was a baker from Greenock.    Together they had 3 children although five were listed in the 1901 census so from the timings it looks like James, who was 10 years older than her, had been married before and the first two were from a previous marriage. By 1901 the family of 7 were living in Greenock, the other side of the Clyde from Dunoon.

Her sister Janet married too, and her husband William Tait was a Glaswegian spirits salesman.  She had been working in Govan, Glasgow, as a domestic servant by 1891 and they married in the Dunoon registration district in 1895 before having their first son George there. They were living back in Govan, though, in 1898 when son William was born, and for the censuses of 1901 and 1911.

Duncan and Margaret’s third daughter, Anne, stayed in the local area.  By the 31^st March 1901 census she had married John McKellar, a fisherman/seaman from Kilfinan in Argyll and they were still living in Dunoon in April 1911.

It seems Annie’s younger brother Duncan was the black sheep of the family.  He was only 10 when his father died and 13 when he was orphaned.  By the age of 18 he was a general labourer but in prison, shockingly convicted at Edinburgh Court of robbery with violence and sent to HM General Convict Prison in Peterhead.  This is the story as reported in the Dundee Courier on 17 June 1898,

He was still there in March 1901 for the census, but was released on 16^th December that year, ahead of his intended release date of 15 June 1903.  Perhaps he decided to start over as on 29^th September 1911 he set sail on the Numidan for Boston, USA.  However by 1915 he was back and married with a new name, and was fighting for his country in the First World War.

The next of Duncan and Margaret’s ten children was Christine.  By the age of 19 she was also in service.  She was working as a general servant of Archibald Hood, a Lecturer on Education, and his wife Mary in Kelvingrove, Glasgow.  She married John Murdoch Morrison, her cousin germaine (first cousin), in Clydebank in June 1908.  John was the Lanarkshire-born son of her Aunt Joan(a), her father’s younger sister; he was a joiner.

Peter was the next sibling; he was born c1884 and only 6 when his father died and 9 when his mother died.  I don’t know who he was with or where for the 1891 or 1901 censuses but in August 1907 when he married Annie Lloyd (a farmer’s daughter working as a domestic servant) in Clydebank he was a ship caulker (apprentice).   Within a few months he was a dad when Duncan was born in April 1908.  Like his brother Duncan he emigrated, unlike Duncan he didn’t come back, dying in Victoria, Australia and being buried in Coburg Pine Ridge Cemetery in April 1914.

Ninth child of ten, Mary, also ended up in Glasgow, she was working as a dairymaid in Pollokshaws, Renfrewshire by the age of 21.  She married a Grocer’s Assistant called Alexander Cameron and together they had two sons.

Tenth and final child of Duncan and Margaret, Dugald was born in late 1887 and was an orphan by the age of six.  Dugald was luckier than his wayward brother Duncan: he was found living with his wealthy paddle steamer captain Uncle Peter Dewar and Aunt Mary in 1901 in Dunoon when he was 13.  He married Catherine Smith in 1910 and things were looking good.  However The Scotsman reported on 3^rd September 1913 that “Dugald Dewar, carpenter, while working in Messrs Russell & Co.s Kingston Yard, Port Glasgow, fell from the bridge deck to the bottom of the vessel, a depth of about 40 feet.  His thigh was fractured, and he was otherwise injured about the head and body.  He was conveyed to Broadstone Hospital.”[1]

He died on 5^th September in Broadstone Hospital.   Catherine who was pregnant with their only son, named him after his father when he was born in March 1914 in Port Glasgow.  In 1917 the grieving Catherine took out an In Memorium in the Port Glasgow Express[2]:  

DEWAR – In loving memory of my dear husband, Piper Dugald Leitch Dewar, who died at Broadstone Hospital, Port Glasgow, on 5th September 1913.
However long my life may last,
Whatever land I view
Whatever joys or cares be mine,
I will remember thee.
Inserted by his sorrowing Wife and Son, 14 Chapelton Street, Port Glasgow.
Also, in loving memory of my dear cousin, Lance Corporal Neil McLean, who died of wounds on 5th September 1916.
One of the dearest, one of the best,

God in His mercy took him to rest.

This young family of Dewar children had such a hard time of it, losing their parents young and being (by various means) being sprinkled round either side of the Clyde.  I found them witnessing each other’s marriages when thigs had settled a bit – I’m so glad they could stay in touch.  

---

[1] The Scotsman 03 September 1913, P6, col 4

[2] Port-Glasgow Express 05 September 1917, P2, Col 2, In Memorium

---

Peter Dewar, 1840 – 1914, Master of the PS Jeanie Deans

Peter, born in Tayinloan, North Knapdale parish in January 1840, was the oldest son of gamekeeper Donald Dewar and his wife Janet MacCallum.  He had an elder sister Margaret, and nine younger brothers and sisters.

It was a rural community and he was a son of a gamekeeper so he worked on the land and was a ploughman by the age of 21, although he was living across Loch Fyne, working on Achnabreck Farm in Kilmodan, Argyll at the time of the April 1861 census.

However on 11^th March 1869 he was back closer to home, marrying Mary Macnair, a carter’s daughter from the parish of Glassary.  Mary’s baptism record said she was born in 1848 in Dunadd (an Argyll hill fort where legend has it the kinds of Dalriada were crowned in ancient times) in that parish.  Peter’s parents were living and working in Dunamuck, by Dunadd, around 1870.

Maybe Peter had already moved away from Kilmodan and Glassary by the time they had married and had come back for his wedding, but certainly by 2 April 1871 he and Mary were living at 2 John Street in Rothesey, Bute, and Peter was listed on the census as a sailor.

By 3^rd March 1881 he had risen through the ranks as he’s recorded as a Steamship Master and was found at the Ardlui Hotel in Arrochar, Dumbartonshire.  Mary was home in Bonhill, Dumbartonshire.

His sister Christina died on 10th Dec 1868, aged 18 years and 3 months and Peter paid for a family stone to be erected to honour her, and also his father Donald who died in April 1889 and his mother Janet who died in March 1891, so he must have been doing well. By April 1891 he and Mary were living at 42E Clyde Street in Helensburgh, Dumbartonshire on the River Clyde where it intersects with the Gareloch; they were also there in March 1901.

By 1895 Peter had become Captain of the Clyde Paddle Steamer Jeanie Deans (pictured), famed for being a really fast ship[1].  The Jeanie Deans was described as “built by Barclay Curle & Co in 1884 for the North British Steam Packet Co. She operated out of Craigendoran until 1896, when she was sold for service on Lough Foyle.”[2]

There is a news story in September 1890 that the ship was passing Fort Matilda, Greenock, when they were doing target practice and nearly got hit; however Peter may not have been captain by then.  In 1891 the census described him as a Seaman but in the 1901 census he was specified as a Steamboat Captain.

Peter died in 1913 in Tigh Alasdair, Ardrishaig (on Loch Gilp off Loch Fyne); Mary died, also in Ardrishaig, on 10^th May 1933.

Text copyright Lynne Black, starryblackness blog, first published 9 April 2022
Photo of the Jeanie Deans is ownership unknown.

---

[1] The Clyde Coasting Season; 06 May 1895 – Glasgow Herald – Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland

[2] Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS_Jeanie_Deans

Margaret Dewar and Archibald Campbell, Coachman: Life in the records of the local Laird

I started the story of Margaret Dewar and Archibald Campbell, Coachman to John Malcolm of Poltalloch in my previous post. As the servant of the local Laird I was able to find out how his life was affected by the life and times of the Malcolms.

In 1893 Laird John Malcolm had died.  He left many beneficiaries on his estate and he specified that Archibald, as his coachman, should receive £30, about £2,500 in current money [the National Archives Currency Converter is excellent for checking this].  He also bequeathed employees money depending on the length of their service.  He stipulated in his will that his collection of art works be kept together in the family.  However after his death it was reported that “It is announced that the famous Art Collection which belonged to the late Mr Malcolm of Poltalloch is to be made available to the British public.  The collection, now on loan in the British Museum, and though it has been left unconditionally to the present Laird of Poltalloch, he has decided to allow it to remain under certain conditions in its temporary location and to permit students to have free access thereto.”[1]

John Malcolm was succeeded by John Wingfield Malcolm[2].  Three years later he was elevated to the peerage as 1st Baron Malcolm of Poltalloch and to celebrate Lord and Lady Malcolm held a big Gala on 14 July 1896[3] to mark their first visit to Poltalloch since his elevation.  Upon arriving in his coach – an hour’s drive from Ardrishaig – presumably with Archibald driving – he arrived at Poltalloch where 1,500 people including local dignitaries, staff and “about 70 representatives  of H Company of the 56^th VBA and S Highlanders, of which regiment Lord Malcolm is colonel commanding, were also drawn up in line as a guard of honour.”  There were speeches and addresses.  “During the entire ceremony and the afternoon the weather was good, and the large crowd enjoyed themselves in the neighbourhood for several hours before leaving for home.”

A few months later Lord John W Malcolm was widowed; the first Lady [Alice] Malcolm was cremated in October 1896 in Glasgow[4].  A newspaper report of 11 December 1897 reported he had remarried, to widow Marie Lister, in New York[5]. 

On 6^th March 1902 Lord John W Malcolm died and was succeeded by his brother Colonel Edward Donald Malcolm.  The latter was known as Laird but the Barony had become extinct[6]. His will was read[7]; his estate was worth £360,172, 6s & 10d, which in today’s money is £28,155,464.33.

Less well reported is the family’s link to slavery; in the 18^th and 19^th centuries “According to research by the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership, during the 18th and 19th centuries, the Malcolm family greatly increased their wealth due to their activities in slave trading and their ownership of plantations in Jamaica, redeploying their slave-derived wealth in agrarian improvement and infrastructure in Britain.[8] The records show that Neill Malcolm the 12th, owned more than 2000 enslaved people on 11 separate plantations[9]  The 12th Laird opposed Abolition and claimed thousands (millions of pounds in modern money,[10] in compensation for the loss of his slaves in 1834 from the Slave Compensation Commission.”[11] Neill Malcolm or 13th of Poltalloch was also involved with clearances on their estates.  By coincidence on holiday we visited Castle Trune (a nearby Argyll property and now home of the Malcolms) across the water from Crinan and heard that a small sea loch we walked round was known as the ‘Port of Tears’ as ships would come in for local people to embark, join a larger vessel, and leave the area for ever.[12]

Port of Tears bay, Duntrune Estate

A newspaper report in 1902 it mentions that “In 1857 he [Lord John Wingfield Malcolm] visited Australia, North and South America, and the West Indies”.[13]. 

On the morning of 22^nd November 1904 Poltalloch House caught fire with the flames spreading rapidly “Shortly after seven o’clock… one of the domestic servants in Poltalloch House …. Noticed sparks flying about outside the building, and on going out to see where they came from, discovered smoke issuing from under the eaves at the west front corner of the main and newer portion of the building.  The alarm was immediately given, and a large number of the estate and house servants were speedily on the spot, endeavouring to get at the seat of the fire, which is believed to have originated in a flue from a fireplace in the corridor on the ground floor.  The flames first broke out in a dressing room at the corner of the main building, and notwithstanding all efforts by fire extinguishing apparatus and an abundant supply of water, brought into service, it spread very rapidly”[14]

“… an hour after the outbreak was discovered, the whole roof was involved and subsequently fell in, and the upper flat was completely gutted while the lower was greatly damaged by water and otherwise.  The fire was got under about noon.  It is meantime impossible to state the amount of loss, but it is understood that the property was insured.”[15] , “While the fire was in progress a number of willing workers removed a large quantity of the more valuable furniture etc, special attention being given to the contents of the library; but notwithstanding their exertions, the loss is very great, including a collection of rare and extinct birds, said to be among the most valuable in the country”[16].

I found out these facts about the Malcolms mainly by searching Poltalloch/Portalloch in the BNA Newspaper archives using my FindMyPast subscription, it gave me the sort of rare family information I’ve only been able to find through links with wealthy, military or worthy employers.

Margaret died on 23 February 1910 of a stroke.  She had still been living in Roundfield Cottage on the Poltalloch estate.  Archibald died ten years later, in June 1920, also at Roundfield Cottage, his home for 50 years.

Original text copyright Lynne Black, first published on the Starryblackness blog on 20 March 2022

---

[1] Dundee Evening Telegraph 17 July 1893, P2, col4

[2] WikiTree Clan MacCallum History https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Clan_MacCallum_History

[3] Glasgow Herald 15 July 1896 P3

[4] Coventry Evening Telegraph 17 October 1896

[5] Manchester Evening News 11 December 1897

[6] Wikipedia ohn Malcolm, 1st Baron Malcolm of Poltalloch   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Malcolm,_1st_Baron_Malcolm_of_Poltalloch

[7] Highland News 26 April 1902, P3 Col 1

[8]  “Neill Malcolm 11th of Poltalloch”. Legacies of British Slave-Ownership. UCL.

[9] “Entry for 12th Poltalloch”. Legacies of British Slave-Ownership. UCL.

[10]  “Malcolm family entries”. Legacies of British Slave-Ownership. UCL.

[11] Wikipedia: Clan Malcolm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Malcolm

[12] Deserted Settlements of Kilmartin Parish by Allan Begg, p14

[13] Henley Advertiser, 15 March 1902, P2, Col 2 from BNA collection of FindMyPast

[14] Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette 23 November 1904, P2, Col 5

[15] Edinburgh Evening News 23 November 1904, P2, Col 7

[16] Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette 23 November 1904, P2, Col5

Margaret Dewar, Archibald Campbell, Argyll Coachman and Family

Margaret, the oldest of 11 children of Donald Dewar and Janet McCallum, was born in 1837 on Experiment Farm, Kilmartin, Argyll, where her father was a gamekeeper. The June 1861 census finds her  with her grandmother and namesake Margaret Dewar on Experiment Farm while her parents and their next child Peter, were down in North Knapdale parish at Strath Mill a few miles away.

IIn the 1861 census she appears to be staying at the inn in Dalmally, run by the Jarratt family, at the top of Loch Awe. [Dalmally was later the birthplace of Scottish Labour Leader John Smith.] Somewhere she met a stableman called Archibald Campbell, the son of an agricultural labourer, and on 8^th June 1865 they married in Kilmichael Glassary parish [neighbouring Kilmartin].  Archibald was five years older than her and an agricultural labourer who’d been born in Crinan, about five miles from Experiment.  His type of agricultural work wasn’t specified until the April 1871 census: he was a Stable Helper.

They were by then living in Roundfield Cottage on the Poltalloch estate, the property of local Laird John Malcolm[1].  By then they had three sons: Donald, Alexander and John.  Margaret and Archibald were to live in that cottage for the rest of their lives.  By the April 1881 census they had five further children: Archibald, Catherine, Elizabeth R B, Charles and Margaret.

Poltalloch House, photo credit unknown

In that year Archibald was still working as a stable helper so Margaret (by then aged 43) was recorded as a stable helper’s wife.  There must have been hard times as in December 1881 John Malcolm reduced tenants’ rents by 7.5% to 15%, depending on the length of the lease, having ‘considered the heavy losses sustained by his tenants on the estate’.[2]

By the April 1891 census both Margaret’s parents had died: Donald in April 1889 and Janet in March 1891; both were buried in Kilmartin Church’s graveyard.  In that census Archibald is described as a Coachman.  By then he was 59 and Margaret 54.

Three of their sons had taken up their father’s trade. 

Oldest son Alexander had moved to Dalmeny Park [3] in Linlithgow-shire by April 1891, where he was living in the house of the factor Andrew Drysdale and his wife Jane and working as a coachman.  It appears that this may have been to the Primrose family, the Earl of Rosebury.  He met Mary Liddie/Leddy, a young woman of Irish descent who was working as a domestic servant to the Barrie family in Edinburgh Old Town.  The Barries were a family of watch-makers and jewellers and appear to have done well. 

After having a few children in Edinburgh/Dalmeny, Alexander and Mary and their family moved to Eccles in Berwickshire where Alexander was recorded in the March 1901 census working as a coachman.  Their daughter Janet was born in 1903 back in Roundfield Cottage at Archibald and Margaret’s home, but by 1905 they had moved to Roxburghshire for the birth of the first of their Melrose-born daughters.  Alexander died many years later in 1958 aged 92.

Margaret and Archibald’s second son, Donald, was a Stable Helper aged 15 (1881) and a groom aged 25 (1891), both in Kilmartin, probably for John Malcolm.  By 1901 he was working at Achnamara House as a coachman, but for Lord Malcolm’s brother, Edward D Malcolm.  On 31^st March, the census date, Edward and Isabel Malcom were home with their two daughters and extended family, including the Malcolm’s splendidly named 13-year-old cousin called Theophilus Wingfield Harley.  Just a few months later Edward D Malcom would go on to inherit the title from his brother.

John, Archibald and Margaret’s third son, was also recorded as a groom in 1891.  However, by then he has moved through to Caputh in Perthshire, there he was lodging in Glendelvine Cottage; with coachman Hugh McLachlan and family.  The following year, in 1892, John married Christina Pettigrew in St Andrews and St Leonards parish, which is in St Andrews, Fife.  They had a son in Fife before moving back to Kilmartin for the birth of daughters in 1896 and 1899.  In March 1901 the census records John as a Coachman (domestic) in neighbouring Glassary parish where they lived at the Porter Lodge – a note in an Ancestry online tree I found suggests it may have been to the Duke but I can’t corroborate that. 

Fourth son Archibald, born in 1872, also started out working in the stables, and was recorded as a coachman in February 1889. However on that day he attested to the Highland Light Infantry in Glasgow so presumably either it wasn’t for him or his brothers had taken all the good coachman jobs.  Attestation papers describe him as “5’5″ tall, 126lb, 33.5 inch chest, fresh complexion, blue eyes and dark brown hair.  Scars of cuts left forefinger and thumb”. Unfortunately he was discharged 4 years later with palpitations after several entries on his medical records. His discharge papers describe him as “Regular habits/conduct, very good, temperate”  I can’t see a record for him in 1901 or 1911 but in 1919, aged 46, he married Catherine Ross in Anderston, Lanarkshire.

The first of Archibald and Catherine’s two daughters, Catherine, was born in December 1873 and grew up in Roundfield Cottage on the Poltallach estate. In April 1881 she was a 7-year-old scholar, but by the age of 17 the Census finds her working as a domestic servant for Mr and Mrs Brodie, the gamekeeper, in the gamekeeper’s house Mheall House. I think it may be Mheall Cottage, handily listed now and looking very smart on Airbnb.  On 13 July 1898 she married Duncan Gillies in St Vincent Street, Glasgow.  Duncan, who was 6 years older than her, was in the Merchant Service and was working and living as 1^st Mate on the SS Effie Grey of Glasgow.  His work might be the reason that the second of their ten children was born back on Poltalloch Estate in Roundfield Cottage.

Catherine’s younger sister Elizabeth was born in 1876 and she lived in Roundfield Cottage until the age of 23, when in 1899 she suddenly marries a man called Thomas Stevenson in Glasgow – an Irregular Marriage by Warrant.  Thomas was a ploughman on Dolphington Farm in Dalmeny in West Lothian, so maybe they met through a connection with Catherine’s oldest brother, Alexander, who worked in Dalmeny for a while. 

The seventh – and youngest – son of Margaret and Archibald Campbell was called Charles and he also grew up in and around the stables: in the 1891 census when he was 22 his occupation in Kilmartin was recorded as ‘drawing carriage, carts or wagon’.  Charles met a girl called Janet Johnson and they married in Carlisle, Cumberland, over the border in England, in late 1906.  They had sons in 1908 and 1910 in Hoddom, Dumfries-shire, Scotland.  By now it was the early 20^th century and the times were a’changing: in April 1911 was working as a Motor Driver Domestic and back living in Carlisle with Janet and two children.

The youngest child, Margaret, born c1811, also left the county.  By the March 1901 census she was working in Lasswade, Midlothian in Crawfurah, Lasswade was the home of Naval man Bernie A Cator and his wife Violet.  Margaret was a tablemaid and one of their four servants.  Ten years later Bernie was living in South Kensington and listed as Deputy Master Attendant Singapore At Lieutenant Royal Navy.  However, Margaret had left the household by then after marrying William More in 1904 in Innerleithen in the Borders county of Peeblesshire.  They returned to Midlothian and were living there in 1904 and 1905 when they had two sons.

To be continued. The news stories quoted in this article were from the British Newspaper Archive collection on FindMyPast. The records which constructed the story have been found on Scotland’s People, Ancestry and FindMyPast.

Copyright Lynne Black, First published on StarryBlackness blog site on 13 March 2022

---

[1] Wikipedia: John Malcolm, 1^st Baron Malcolm of Poltalloch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Malcolm,_1st_Baron_Malcolm_of_Poltalloch

[2] Edinburgh Evening News 09 December 1881 P2

[3] Dalmeny Park: https://www.britainexpress.com/attractions.htm?attraction=1204  and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalmeny_House

Searching for Experiment Farm: Tricks and Hidden Histories

Seven years ago I wrote about my ancestor-in-law Donald Dewar who had been a gamekeeper in Kilmartin parish of Argyll, Scotland:  #52Ancestors #34 Donald Dewar, the man from Experiment  The post has received comments over the years, including a couple last year about the farm and draining the land.

Obviously 2020 didn’t give us the opportunity to head back to Argyll, but as I’ve had annual leave to use up we decided to book a last-minute break and finally got back there for the first time in 4 years this weekend.  I spent the day before we went adding the necessary facts to one of my essential yellow ‘The Family Record’ books from Aberdeen & North-East Scotland Family History Society (I think they’re maybe on a different edition now) which I could easily have handy in case I needed to check years and places.  I also took Allan Begg’s Deserted Settlements of Kilmartin Parish book which is a mine of otherwise-lost specialist local information.  It was a lucky choice of weekend as the weather for most of the time there was glorious, the best I’ve ever experienced there. 

After studying books and maps we decided to visit the flat area of land which appeared to be the prime suspect in terms of location and grid lines. So we took a minor detour on the road from Crinan to Kilmartin to get a look at what was currently there: a (later) farm, some very flat fields and a big sky.  It was a working farm so I didn’t get too close and intrusive.

Kilmartin Church with Donald Dewar’s gravestone in foreground

We were staying at the Kilmartin Hotel and wandered round Kilmartin Churchyard with its old and ancient stones, directly over the road, soon after we arrived.  However the sun was so bright on the Saturday evening that we needed to go back on the Sunday morning to make reading inscriptions easier.  I also took photos of a couple of other stones specifically mentioning Experiment to see if I can see the names on the census records next to the Dewars’ entries, perhaps. 

On a tourist note, we crammed in as much as we could into 48 hours, all of which I would recommend visiting if you’re in the area:

• Kilmartin Glen Neolithic site, a valley of cairns, standing stones and stone circles,
• Crinan where the Canal opens up to the west coast
• Duntrune Castle Gardens and the ‘Port of Tears’[1] beach next to it, where local Ardifuar emigrants, towards the end of the 18th century, bound for the New World (because of landlord policies) would leave the parish to join the bigger ship at Crinan.
• Tayvallich, where Donald McCalman, a different ancestor, taught in the 19^th century and which is now village with a big yachting community,
• Tayinish National Nature Reserve and
• Keills Chapel  with its carved cross and gravestones and the jetties round the corner where the drovers landed the cattle from Jura.

Nether Largie Stones, Kilmartin Glen, Argyll

So back to the family history…

When we got back home I remembered a web page I discovered randomly through an academic’s tweet: the News Literacy Project site: Eight tips to Google like a pro.  I followed the tips in this and was able to accurately narrow down the search results relating to Experiment.  I already knew that Donald Dewar had not only worked on Experiment Farm but had been a game keeper on the tiny Island Macaskin (Eilean MhicAsgain) in Loch Craignis. The sources turned up in the search results gave further information about the farm, about how lime kilns were found not only in Experiment but had been built on the island, and how Island Macaskin tenants had to ferry lime annually to Malcolm, their local Laird, at Duntrune [2]. Another result gave background info to the construction from c1796 of Experiment following the arrival of James Gow from Perthshire[3].

One aspect of the story of the local area I hadn’t anticipated were search engine results referring to how Neil Malcolm’s estate and works had been funded by plantations in Jamaica[4] I also discovered that an Experiment Farm Cottage exists in NSW, Australia.  It turned out to be unrelated; however a few clicks later I found reference to a Poltalach south-east of Adelaide, South Australia, in the Hundred of Malcolm.

This tied in with a reference I found in a Highland Clearances: The Ballad of Arichonan blog post[5] about clearances by Neil Malcolm 3^rd in 1848 in the village of Arichonan (north of Tayvallich, just south of Crinan and Experiment).  This lead to riots, and later to trials at Inverary after months of imprisonment in Inverary Jail.  That blog refers to Malcolm’s offer of deporting people to Australia, which ties in with the South Australia reference above and the ‘Port of Tears’ deportation reference for Ardifuar next to Duntrune.  None of our Dewars of Kilmartin or McCalmans of Tayvallich are listed as being involved but I’m entirely sure that both families would have been following developments avidly.

So Arichonan is now on the list of places to visit next time we’re in Argyll.

Maybe I’m a bit creaky with my internet searching techniques, but perhaps I’m not the only one.  So I hope that the suggestions on the News Literacy Project site: Eight tips to Google like a pro leads to as many discoveries of ancestors’ context and stories for you as it has for me.

© Text and photos copyright Lynne Black 6 August 2021
First published: https://starryblackness.wordpress.com/2021/08/06/searching-tricks-and-hidden-histories/

---

[1] Allan Begg’s Deserted Settlements of Kilmartin Parish

[2] Prehistoric Monumentality in the Kilmartin Glen, Mid Argyll by Duncan Houston Abernethy.  University of Glasgow Masters thesis.  September 2000, pp17-21

[3] Kilmartin Graveyard Dalriada Project, Desk Based Assessment, May 2009

[4] Country houses and the British Empire, 1700–1930. Stephanie Barczewski. Manchester University Press, 1 Feb 2017. P78.

[5] Highland Clearances: The Ballad of Arichonan.  ImagineAlba website, accessed 3 August 2021 https://www.imaginealba.com/single-post/the-anatomy-of-a-highland-clearance-the-ballad-of-arichonan

Recording a Family Autobiography

This June, just as we came out of lockdown, my mother was taken ill.  It turns out that she must have been ill for many months, but after seeing hardly anyone since late March, the change in her health and colouring appeared drastic when her sister-in-law dropped off some food for her.

Mary Brown

Tests and examinations were started but we knew from the start that things were looking bad.  Even before we received confirmation of the test results my brother and I were making arrangements to join her at her home in Cornwall for her last few weeks, me from Scotland and my brother from his new posting in the Gulf. 

Everyone from work had been working remotely since March in any case, so I spoke with my very supportive bosses and we agreed that I would be working mornings at my mum’s house and using up annual leave in the afternoons.  So I bought a monitor, arranged for internet access to be installed, and my husband made a 1,200 mile round trip from Scotland to drop me off.

My brother and I managed two treasured weeks with Mum at her home before she went into a local hospice.

On my first day down she surprised me by saying that she wanted me to type up her story.  Fine, I’m a secretary and a family historian, so I’m glad both came together for something so important.

Mum was a great organiser of parties and get-togethers, so had several occasional tables.  One of these was just the right size for me to get my legs under and to hold a laptop and mouse (I hate those curser squares laptops have!) and I was ready. I felt like a court stenographer, sitting at my little table.

We started at the very beginning, for, as the song goes, it’s a very good place to start.  I think that Mum had assumed she would focus more on her career and family, although just having her voice heard was of huge importance to her as she hasn’t always had the opportunity to speak her views and thoughts. 

Mary c.1947

However, I had so many questions about her childhood that I wrote pages about that.  What did she and her friends do after school?  Where did she play? What were her favourite things? What did her school uniform feel like? What was her favourite food?  How did her family celebrate Christmas? She eventually said in exasperation “Why are you so interested in this? It’s not interesting! I want to move on now.  No-one is interested in this!”  My brother and I said in unison “Yes we are!”  I told her I was going to Laurie-Lee her.

So Mum went on to tell me about her University days at London then Oxford, and her early jobs and holidays, her holidays pre-marriage and of married life with children in Norwich, her second career as a civil servant and computer programmer, the next stage of her life after separation from my dad, her love of badminton and walking.  She spoke of her return to Cornwall and the initial struggle to re-establish a social life which maintaining her love of culture and quenching her thirst for art, history and poetry, and for exploring new places.

Please do check out the story of Mum’s childhood in the Cornish fishing town of Newlyn: Memories of a Newlyn Childhood by Mary Brown.

mary_glover_brown_newlyn_childhood_memoirsDownload

After two weeks Mum was getting frail and in need of constant care and pain management, so when the place at St Julia’s Hospice came up she accepted it straight away.  She was keen to keep on with her story so I took along an A4 pad and a shorthand pencil and made notes leaning on the edge of her bed which I would type up in the evening before we moved on to the next stories.  It was also useful to have to make notes of what we were still to talk about in the time we had together, which was clearly running out fast as she was almost too weak to talk. 

We finished her story up to 9 months previously, when she had turned 80.  I could do that last part myself as I’d been at the week-long(!) get-together for family and closest friends which she arranged in a Norfolk cottage we hired for a week.  So instead I asked her about her favourite things, TV and radio programmes and their theme tunes, favourite music and artistes, the many places she’s been on holiday, about being a grandparent, her favourite perfumes and clothes shops and actors she’d seen on stage, which included Laurence Olivier.  Later when she was too weak to talk I read poetry to her, which might not have occurred to me if she hadn’t told me how important it was to her, and my brother read extracts from walking holiday guidebooks she’d used over the course of many happy holidays.

Mum passed away on 5^th August and was buried on 18^th August, and I went home a couple of days later.  Over the next two months I scanned more than 550 photographs and edited her story.  It came to about 50 pages, of which 10 were her school days.

If you’re thinking of doing this for relatives, hopefully without the pressing deadline, these are some points I would suggest both from writing mum’s story and from wider experience chatting to family:

• Ask open questions, eg “What was it like?” rather than “Did you like it?”
• Random questions like “What did it smell like?” can give unexpected results and give context not recorded by history books.
• Be aware that some issues are too painful or shameful for older relatives to think about; they are not obliged to share everything private.
• Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t remember quite what was said.  There came a point where I thought “I can’t read this sentence of notes, but I don’t think it’s essential to the paragraph”.
• Record it if you can but after bereavement it may be very hard to hear your loved one’s voice for a long time.
• You can keep it chronological; alternatively think about structuring what was said into themes, eg school days, festivals and celebrations, the war.
• Have the first page as a simple title and ideally a photo of your family member or their home, don’t just launch into pages of text.
• Share your work so it’s not lost to posterity, even if it’s just a family shared Cloud space like OneDrive.  Consider saving in in several formats.   A paper copy does not require superseded technology unlike eg a video does.  Even the large blog sites might not exist forever and their content may be lost. Some professions might have dedicated archives, eg teaching, nursing and military archives.  Other biographies may sit well in a local place archive (Mum’s is stored in Newlyn Archive) or family history society, or as part of a one-place study.

But above all, don’t leave it too late. I learnt so much about my mum but didn’t get much chance to actually discuss it with her.

Words and images copyright Lynne Black, First published on starryblackness blog, 22 November 2020.

Clearing a Family House – Safeguarding the Memories

Mum

My inspirational and lively mother passed away last week, on Wednesday 5^th August, after a short illness. I have already started her story of course, and will share that when it’s ready. Mum passed in a marvelous hospice near the home she loved which she had filled with laughter, love and joyous and beautiful things for 25 years.

This is the first time I’ve ever had to clear a house (with my fantastic and supportive brother who has worked even harder than me) and it’s a lot of work.  Fortunately my managers have been very supportive and I used up annual leave as half-days prior to her passing so I could work (very) remotely and visit her in the hospice in the afternoon.

Mum supported a startling number of charities by direct debit so we thought she would like us to keep that going.  So I have cleared out four double wardrobes, with the clothing going to the hospice’s charity shop, and both pretty and functional – things shared between them and various local charities. She lined her drawers and wardrobes with soaps and these and unused toiletries have gone to local food banks, as has some of her Brexit-later-Covid pile of tins and jars.

We have taken blankets and sheets to local dog charities for them to use as bedding.  So now the house and shed drastically less full – although looking at the living room floor at the moment you wouldn’t know it!  And my brother has almost earned a frequent flyer award at the local recycling centre for recycling and rubbish.

And apparently there are companies which do house clearances, which has lifted my spirits enormously in regards to removing the unwanted furniture and reducing the number of 1,200 mile round-trips required for either/both of us, especially as the second wave of Covid is growing to engulf England and return us to lockdown.

One lovely unexpected treasure trove in the wardrobe was a set of clothes which mum wore at university between 1957 and 1962, plus when she started work after that as a teacher, and her beloved caftan from the 1970s.  Finding them was amazing, so personal and touching.  The cute dresses I’ll keep but for others I’ll have to think about a suitable destination, maybe a vintage clothes shop.

And I’m just starting to think about the potentially valuable ‘Cash In The Attic’ things, although there are hardly any candidates, just a very few bits of crystal and perhaps some retro 70s toys, and a box of vintage postcards. My dad [he and mum separated a long time ago] has used auction houses to sell things and kindly suggested this to me. This gave me hope that the things I wouldn’t want to keep but wouldn’t want to trash can perhaps be sold and bought by collectors.  I doubted that there would be any in Penzance, at the far west of Cornwall, but there are actually four to check out, which I will hopefully have time to do around clearing the house and arranging the funeral which is set for next week.  If not then I can just do it back home in Scotland when I return after the funeral.

What treasures lie within…

So those are the earthly things.  What lies – literally – ahead of me now is a pile of four carrier bags each with a label on them with ‘My Life’ written on them.  Wow.

The documents inside had been kept in a suitcase in the loft with a fifth bag.  That one was easier to sort as it contained either letters she’d received from family and friends, so with a box for my letters and a box for my brother’s letters that wasn’t too hard.  And disconcertingly will therefore be a record of my life rather than hers.  There were too many letters to read them all yesterday but the couple I had a quick look at were chatty and written in a much younger more exuberant style, even down to the handwriting.

There were also cards from her parents, aunts and uncles; I think that I may just keep a few as the messages inside were very simple and similar.  I like seeing people’s signatures on census returns and marriage certificates and scan them in as a personal record of the individual.

I’ve been managing my grief well I think, mainly because I had four weeks with mum and my brother, who returned from overseas to support her, before she passed which was a privilege as it gave us time to accept, adapt and say our goodbyes.  This is especially valuable given that just days before that I wouldn’t have been allowed to travel because of lock-down.  There have been so many tens of thousands of bereft families in the UK alone whose loved ones were taken away suddenly to hospital and never come back, without even a visit allowed; that must have been horrific.

I plan to honour her memory by placing the story of her childhood in the fishing port of Newlyn in the local archive.  We’ll also have a longer – un-redacted! – version of her entire life to keep within the family.  But in the first instance I have those four carrier bags waiting for me.  It will be a challenge sorting them I think, and unlike yesterday I will keep a box of tissues handy.  But hopefully, like yesterday, the predominant feelings will be love and admiration.

Copyright Lynne Black
First published 12 August 2020 https://starryblackness.wordpress.com/2020/08/12/safeguarding-the-memories/

Peter Jaco – a Gentleman’s son? – and Catherine Noall Kelynack (pt1)

Peter was born at the end of the 18^th century in the Cornish fishing village of Street-an-Nowan (Newlyn), 7 miles from Land’s End. He was baptised on 11 November 1787, in the years before the kept census returns and a time when it suddenly becomes a lot harder for a family historian to piece together their life stories remotely, being largely dependent on the transcriptions of kind devotees to history and the local area.

Newlyn, Old Harbour, low tide

His father was a fisherman named Benjamin Jaco and his mother was Mary Downing.  Benjamin was 10 years older than his wife and married aged 34, with their honeymoon baby Elizabeth being baptised on 15 November 1785. Peter was baptised on 11 November 1787. Little Elizabeth must have died infancy for their third (and final known) child was also named Elizabeth, baptised on 12 December 1790.

The family were comfortably off, with Benjamin’s will, written in November 1793, leaving property to his son Peter and a sum of £40 [£3,000 2018 equivalent] to daughter Elizabeth with his ‘dear wife Mary’ to live in their house until death or remarriage as long as she kept it in good repair.[1]

Peter was born in the reign of George III, with the Colony of New South Wales being established when he was a babe in arms, the French Revolution breaking out when he was just a toddler, and his teens and twenties were the times of the Napoleonic Wars. However he had family battles to fight until he was about 30 years old when he finally claimed his inheritance.

Benjamin died within a couple of years of making his will when his family was still young but for reasons unknown they were not able to prove his will for many years. Therefore it appears that instead of staying in the house they lived with Benjamin [possibly Lyndale in Orchard Place, Street-an-nowan?] Mary needed to take her children and live nearby, down the hill nearer the harbour, in Fradgan [street], Newlyn.[2] On 7 January 1796 she signed a 99-year lease on behalf of her and her son, for some land held by George Blewett Esq of Helston to build a fence or buttress to protect her house against the sea.

Peter was recorded as a fisherman, and signed his wedding register on 20 March 1807 when he, aged ~20 years, and local girl Catherine Noall Kelynack, married in Paul Parish Church; Catherine marked the register and her father was one of the witnesses. She had been baptised in Paul Parish Church in August 1786. Her parents were Charles Kelynack and Elizabeth Richards. I have no record of Charles’ profession but given it was a fishing village it is likely to have been on the sea, or in some linked profession (one of Catherine’s brothers was a shipwright).

Catherine is described on most documents as being from Paul parish, but the 1851 census described her as having been born in Madron, the adjacent parish.  I suspect she was born in Tolcarne which is immediately next to Street-an-Nowan so her parents chose to worship at Paul Parish Church.  She had five known brothers and sisters.

The first of Peter and Catherine’s eight known children born over the next 23 years was baptised on 12 August 1807, named Peter for his father, and after him came Benjamin after Peter’s father, baptised on 1 November 1810. Next came two daughters, Jane (bpt 15 August 1813) and Honour (bpt 28 August 1816). William was baptised on 4 August 1819, Charles Kelynack (for Catherine’s father) on 1 February 1822, Matilda on 19 September 1826 and Richard Richards (for Catherine’s mother’s family) on 1 December 1830. All were baptised up the hill in Paul Parish Church.

Finally in 1816 Peter was able to inherit the land and property left to him in his father’s 1793 will.  Both the Executors Francis Hitchens Jacka, John Jaco, and Charles Jacka having all died before it was proved and on 20 September 1816 Peter swore a canonical oath and affidavit and was able to inherit, providing he carried out a complete inventory for the court by the end of December 1816.

Words and photos © Lynne Black
First published 11 November 2018 on https://starryblackness.wordpress.com/

[1] Archdeaconry of Cornwall, Probate Court, Cornwall County Archives ref AP/J/2241

[2] Cornwall County Archives ref X573/114

Elizabeth Kelynack later Gill – the Bugle Inn’s Cornish Innkeeper

Paul Parish Church

Ending up the widowed innkeeper 300 miles from her Cornish home town was probably not a path Elizabeth Kelynack had expected as a young girl growing up in the last decade of the 18^th century.  She was born in the parish of Paul, probably in the fishing village of Newlyn, and was baptised at Paul Church on 20 July 1790, she was the third of seven known children of fisherman Charles Kelynack and his wife Elizabeth Richards. Elizabeth is my 6x Great-Aunt [AKA 5^th great grand aunt].

However, Hampshire man Richard Gill sailed into town with the Merchant Navy; a man 2 years older than herself, they married on 20 July 1810.

Perhaps he was away from Elizabeth a lot at sea as I’ve found no records of any children until daughter Sally was baptised in 1825, 15 years after their marriage.  Daughter Mary Ann was born c 1826 in Hampshire, and Julia Ann was baptised on 16 September 1832 in Hamble.  Fourth daughter Emma was born c 1834 in Hamble and fifth and final known child, their son Charles, was born in spring 1839. In 1836 Richard Gill of Hamble has been reported in Merchant Navy records [accessed via Find My Past] as being Master of the Palmyria of Southampton.

Hamble-le-Rice [Hamble for short] is an old village in Hampshire between Southampton and Poole on the south coast of England. The earliest recording of its river [as Homelea] was in 720 AD[i]. Although the village wasn’t recorded in the Doomsday Book, a priory was established there in 1109[ii][iii].

In June 1841 the family was living in Hamble near the Victory Inn and sharing their home with baker Henry Bath, his wife Jane and baby Sarah.  Sadly I can’t find any records about Elizabeth and Richard’s son Charles after the June 1841 census.

Three years later Elizabeth was widowed, in February 1844, and Richard’s burial took place in Hamble on 6 February 1844.  He was aged 54.

Later that year their second daughter Mary Ann married Thomas Price on 24 September 1844. He was working in 1851 as a Beer House Keeper in Portsea [Portsmouth].

Oldest daughter Sally married courier James Corin (also Cornish-born and living in Hampshire) on 14 February 1848 and had three children, Julia (c1852 later a draper’s assistant, later Smart), James (c May 1859, later a surveyor in Wandsworth) and Sarah Margaret (c 1862 later Rowse) in Southampton, Hampshire.

Whether or not it was coincidence that her son-in-law Thomas Price was a Beer House Keeper, by March 1851 Elizabeth herself was working as a victualler at the Bugle Inn in Hamble.  Emma, her 21-year-old dressmaker youngest daughter, was living at home and they had lodgers, two oyster merchants named George Williamson and William Ost(?).  Her oldest daughter Sally and Sally’s husband James Corin were visiting.  A servant named Charles Hurst who worked as a waterman completed the household that day.

Julia Ann, Elizabeth and Richard’s third daughter, married her first husband, William Alfred Ayling in spring 1850 in Portsea Island and they lived in Hamble-le-Rice until his death in early 1858.  He had been working as a fishmonger and together they’d had four children, Ellen, Margaret, daughter J..?… and James Richard.  Julia Ann remarried in 1861, her husband was Yorkshire-born stone-mason William A Marsden, and they moved away to Lambeth, Surrey, before April 1871 after their son William had been born in Hamble c1862.

Elizabeth’s youngest daughter, dressmaker Emma, married her first husband, mariner John Vant, in summer 1852 aged 18.  Together they had four children, John, William, Albert and Emma, before John died in spring 1865.  Emma married a widowed Hamble man called Truman Riddett, a mariner, on 27 November 1869. Emma had had a daughter, Elizabeth Vant, c 1869 just before they married, so possibly baby Elizabeth was Truman’s daughter. Truman also had a 10-year-old daughter Louisa and 8-year-old son Frederick to complete their household.

White’s Directory of 1859[iv] lists “Gill Eliz., Bugle Inn” in Hamble which is then “a small village and parish of 443 souls, and only about 600 acres of land”.  I also found a summary of the history of the Bugle Inn[v] via the Hamble Local History Society site – what a genealogy treat!

In the 1861 census Elizabeth is recorded in Hamble as Inn Keeper although annoyingly the census page doesn’t specify the address.  In her household are her married daughter Mary Price, a young visitor called Margaret Ashby, Elizabeth’s Water Man Charles Hurst again and a bricklayer from Birmingham who was lodging with her that night called Thomas Collington.

The 1871 census finds her occupation described as a ‘Widow of a Captain MS’ [Merchant Service]. She was her own 1-person household but in the same building was the household of Truman and Emma Riddett (her youngest daughter) with Truman a sailor and a shell-fish smack worker [shell-fish was a local industry]. Emma’s five Vant children were living with them, with 14-year-old John a servant and the younger children at school.

By April 1881 Elizabeth was living with Emma and Truman Riddett in Back Street, Hamble and after years of solo innkeeping was recorded as an Innkeeper’s Widow.  She died in 1882 at the grand old age of 91.

Websites used:

• Hamble Local History Society http://www.hamblehistory.org.uk/community/hamble-local-history-society-12978/about-us
• British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/hants/vol3/pp469-471
• Genuki http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/HAM/HambleleRice
• A Vision of Britain http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/4763
• Ancestry UK
• Find My Past

Words copyright Lynne Black
First published at https://starryblackness.wordpress.com/2018/01/03/elizabeth-kelynack-newlyn/ on 3 January 2018

[i] Hamble Local History Society, accessed 31 December 2017  http://www.hamblehistory.org.uk/community/hamble-local-history-society-12978/hamble—brief-history/

[ii] British History Online, accessed 31 December 2017 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/hants/vol3/pp469-471

[iii] Hamble Local History Society, accessed 31 December 2017  http://www.hamblehistory.org.uk/community/hamble-local-history-society-12978/hamble—brief-history/

[iv] White’s Directory 1859, accessed via Hamble Local History Society, 31 December 2017 http://www.hamblehistory.org.uk/shared/attachments.asp?f=92f85852-4a70-491b-9ebb-f1f6379b1f1a%2Epdf

[v] Hamble Local History Society, history of the Bugle Inn, Accessed 31 December 2017 http://www.hamblehistory.org.uk/shared/attachments.asp?f=11895498-c343-4ffb-bb5d-a2ae08a1cc9e%2Epdf

Simon Downing and his Argentinian family: discovering argbrit.org

Paul Parish Church

My distant aunt Mary Richards Kelynack grew up as a fisherman’s daughter but her descendants were to end up criss-crossing the south Pacific between Argentina and England.

She was born in Newlyn in Cornwall, probably in the first half of 1792, when George III was on the throne. She married John Downing, a local man and also a fisherman, and together they had 7 children.

Generally the family seemed to be like many of my other Newlyn fishing families I’ve looked at recently, where children were born to fisherman, fished or made nets or worked in the home, then had fisherman sons and daughters who married fishermen and stayed in the parish, usually Newlyn itself: in Mary’s case they were called Simon, Grace, Benjamin, Mary, Henry, Jane and John.  So it was a surprise, when looking at their oldest child Simon’s story, to find that in 1881 he and Elizabeth his wife had a grand-daughter with them on the night of the 3 April census. And she had been born in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

When trying to find out more about her on Ancestry and FindMyPast files were unavailable with my UK package, although Ancestry kept suggesting records I may be interested in but whose names I didn’t at that point recognise.  So I asked for help in the Facebook group Ancestry UK [no relation to the Ancestry UK company] and a couple of kind members give me info on a census record, and also gave me the link to the site www.argbrit.org which has been invaluable in providing the missing pieces of the puzzle of Simon’s descendants.

Simon married local girl Grace James on 30 December 1838 and their son John James Downing was baptised 10 months later, in Paul Parish Church above Newlyn, where the majority of my family’s life-marking events took place. Sadly she died in early April 1841 and was buried in Paul parish, with her son less than 2 years old.  She is likely to have been in her mid to late 20s.

Simon re-married; he and Elizabeth Curnow Kelynack (no known relation yet), a 22-year old servant who marked her wedding register, married at Paul Parish Church on 18 January 1846. On 30 March 1851 on census night he was fishing on the Conquerer under William Payne with Elizabeth at home in the Fradgan [a winding street rising up from the harbour] in the Street-An-Nowan area of Newlyn with her niece staying that night, perhaps because her husband was away.  Simon’s 11-year-old James [by his first wife Grace] was with his grandparents Mary and John Downing.

The 1861 census found Simon and Elizabeth round the corner in Chapel Street, and the 1871, 1881 and 1891 censuses found them 5m walk away in Clifton Terrace.  A normal fishing couple’s story apart from the fact that their marriage produced no children but the 1851 and 1891 censuses show they were part of a larger family network.  Simon died in 1895 and Elizabeth died in 1898.

Palacio Barolo (postal); Unknown – Tarjeta, (public domain)

Before August 1864 Simon’s only child John James Downing, a carpenter, must have sailed for Argentina, perhaps for adventure, perhaps for work, for he was witness to the marriage of George Reeves and Margaret Wolf at that time so presumably would have needed time before then to make friends and acquaintances.

In February 1868 his wife Hannah Jane (b1845) gave birth to their first child Elizabeth Agnes Downing who was baptised in St John’s Church in Buenos Aries on 12 May 1867. I have not found the record of their marriage in either England or Argentina.  Their names also appear in the records as witnesses to the baptisms of the Van Domselaar girls: Bertha in November 1867 and Charlotte in September 1869.  The second daughter Grace Alice Downing was born on 2 April 1869. On 28 January 1872 their third daughter, Charlotte Downing, was baptised; at that time they were living in the Bararcas al Norte area of Buenos Aries with Hannah identified as his wife.

I haven’t found any records of Hannah’s death and burial, or return to England; I suspect she died in Argentina and John returned home with their three young daughters.

On 26 September 1877 John married his second wife, Jane Frances Pentreath (nee Oats) in Paul Parish Church. She was the widow of a master fisherman living in nearby Moushole (1 mile west of Newlyn) but had been born in neighbouring parish Sancreed.

Mousehole Harbour, photo copyright Lynne Black

The April 1881 census found the couple living in Mousehole with six children: Elizabeth and Charlotte from John’s first marriage, Benjamin and William Pentreath from Jane’s first marriage, and two new children together: John and Orpah.  (Babies John and Orpah had been baptised together on 14 November 1880.)  John’s second daughter Grace Alice was living with her grandparents Simon and Elizabeth Downing in Newlyn on the night of the census, which was the initial intriguing discovery that had sent me on the transatlantic record search.

 

At some point in the 1880s Grace [Johns’ daughter by his first 1^st wife Hannah] had moved back to Buenos Aries and settled down with Thomas Franklin Andrews. Their first child Elsie Maud was born in April 1890, then son John in November 1891, Doris Ethel in November 1893 and Ivy May in January 1896. All were all baptised at St John’s Church.

Her father John’s second wife Jane died in March 1905 in Newlyn and was buried on 24 March in consecrated ground in Paul.

On 22 December 1905 John and his daughter Orpah [by his late 2^nd wife Jane] sailed on the Margarita from Newport to Bahia Blanca, Argentina.  Orpah met an engine driver called Charles Thomas Matthews and they had their first two children in February 1907 (Eliza Jane) and in June 1908 (Thomas Charles); both were baptised in St Andrew’s Scots Presbyterian Church, Buenos Aires on 21 June 1909. Harold Reginald was born on 25 March 1910 and Edward Douglas was born on 6 September 1911; again two children were baptised together on 10 May 1914.

It’s not known how long John stayed in Argentina at that time; he married for a third time in spring 1910 and he and his younger wife dressmaker Janie (nee Rodda later Harvey) were living together in April 1911 in Heamoor, a town above neighbouring Penzance.  Jane was a butcher’s daughter who married a widowed mariner/Trinity Lighthouse Keeper/RN Reservist called Richard George Harvey in 1876. He’d died in 1884; it appeared that he had recently taken up the role of Victualler in Penzance – unexpected but the info all matches.

I was surprised that there was no further mention of his wife Janie, and was shocked to find out that she had been buried in April 1924 in Bodmin after dying in the County Asylum, 47 miles away up county.

At some point John moved back to Clifton Terrace as he died there on 20/21 May 1924 aged “85 years of age, was a well known and respected inhabitant, and had spent a number of years in Buenos Ayres [SIC]”.  He was buried in Paul Cemetery on 23 May 1924 (as described in The Cornishman newspaper on 28 May 1924) with a floral cross from his daughters [Grace and Orpah] and grandchildren in Buenos Aires. His probate was heard in January 1927 in Bodmin and he left his effects to his two widowed daughters.

Sites used: Ancestry, FindMyPast including their BNA Archive, Facebook group AncestryUK, Argbrit.org , Cornwall Family History Society, Cornwall OPC database, West Penwith Resources, FamilySearch.org, Wikepedia.

Words and UK images copyright Lynne Black
First published on starryblackness on 8 October 2017