Fred Bowes of Beccles

Beccles. I thought it was high time I wrote something about my beloved Beccles. After all, it was my home for the first eleven years of my life and to this day, a large piece of my heart still belongs there. For reasons I cannot fathom though, writing about Beccles is extremely difficult and some days I am so choked to the core of my being I find it impossible to write in a way that would do the Beccles I know and love proper justice. My mind is so richly veiled with nostalgia and sentimentality, sometimes I can't see the wood for the trees. For the most part, I confine my more reserved jottings on Beccles to my family history writing and anecdotal "tweets" about the history of Beccles and its people at @RelicsofBeccles (on Twitter).

My maternal grandmother Freda was the only one of my grandparents who was born in Beccles. Her mother came to Beccles at a very young age, from Loddon in Norfolk, and her father and grandfather were both Beccles born and bred. I grew to appreciate and love Beccles from the stories I grew up hearing from Freda. One story she told me was when I was around ten years of age. I remember that I was quite keen to learn to play the piano and the local Methodist Church held a Friday Club for children, so I always sat at their piano. I was happy to tinker at the keys on my own, teaching myself popular tunes as I went (being left-handed I was conscious that most grown-ups were intolerant of my cack-handedness so I didn't want to bother them with teaching me), until one day a lady came and sat beside me and gently coaxed me into learning "When The Saints Go Marching In". When my grandmother got wind of my new-found "talent" she exclaimed that I was following in the footsteps of her uncle Fred. Who was he? I asked.

Frederick William Bowes,
my great grand-uncle

Frederick William Bowes was born in 1889 in Beccles, son of Robert and Mary Ann. As a boy Fred was fond of chemistry and medicine so he combined these and trained as a Chemist. The 1911 census shows he was "Qualified to Dispense Medicine" - sounds rather posh! I have no idea where he worked but there were three dispensing chemists in Beccles in 1911, including my favourite chemist shop, Boots. In Fred's day Boots was known as AW Rayner and (Archibald Walter Rayner) had operated as a chemist business for over 40 years. However, Fred could have worked at the Beccles Hospital which was then situated in Fair Close. Erected in 1874, it cost £1,500 to build and by 1900, it had a total of fifteen beds available.

Beccles Hospital circa 1914 (now private residences)

When the First World War broke out in 1914 Fred was keen to learn skills in another key area of medicine, first aid. In February 1916 (after conscription for those born in 1886 to 1896 inclusive) Fred joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and was immediately dispatched to the frontline. There he served until the end of the war when he returned home to Beccles, his vision terribly impaired from the effects of trench gas. In December 1918 he received a Silver War Badge after being discharged under King's Regulations in view of "being no longer physically fit for war service".

Despite this, Fred continued to work and he developed his love for playing the piano. He embraced the feel of the keys under his fingers and loved to play every day, right up until the end of his life. He joined many local dance and music troups and concert parties as pianist and, for a time, was employed by the Beccles Cinema to play the piano for the silent films. I was told he also frequently played the piano at nights for the patrons of The Fleece Inn in Blyburgate Street.

One concert group he joined were called "The Leggettonians". This song and improvisation group, who gave countless concerts to the Poor Law institutions & charity events in the local area as well as entertaining thousands of servicemen during the Second World War, was the brain-child of Beccles man Jack Leggett. The group were made up of the following:

Mr Jack Leggett (compere/comedian)

Miss Hilda Mann (soprano)

Miss Dorothy Snelling (accordianist)

Messrs Pearl & Leslie Balls (comic sketches)

Mr Edgar Brown (animal & bird mimic & impersonator)

Mr Alfred Ling (Tambo)

Mr Lennie Stevens (drums)

Mr Fred Bowes (piano)

Fred Bowes, on the far right

I never knew my great grand-uncle Fred, he died in 1950, but whenever I heard him spoken of, it was with such a fondness that a part of me felt I had known him. Fred never married or had any children of his own. My grandmother used to tell me that he lived out his life playing the piano and living with his spinster sister Winnifred (Winnie) Bowes. When I researched his life for this blog, I felt even closer to him somehow. He is a part of my ancestry of course but he is also a part of Beccles, where he lived all his life. He has left a part of himself in Beccles; in the concert halls and cinemas and possibly even Boots chemist (It's hard to explain but I sense him around me whenever I go in there).

ADDENDUM: 10 September 2014.
@RelicsofBeccles on Twitter no longer exists.
Instead I have another blog 'Relics of Beccles'
relicsofbeccleshistory.blogspot.com

My (Albeit Distant) Connections With America

With the recent release of the 1940 US Federal Census, I hoped to find my distant cousin (3xRemoved!) Louis Goodall Preston, but after trawling through a total of 571 images for Nevada County (which took me 3 days I might add), I did not locate him.

Louis Goodall Preston was born in 1887 in Holt, county Norfolk, England. His father was an astute businessman in the town, running a stationers shop with his brother as well as selling musical instruments, and teaching music. Louis wanted to be a mechanical engineer, and in 1903 when he graduated from Gresham’s School he was well on his way to making that happen.

The 1911 census for Holt shows Louis working as a Motor Engineer. This trade would have been at the pioneering stage, as motorcars were still in their infancy and many average working-class people in England could not afford to buy them. Indeed, in a small market town such as Holt Louis would not have been able to progress in his field at a rapid rate, so he turned to the United States of America where motor car companies of the twentieth century were the avant-garde of auto technology.

Less than two weeks after the 1911 UK census was recorded, Louis Goodall Preston left from Liverpool to sail for America on the SS Campania. His final destination is recorded in the passenger lists as Greeley, Colorado His uncle, Arthur Ling, was already long established there (he had immigrated in 1888) and Louis sought to make his own future, living between Canada and the USA for the next 30 years.

Greeley, Colorado c. 1910

Sometime between 1914 and 1916 Louis married Lorna Elizabeth Annis. Lorna Annis, born in Michigan, was the daughter of a successful lawyer in Fort Collins, Colorado; Franklin Joseph Annis. Louis and Lorna had one daughter Lillie, born in 1916. The 1920 US Federal Census shows Louis, Lorna and Lillie residing in Denver, Colorado. Louis is shown to be making his living at an Auto Agency as an Auto Mechanic.

 

After 1920 comes the interesting part in that Louis’ love life becomes murky and mysterious, which I am still yet to de-mystify. It would appear that Louis and Lorna divorced as a descendent of the Ling family told me that Louis married Ethel Switzer in 1933 and they had one daughter, Lois. It is also my own belief that Louis returned to Canada sometime during the 1920s and possibly remained there though to the late 1930s. He died in Nevada, California in 1942.

It has been really exciting for me to research my cousin Louis Goodall Preston, because he was the first ancestor (apart from his only sister Eva Maud Preston – whose life and travels is another story for another time) whom I discovered as having immigrated to the United States of America. Not only was he a keen traveller and motivated to succeed in his chosen vocation but he was amongst the cutting edge of American auto engineering; at a time of Henry Ford et al!

http://www.american-automobiles.com/de-Soto.html

Lest We Forget : Sidney Preston

Today marks the ninety-fourth anniversary of the death of Sidney Preston. He was my first cousin three times removed. Sidney holds a very special place in my heart, and has done ever since I first laid eyes on him in a family portrait given to me by Eleanor Finn, of Holt.

My framed photograph of Sidney Preston,
which sits proudly on my sideboard

Born 25 March 1889, Sidney was the son of Thomas John and Sarah Ann Preston. Sidney was very close with his four brothers and two sisters, Pattie and Mary.

From 1898 - 1905 Sidney attended Gresham's School, in Holt. Famous Greshamians include W H Auden, Benjamin Britten, and Stephen Frears.

In 1911 Sidney was residing in Hampstead with his eldest brother Thomas England Preston, who was a Solicitor. Sidney was studying as a Law Student when Britain declared war on Germany. He immediately joined up with the Middlesex Regiment, but was later commissioned to join the Essex Regiment.

On 27 May 1916 Sidney married his sweetheart Mabel Lillian Gold, at Holy Trinity Church in Kilburn, county Middlesex. From the transcript you can see that Sidney was stationed at Aldershot with the Essex Regiment.

Transcript of Sidney Preston's marriage

I would very much like to find out where Sidney was when he was killed. I keep searching on google and websites dedicated to the Great War but nothing definitive has come up yet. I need to visit the city library and see whether there are any military books available which will pin point the movements of the Essex Regiment during the first half of 1918. So far, I have titles such as the Battle of the Lys; the German Spring Offensive; Operation Georgette, all swimming around in my brain.

This is an excerpt from Wikipedia:

"On 10 April, Sixth Army tried to push west from Estaires but was contained for a day; pushing north against the flank of Second Army, it took Armentières.

Also on 10 April, German Fourth Army attacked north of Armentières with four divisions, hitting the British 19th Division. Second Army had sent its reserves south to aid First Army, and the Germans broke through, advancing up to 3 km on a 6 km front, and capturing Messines. The 25th Division to the south, flanked on both sides, withdrew about 4 km.

By 11 April, the British situation was desperate; it was on this day that Haig issued his famous "Backs to the wall" order..."

This is an excerpt from a letter sent to Sidney's parents:

“It was whilst we were together in the barracks that I got to know and love your son. For there is no doubt about the fact that everyone who really knew him loved him. His men worshipped him, and his was out and away the best and most efficient company in the battalion in consequence. I often had the opportunity of learning what his C.O thought of him. Whenever there was something special to be done it was always Preston’s company to whom it was entrusted, for whatever he had to do was done thoroughly. I don’t think he had an atom of selfishness in his nature, for all that he did was for someone else and nothing was too much trouble.”

Sidney Preston c. 1910

Gone But Not Forgotten

Finding Traces of Your Ancestors Lives in Unexpected Places

We are all familiar with the buzz you get from making contact with a distant cousin who just happens to have a wealth of family photographs that they are happy to share. I know I do, and thanks to some very special people I have come to know over the years (June, Angie, Jim), I have looked into the faces of my great-grandparents, some for the very first time.

This past month or so I have investigated different avenues of research into my family history, largely using archive newspapers (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/) and local history society transcriptions. These websites have proven to be invaluable resources into the lives of my ancestors, from discovering advertisements to Quarter Sessions reports. This past week alone I have found two ancestors from the same family line (uncle & nephew) in newspaper reports, sixty years apart. In 1882 one of my great-grand uncles, then aged thirteen, was charged with stealing fruit from a garden, and later the following year, he was charged for stealing a purse from a six-year-old boy. Subsequently, he was sent to Buxton Reformatory for five years. This news was equally disturbing and surprising, but in the end I had to concede that I have discovered a truly valuable addition to my family story.

Sixty years on, one of his nephews (my maternal grandfather), was in the newspaper for an entirely different reason. In 1943 he was repatriated home to England from Germany, where he had spent three years in a Prisoner of War Camp after being captured in Dunkirk in June 1940. His return home made local news and he even managed to get his mug shot on the front page!

The first paragraph brought unexpected tears to my eyes

Then there is one of my favourite resources for local history: eBay. That's right, I did say eBay. An unexpected source I grant you, but one that I have come to value almost as much as postcard fairs and emails from distant cousins. A few years ago, whilst conducting a google image search for one of my favourite childhood locations there were several links to the eBay website. At first I ignored them all because I didn't believe it would be relevant to my search. Then I relented, and I haven't looked back since. Not only have I found postcards of my own home town in Suffolk but several of those of my ancestors; a variety of towns, villages, and locations in Norfolk, Suffolk, London, Surrey, and Yorkshire.

I found one faded black & white or sepia toned postcard image of an ancestral town or picnic spot or a street, which turned into another find, and yet another and another. Sometimes I win the bid, sometimes I miss out. It has become my one weakness (thank you Dorcas Lane). One postcard that stands out in my memory from last year was an image of Holt Lodge in Norfolk. This building was not particularly relevant to my ancestry but the seller had also uploaded the back of the postcard which had been written on. It was from my 2 x great-grand uncle (in Norfolk) to his nephew (in Hampstead). I missed out on the item, but I did manage to keep a copy.

The back of a Postcard sent by my 2 x great-grand Uncle to his Nephew

Last week I bid on a postcard from Holt. It was a fairly ordinary image (a pond!), quite faded with the heavy-handed postmark stamp creating a nice little crater on the top left corner. I never expected to have it arrive on my doorstep and find it was written to my first cousin, three times removed. My initial findings had me thinking it was written by my 2 x great-grand uncle - the same one as described above - but further investigations and cross-referencing of the handwriting, proved that it was written by an unknown person. Even so, it was definitely addressed to my cousin who was then living in Richmond, county Surrey. Four years after the postcard was sent, she was married and living in Richmond with her widowed husband and step-daughter.

Postcard sent to my distant Cousin in 1904

The moral of this post is, leave no stone unturned. Investigate every possible avenue, and when you think it couldn't be likely, it really could be likely. If you don't ask, you won't find out. I took the chance on my grandfather's newspaper report. I already had several sources of information into his repatriation and I had found a link to a local newspaper report but until I approached the local Record Office, not only did I gain a personal account of his return from my great-grandmother (who had obviously been interviewed for the story) but I also gained a new photograph, albeit grainy.



My Grandfather in the Local Newspaper



And as far as eBay is concerned: it is game of chance. It is pot-luck. Sometimes I have found some treasures, and sometimes I have missed out. Sometimes I have paid pittance and sometimes I have paid exorbitant amounts. What I have discovered and gained from it all though, is absolutely priceless.

This post is dedicated to my Uncle who is currently recovering from a recent hospital stay following an operation and intensive health issues. Get Well Soon M xxx

xxxxxxx

My Genealogy Bucket List

Inspired by Jill Ball at Geniaus http://geniaus.blogspot.com.au/ I thought I would complete her GeneaMeme Bucket List. It goes something like this:

The Bucket List GeneaMeme

The list should be annotated in the following manner:
Things you would like to do or find: Bold Type
Things you haven’t done or found and don’t care to: plain type
You are encouraged to add extra comments after each item

So here is my Bucket List:

1. The genealogy conference I would most like to attend is... WDYTYA Live

2. The genealogy speaker I would most like to hear and see is...

3. The geneablogger I would most like to meet in person is... Where do I start? There are many to be honest, most of whom reside in the UK

4. The genealogy writer I would most like to have dinner with is... Nick Barratt

5. The genealogy lecture I would most like to present is... I had an opportunity to do this a few years ago but I bottled out. It was on the watermen of the Thames

6. I would like to go on a genealogy cruise that visits...

7. The photo I would most like to find is... My great-grandfather, Percy Preston

8. The repository in a foreign land I would most like to visit is... LMA and Wellcome Library

9. The place of worship I would most like to visit is... Any in East Anglia

10. The cemetery I would most like to visit is... Horbury, Yorkshire & Holt, Norfolk

My favourite place in all the world

11. The ancestral town or village I would most like to visit is... There are too many to list here. I would love to see Horbury & Fakenham and also re-visit several towns around the UK

12. The brick wall I most want to smash is... Richard Humphries (see my post) and also trace further back than John Waters.

13. The piece of software I most want to buy is...

14. The tech toy I want to purchase next is...

15. The expensive book I would like to purchase is...

16. The library I would most like to visit is... British Library

17. The genealogy related book I would most like to write is... I have several individual Family History projects in the works but I would love to write House Histories

18. The genealogy blog I would most like to start would be about...

19. The journal article I would most like to write would be about... Richard Humphries

20. The ancestor I most want to meet in the afterlife would be... That Richard chap!!

Also I would love to meet Elizabeth Humphries, Eva Bowes, Sidney Preston & Joseph Powell.

Two 'Jolly' Ladies

What's in a Name : Part Two

Last time, I mentioned there was a family name which was deserving of its own separate post. That is because it is a story worth telling in its own right; a World War One story with a bittersweet ending. A story of a HMS Cressy-Class naval ship in the North Sea. The year: 1914.

My great-grandfather had served with the Royal Navy from 1899 through to 1907. He later served with the Royal Fleet Reserve from 1907 to 1912, and again from 1912 to 1917. When World War One broke out in August 1914 he was posted to HMS Hogue.

HMS Hogue was a Cressy-class armoured cruiser built by Vickers Ltd., in Barrow-in-Furness, England in 1902. At the beginning of WWI she was assigned to the Grand Fleet's Third Cruiser Squadron. Along with two other cruiser warships - RMS Aboukir and RMS Cressy - HMS Hogue patrolled the Broad Fourteens off the Dutch coast about twenty miles north of the Hook of Holland. They were dubbed the "Live Bait Squadron" because of their vulnerability to German attack.

Although the patrols were supposed to maintain 12-13 knots and zig-zag, the old cruisers were unable to maintain that speed and the zigzagging order was widely ignored as there had not yet been any submarines sighted in the area. Much discussion at the time centred around the inclement weather conditions coupled with the widely-felt opinion that there were insufficient modern light cruisers available for the task.

At around 0625 hours on the 22nd of September 1914 a German U9 (Unterseeboot) fired a single torpedo at HMS Aboukir which struck her on her port side. Captain Drummond ordered her to be abandoned and she sank within half an hour of being hit. The U9 fired two torpedoes at HMS Hogue, who had stopped to pick up rescuers, that hit her midships and rapidly flooded her engine room. RMS Cressy had also stopped the ship to lower boats to rescue the crew of Aboukir. The U9 attacked Hogue from a range of only 300 yards and it only took ten minutes to sink as U9 headed for HMS Cressy. At about 0720 hours however, the U9 fired two torpedoes, one of the which hit Cressy on her starboard side. The damage to Cressy was not fatal but U9 turned around and fired her last torpedo which hit Cressy sinking her within a quarter of an hour. Survivors were picked up by several nearby merchant ships and a Lowestoft trawler.

Source: Collier’s Photographic History of the European war. New York, 1916
Sketch by US Navy artist, Henry Reuterdahl

According to one website I researched, Kapitanleutnant Otto Weddigen of U9 was awarded the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class and every member of his crew got the Iron Cross 2nd Class. Back in Kiel, U9 was sent on a lap of honour around the entire German High Seas Fleet. But what of the crew of the three RFR warships he sunk? More than 1400 men were lost in an hour, many of which were reservists or cadets. About 837 men were rescued, including my Great-Grandfather. He was helped to safety by his Commander, Reginald Arthur Norton.

And it's here we come to the family name. In November 1914, less than two months following the U9 disaster, my Great-Uncle was born. He was named Reginald Norton Humphries. I did not know anything about the namesake or why the Norton name held such significance until I made email contact with my second cousin in 2003. He is my Great-Uncle Reginald's grandson, and like his grandfather and father before him, he also carries the Norton name.

My Great-Uncle, Reginald Norton Humphries 1915

There are countless websites which are dedicated to the demise of the "Live Bait Squadron" and also, the Admiralty reports. The report of Commander Reginald A Norton, late of HMS Hogue, can be found at www.firstworldwar.com/source/cressycommander.htm  and www.worldwar1.co.uk/despatches/hogue.html

Part of Commander Norton's report here follows:

"After ordering the men to provide themselves with wood, hammocks, etc., and to get into the boats on the booms and take off their clothes, I went, by Capt, Nicholson's direction, to ascertain the damage done in the engine room...While endeavouring to return to the bridge the water burst open the starboard entry port doors and ship heeled rapidly. I told the men in the port battery to jump overboard, as the launch was close alongside, and soon afterward the ship lurched heavily to starboard. I clung to a ringbolt for some time, but eventually was dropped on to the deck, and a huge wave washed me away...I was picked up by a cutter from the Hogue..."

Norton's report in its entirety makes for very interesting reading, as does all reports made by others such as Commander Bertram Nicholson, late of HMS Cressy, and the fascinating volume Source Records of the Great War.

What's in a Name : Part One

The more I delved into my family tree, the more names I uncovered. These names swim around in my head constantly and I love boggling my family with lines like, "You know, Thomas. He was the son of William who was the son of Joseph; son of Thomas, son of Thomas..." You get the picture. Rifling through parish registers and civil registration I have spent countless hours eagerly looking up and discovering a myriad of names; some common and some not-so-common. Back in the heyday of baptising children with the names William, George, Thomas, Henry, John and Robert there were some ancestors who were keen to stand out and be different. They chose names like Josiah, Percy, Zachariah, Horace, and Barney. Or how about Japhet or Bussey for something even more original? My ancestry has those names too. Were they the historical equivalent of the twenty first century's Blue, Suri, Apple and Sunday?

Three names in my ancestry have struck me as particularly unique, and this blog (in two parts) is about those names. These are not just unique christian names, these are surnames given as middle names. I have uncovered each of their origins except for one: Goodall. This surname appears to be a more common surname in the county of Yorkshire. This ties all too perfectly with the fact that this particular ancestor was actually born in Yorkshire, as were both of his parents. But why he was given this name as a middle name has not yet been determined.

Then we come to the two surnames in my ancestry, given as middle names, which I have researched successfully. There is a fascinating World War One story behind one name, and it is rather powerfully detailed, so I have decided to honour it with a separate post. Part one therefore is for the name: Gowen.

In 1990 I remember visiting with my Mum who had just received her grandfather's birth certificate in the post. The middle name of the father was given as Gowing. We thought this name was very peculiar, but there it was on paper and in records so it had to be correct, right? Then my Mum ordered the marriage certificate of her grandparents and discovered that the groom's father's middle name was Goarne. We tried our best to pronounce it correctly but in the end we were convinced it had to be misspelt. Nobody would have the name: Goarne. Would they? It was shortly after this time that my Mum took an early retirement from genealogy and I was busy conquering the world of working, marriage, and paying off a mortgage.

When I came to my senses and matured rather more significantly, I took up my Mum's family tree challenge and I haven't looked back since (Ironic to say that really, considering that looking back is exactly what genealogy entails!). Subsequently, the names Gowing & Goarne challenged me, daring me to solve its indecipherable mystery. I looked up a marriage entry in the GRO indexes and found this time that it was spelt Gowen. I was so confused! His birth certificate proved the same: Gowen again! Okay, I said, where on earth does that name hail from?

As I progressed with genealogy and discovering all sorts of anecdotal titbits I found out that, among many other curious "habits", giving the mother's maiden name as the first-born child's middle name was quite a popular thing to do in Victorian times. So now all you genealogists out there are thinking that Gowen was this chap's mother's maiden name? Well, no it wasn't. Sorry, you're all wrong. It wasn't until many headaches later, when researching his mother's paternal side of the family in the census returns and parish registers that the name Gowen stared out at me from a dimly lit computer screen. There it was; the mother's paternal aunt! She had married a chap by the name of John Gowen.

Abit of mindless, trivial history for you: John Gowen was born in Yarmouth in the county of Norfolk (I have just looked up his baptism; he was baptised 240 years ago on January 10, 1772). In 1796 John Gowen married Sarah Bunnett and they lived in Holt, not far from Sarah's sister Eliza and family. John Gowen was a Bricklayer and Plasterer by trade and you can find his name listed in many Directories such as Pigot's & Kelly's.

The name Gowen has been passed down from my g/g/g-grandfather William Gowen Preston to his first-born son. This son died in infancy and so his second-born son was also named William Gowen Preston (a photograph of him is at the bottom of my previous post). This son grew up and named his first-born son William Gowen Preston...and so on, down the line.

Coming soon to a blog near you: part two of my mysterious middle name hunt...

Incidentally, John Gowen's father's name was William Gowen! :-)