Colchester, Essex

In this series of posts on places where my ancestors once lived, we now travel across many counties, from Lancashire in the north-west of England to Colchester, in the south-east.

Colchester is one of the oldest towns in Britain. It has had a military presence since the Twentieth Victorious Valeria Legion established a garrison there in 43 AD, during the Roman conquest of Britain under Emperor Claudius. For a while it was the capital of Roman-occupied England, despite the best efforts of Queen Boudica to see them off. Over the centuries other armies followed in making Colchester their base. One end of the main street is still dominated by the great Norman keep, and the later castle, built on the mound of a Roman temple.

By the end of the 18th century, several barracks had been built in Colchester to house troops and cavalry regiments coming and going from wars on the continent. Wounded men were also brought to the military hospital in Colchester to recover. The townspeople were used to seeing the population of infantry and officers in the barracks swell in times of war, followed by an emptying out in peace time.

But they had probably never experienced anything like the influx of soldiers that occurred with the outbreak of World War 1. Volunteers flooded in. Two hundred men arrived in Colchester each day, to be trained as part of "Kitchener's Army" before being sent to the battlefields of Europe and the Middle East. At times there were as many soldiers in the town as local residents. The barracks couldn't house them all, so they were put in huts and tents, or even billeted with families.

Thomas Henry Ward goes to Colchester

Thomas Henry Ward
(Photo courtesy of M. Lucas)

As the war dragged on, the number of volunteers dwindled and in 1916 conscription was introduced. It's not clear whether my grandfather, Thomas Henry Ward, joined up as a volunteer in 1914 or found himself conscripted later on. But whatever the case, he would have been in his early thirties when he travelled by train to Colchester, to join the Army Ordnance Corp.

He would no doubt have found the flat Essex countryside, with its broad fields of wheat and other crops, quite unfamiliar after living in the hilly moorlands of eastern Lancashire all his life, among the mills and factories. Colchester itself was a pleasant, prosperous-looking town, with hardly a mill or a smoke stack in sight.

Before the war, engineering works such as Paxman's, which made steam engines and boilers, were among the main employers in Colchester. They turned to making armaments during the war. The presence of the army also helped keep a brewery and bottling works in business. But Thomas, by all accounts, was not a great drinker. A rather quiet, perhaps even shy man, he was also older than many of the recruits around him.

The Beales family in Colchester

One Sunday afternoon (according to my father) Thomas was invited to have tea with a local family. The Beales were members of the Salvation Army, which had a strong presence in Colchester from the late 1880s, although it was not always well received. The family made it their ministry to look out for lonely-looking soldiers who were far from home

William and Eliza Beales had lived in Colchester all their adult lives. Except for Eliza's mother, Susan, who was from Australia, all their forebears came from villages around Colchester. Eliza's parents, David and Susan Whybrew, came to live near the Beales in Colchester after David retired from active service in the army.

Rosina Beales

The Beales' daughter Rosina, still in her late teens, may well have been dressed in her Salvation Army uniform when Thomas Henry, in his army uniform, met her for the first time over Sunday afternoon tea. Or perhaps not - family lore says nothing about what they were wearing. They would have had little time to get to know each other before Thomas went off with his battalion to serve overseas, but they evidently managed to keep their friendship going during the war.

In 1921, after Thomas was discharged from the army, they married at St Botolph's Anglican church in Colchester. It was then Rosina's turn to find herself in a strange environment when she and Thomas went back to his home village of Milnrow in Lancashire. She was leaving behind her Salvation Army roots as well as her childhood home in Essex.

Thomas Henry died several years before I was born, but my grandmother Rosina still lived in Milnrow when I was growing up. As a child I knew that she was born "down south" somewhere, and used to belong to the Salvation Army, but she seemed a natural part of what I called "home". It wasn't until I began researching my family's history that it occurred to me that Grandma Rosina must have undergone quite a cultural change when she married. How long did it take her to adjust? How did it affect her? Unfortunately I never had chance to ask her such questions.

Rosina's parents, William and Eliza Beales, continued living in Colchester for the rest of their lives, surrounded by children, grandchildren, and members of their wider family. Their role as officers in the Salvation Army and members of the Salvation Army band shaped their daily lives as much as their location.

In the next few posts I'll look at some of the Essex villages where the Beales and Whybrew families came from.

This series of 13 slides by Xav Marseilles shows what Colchester looked like 100 years ago, overlaid with more recent images. It appeared in the Daily Mail, 2 January 2017. (Click on the photo or the link above to see all the slides).







You can find out more about Susan and David Whybrew and their family, in my book Susan: convict's daughter, soldier's wife, nobody's fool, available on Amazon and other online books stores

The story of two John Alfreds, part 1

Nine Elms British Cemetery, Belgium

As I've mentioned before, my great great grandfather Alfred Pearson Bentley (b 1849) had two sons named John Alfred, one born to his wife Annie Reed in Salford in 1873 and the other born, through a bigamous marriage to Annie Jane Smith, in Boston in 1884. Despite sharing the same name and the same father, the two John Alfreds led rather different lives. In this post I'll tell the story of the older of the two half-brothers.

The first John was only four or five years old when his father left for America. He and his four siblings grew up in Salford, surviving on what their mother could earn from taking in laundry and renting out a room. When he was old enough to leave school he found work as a bricklayer's labourer and added his earnings to the family income.

In March 1897 John married Elizabeth Ann Brown, a girl from Stalybridge, a few miles east of Manchester. They were married in the Registry office in Salford. Their first child, Thomas, was born in August that same year while they were living at 20 Arthur St in Seedley, Manchester. 

St Ambrose Church, Salford,
where most of John and Elizabeth's children
were baptised.

Two years later, in August 1899, a daughter, Annie, arrived. By this time the family had moved to 49 Mayor St in Pendleton, and they remained at this address for several years, adding John Alfred (1902) Ernest (1905) and Elizabeth (1908) to their family. Two of the children, John Alfred and Elizabeth, died in infancy.

When the census was taken in  1911 John and Elizabeth had moved with their family to 11 Hodgson St. It was a four roomed house, but besides their family they had two single men from Stalybridge, both labourers, and apparently brothers, boarding with them. John was working as a contractors labourer.

John and Elizabeth's eldest son Thomas was 17 years old when the war began in August 1914. Like many young men, he enlisted as soon as he could, joining the 2/7th battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers. He was given regimental number  281894, and after a long period of training was sent to Le Havre in France early in 1917.

This must have caused his parents some concern, but worse was to come. On 12 March 1917 John Bentley received a letter from the Borough Engineers Office in Salford. It didn't even address him by name, but read:

Dear Sir,  

Road Service in France 

I enclose a form from the War Department which you are requested to present to the recruiting officer at the Town Hall, Broad St, Pendleton on an early day between the hours of 9.00 am and 5.30 pm on Saturday between 9.30 am and 2.00 pm. 

Yours truly 

Ernest B Martin.

At the age of 43 John Alfred was being conscripted to build roads across other men's fields in France. Conscription had been introduced in 1916 and anyone under the age of 51 who was not a widow with children or a Minister of Religion could be called up. In reality, many of those called were rejected as unfit, or claimed exemption on the grounds that they were doing work of national importance or their absence would cause domestic hardship. However, like Thomas Henry Ward, John Bentley received no exemption.

He was enlisted on March 16 in the Royal Engineers, 338 RC (Road Construction) company as a "pioneer", regimental number 25500. He was later transferred to the 303 RC company. The army doctor who examined him noted two tattoos, one on his right arm saying "E A Brown", and the other a pair of butterflies on his left. After spending time at Salamanca Barracks in Aldershot, John was sent to France. 

With both her husband and a son on the front line, and a ten year old child, Ernest, to care for alone at home, Elizabeth must have been beside herself with worry. Her fears were not unfounded.

Street corner, Poelcappelle, Belgium 1918

Twenty year old Thomas was injured, probably at the Battle of Poelcappelle in Flanders on 9 October, and died of his wounds on 12 October 1917. He was buried at the Nine Elms British Cemetery in West Vlaanderen, Belgium. The cross on his grave bears only his name and regimental details. 

In his brief will, written on 8 April 1917 on a standard issue form provided by the army, he left all his possessions to his mother "Mrs E. Bentley of 5 Swan St, Pendleton." He apparently was aware of his father's enlistment.

John Alfred was admitted to hospital on 12 April 1918, for reasons unknown. He was discharged on  the 19 April. He arrived "TTBD" on 26 April and was released from "TTBD" on 6 May 1918. (The most likely explanation I can find of this abbreviation is "Temporary Transfer Base Depot" but if you can improve on that, let me know.) He was officially demobbed in 1919 while on home leave.

He returned home to Elizabeth on 26 December 1918. They were still living at 5 Swan St when their daughter Annie married the following year. When he died at the age of 59, in March 1933, he left an estate of £278 4s to his widow Elizabeth.

My next post will cover what I know of the younger John Alfred.

And it's done!

View the book

The book I've been writing about Susan Mason and her family is finally complete and published on Amazon worldwide. It's available as an e-book which can be read on any Kindle device or Kindle app. A paperback version is also available (although sadly not through the Australian Amazon site, which doesn't stock printed books yet). I'm still looking into other e-book options such as epub and ibooks.

I hope if you've enjoyed reading my articles about the Mason and Whybrew families here on Clogs and Clippers you will find this much expanded and chronological version of their stories interesting and enjoyable. The book has extensive endnotes and a bibliography.

I've had great fun writing it. My sincere thanks to all who have helped with the research, editing, and revising of the book. Thanks especially to Katie for the cover and Amy for her editing.

For UK readers, the Kindle edition is available here.
For customers of the Australian Amazon site, it can be found here.

Visit my new "author page" on Amazon for more information.

William Whybrew - an update.

The Cemetery at Vis-en-Artois.
William Whybrew has no grave, his name is inscribed
on panel 5 of the curved memorial wall between
the two stone pillars.(image courtesy of wikimedia).

Back in March 2014 I wrote a couple of posts about the children of David and Susan Whybrew. At the time, much of what I wrote about their youngest son William (the youngest son to survive childhood at any rate) was speculative.

In the course of doing research for my book about Susan, I've been able to confirm many of the details for William and add a few new ones, though some create more mysteries than they solve. So here's an update.

William was born on 29 October 1884 while the family were living in Berry St, Sittingbourne, near Canterbury, Kent. At the time his father David was with the 3rd East Kent militia. Some time after William's birth David left the army without completing his five year contract, for reasons that are unclear, and the family moved to Colchester in Essex. Two sons, Alfred (1888) and James (1892) were born to Susan in Colchester but didn't survive infancy.

William was at home with David and Susan at the time of the 1901 census, working as an assistant gardener. In 1905, when he was 21,  he married Adelaide Williams, a woman from Ipswich, a coastal town in Suffolk, 30 km north east of Colchester.

At 38 Adelaide was considerably older than William. Their marriage certificate indicates that she was the daughter of Earle Henry Williams, deceased, a fish hawker of Ipswich. She seems to have spent some of her childhood in the Ipswich workhouse, and then disappears from the records until her marriage to William.

The couple moved to Canterbury, where William found work as a carman, driving a delivery cart for a mineral water company. They had a lodger living with them when the 1911 census was taken, an infirm elderly man named Abraham Langford, who was possibly cared for by Adelaide (or Annie as she was referred to on the census.)

In 1914, at the beginning of the First World War, William enlisted in the Army Veterinary Corp, which looked after the many horses, mules, dogs and other animals used by the army. He transferred to the Yorkshire regiment (Alexandra, Princess of Wale's Own) and fought in the trenches in  France and then saw action in Italy before returning to France in September 1918. I've now confirmed that William died in action in France on 29 October 1918, just a few days before his 34th birthday and only three weeks before the war ended.

The Hundred Days Offensive, August-november 1918
Battle of Courtrai.
British and Belgian wounded waiting to be taken
back by light railway. Dadezeele, 15 October 1918.

It’s likely that William was involved in the decisive “Hundred Days” battle or "Advance to Victory" in Picardy and Artois, which broke the Germans' resolve and ultimately led to the Kaiser’s abdication and the signing of the armistice on November 11. It was a massively destructive battle. William had no grave, perhaps no identifiable remains. His name is inscribed on the memorial at Vis-en-Artois amongst the 9,847 men of the Allied forces with no known burial place, who fell between August 1918 and the end of the war.

The news of his death would have been sent first to his widow Adelaide. In 1919 she applied for his medals, his belongings and the money still owed to him by the army. She was listed as the sole legatee. Later his name was inscribed on the war memorial in Ipswich, but strangely not the one in Colchester where he grew up and enlisted.

William and Adelaide had no children. However, it seems that Adelaide had either a son or a stepson by a previous relationship. A young soldier named Henry Alan Lawrence, born in 1890, joined the army in 1908 and gave a 'Mrs Whybrew' as his mother and next of kin. Her address at the time was in Colchester. He also listed two brothers, Archer and George Lawrence, whose address was in Stanstead in Essex.

At the end of WW1, in which Henry Lawrence was badly injured and became a prisoner of war, his address was the same as that of Adelaide Whybrew on William Whybrew's records - 195 Bramford Rd Ipswich.

How Henry fits into Adelaide's story is something I still haven't worked out. In the 1891 census he and his brothers  appear  to be the sons of William and Martha Lawrence of Sawbridgeworth in Hertfordshire. Martha Lawrence (nee Archer) died in 1897 and the family were scattered. There's no record of William Lawrence ever marrying Adelaide Williams. Perhaps she became an unofficial step mother to young Henry.

(I'm grateful to Andrew Beal of the Ipswich War Memorial and Cenotaph page on Facebook for some of these details.)

__________________

You can find out more about Susan and David Whybrew and their family, in my book Susan: convict's daughter, soldier's wife, nobody's fool.
It's available on Amazon and other online books stores

Facts can sometimes ruin a good story

Old records - where it all begins

A few months ago I started writing a book about Susan Mason and her family. In a way, I've already written most of her life story on this blog, but it's quite fragmented. I wanted to draw together all the information I've discovered about her into a continuous narrative. She's such an interesting character, and her life, while not remarkable in any historical sense, provides insights into many different situations and places. It's a great story.

I've just finished the first draft, and now I'm in the process of rewriting and editing it. But I found myself with a dilemma. Some time ago I discovered a record on ancestry.com that seemed to indicate that in 1876, while the family were stationed in Ireland, Susan had given birth to a child, a boy named Charles. The child wasn't David's.

The father, named on the record as Charles Newman, was a soldier from David's regiment, the 50th. The record gave the date (October 1 1876) and the place of birth, and it seemed quite feasible that it could be true. The child's birth (but not his parents names or the date) was also included on the the index to the Irish Civil register on Ancestry and the British Nationals Armed Forces Register of Births on Find My Past.

An affair with another soldier would certainly add colour to the story, but should I be revealing such details about Susan or the Newmans? (You've probably guessed by now that the reason I'm telling you this is that it isn't actually true.) And besides, the more I thought about it, the more I felt that something about the record didn't seem quite right.

Bantry, Co Cork, where David Whybrew
was stationed in 1876.

© Copyright Pam Brophy and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Susan was in the right place and could have had another child in October 1876 after giving birth to Alice late in the previous year. But the two births would be quite close together, and Rose Whybrew was born only fifteen months later. The soldier's wife, Mary Newman, on the other hand, had one child who was two years old at the time and she had another child two years later. Charles' birth would fit neatly into her family. From later censuses I knew that Charles Newman had been brought up by the Newman family in Bristol after his father left the army.

There was also no image of the actual documents available. It was just a transcript, details copied by someone at some time. Where had the information come from? The army's records? The Irish Civil Register? How reliable was it?

I posted that question on the British Genealogy forum, which is always a good place to get other opinions and advice. "Get the original documents from GRO (the General Register Office in England) and the Irish Civil Register" was the predictable response, along with some equally predictable "hmmphing" about the reliability of sites like Ancestry. Someone also provided me with helpful advice about how to go about ordering the documents for the least expense.

To be fair, sites like Ancestry and Find My Past are now providing access to more and more  images of original documents on-line and not just transcripts, as was once the case. The original hand-written census documents, army enlistment and medical records, church registers of baptisms, marriages and burials, convict records and ships' passenger lists can all be seen and checked against the transcripts provided (which are occasionally quite inaccurate.) It's not Ancestry's fault if people don't check the original documents and think about the plausibility of information before adding it to their family trees.

So I sent for certified copies of the information on the registers. The Irish Registry Office hasn't replied, probably because they couldn't find any record of a birth with the details I provided. The GRO sent me full details from the Army Register of Births, Baptisms and Marriages, which show that not only was Susan Whybrew not the child's mother (Mary Newman is named as mother) but the date of birth was also different from the on-line transcription (July 1, 1876, not October 1). The father's name and regiment are the same, so it seems to be the right child.

It's possible that whoever transcribed the details of the birth from the Army Register inadvertently copied Susan's name from the previous entry. Few army wives travelled with their husbands when they went overseas, and it may well be that Alice Whybrew was the last child born to a family from the 50th regiment in Ireland prior to the one in question. Or at least her entry appeared on the same page.

I'm pleased to know that Susan didn't have a love child in Ireland, even if it does remove a potentially interesting chapter from my book. But it did serve to remind me how important it is to check facts with reliable and original sources when you're doing family history research.

__________________

You can find out more about Susan and David Whybrew and their family, in my book Susan: convict's daughter, soldier's wife, nobody's fool.
It's available on Amazon and other online books stores

A sad tale of two Roses

The name Rose and its variants - Rosina, Rosanna, Roseanna - pops up quite often among the Beales and Mason families in the Ward family history. Recently I've discovered two more Roses that I didn't know about before. Unfortunately their lives were both rather brief.

The first was Rosanna Mason, born in Sydney on December 1, 1841. She was the first child of John Mason and Catherine Murphy, and she was baptised at St Mary’s Church on December 8. Her sponsors (the Catholic equivalent of god parents) were Andrew and Mary Goodwin, the same couple who had been the witnesses at John and Catherine’s wedding in February that year.

Their second child, Mary Ann, was born on October 19 the following year. Catherine may already have been pregnant again with her next child, Catherine, when little Rosanna died. Perhaps she succumbed to one of the epidemics of childhood diseases such as whooping cough and scarlet fever that swept through Sydney in the 1840’s, as families began arriving in the colony as migrants. Nearly 30% of deaths in the 1840’s were among infants*. Prior to this, when the population had been made up chiefly of adult convicts and soldiers, such illnesses had been almost unknown. Rosanna was buried in Sydney.

As was common in those days, John and Catherine used the name Rosanna again, for their fifth daughter, who was born in Adelaide in 1847. Several of the Mason’s daughters named one of their children Rose, Rosanna or Rosina. I knew already about Rose Atkin (daughter of Mary Ann), and Roseanna Murphy (daughter of Eliza Mason).

Recently I discovered another child named Rose who I think is a daughter of Susan Mason and David Whybrew. (I don't yet have certificates to prove it, but it seems likely.) If so, she would be one of the 'missing' children who doesn't appear on any census.

She was registered in Colchester in the April-June quarter of 1874 under the name “Rosina Whybruew”. The spelling suggests that it was Susan who registered her, and unlike the other children born while David was in the army, she wasn’t recorded on the British Nationals Armed Forces births register.

That may be because the family were in a state of upheaval. A two year old child named David, who was almost certainly their son, died in Colchester  in July. David’s regiment was moved to Ireland in August, arriving in Dublin on August 8. Susan and the children went with him, though they may not have sailed at the same time.

Sometime in 1874 a child less than a year old named “Rose Whybren”  died in Dublin and her death was registered there. It seems very likely that this was Susan and David’s young daughter. It must have been a terrible blow to lose a baby like that in a strange country, especially so soon after the death of another child.

Like her parents, Susan and David used the name Rose again for a later child, a daughter born in Kent in 1877. Their daughter Eliza kept the tradition going by marrying into a family with many ‘Roses’, the Beales, and naming one of her daughters Rosina.

Postscript: I now have confirmation that the child Rosina Whybrew, who died in Dublin in October 1874 was the daughter of David Whybrew, soldier in the 50th regiment. She was 4 and a half months old and cause of death was 'diarrhea'.

*Lewis, Milton James. The People’s Health: Public Health in Australia, 1788-1950. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003. Print. Page 30-31

====================================

to read more about the Mason and Whybrew families, see my book Susan: convict's daughter, soldier's wife, nobody's fool. It's available on Amazon and other online books stores. To read a preview of the first chapters, click on the cover image.

Heroes and heroines of Salford

Every family has its villains and heroes. In my last post I looked at one of the apparent villains. Now seems an appropriate time to look at some of the more heroic members of the family, those who served in the 1914-18 war.

I've written previously about members of my father's side of the family who fought in the 'War to end all wars', including my grandfather Thomas H Ward, his brother-in-law William J Beales and the Whybrew brothers. Here are a few stories from my mother's side.


Ernest Reed Bentley (1878-1940)

Ernest was my grandmother's uncle, the youngest son of Alfred Pearson Bentley and Annie Reed. He was born in January 1878, shortly before Alfred disappeared to Boston. In 1902 he left his job as a labourer and joined the Royal Navy as a second class stoker.

His early years in the navy were not exactly glorious. In 1903 he deserted his first ship, the Duke of Wellington II, and after being 'recovered' he was given hard labour. His record shows numerous stints spent in the cells for disobedience, and his character was described as 'fair' or 'indifferent'. However by about 1910 he seems to have settled and was described as being of "very good character".

He remained in the navy when war broke out in 1914, serving on the Victory II, and his subsequent story is told in the National Roll of the Great War:

"(A)t the outbreak of war in August 1914 (he) was sent to Belgium with the Royal Naval Division, and was taken prisoner at Antwerp. During his captivity he suffered many hardships. After a short time in Doeberitz Camp he was forced to repair trenches on the German front in Russia, where he was often under heavy fire, worked at the docks at Libau on the Baltic Coast, and also down the coal mines in Saxony. He was repatriated and discharged in March 1919, and holds the 1914 Star, and the General Service and Victory Medals."

After the war he joined the RFR (Royal Fleet Reserve). He was discharged in 1921 to 34, Brunt Street, Rusholme, Manchester, the address of his sister, Margaret Bentley.

(For some reason his date of birth is recorded on his service papers as 1882, although his stated age of 22 when he joined makes a clerical error seem likely.)

John Henry Bentley (1892-1915)

John, my grandmother's cousin, was the grandson of Alfred Pearson Bentley and Margaret Bentley's only child. Born in 1892, he was 22 and still single when he enlisted in 1914 as a driver in the Royal Engineers Corp. 

Sadly his career in the army was brief. In 1915 he became unwell with TB and was allowed to go home. In February 1915 he died.

It seems the army wanted some evidence that he hadn't simply deserted. In a letter to his army officers, his grieving mother Margaret wrote:

Dear Sirs
In reply to your request, my son 52301 Driver, J. H. Bentley was buried in consecrated part Southern Cemetery, grave number 666 Q section, Manchester. He was buried on 23 February 1915.

I remain yours,
Mrs M. A Bentley.
34 Brunt St, Rusholme.

George Orton (1898-1916)

HMS Powerful

George, my grandfather's cousin, was the son of John Sidney and Julia (Annie) Orton. He joined the navy in 1914, when he was barely 16, in the rank of Boy Ist Class and served initially on HMS Powerful and then on the Defiance. On  31 May 1916 he was killed in action during the battle of Jutland. His body was never recovered.

Sidney Thomas Orton (1890-1916)

The main street of Longueval in 1916

Sidney was George Orton's older brother, born 1 Nov 1890. He married Edith Hulwe in 1912 and they had a child. In 1914 he joined the Rifle Brigade and then became a private in the Machine Gun Corp and was sent to France. On 18 August 1916, just a few months after his brother George's death, he too was killed in action. He was buried at Caterpillar Valley Cemetery, Longueval in France.


James Thomas Hough (1890 - 1937 ) and John Hough (1892 - )

The battle at Vimy Ridge

These brothers, my grandmother's maternal uncles, both enlisted in the Lancashire Fusiliers. My grandmother had a rosary, made of ivory or bone, which I believe one of them had brought back from their time in France. In the centre of the cross was a small lens, through which could be seen, as if by magic, scenes from some of the battles. 

Their military careers are described in the following entries in the National Roll of The Great War:

"HOUGH, J. T.. Private, Lancashire Fusiliers.
He joined in February 1916, and was shortly afterwards drafted to France, where fought at Vimy Ridge, the Somme, Arras, Ypres and Cambrai, He also took part the Retreat and Advance of 1918, and after the Armistice proceeded to Germany with the Army of Occupation, with which he served until invalided home owing to illness. He was eventually discharged in July 1919, holding the General Service and Victory Medals.
18, Shuttleworth Street, Pendleton."

(James and John's sisters Lily and Alice Hough both lived at 18 Shuttleworth Street, Pendleton when they married in the early 1920's.)

"HOUGH, J., Corpl., 8th Lancashire Fusiliers.
Volunteering in August 1914, in the following month he was sent to Egypt, and served there until drafted to the Dardanelles, where he took part in numerous engagements until the evacuation, and was wounded. He then returned to Egypt, and in March 1917 proceeded to France, where he fought on the Ancre at Ypres, and in the Retreat.

After the Armistice he was sent to Ireland and Served there until, owing to ill-health, he was invalided home and discharged in November 1920, holding the 1914-15 Star, and the General Service and Victory Medals.
18, Shuttleworth Street, Pendleton."

What is interesting is that directly above these two entries is this one:

"HOUGH, C. J. (Mrs.), Worker, Q.M.A.A.C. (Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps)
Having joined in March 1918, she was sent to France, where she did excellent work as waitress in the Officers' mess at Abbeville, and was wounded during an air raid on that place. She remained in this area until June 1919, when she returned home and was demobilised, holding the General Service and Victory Medals.
18, Shuttleworth Street, Pendleton."

Members of the QMAAC in Rouen, France, 1918

The address is the same, but I haven't been able to trace any woman with the initials C. J. in our family. James' wife's name was Elizabeth, so perhaps C J  was John's wife. Or perhaps she was the wife of a C. J. Hough, but again there is no-one known in the family with those initials. 

These are just a few of the family members who served in World War 1. If you would  like to see others included, or have more information about those I've described, please email me, or leave a comment.

The fourteen children of David and Susan Whybrew - part 2

(See also The fourteen children of David and Susan Whybrew part 1)

Benjamin John (Jack)

Born in Canterbury in 1879, David and Susan's son was recorded as "John Whybrew" in the civil register, "Benjamin J Whybrow" in the British Nationals Armed Forces register of births, and "Jack" in the 1891 census. He used John and Benjamin interchangeably on later census, but John seems to be his most commonly used name.

Next of kin listed on John's army records

John Whybrow (sic), joined the 3rd Essex battalion in 1895 at the age of 17. His military records give his next of kin as David and Susan Whybrew of Pownell Cresent, Colchester. He was discharged from the 44th and 56th foot of the Essex battalion in July 1896 to join the York and Lancaster regiment, but was discharged from there as medically unfit in January 1898, due to a perforated eardrum. The medical officer who examined him couldn't account for the perforation, but didn't think it was due to anything related to his time in the army. He considered that it was untreatable and that John's deafness on that side would be permanent. It's tempting to think that this disability probably saved John's life.

In late 1898 John married Emily Licence, the daughter of a blacksmith from Leiston in Suffolk. They lived in Colchester, where John worked as a bricklayer. In 1901 they were living with Henry and Harriet Malone along with Rose Anthony (nee Whybrew).Their daughter Emily was born in late 1902. I haven't yet discovered any other children.

Possibly John tried to join the army again at the beginning of WW1. A medal roll index card exists for a John Whybrew who joined the Army Veterinary Corp in 1914, but was discharged in 1915. Whether or not this is the same John Whybrew I haven't been able to discover - the card, like most, carries very little personal information.

I'm told (third hand) that after Emily, John's wife, died (in 1913) John remarried, leaving young Emily with Eliza and William Beales. I haven't been able to find any record of this marriage, if it was official. John himself died in Colchester in 1941 at the age of 62.

It's worth noting that, despite having had 14 children, David and Susan had no grandsons to carry on the family name. In fact, they had relatively few grandchildren in total. 

David Henry

Like John, David Henry was registered by one name on the civil register of births (Henry Whybrew), but by another (David H Whybrow) on the British Nationals Armed Forces births register. He seems to have been generally known as Henry.

Again like John, Henry joined the 3rd Essex Regiment at the age of 17, in 1898, and then transferred to the 44th and 56th foot. But his army career, while short, was far more tragic than John's. In October 1899, at the outbreak of the (second) Boer War he joined the Royal Irish Fusiliers. Records show that in February 1902 a Private H. Whybrew of the 1st battalion of the Royal Irish Fusiliers died "of disease" at Springfontein. This was almost certainly Henry, as no further record of him can be found. His death would also account for why Susan had only 7 remaining children at the time of the 1911 census.

William (Bill)

William was born in 1884 while his father David was stationed in Kent, and he appears with Susan in the 1891 census as "Bill". In the 1901 census he is described as William, aged 16, working as an assistant gardener and living with David and Susan in Colchester.

After this a certain amount of speculation is needed to piece together his story. In the 1911 census a William Whybrew born in Canterbury, Kent is living in Cambridge with his wife Annie Whybrew, (along with a lodger). Annie is a good 20 years older than William, and they have been married for 6 years, but Annie has no children, living or otherwise, suggesting (but not proving) that she was single rather than widowed when they married. 

The only marriage in or about 1905 that seems to fit is that of William Whybrew to Adelaide Williams in Colchester in 1905. Was Adelaide perhaps known as Annie? According to the 1911 census "Annie" Whybrew was born in about 1866 in Ipswich, Suffolk. There was an Adelaide Williams born in Ipswich in 1867. But of course there were dozens of other Annies and Adelaides born in Ipswich about this time. 

What happened to William after this is also uncertain, but my hunch is that he is probably the Private William Whybrew who was killed in action in France in October 1918 - just a few weeks before the end of the war. 

Private Whybrew enlisted in Colchester and was a member of the 9th battalion of the Alexandra Princess of Wales Own (Yorkshire) regiment. His regiment number was 34021, and he was originally a member of the Army Veterinary Corp. This would tie in with William's occupation in 1911 as a 'carman', that is, someone who drove a horse-drawn cart delivering goods. The Veterinary Corp helped to look after the millions of horses, dogs and other animals used by the British army. The only detail against this hypothesis is that Private William Whybrew is said to have been born in Colchester, but his brother Henry's papers include the same error. Such details were not always accurate, and it would be an understandable mistake.

The British Cemetery at Vis-en-Artois
By MilborneOne (Own work)  via Wikimedia Commons

Private Whybrew was buried somewhere in the British Cemetary at Vis-en-Artois, France and his name was listed on the Vis-en-Artois memorial (panel 5).

According to the British Army medal roll index card, Mrs Whybrew (no first name given - mother or sister not specified) requested that William's 1915 Star medal be sent to her. The address recorded on the card is 195 Bramford Rd, Ipswich. An Adelaide Whybrew was married to John Sanders in Ipswich late in 1919 suggesting that the widowed Annie/Adelaide remarried.

(I hoped that tracking down the occupants of 195 Bramford Rd in the 1911 census would give some more clues, but the family who were living there, the Lasts, seem to be unrelated to William or Annie. The husband, Henry Last, died in 1917 and possibly the family moved after that.)

As I say, a lot of speculation is involved here, but it seems to explain the absence of a civilian record of William's death.*

Ellen (Nellie)

Ellen was born in Colchester in 1890, and married George F Howard there in 1910. At the time of the 1911 census she was living alone, alongside many other army wives, in Aldershot, so it's probable that George was a soldier. Two George F Howards were listed in the Barracks at Aldershot at the census, one single, the other married. The latter was born in Stortford, Bedfordshire and was a member of the 1st Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment (Infantry). 

St Michael the Archangel, Aldershot*
 © Copyright Basher Eyre,
 licensed for reuse under this CC license

Ellen and George had a son, Alexander George Ernest Howard on 2 September 1911. He was baptised at St Michael the Archangel church in Aldershot. They may possibly have had another child, Leslie O. Howard, born in Colchester in October 1914, died in Colchester in 1915. (The child's mother's name is given as Whybrew). 

It seems that George Howard was yet another victim of the carnage that was World War 1, although I haven't positively identified his military records. In September 1919 the now-widowed Ellen Howard, daughter of David Whybrew (deceased) married Alfred Lloyd in London. The register was witnessed by Ada Metson and Joseph Metson. 

Ada

Ada, born 1895, married Joseph Metson in the second quarter of 1913 in Colchester. Joseph clearly survived the war, since he was present at Ellen's wedding in 1919. The fact that he and Ada had a child born in 1916 suggests he may not have joined the army until late in the war, if at all. Apart from that, I haven't been able to find out anything about him.

Ada and Joseph had at least 3 children - Florence born in Jan 1914, Joseph born in 1916 (both in Colchester) and Violet born in mid 1919 (in Islington). After that I can't find any definite record of either Ada or Joseph, but it seems likely that Joseph died in Edmonton in 1935 and Ada died in Torbay in 1980.

* Update: I now have a copy of William's marriage certificate which confirms that he married Adelaide (Annie) Williams, and have other evidence that he was killed in action in 1918.

You may also be interested in:

David Whybrew
Susan Mason
The fourteen children of David and Susan Whybrew part 1
William Whybrew - an update
David Whybrew's military career part 1
Susan Mason, a wild colonial girl

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You can find out more about Susan and David Whybrew and their family, in my book Susan: convict's daughter, soldier's wife, nobody's fool.
It's available on Amazon and other online books stores