Picture Postcard Parade: Winter Scenes in Brighton

To celebrate the fact that this morning I woke up to the first snowfall of the winter (it was only a light dusting, but snow nevertheless), here is a postcard from my collection which consists of twenty-one different views of a snow-covered Brighton, Sussex.

What is most interesting about this postcard is that it is made up of lots of individual postcards. If you click on the image and look closely at the enlarged image you will see each picture has a caption just like a postcard. The postcard on far-right of the second row is of Preston Park and I have a full size version of the postcard in my collection.

I have similar multi-view postcards in my collection where you can actually see the pins that were used to hold the cards in place while the photographer took another photo of the montage of postcards.

I don’t know who the photographer/publisher was, but the postcard of Preston Park gives a clue to the date, it has an extra caption giving the date of the 24th April 1908. I don’t know whether this relates to the date of the snowfall or when the photo was taken, the snow could have lingered for some time. I will have to check the local newspapers to see exactly when the snowfall took place and what the effect of the snowfall was on the residents of Brighton.

Ancestral Profile: George MITCHELL (1806?-1844?)

I have already written about one George MITCHELL in my family tree, but he was on my mother’s side of the family, this one is on my father’s side and was probably unrelated. This George MITCHELL was my 4x great-grandfather and in contrast with the other George MITCHELL I know almost nothing about his life.

The first record I have is his marriage to my 4x great-grandmother Mary SMITH. The marriage took place on the 29th September 1828 in the parish of Cuckfield, Sussex. As the marriage was before 1837 there is no mention of his father’s name, all I have is that they were both from Cuckfield and neither had been married before. I haven’t checked the original record, so there may be additional clues in the names of the witnesses, it is worth a look anyway.

In the 1841 census George and Mary are living in Bolney, Sussex but I can’t make out the name of the farm on which they are living. They have four children: Mary Ann, Harriett, Caroline and Alfred. The 1841 census provides the only piece of evidence for George’s birth, his age is given as 35 years and he was born in Sussex. In theory this should mean that George was aged between 35 and 39 years old, but this is by no means guaranteed.

By the 1851 census George has died and Mary is living as a widow, with four children: Harriett, Caroline, Alfred and William. This provides the only real evidence for George’s death, seemingly some time between the birth of William in 1844 and the 1851 census. Mary is shown as a pauper, so there may be some further clues among the records of the Poor Law Guardians.

It seems that George and Mary had six children, but apart from Harriett (my 3x great-grandmother) I know very little about what became of them. They were:

1. Eliza MITCHELL (baptised 7th December 1828 in Cuckfield, Sussex)
2. Mary Ann MITCHELL (baptised 30th January 1831 in Cuckfield, Sussex)
3. Harriett MITCHELL (born c1834 in Slaugham, Sussex)
4. Caroline MITCHELL (born Q3 1838 in Slaugham, Sussex)
5. Alfred George MITCHELL (born 23rd February 1841 in Bolney, Sussex)
6. William MITCHELL (baptised 14th April 1844 in Balcombe, Sussex)

The fact that William was baptised in Balcombe possibly provides a clue to the death of George. There is a burial recorded in Cuckfield on the 30th October 1844 of a 38 year old George MITCHELL from Balcombe. It seems quite likely that this was my 4x great-grandfather, and there is a chance that he was the victim of an accident on the London to Brighton railway. The Times newspaper refers to the victim as Thomas MITCHELL, but I can’t find a death registration for either Thomas or George MITCHELL in the right place at the right time. Local newspapers my clarify this situation as The Times might have got his name wrong.

Personal Genealogy Update: Week 48

I hadn’t expected last week to be quite rewarding. I have decided to concentrate most my efforts of some housekeeping of my family history, and it has proved to be rewarding and enjoyable.

It is also taking quite a long time. So far I have been through the first eight individuals (in numerical order) in my database and updated as much as I could, some of the information I updated related to other individuals, but the core of the work was on those eight people. At that rate it will be nearly four years before I have revisited every individual in my database, so I may have re-think the strategy, and that doesn’t take into account that these individuals were pretty well documented already and that I have added a load more stuff to my to-do list in the process.

I do think it is worthwhile however, it has spotlighted lots of work I still need to do and thrown up lots of interesting questions such as when did someone move, or what was the relationship of the witnesses at their wedding. It has certainly guaranteed that I am never going to be short of things to do, my to-do list grew by over twenty items during the week, even though I know some of those items are unlikely to be cleared for years to come.

It has also forced me to make some decisions on how I record things in my database. I use Family Historian and it is just too flexible for someone like me who can’t decide where things should be recorded and how I want things to show up on the many different reports.

There was really only one major discovery, the whereabouts of my 2x great-aunt Ethel Mary TROWER in the 1911 census had eluded me until this week. I guess I hadn’t spent a lot of time searching until now because I was surprised how easy it was to find her in the end. She turned up in Henfield, Sussex working as a domestic servant at a house called Terrys Cross (which is now a retirement home). I have passed it many times on the bus and it is nice to know there is a family connection with it.

It hasn’t been all about housekeeping this week. I did order the death certificate for Margaret KINGHORN (who I wrote about last Monday) last weekend, which arrived at the end of the week and has provided a few more hard facts about her life. I still need to do more work on my Carlisle relations and pull together as many more hard facts as I can before I think about paying their archives a visit next year.

This week will be much of the same, I probably need to try and speed up a little (or a lot) but it is really proving to be very worthwhile. The other advantage is that I can do it pretty much anywhere with my netbook, whether I am waiting at the station, sitting on the train or whilst on my lunch break, and a lot of the time I don’t even need an internet connection.

Unplugged: Capital Ring – Finsbury Park to Plaistow

It has been a while since my friend Chris and I went to London and walked a section of the Capital Ring, but despite the cold weather that is what we did today. When I say cold, it was only around freezing but still a lot colder than I am used to walking in. Despite the cold this has to have been one of my favourite sections of the walk.

We started back at Finsbury Park railway station and headed across the Finsbury Park and on to Clissold Park and Stoke Newington. Here the path took us through Abney Park Cemetery, which is a lovely cemetery which although it looks overgrown and neglected is actually a nature reserve and conservation area. There are some amazing memorials here and I could have spent hours exploring, one of the most prominent graves is that pictured below of William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army.

From Stoke Newington the path continues in a north-eastern direction to Springfield Park and the River Lea, the walk then follows the river roughly south-east. There was quite a lot of activity on the river (narrowboats, canoes and swans) and the path follows this until Old Ford Lock, where the path joins The Greenway.

The Greenway is another named path which is along the top of a sewer. I have followed many things over my years of walking, from disused railways to rivers and canals, but I think this is the first time I have followed a sewer. The sewer in question is the Northern Outfall Sewer and it is elevated above the surroundings, giving some great views.

The Greenway crosses the site of the London 2012 olympics and there are excellent views of the construction works in progress. The photo above shows the main olympic stadium to the north of The Greenway. Although it looks quite bright, the weather took a turn for the worse, it didn’t actually rain (or snow) but it did come over very dark and threatening.

Further along The Greenway there were some interesting views across to Canary Wharf (pictured below), acting as a reminder that we are nearing the end of the Capital Ring, on the bank of the River Thames. Hopefully in a couple of weeks we will be back up to London to complete the final section before Christmas.

Making the News: “An extraordinary double tragedy”

A couple of weeks ago I decided to follow up one of the mysteries that I uncovered in the National Probate Calendar, and it turned out to be one of the most heart-breaking stories that I have uncovered whilst researching my family history.

Whilst searching the probate calendar I came across the entries for a pair of GASSONs from Haywards Heath, Sussex. I wrote about my discovery and a few thoughts about what might have happened here. I suggested that their deaths might have been as a result of enemy bombing during the Second World War, but the truth is that although it could be attributed to the war, the story was far more tragic.

I will let the newspaper report from the Sussex Daily News dated Thursday 17th October 1940 tell the story:

COUPLE DIE IN DUG-OUT

HAYWARDS HEATH TRAGEDY

An extraordinary double tragedy which occurred at Haywards Heath was discovered on Tuesday afternoon at about 1.15, and the inquiry into it was held the same afternoon by East Sussex Coroner, Dr. E. F. Hoare.

Deceased were William Edward Gasson and his wife, Dorothy Gasson, of 3 North-road. They had been found dead in the dug-out in their garden.

In the dug-out was a brazier with coal ashes in it and an oil stove. The latter had not been used. There was also a candle.

Deceased were found in a sitting posture. Everything went to show that the previous night they had gone to their dug-out and had lighted the fire in the brazier, and that while they were sitting there the fumes had overcome them.

A neighbour made investigations on Tuesday on finding that the morning milk had not been taken in.

Evidence was given at the inquiry by the neighbour, Jesse Laker, and by the son, William Ernest Gasson, who did not live at the house.

The Coroner found death was due to carbon monoxide poisoning and recorded a verdict of “Death by misadventure.”

I have read some pretty sad stories in the course of my research, but this really touched a nerve and I was almost in tears as I read the article. I don’t know quite why it touched me so, they are not particularly close relations, but regardless of that it is still a really sad story.

The couple had only recently married (the son was from William’s first marriage) and to die in such an unnecessary and avoidable way when people were dying as a result enemy bombing (from which the GASSONs were trying to escape) seems desperately unlucky.