Jack Tirrell

 Several years ago I posted about my mother's cousin Thomas Joseph Tirrell.  Through that post I was contacted by Thomas Joseph's daughter.  She told me all about his exemplary  military record during World War 11.  She also told me that Thomas had been known as Jack Tirrell for many years and that he retired to north Wales.

I was looking through old newspapers today and came across a few articles. The first was about his wife Brenda who have been seriously injured and a road accident in 1987. At the time I was actually looking for their death records.  Brenda obviously recovered from her injuries as she outlived Jack and didn't die until 2000. 

There were several reports about the Cambrian Horse Show which was founded by Jack in 1972.  This interview is from 1992 when Jack was 82 years old.  He died 2 years later in 1994.  I wonder if he kept in touch with his family in Yorkshire.  He was my first cousin once removed. I can see a likeness to my granddad Herbert William Tirrell (his uncle) from this photograph.

 19th century crime and punishment. 

 (This is loosely connected to my family history.)

I do wander away from the subject of my family history when I find stories involving my ancestors.  This time I am going back to my great great grandfather Asa Godber for the start of my post. 

Asa was the son of James and Ann Godber. He was born in 1826 in Nottinghamshire.

By 1861 he had become a police officer working in Derbyshire and his name appears quite frequently in the newspapers of that time. More often than not this is when he is breaking up fights and being attacked in the process.

One occasion was really upsetting when he was called because a 10 year old girl had been attacked by a young man. On 9^th May 1869 Ellen Greaves age 10 and her friend were out walking with their dolls and picking wild flowers when she was approached by a young man who spoke to her and asked her to give him kiss. She refused and he grabbed her and pushed her to the ground and brutally attacked and raped her.

Her friend ran along the road to get help and she told two men who she met that a man was murdering her friend. They ran back with her but didn't apprehend the man. They took Ellen home where her mother called the doctor. The doctor said she had been ravished and frightfully torn and lacerated with bruising round her head and arms. She had been shockingly used and he had never in his experienced seen anything so bad as this.

Ellen's friend, Ann Pearce, gave the men a description of the attacker and they said they knew who he was. With they information they gave to Asa he was able to find him and arrest him. At first he denied the attack but later admitted it and said he had been drunk. Ellen and Ann were able to identify him. He was called John Webster and was 18 years old. He was committed to the next Derby Assizes.

    I have often thought about this story and wondered what had happened to Ellen following this terrible ordeal and also if John Webster had been punished for his heinous crime against a 10 year old.

    Ellen was the 4^th daughter of Robert and Sarah Greaves, they had 5 daughters and 2 sons. In 1871 after the attack she was living with her parents and brother and their granddaughter in Eckington, Derbyshire. In 1881 she was working as a cook in a household in Doncaster, Yorkshire. By 1891, 33 year old Ellen was still single and living in the home of her brother Robert and his family back in Eckington along with her widowed mother. I wonder if she would have married and had a family of her own if it hadn't been for this tragic event. I can find no further record after 1891.

John Webster was tried before a judge at the Derby Assizes and sentenced to 10 years penal servitude.

I found several record of his prison history. He was first sent from Derby prison to Pentonville in March 1870 and 2 months later he was transferred to Chatham prison where he served until February 1876.

On 14^th February 1876 he was transferred to Borstal Convict Prison in Rochester, Kent. In May of the following year he was released on licence.

John Webster was born in 1849, son of John and Sarah Webster. In 

1841 and 1851 they lived on Primrose Hill in Dudley, Worcestershire.  Can't find the family in 1861.  

    On John's prison records the names of 2 different people were given as his next of kin.  One was James Price of Netherton, Worcestershire who was his brother in law.  The other was Ann Morris, his sister of Primrose Hill in Netherton.  I've had difficulty tracing both of these but have found John living with an aunt, Sarah Morris, and her son Richard in Bumble Hole, Dudley in 1891.  Sarah was John's father's sister who was born in 1815 and was the widow of James Morris.  John was 40, single and working as a boiler maker. Maybe a trade he had learned in prison. 

I have given up delving any further because as usual this has taken up a lot of my time. I do believe if someone attacked a 10 year old so brutally  now they would have had a harsher sentence, John only served 7 years of a 10 year sentence

    

Another find in old newspaper. 

I first wrote about my grandmother Edith Butler in 1912 Edith Butler

This newspaper story is a sad one which is often on my mind.  This article is from a Sheffield Newspaper and was written to advertise an insurance policy they offered at that time.  My mum was only 3 so too young to know anything about the story at that time and knew very little as she got older. She always said that her dad must have loved her mum so much that he wouldn't talk about her as it upset him too much.  I wouldn't have know any of this either if not for the Sheffield Daily Independent  dated Tuesday 17th November 1925. 

Such a sad thing to happen to anyone but he was a man who had fought and suffered gassing in the trenches in World War 1.  Nothing was known about PTSD at that time but I would think that must have been affecting him.  He had not been married long and must have just been starting to get over it with a new home and a small daughter in their lives.  Then this tragedy hits.  Luckily both him and Edith had very supportive families nearby to take care of my mum Kathleen.  He did marry again when Kathleen was 5  and she went back to live with him and his lovely new wife Evelyn who I always knew as grandma. 

Second cousins once removed, May and Beryl Ingham

I have blogged about May and Beryl before in April 2012 https://sheilasancestralthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/04/beryl-ingham.html. 

They were a clog dancing duo from Lancashire in the early years of the 20th century century and my 2nd cousins once removed on my dad's side of the family. 

I've recently been spending a lot of time searching old newspapers online to see if I can find any interesting articles to add to my family history.  What I already knew was that Beryl was  married to George Formby and knew a lot about her from a biography of George (George Formby a Troubled Genius),written by David Bret. 

I found a couple of articles about the marriages of the sisters.  The first to be married was Beryl who, at the age of 23, was the youngest sister to marry in September 1924.

May married at the age of 27 in November 1926

The sisters had previously had their names in the newspaper in 1920 and had appeared in theatres all over Lancashire after this.

 Ann Selina Mycock  (21st August 1848 - 12th May 1927)

Ann Selina Mycock was my paternal great grandmother.  She was born in the middle of the 19th century and lived well into the 20th century to the age of 78 which was a good age for that period. 

She had 14 children but sadly not all survived infancy.  The family lived in the village of Romiley from the middle of the 1880s which is where I was born and brought up.

I accidentally came across the following article from a local newspaper whilst doing some family history research.

It's not surprising to learn she had so many grandchildren who would all be my dad's cousins.  I wonder if he knew them all?  I doubt there would have been birthday cards and presents all round on birthdays and at Christmas.  I don't think it was the thing in those days and she wasn't a wealthy lady.  

Would have been lovely to know her but even my dad wouldn't have remembered her well as she died on the day before his 7th birthday.  I only knew a handful of the people listed in the article but remember them fondly. 

 Another sad story from my meanderings.  It's almost 25 years now since I started my family history research.  It brought me back in touch with my cousin Valerie Whitby who emigrated to Australia in 1968.  

I found out that she had been involved in the same hobby for a few years by then.  She passed on information to me along with little snippets of information from her mother Nora who was my dad's sister.  Sadly my dad died in 1969 so I was unable to learn about the family from him. 

This is the story about one of my paternal grandmother Sarah Mycock's elder sisters Hannah.  Hannah was 5 years older than Sarah being born in 1875. 

Hannah married Herbert Cubitt on 13th September 1902 in Stockport. Witnesses to the marriage were her sister Sarah and Berties Cheetham. Berties was either Sarah's boyfriend or fiance as she later married him the following year.

Herbert and Hannah had 3 children, Fred born 5th April 1903 Mary Edith born 17th September 1904 and Millicent born 29th October 1907.  

The sad story from  my aunty Nora was that Fred drowned in the canal in the village of Romiley where they lived.  Today while looking through old newspaper records I searched for Fred.  

On 18th September 1918, 15 year old Fred and some other boys, who were on a breakfast break from their work at Chadkirk Print works in Romiley, were playing football when their ball went into the river Goyt which was flowing fast due to flooding.  Fred went into the river to retrieve the ball but was carried away by the fast flowing water.  Another boy Peter Beswick jumped in to attempt to rescue him and was almost carried away too.   Sadly he was unable to rescue Fred.

The newspaper article I read was about an award made to Peter for his very brave attempt to rescue Fred.   He receive a certificate and a very handsome watch.

Very tragic for the family but the sad part to me is that there is nobody left of the family to remember Fred.  Both his sisters lived to a good age but neither had any children so that line of the family ended.

I knew both ladies well but don't remember them ever speaking of Fred.  They were my dad's cousins and I always called them aunty.  Aunty Edie was my godmother and I used to like spending time at her house listening to her gramophone in the late 1950s.  Her favourite record was Softly Softly by Ruby Murray. I used to stay there in my early teens when I didn't want to go on holiday with Dad and mum.

I didn't see aunty Millie as often but  one memory is of the corner shop near her house always comes to mind when I watch Open all Hours.  Her husband, uncle Norman, was a policeman and he was very tall.  She made a lovely potato hash with left over turkey at Christmas.

• World War 1 Family Loss

I often wander off  from searching for direct ancestors and so discover family stories rather than just names.  This is sad story I discovered accidentally. 

His mother Mary Emma Swindells was a sister of my grandmother Sarah Ann Cox. This means that William Swindells was my first cousin once removed.

I assume he died following injury in a WW1 battle but don't know which or how to find out but I will start searching.  

There are no family members left to ask about it.  My dad, who died in 1969 wasn't even born when this happened so he never knew his  cousin.

Didn't take me long to find out that he died in action in France and Flanders.  So sad!