Philip Crespigny and his brothers at school in Guernsey

Philip Robert Champion Crespigny (1817 – 1889), one of my third great grandfathers, was the third of five children of Charles Fox Champion de Crespigny and Eliza née Trent.

Philip was born in Boulogne-sur-mer, France, 35 kilometres south-west of Calais. His older brothers, Charles and George, had been born in Aldeburgh, Suffolk in 1814, and in Antwerp in 1815. Philip’s two younger sisters were born in Boulogne in 1819 and 1825.

I am not sure when the family returned to England or where they lived. In October 1830 the three boys were admitted to the Royal College of Elizabeth on the Island of Guernsey. Charles was sixteen years old, George fifteen, and Philip thirteen.

Guernsey is an island in the English Channel (in French, La Manche) on the coast of Normandy, west of the Cherbourg peninsular. A hundred kilometres south is Saint Malo, where Philip later lived before emigrating to Australia.

Elizabeth College, Guernsey was founded in 1563. In 1826 it was re-chartered and renamed the Royal College of Elizabeth. The Rev. Charles William Stocker, D.D. was appointed principal; he set out to raise the academic standing of the school and oversee the construction of the new main building, which was completed in 1829, three years later.

The Royal College of Elizabeth, Guernsey. Lithograph by C. Haghe after J. Wilson (the architect). Image from Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

From the register of old boys: admissions for Michelmas term 1830:

353. Crespigny (afterwards de Crespigny) Charles John
Champion — born at Aldborough, June 20, 1814; son of Charles John Champion Crespigny and Julia Eliza Champion ; left 1831.
Reverted to the family name of de Crespigny ; no profession ; died in London in 1880.

354. Crespigny (afterwards de Crespigny) George Blicke
Champion — born at Antwerp, October 31, 1815 ; brother of No. 353 ; left 1832.
Ensign, 20th Regiment, 1836; Major, 1864; Paymaster of the School of Musketry at Hythe, 1855-1881; Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, 1869; reverted to the family name of de Crespigny in 1874 ; Colonel (half -pay) 1881 ; died in 1893.

355. Crespigny (afterwards de Crespigny) Philip Robert
Champion — born at Boulogne, October 4, 1817 ; brother of No. 353 ; left 1831.
Reverted to the family name of de Crespigny ; emigrated to Australia and engaged in farming; became a Police Magistrate at Daisy-hill, near Maryborough, Victoria; Warden of Goldfields and Coroner; died at Brighton, Melbourne, in 1889.

It looks as though Charles and Philip lasted a year or less and George lasted perhaps two years.

In 1831 there were 192 students, an increase from 1826 attributed to the arrival of eighty-nine migrants from England.

The Rev. George Samuel Proctor succeeded Stocker as principal from 1829 to 1832, resigning from the post after a disagreement with the College Directors.

It has been suggested that Proctor was the prototype of Dr. Blimber in Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens (1846-8).

Dr. Blimber’s Academy From Dombey and Son: , ch. 11:

...'I believe the Doctor's is an excellent establishment. I've heard that it's very strictly conducted, and there is nothing but learning going on from morning to night.'

'And it's very expensive,' added Mr Dombey.

'And it's very expensive, Sir,' returned Mrs Pipchin, catching at the fact, as if in omitting that, she had omitted one of its leading merits.

…..

Whenever a young gentleman was taken in hand by Doctor Blimber, he might consider himself sure of a pretty tight squeeze. The Doctor only undertook the charge of ten young gentlemen, but he had, always ready, a supply of learning for a hundred, on the lowest estimate; and it was at once the business and delight of his life to gorge the unhappy ten with it.

In fact, Doctor Blimber's establishment was a great hot-house, in which there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys blew before their time. Mental green-peas were produced at Christmas, and intellectual asparagus all the year round. Mathematical gooseberries (very sour ones too) were common at untimely seasons, and from mere sprouts of bushes, under Doctor Blimber's cultivation. Every description of Greek and Latin vegetable was got off the driest twigs of boys, under the frostiest circumstances. Nature was of no consequence at all. No matter what a young gentleman was intended to bear, Doctor Blimber made him bear to pattern, somehow or other.

Dombey and Son: illustration by H. K Browne (” Phiz “) of Dr. Blimber and His Young Friends. Dr. Proctor (Principal of Elizabeth College 1829-1832) was the original of this portrait.

George de Crespigny left Elizabeth College in 1832 and was admitted to Trinity Hall Cambridge University. From Alumni Cantabrigienses:

CRESPIGNY or DE CRESPIGNY, GEORGE BLICKE CHAMPION. Adm. pens, at Trinity Hall, Oct. 17, 1832. [2nd s. of Charles Fox Champion (1803), Esq., of Tal-y-Ilyn House, Brecon.] Adm. at Lincoln's Inn, Nov. 4, 1833; age 17. Lieut. -Col., late 20th Regt.; Paymaster, Army service, 1880. Sometime on the staff of the School of Musketry, at Hythe, Kent. Married Elizabeth Jane, dau. of Alexander Buchanan, Esq., of Montreal, Canada, Q.C (Canadian Bar), June 11, 1851. Brother of Philip R. C. (1838). (Foster, Baronetage, 1883.)

Philip also attended Cambridge from 1838, admitted to Downing College. I do not know where he received his education from 1831 to 1838.

CRESPIGNY, PHILIP ROBERT CHAMPION. Adm. Fell.-Com. at Downing, Nov. 7, 1838. [3rd s. of Charles James Fox (1803).] B. Oct. 4, 1817- Went to Australia. Some time Warden and Police- Magistrate of goldfields, Ararat, Victoria. Married Charlotte Frances, dau. of William Pulteney Dana, Capt., 6th Foot, July 18, 1849. Brother of George B. C. (1832). (Foster, Baronetage, 1883.)

Charles attended neither Cambridge nor Oxford.

I would like to know more about the education of Charles, George and Philip, and I am curious as to what induced my fourth great grandfather C F C de Crespigny to send his boys to a school in Guernsey.

RELATED POSTS

• Champion de Crespignys at Cambridge from the earliest times to 1900

Wikitree: 

• Philip Robert Champion Crespigny (1817 – 1889)
• Charles John Champion de Crespigny (1814 – 1880)
• George Blicke Champion Crespigny (1815 – 1893)

N is for Norfolk sampler

A typical Norfolk field in summer with poppies and daisies in abundance. Taken near Fring.

All Saints’ church in Fring from the driveway to Church Farm.

My husband Greg says he has a great number of great aunts.

One, a 3rd great, was Ellen Claxton nee Jackson, born in Fring, Norfolk in 1791 or 1792. In 1817 Ellen married William Claxton in Docking, a mile to the north, also a small and undistinguished village (which Wikipedia delicately notes ‘has experienced no noteworthy historical events peculiar to itself’).

St Mary’s church in Docking

Aerial view over Docking, Norfolk, Great Britain in 2015

William Claxton was a shepherd and agricultural labourer who, caught up in Wesleyan revivalism, became a Primitive Methodist preacher. Ellen was one of his converts. The Claxtons moved to Wolferton in 1820. William and Ellen Claxton had at least six children. She died in 1875, he in 1859. (One of Ellen’s sisters was Greg’s 3rd great grandmother, Sarah Ann Plowright nee Jackson (1797 – 1864).)

In 1806, and probably often enough in other years, for the craft generated a small cash income, Ellen Elizabeth Jackson embroidered a sampler, a piece of embroidery worked in various stitches as a specimen of skill, often decorated with letters of the alphabet and a motto or verse.

Some years ago a family historian from Georgia, USA, told me that information about a sampler by Ellen Elizabeth Jackson had been included in a 2013 book on samplers called Imitation & Improvement: The Norfolk Sampler Tradition, by the American textile historian Joanne Lukasher. There was further information about Ellen Jackson’s work in notes to a 2019 exhibition of samplers by the Lycoming County Historical Society [Pennsylvania]. Gary Parks, its curator, was the owner of the Jackson sampler. He kindly sent me a photograph of it, explaining that, “I purchased the sampler a number of years ago at an antique show. My justification for buying it was that my Mother’s name was ‘Ellen Elizabeth’. It is beautiful needlework.”

NEEDLEWORK SAMPLER- Ellen Elizabeth JACKSON, [Norfolk, England], 18[0]6. Linen gauze with reinforced woolen backing ground, applied silk thread Stitches: Cross stitch, crewelwork- satin and stem. Ellen Jackson’s sampler belongs to a large body of needlework produced in Norfolk, England. The diamond-shaped inner border is one of the elements tying them together, as well as the bouquets of flowers in each corner.
Collection of Gary W. Parks and image used with his permission.

Detail from Ellen’s sampler. As she aged, she apparently became more self-conscious about her age. She deliberately picked out the ‘tens’ digit of the date she produced her sampler.

Most of the samplers included in Joanne Lushaker’s book were produced by girls “descended from the established middle class of skilled and hereditary craftsmen, merchants and entrepreneurs.” There were some examples from the working poor; “needlework, along with harvest work and poultry breeding, was a standard way in which women contributed to the family income”. (The Jacksons would certainly be classed as “working poor”. In the 1841 census Ellen’s father, then 81, was described as an agricultural labourer.)

In Norfolk poor and needy children were educated in charity schools. Part of the curriculum was vocational training, and girls learnt to embroider. Shawls, and other small craft items were sold to raise money for the schools.

The 1812 Annual Report of the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church reported that the village of Fring had a Sunday school attended by 36 children. Ellen, recorded on the 1851 census as a schoolmistress, appears to have gained a broader education, possibly in a larger charity school in the district.

Ellen’s sampler is arranged as a stepped lozenge. The central framing element is common to many Norfolk samplers, with surrounding floral bouquets also a typical design element. The verse embroidered by Ellen, popular in 19th century books of religious verse and Sunday readers, was also used by some other embroiderers.

The verse was included in an Introduction to the English reader; or, A selection of pieces in prose and poetry … with rules and observations for assisting children to read with propriety. The second edition, enlarged and improved, published in 1803:

Love to God produces love to men.

Let gratitude in acts of goodness flow;
Our love to God, in love to man below.
Be this our joy—to calm the troubled breast,
Support the weak, and succour the distrest;
Direct the wand’rer, dry the widow’s tear;
The orphan guard, the sinking spirits cheer.
Tho’ small our pow’r to act, tho’ mean our skill,
God sees the heart;—he judges by the will.

These lines had previously appeared as part of a much longer poem “The Prospect” by C. Whithorne in the 1755 edition of The General Magazine of Arts and Sciences.

At the time of the 1841 census William and Ellen Claxton were living in Wolferton, near Sandringham, 10 miles to the south of Docking. William was a labourer. Five children were living in the household; the older two were a shoemaker and a labourer.

On the 1851 census Ellen is listed as a schoolmistress, her husband William as an agricultural labourer. They lived in Wolferton. Their children had left home.

William died in 1859. The Primitive Methodist Magazine published a long obituary.

In 1861 Ellen was living with her unmarried son Abraham. Her occupation was given as ‘formerly school mistress’. Abraham was described as shoemaker and local preacher. Abraham was a Primitive Methodist like his parents.

In 1871 Ellen was living in Wolferton with her son Abraham, now ‘a shoemaker and coal agent’, and Abraham’s wife. No occupation was given for Ellen on the census.

In 1875 Ellen Claxton died in Wolferton. She was eighty-three. For the times, hers had been a long life, a long struggle with poverty an hardship. Even so, Ellen’s embroidery is a reminder that prettiness can be found in strange places and small things; we can only hope that she was rewarded from time to time by the joy that comes of creating something beautiful.

St Peter’s church in Wolferton

Fring, Docking and Wolferton in Norfolk. Map also shows King Lynn and the Sandringham estate.

Wikitree: Ellen Elizabeth (Jackson) Claxton (abt. 1792 – 1875)

C is for Chewton

My mother-in-law Marjorie (Marjorie Winifred Young neé Sullivan, 1920 – 2007) liked to talk about her childhood, her later life, family stories, and the family tree. I enjoyed her reminiscences, and I took notes for my family history database.

Marjorie in Castlemaine in the 1940s. I do not have any photos of her as a child.

Marjorie’s family often moved when she was a child, for her father was badly affected by what in those days was called ‘shellshock’ from his time as a soldier in the trenches and he found it difficult to stay in the same job.

Marjorie was born in Oakleigh, a suburb of Melbourne, the fourth of six children.

When she was about three the family moved to Tatura, near Shepparton, about 160 km north of Melbourne. Marjorie’s brother Roy was born there in 1926. This was the year Marjorie started school. Her father, she said, would not allow any of his children to start school before they were six nor start work before they were sixteen. Marjorie went to school at Tatura for a short time and could not remember much about it.

Tatura School photographed in 1911. From the collection of the State Library of Victoria Image No: a03584

In 1927, the family moved to Castlemaine. She remembered the Castlemaine school as very large. She wasn’t there for long. After only a year or so in Castlemaine, the family moved again, to Chewton, a small settlement about 5 km away.

North Castlemaine state school about 1925. Photograph from Flickr uploaded by user HistoryInPhotos. There are several schools in Castlemaine and I am not sure which one Marjorie attended.

Marjorie, then eight or nine, went to the Chewton village school. She began in the first grade but was quickly promoted to second grade. A visiting Inspector asked the children how to sound ‘again’. Most said “agane”. Marjorie, however, said “agenn”. This was considered to be the correct pronounciation, and she was allowed to go up to a grade. Although Marjorie’s brother Arthur was a year older, in Chewton she caught up to him at school and afterwards they were always in the same class.

Marjorie was pleased to recall the story of the Inspector’s visit. Her confidence, she said, was greatly boosted by her promotion.

Chewton school from the 1968 centenary booklet, photo used with permission of the Old Castlemaine Schoolboys Association

Chewton State School 1054 established : present building opened 1911. Photograph from VIEWS IN AND AROUND CHEWTON (Vic.). (1921, May 21). The Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 – 1946), p. 56. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article140259231

In 1931 the Sullivan family moved to Kyneton, about 40 km south of Castlemaine, where she became a teacher’s assistant in one of the junior classes. Every day she would spend some time in the junior school
helping out.

Kyneton primary school has now been rebuilt on another site and as at March 2022 these buildings are awaiting redevelopment into a community hub. This bluestone section was built in 1855 with 1861 additions.

About 1932 the family moved again, this time to Malmsbury, about 10 km from Kyneton. There, with two other girls, she again became a kindergarten teacher’s assistant. Without being required to sit an examination they were awarded the Merit Certificate and were entitled to leave school at fourteen. Marjorie enjoyed teaching and wanted to be a teacher but the nearest Teachers’ College was too far away to attend and the family was too poor to support her.

Malmsbury Primary School yard and children playing Ring A Rosie about 1930. Photograph in the collection of the Malmsbury Historical Society and used with their permission.

In December 1933 there is a mention of Marjorie Sullivan winning a prize for “Pastel drawing (under 15), scene” in the combined show held by Malmsbury and North Drummond Y.F. clubs. Marjorie was a talented artist. She painted and sketched all her life.

In Malmsbury on 6 January 1933 the Sullivans had their sixth child, Gwendolyn Phyllis, called ‘Gwenny’. When Marjorie left school she helped care for her. In 1935 Gwenny died of meningitis. Marjorie remembers that Gwenny was was sick with stomach cramps on Monday, and died on Wednesday.

The family moved from Malmsbury to Castlemaine about 1937 and Marjorie started work in the woollen mills there as a weaver.

The places the Sullivan family moved to in the 1920s and 30s

Related posts

• A is for Arthur
• O is for Oakleigh
• M is for Manpower, Mills, Malaria, and Marjorie, my Mother-in-Law from Melbourne

Wikitree:

• Marjorie (Sullivan) Young
• Arthur Sullivan (1891 – 1975)
• Stella Esther Gilbart (Dawson) Sullivan (1894 – 1975)

A is for Addiscombe

Between 1832 and 1834 Gordon Mainwaring (1817 – 1872), one of my 3rd great grandfathers, was enrolled as a cadet at Addiscombe Military Seminary, military academy of the British East India Company. The Academy, in Surrey near Croydon, had been founded two decades previously, in 1809, occupying a 1702 mansion called Addiscombe Place.

Before his enrollment in the Academy, Gordon had been a pupil of a private master named Adam Thom in Tooting, some five miles distant. On 1 August 1832 Thom certified that:

“Mr Gordon Mainwaring has resided in my house during the last three months – that he has studied Caesar’s commentaries, Vulgar [common] and decimal fractions, and that he has displayed praiseworthy diligence and that his general conduct has been marked by exemplary propriety.”

Before they were admitted cadets were required to have a fair knowledge of Arithmetic, write a good hand, and possess a competent knowledge of English and Latin Grammar. They should also have learnt Drawing, and have some knowledge of French, Mathematics and Fortification.

In the 1830s there were two regular admissions to the Seminary, in January and in July. Cadets, aged 14 to 16 when they entered, normally remained for 2 years (4 terms), although it was possible to pass the final examination within a shorter period. The intake comprised about 75 cadets a year, with about 150 cadets in residence at any one time.

Cadets or their families were required to pay fees (£30 a year when the Seminary first opened; £50 a term by 1835), but these fees represented only a small proportion of the real costs of their education and were heavily subsidised by the East India Company to secure a satisfactory class of officers for their armies in India.

Besides the £30 tuition fee cadets were obliged to provide two sureties who signed a bond for this payment and “for the reimbursement to the Company of all expenses incurred upon his account which shall not be defrayed by the said sum in the event of his not proceeding to India.” By 1835 the fees were £50 a term. (The relative value of £50 from 1835 in 2020 ranges from £5,000 in simple purchasing power to £60,000 in income value.)

Addiscombe Military Academy, with 9 cadets posing in foreground. Photographed in about 1859 from Addiscombe, its heroes and men of note. The Academy’s motto “Non faciam vitio culpave minorem” (I will not lower myself by vice or fault) was the motto of the Draper family who built the mansion in 1702.

According to Colonel Vibart in Addiscombe, its heroes and men of note, necessaries to be provided by the cadet when he joined, were :

• One military great-coat
• One uniform jacket, waistcoat and pair of pantaloons
• One military cap and feather, with plate in front embossed with the
  Company’s arms
• Ten shirts
• Six pairs of cotton socks
• Six pairs of worsted socks
• Two pairs of gaiters
• Two pairs of military gloves
• Two pairs of strong shoes
• Six towels
• Six night-caps
• Six pocket-handkerchiefs
• Two black silk handkerchiefs
• Two combs and a brush
• One tooth-brush
• One foraging-cap

The Company supplied each cadet with the following clothing :

• Half-yearly : Jacket, Waistcoat, Black silk handkerchief, Foraging-cap
• Quarterly : Pantaloons and Gaiters
• Shoes every 2 months

Medical attendance and washing were also provided.

Each cadet was provided with the necessary books, stationery, drawing and mathematical instruments; and the Seminary was supplied with philosophical instruments [in this context, probably surveying and laboratory equipment] and the requisite apparatus and materials to pursue the courses of chemical lectures.

The woollen clothes were of superfine cloth. The cadets were also supplied with linen when necessary in the opinion of the Head Master.

The cadets were in dormitories with framed partitions which formed separate sleeping places. These, 9′ by 6′ and 8′ high, were called “kennels”. Kennels had an iron bedstead which could be raised to rest against the wall during the day if required. Beside the bed was a fixed table and drawer. A wash-stand stood between the foot of the bed and the wooden partition. One chair was provided. The door was a curtain.

The Acadamy curriculum was “instruction in the sciences of Mathematics, Fortification, Natural Philosophy, and Chemistry; the Hindustani, Latin, and French languages; in the art of Civil, Military, and Lithographic Drawing and Surveying; and in the construction of the several gun-carriages and mortarbeds used in the Artillery service, from the most approved models”.

Examinations were held twice-yearly in June and December: they lasted about three weeks, and culminated in a Public Examination, a day-long affair of some ceremony before a distinguished invited audience. This included orchestrated demonstrations of book-learning and of military exercises such as swordsmanship and pontoon-building; an exhibition of drawings and models; a formal inspection; and the distribution of prizes.

According to their degree of talent, acquirements, and good conduct (and the number needed) some cadets were selected for the Engineers and Artillery corps. The remaining cadets were sent to the Infantry line of service.

In 1835 Gordon Mainwaring joined the 53rd Bengal Native Infantry Company of the Honourable East India Company Service.

Sources

• Addiscombe, its heroes and men of note; by Colonel H. M. Vibart… With an introduction by Lord Roberts of Kandahar.. (1894) retrieved through archive.org

Related posts:

• A Quiet Life: Gordon Mainwaring (1817-1872)
• Two Gordons

Wikitree: Gordon Mainwaring (1817 – 1872)

T is for Trinity College

Trinity College, properly the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592. It was the first Irish university. At the time England had two universities, at Oxford and Cambridge. Scotland had four, at St Andrews, Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Edinburgh.

Exterior of Trinity College Chapel, Dublin. Photo by Etiennekd retrieved from Wikimedia Commons. License: CC BY-SA 3.0

Until the 1830s the undergraduate curriculum was a prescribed general course, embracing classics, mathematics, a limited exposure to science and some philosophical texts.

The Library of Trinity College Dublin began with the founding of Trinity College. It now occupies several buildings but the building built between 1712 and 1732, now the oldest library building, is particularly magnificent. It houses 200,000 of the Library’s oldest books. In 1860, the Long Room’s roof was raised to accommodate an upper gallery; my forebears would have known the Long Room as a single-story gallery.

The Long Room of the Old Library at Trinity College Dublin. Photo by DAVID ILIFF retrieved from Wikimedia Commons. License: CC BY-SA 3.0

Trinity College Library: The “Long Room” in the 18th century, watercolour of James Malton. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

In 1924 a list of those who had attended Trinity College Dublin was published. Four of my direct forebears attended the university. They were:

• My sixth great grandfather Arthur Grueber was a pupil of the well-known Anglican divine Thomas Sheridan, a friend of Jonathan Swift. Grueber studied at Trinity College, Dublin, gaining his MA in 1737 and DD in 1757. He was ordained as a deacon in 1736.
• Michael Furnell, another of sixth great grandfathers, was admitted as a pensioner at the age of 18 in 1750. He was the son of Patrick, Generosus [well-bred or gentleman], born County Limerick. He appears not to have graduated.
• Henry Bayley, one of my fifth great grandfathers, was first educated by a Mr Brown of Castlelyons.  In 1774, at the age of 17, he enrolled at Trinity College Dublin, graduating with a Bachelor’s degree five years later.
• William Mitchell, one of my fourth great grandfathers, was admitted as a pensioner to Trinity College Dublin on November 3 1823 aged 22, son of William defunctus [deceased], born Monaghan. He did not receive a degree.

The Alumni Dublinenses can be viewed at the Trinity College website and searched through FindMyPast.

Burtchaell, George Dames & Sadleir, Thomas U., Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland) Alumni Dublinenses : a register of the students, graduates,professors and provosts of Trinity College in the University of Dublin (1593-1860). Williams and Norgate, London, England, 1924.

Related posts:

• H is for Huguenot
• M is for William Mitchell
• N is for Nenagh
• Champion de Crespignys at Cambridge from the earliest times to 1900

Wikitree:

• Arthur Grueber (1713 – 1802)
• Michael Furnell (abt. 1732 – 1790)
• Henry O’Neale Bayley (1757 – 1826)
• William Mitchell (1803 – 1870)

Z is for zealot

My ninth great grandfather Charles Chauncy (1592-1672) was a non-conformist Divine, at one time imprisoned for his views by Archbishop Laud, who emigrated to America and later became a long-serving President of Harvard College.

Harvard president Charles Chauncy

In “Highways and Byways in Hertfordshire” (1902), H. W. Tompkins mentions Charles Chauncy in connection with Ardeley Bury:

To mention Ardeley, or to think of Ardeley Bury, is to call to mind the Chauncys, a good Hertfordshire family, whose talents were exercised in several spheres of usefulness. First, though not foremost from the standpoint of literary or historic importance, was old Charles, somewhat renowned in his day as a Nonconformist divine. Where he was born I am unable to say ; he was baptised in the church here on 5th November, 1592. He was an indefatigable reader and student, and was eminent as an oriental and classical scholar. For some time he gave the benefit of his learning to the townsmen of Ware ; but managed to fall foul of Archbishop Laud, as so many pastors did, and was summoned to appear before the High Commission Court on two occasions. I believe the precise nature of his misdemeanours, theological or political, is known to the learned, with whom I leave them. However trivial we might deem them now, they were heinous offences in the eyes of Laud, and Charles Chauncy was deprived of his living and placed in prison. I am sorry to remember that he was but a weak-kneed brother, and presently, finding that to him, at least, stone walls did make a prison, he submitted in the most abject manner before the mitred bigot. For this humiliation he never forgave himself. In 1637 he landed at Plymouth in New England, where he became for a short time an assistant pastor, going from thence to a town called Scituate. There he preached for several years, and then, the Puritans having triumphed over their enemies, the men of Ware besought their pastor to return. But his work now lay elsewhere. He was almost on the point of embarking for England when he was invited to become President of Harvard College — a position for which he was eminently qualified — and in November, 1654, he was installed as the second President of that now famous institution. At Harvard he laboured for the rest of his life, and dying there in 1672, was buried at New Cambridge. He was a rare and racy preacher of the old sort, whose mouth uttered quaint sayings in abundance, and who kept tongue and pen alike busy. The Plain Doctrine of the Justification of a Sinner in the Sight of God, was one of his productions — doubtless a pithy, profitable, and long discourse, which probably no man or woman now in Hertfordshire has ever read, and which rests in a few libraries in a repose almost as deep as the bones of its author.

Charles Chauncy graduated from Cambridge in 1613, and became a fellow of his college, Trinity College, and professor of Hebrew and Greek. In 1627 he was appointed Vicar of Ware, Hertfordshire, and from 1633 to 1637 vicar at Marston St Lawrence, Northamptonshire.

Chauncy had Puritanical opinions that placed him in opposition to the church hierarchy, including its most senior member, the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. He asserted in a sermon that “idolatry was admitted into the church” and he opposed, as a “snare to men’s consciences” placing a barrier – the altar rail – around the communion table. He was suspended by Archbishop Laud for refusing to perform his duty to read from the pulpit the “Book of Sports”, which set out permissible Sunday recreations. He was brought before the Court of High Commission in 1629 and again in 1634. In 1634 he was imprisoned. He made a formal recantation in 1637 which – it is said – he later regretted.

In 1638 Charles Chauncy emigrated to America. From 1638 to 1641 he was an associate pastor at Plymouth, Massachusetts. However, the Plymouth church community was dissatisfied with Chauncy’s advocacy of baptism of infants by immersion. From 1641 to 1654 he served as pastor at Scituate, Massachusetts. From 1654 until his death in 1672 he was President of Harvard College.

Charles Chauncy and his wife Catherine Chauncy nee Eyre (1604 – 1667) had six sons and at least two daughters. All six sons were said to have been “bred to the ministry and graduates of Harvard”. I have previously written about Ichabod, their third child and second son.

I think Charles Chauncy is close to the definition of a zealot: a person who has very strong opinions about something, and tries to make other people have them too. Chauncy only seemed to compromise reluctantly.

Related post

I is for Ichabod

Source

• Tompkins, Herbert W (1902). Highways and byways in Hertfordshire. Macmillan, London ; New York viewed through archive.org https://archive.org/details/highwaysandbywa03griggoog/page/n10

U is for university

St John’s College, Cambridge by Joseph Murray Ince. Watercolour. Signed and dated 1835.

 

Quite a few of my forebears studied at Oxford and Cambridge. Many of their names appear in the universities’ lists of their alumni, some in very early lists.

The University of Cambridge was founded in 1209. Oxford is older, with teaching in some form there as long ago as 1096. The University of Oxford developed rapidly from 1167, when King Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris.

The earliest ancestor I have found at one of these universities is my fourteenth great grandfather Nicholas Vaux (1460 – 1523). He is listed as an Oxford alumnus. Unfortunately his college and dates of study there are not recorded.

Thomas Vaux (1509 – 1556), Nicholas’s son and my 13th great grandfather, studied at Cambridge university; again, I do not know when or which college.

When I looked at my Champion de Crespigny forebears who attended Cambridge University I found that there did not appear to be any familial loyalty to a college: all of them were at different colleges. My fourth great grandfather Charles Fox Champion Crespigny (1785 – 1875) was at Sidney College. Two of his three sons went to Cambridge. George Blicke Champion de Crespigny (1815 – 1893) went to Trinity Hall in 1832. Philip Robert Champion de Crespigny (1817 – 1889) went to Downing in 1838.

My Mainwaring forebears, by contrast, showed some degree of family loyalty to a particular college. My eighth great grandfather Edward Mainwaring (1635 – 1704) attended Christ’s College Cambridge. His son Edward (1681 – 1738) attended St John’s College Cambridge from 1699. His sons, Edward (1709 – 1795) and Henry (1710 – 1747), both also attended St John’s Cambridge.

Related post

• Champion de Crespignys at Cambridge from the earliest times to 1900

Sources

• retrieved through ancestry.com and googlebooks:
  • Venn, J. A., comp. Alumni Cantabrigienses: A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900 2 Volume Set also available through Google books . Cambridge University Press, 2011
  •  Foster, Joseph. Alumni Oxonienses: The Members of the University of Oxford, 1715-1886 and Alumni Oxonienses: The Members of the University of Oxford, 1500-1714. Oxford: Parker and Co., 1888-1892.

Three little maids from school

Three young women, dressed in school uniform. From left to right they are Marion Boyd Wanliss, Leslie Moira Henderson, and Joan a’Beckett Weigall. Marion, Leslie, and Joan attended the Clyde Girl’s Grammar School founded by Leslie’s aunt. Photograph taken in 1914 by Gainsborough Studio Photographers. The photograph belonged to Leslie Henderson and was donated to the State Library of Victoria: Accession no: H89.267.

Leslie Henderson (1896-1982), niece (and biographer) of the Australian feminist Vida Goldstein (1869-1949) , was my grandfather’s second cousin. Her paternal grandfather was the Presbytrian Reverend William Henderson (1826-1884) of Ballarat, and Leslie also  compiled and published biographical notes about her grandfather and his family.

Isabel Henderson (1862-1940), one of Leslie’s paternal aunts,  was the founder of the St Kilda  Clyde Girls’ Grammar School. The school later moved to Woodend, near Hanging Rock, Victoria.

The photograph above was captioned by Leslie as “Marion Wanliss, Leslie Henderson, Joan Weigall (Lady Lindsay)”.

Marion Boyd Wanliss (1896-1984) studied at the University of Melbourne (M.B., B.S., 1920; M.D., 1929) and conducted research into cancer as a postgraduate in Vienna. She practised as a physician at Camberwell, Melbourne, and later in Collins Street. She became an honorary physician at the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital. A member (1928) of the Royal College of Physicians, London, and a fellow (1954) of the Royal Australian College of Physicians, she was also a prominent conservationist. She never married.

The 1913 dux of Clyde Girls’ Grammar School was Joan à Beckett Lindsay née Weigall (1896-1984) , who became a noted author and artist.  From 1916-1920 she studied art at the National Gallery School in Melbourne. In 1922 she married the artist Darryl Lindsay (1889-1976), who was later Director of the National Gallery of Victoria. Joan Lindsay’s most well-known book was a novel, Picnic at Hanging Rock,  published in 1967. The story concerns the disappearance of three girls and a teacher from a school near Hanging Rock. This was adapted as a film in 1975, and a television series is being released in 2018.

 

Seven young women at a waterfall near Lorne. Written on verso: Photo taken at Lorne, 1913. Standing :- Keila Dillon, (girl in white not known), Leslie Henderson. Seated :- [Mira?] Scott, Joan Weigall, Marion Wanliss, Doris Chambers. Photo from the Estate of Leslie Moira Henderson in the collection of the State Library of Victoria: Accession: H2013.229/14

Marion, Leslie, and Joan, with four other girls, pictured in 1913 near Lorne, a seaside town south-west of Melbourne.   Marion’s brother, Harold Boyd Wanliss (1891-1917), took up 295 acres (119 ha) near Lorne, Victoria, to plant an orchard. The Wanliss Falls, which he discovered close by on the Erskine River, were named in his honour.

Leslie Henderson at Mandeville Hall, Toorak in 1913. In 1913 the previously grand mansion was a boarding house. It 1924 the mansion became a school. Picture from the estate of Leslie Henderson and in the collection of the State Library of Victoria Accession no: H2013.229/9

When my great grandparents Beatrix Hughes and Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny married in 1906, Leslie Henderson was the youngest bridesmaid.

1906 wedding of Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny to Beatrix Hughes at Beaufort, Victoria.

Family tree showing Leslie Henderson

Sources

• Henderson, Leslie M. (Leslie Moira) The Goldstein story. Stockland Press, Melbourne, 1973.
• Janice N. Brownfoot, ‘Goldstein, Vida Jane (1869–1949)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/goldstein-vida-jane-6418/text10975, published first in hardcopy 1983, accessed online 3 May 2018.
• Don Chambers, ‘Henderson, William (1826–1884)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/henderson-william-3752/text5911, published first in hardcopy 1972, accessed online 3 May 2018.
• Marjorie R. Theobald, ‘Henderson, Isabella Thomson (Isabel) (1862–1940)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/henderson-isabella-thomson-isabel-6631/text11423, published first in hardcopy 1983, accessed online 3 May 2018.
• Bill Gammage, ‘Wanliss, Marion Boyd (1896–1984)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/wanliss-marion-boyd-9278/text15799, published first in hardcopy 1990, accessed online 3 May 2018.
• Terence O’Neill, ‘Lindsay, Joan à Beckett (1896–1984)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lindsay-joan-a-beckett-14176/text25188, published first in hardcopy 2012, accessed online 3 May 2018.

L is for Lilian

My third cousin four times removed, who was also the sister-in law of my third great uncle, was Dr Lilian Helen Alexander (1861-1934), one of the first woman doctors in Australia.

Lilian was the second of three children of Thomas Alexander (c. 1820-1888) and Jane Alexander nee Furnell (1818-1908). Their oldest daughter was Constance (1858-1913) and they also had a son, Albert Durer Alexander (1863-1933).

 

Family tree showing the Alexander and Cudmore cousin connection

 

The Alexanders lived in South Yarra. Thomas was employed as a printer for the Government but lost his job in the Victorian Government political crisis of January 1878. In 1878 and 1879 he operated a bookselling business. From 1873 Jane, Mrs Alexander, ran a Ladies’ College, which took boarders, called “Lawn House”. This began at William Street, South Yarra. From 1879 the school advertised that the principals were Mrs Alexander and the Misses Alexander: Lilian and Constance were teaching too. In 1883 the school moved from William Street – Lawn House was required by the railway – to Springfield House, 13 Murphy Street, South Yarra, later renumbered to 17.

Lilian was educated at her mother’s school and then for one year at Presbyterian Ladies’ College. In 1883 she entered the University of Melbourne as one of a small group of women who studied Arts. She was the first woman student of Trinity College. She gained her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1886 and her Master of Arts in 1888. The 1887 advertisement for the school proudly announced her achievements.

 

Advertising (1887, January 29). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1957), p. 6. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11588121

 

In 1887 Lilian applied to study medicine and was one of the first women medical students at Melbourne. She obtained her Bachelor of Medicine in 1893 and her BCh (Baccalaureus Chirurgiae or Bachelor of Surgery)  in 1901.

 

First group of female medical students at the University of Melbourne, 1887. Description: Standing (l. to r.) Helen Sexton, Lilian Alexander, Annie (or Elizabeth) O’Hara. Seated (l. to r.) Clara Stone, Margaret Whyte, Grace Vale, Elizabeth (or Annie) O’Hara. Retrieved from https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/librarycollections/2011/07/12/237/

 

In 1895 Lilian was inaugural secretary of the Victorian Women’s Medical Association, and later its president. Her first appointment was at the Women’s Hospital in Carlton, and she was one of the inaugural staff members of the Queen Victoria Hospital for Women and Children, which was established in 1897.

In 1891 Lilian’s sister Constance (1858-1913) married their third cousin Milo Robert Cudmore (1852-1913). Milo was the brother of my great great grandfather James Francis Cudmore (1837-1912).

Milo and Constance had four sons:

• Francis Alexander Cudmore 1892–1956
• Ernest Osmond Cudmore 1894–1924
• Arthur Sexton Cudmore 1897–1974
• Wilfred Milo Cudmore 1899–1965

In January 1913 Constance Cudmore died at the Alexander family home in Murphy Street, South Yarra. In July, six months later, Milo also died at South Yarra. Lilian, still living at 17 Murphy Street South Yarra, assumed the care of  the four orphans,  then aged between 14 and 21.

Lilian practiced medicine until 1928. She died on 18 October 1934.

OBITUARY (1934, October 20). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1957), p. 24. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article10983054

 

In April 1936 Arthur Sexton Cudmore and his two surviving brothers, Francis Alexander Cudmore and Wilfred Milo Cudmore  presented a bas relief sculpture by the notable Australian sculptor Web Gilbert to the University of Melbourne in honour of their aunt Dr Lilian Helen Alexander.

The sculpture “Wheel of Life” by Web Gilbert in the foyer of the Medical Building Grattan Street, University of Melbourne.

 

Sources

• Farley Kelly, ‘Alexander, Lilian Helen (1861–1934)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/alexander-lilian-helen-12770/text23037, published first in hardcopy 2005
• Chiron : Journal of the Melbourne University Medical Society. The Society, Parkville, Vic, 1988. “The Wheel of Life” – The Alexander Memorial by Robin Orams. Volume 2, Number 1, page 35

Related posts

• A is for aviator: Ernest Osmond Cudmore
• B is for Buick

 

S is for Sebastapol school records

One day I was browsing the resources of the Ballarat Archives Centre and came across some microfiche prepared by the Ballarat and District Genealogical Society, the  Ballarat and District School Students Registers – Consolidated Index 1864-1963 (BDGS).

I checked for my husband’s father. He was listed and I learned something that I hadn’t known. He had moved schools and addresses while living in Ballarat as a child.

Ernest Young was born on 8 July 1920 in Melbourne to Elizabeth Young née Cross and Cecil Young. Ernest was always known as Peter. His parents separated and Peter and his mother lived with her parents, Frederick James Cross and Ann Jane née Plowright.

Peter Young aged about seven.

The Cross family lived at Homebush near Avoca for many years. In the early 1920s Frederick James Cross sold his property there and the family moved to Sebastopol near Ballarat. They lived on the corner of Grant and Victoria Streets. The house is still there.

Peter outside the Cross house on the corner of Grant and Victoria Streets, Sebastopol.

The house on the corner of Grant and Victoria Streets where Peter Young lived with his mother and grandparents. Photographed May 2014.

The Sebastopol Primary School records are held by the Sebastopol & District Historical Society, housed in the old Sebastopol school building. The Society is open on the first Sunday of each month from 2 to 4 in the afternoon.

The old building of the Sebastopol State School now houses the Sebastopol & District Historical Society. Photographed May 2014.

Ernest Young started school at Sebastopol on 3 June 1925, just over a month before his fifth birthday. His father, Cecil Young, was named as his parent. Cecil’s occupation was given as labourer.

The school records show that Peter left Sebastopol to attend Urquart Street school in Ballarat in December 1929.

Peter’s grandfather Frederick James Cross had died in May 1929 and the family moved house.

The Urquart Street School records indicate that he was living at 419 Ascot Street and that he left in December 1931 to go to Melbourne.

Peter’s grandmother died in November 1930. It seems that another upheaval in his living arrangements followed.

Urquhart Street SS No 2013 – Vision and Realisation Vol 2. from Ballarat & District Genealogical Society Resources – Ballarat Schools

The former Urquart Street School photographed May 2014

The house at 419 Ascot Street Ballarat photographed May 2014

I don’t know where Peter went to school in Melbourne. His mother found work as a housekeeper there.

Further Reading

• Ballarat & District Genealogical Society Resources – Ballarat Schools