U is for Upton upon Severn

My fifth great grandmother Dorothy Scott was born on 15 November 1765 at Betton Strange Hall, near Shrewsbury in Shropshire to Richard Scott (1731 – 1770) and Elizabeth Scott nee Gough (1735 – 1772). She had three older brothers.

In 1770, with Dorothy not yet five years old, her father died, and two years later her mother. I do not know who brought up Dorothy when she was orphaned.

On 20 January 1783, at the age of seventeen, Dorothy married Philip Champion Crespigny, a lawyer, forty-four years old; she was his fourth wife. Of the nine children by his previous wives, seven were living at the time of his marriage to Dorothy Scott.

Dorothy and Philip had four children, one of whom died in infancy. The polyphiloprogenitive Philip died, on 1 January 1803; he and Dorothy had been married for nearly 20 years.

Portrait of Dorothy Crespigny painted by George Romney in 1790 and now in the collection of the Philadephia Museum of Art

On 27 March 1804 at St Swithin’s Church, Walcot, Bath, Dorothy married for a second time, to Sir John Keane (1757 – 1829).

Keane was an Irish Tory Member of Parliament, who had been made a baronet in 1801. In the Irish Parliament he represented Bangor from 1791 to 1897; Youghal from 1797 to 1800; and he represented Youghal in the House of Commons from 1801to 1806 and from 1807 to 1818. The ‘History of Parliament‘ notes that “evidence of his presence at Westminster is very thin”. “In February 1817 the chief secretary was informed that he was living at Southampton and should be asked to pay a visit to Westminster. On 15 April 1818 he turned up to vote with ministers on the Duke of Clarence’s Marriage Grant. He did not seek re-election that year.”

Dorothy and John Keane had one son, George (1805 – 1880). Keane had been married previously and had at least four children by his first wife. He died on 18 April 1829 at his house in the Royal Crescent, Bath.

Royal Crescent, Bath

The dowager Lady Keane died on 5 July 1837 at Malvern Wells, Worcestershire. Her death was registered at Upton upon Severn, six miles to the east. (New legislation concerning civil registration had come
into effect on 1 July 1837 and her death was one of the first to be registered under the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1836. The new law required that “within Three Days after the day of such Death…[notice should be given] to the Registrar of the District”.)

Index of deaths in the July quarter 1837 from the registers maintained by the General Register Office for England and Wales

The death of the dowager Lady Keane was announced in several newspapers. The London ‘Morning Post‘ of Saturday, July 8, 1837 wrote: ‘Died: At Malvern, on the 5th inst., the Dowager Lady Keane, relict of Sir John Keane, Bart., of Bath’. The Worcester ‘Berrows Worcester Journal‘ of Thursday, July 13, 1837 had: ‘July 5th, at Malvern Wells, aged 72, the Dowager Lady Keane, relict of Sir John Keane, Bart., of the Crescent, Bath’.

Great Malvern – St Ann’s Well
The spring or well is named after Saint Anne, the maternal grandmother of Christ and the patron saint of many wells. The building housing the spring dates back to 1813.

Malvern Wells, where Lady Keane seems to have resorted after the death of her husband, was a spa town, whose water was thought for centuries to have beneficial properties. In 1817 an enthusiast named John Chambers published A General History of Malvern, embellished with plates, intended to comprise all the advantages of a Guide, with the important details of chemical, mineralogical and statistical information. In the 19th century Malvern became famous for the water cure, and it rapidly developed into to a busy town with many large hotels. Hydrotherapists promoted the cure, and the resort’s many well-known patients and patrons—one was Lord Lytton, who in 1845 published “Confessions of a Water-Patient“– contributed to Malvern’s renown.

Dorothy was buried with her second husband in St. Nicholas’ Churchyard, Bathampton, Somerset.

St Nicholas Church, Bathampton

The grave of Dorothy Scott Keane at Bathampton. Photograph by K. C. Mellem and retrieved from FindAGrave; used with permission.

Related posts

• Philip Champion de Crespigny (1738 – 1803)
• Concerning her three children surviving with Philip:
  • George: D is for Durham Light Infantry
  • George (1783-1813) :  D is for Durham Light Infantry
  • Eliza (1784-1831) : G is for Gretna Green
  • Charles Fox (1785-1875) : Charles Fox Champion de Crespigny (1785 – 1875)
• On the sale of her portrait by her great grandson: Great expectations – disappointed

Further reading

• Jupp, P. J. “KEANE, John (1757-1829), of Belmont, co. Waterford.” History of Parliament , The History of Parliament Trust, www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/keane-john-1757-1829.

Wikitree:

• Dorothy (Scott) Keane (1765 – 1837)

P is for Parliament

The Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north bank of the River Thames in the City of Westminster, in central London.

The palace was originally the principal residence of the English monarch. Parliament first met there in 1265.

However, in 1512, during the reign of Henry VIII, a fire destroyed part of the building and the King moved to the Palace of Whitehall.

Parliament before the 1834 fire with Old Palace Yard in the foreground. Drawn by J. Shury & Son, Printed by Day & Haghe Date circa 1834. Retrieved through Wikimedia Commons.

In 1834 a large fire destroyed both Houses of Parliament and many of its
ancillary buildings.

The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16th October, 1834 by J. M. W. Turner retrieved through Wikimedia Commons

Several of my forebears and relatives served in Parliament.

Thomas Crew (1564 – 1634), one of my 11th great grandfathers, was elected at Lichfield in 1604. He was Speaker of the House of Commons in 1624 and 1625. Thomas Crew’s father was a tanner of Nantwich, who put his two sons into law. Both Thomas and his brother Ranulphe (1559 – 1646) became Speakers of the House of Commons, the only brothers ever to have had this distinction.

Portrait of Sir Thomas Crewe, Speaker 1623 – 1625. Given by his descendant Ralph Cartwright, Esq. 1805. In the collection of the UK Parliament (catalogue number WOA 2702) Crew displeased James 1 by upholding the liberties of Parliament as ‘matters of inheritance, not of grace’ but later said by the King to be the ‘ablest Speaker known for years’.

John Crew (1598 – 1679), son of Thomas and one of my 10th great grandfathers, was first elected to Parliament in 1624 and served until after 1660.

Edward Mainwaring (1635 – 1703), one of my 8th great grandfathers, represented the seat of Newcastle-Under-Lyme in 1685 He was a Tory(a Monarchist), on the committee on the bill for the general naturalization of Huguenot refugees (a committee whose recommendations were of great significance to my Huguenot refugee forebears).

Two generations after arriving as Huguenot refugees, my Champion de Crespigny 5th great grandfather and his Fonnereau brothers-in-law entered Parliament.

Philip Champion Crespigny (1738 – 1803), one of my 5th great grandfathers, first entered Parliament in 1780, Philip Crespigny supported the Tory Prime Minister Lord North. Philip later transferred his allegiance to the radical Whig Charles James Fox (1749-1806); Fox formed a coalition with Lord North in 1783. Philip’s second son by his fourth wife Dorothy nee Scott, born in 1785, was baptised Charles [James] Fox. Philip’s address at that time was number 4, Old Palace Yard, an elegant residential terrace conveniently close to the Houses of Parliament.

“Old Palace Yard, Westminster” watercolour by Thomas Malton, probably exhibited in the Royal Gallery in 1796

The website called “The History of Parliament Online” has biographies of members of Parliament and the history of constituencies. These cover Parliamentary politics and other aspects of the history of the institution. This project has published 41 volumes, with 24,000 biographical articles on MPs from 1386 to 1832, and a blog with contributions from some of the project’s historians. Recent articles on the blog include:

• Social Distancing – Medieval Style: a Petition of the Commons in
  the Parliament of 1439
• Isolation, Containment and Financial Assistance: Parliament’s
  response to epidemics in the 1640s

 

The Palace of Westminster is marked with a black x

Sources

The History of Parliament http://www.histparl.ac.uk/

• CREWE, Thomas (1566-1634), of Gray’s Inn, London and Steane, Northants.; later of Serjeants’ Inn, Fleet Street, London.
• CREWE, Ranulphe (1559-1646), of Lincoln’s Inn, London and Crewe Hall, Barthomley, Cheshire; later of Westminster
• CREW, John (c.1598-1679), of Steane, Northants and Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Mdx.
• MAINWARING, Edward II (1635-1703), of Whitmore, Staffs.
• CRESPIGNY, Philip Champion (d.1803), of Burwood, nr. Cobham, Surr.

Related posts

• Samuel Pepys and the Crew family
• Temperance Crew nee Bray (abt 1580 – 1619)
• Macavity wasn’t there!
• O is for Old Palace Yard

Through her eyes: votes for women 1903

My third great grandmother Charlotte Frances Champion Crespigny née Dana, lived from 1820 to 1904, a period of great change in the political status of women.

Charlotte Frances Champion Crespigny née Dana (1820 – 1904) photograph probably taken in the late 1850s

In 1902, when she was 82 years old, the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 granted Australian women the right to vote and the right to stand for election to the Commonwealth Parliament.

When the list of voters was compiled, Charlotte was recorded on the Electoral Roll for the polling place of Beaufort, Division of Grampians, State of Victoria, as Charlotte Champion, living at Eurambeen, occupation home duties. (Eurambeen was about 11 kilometers west of Beaufort.) Also on the Roll were her daughters Viola Julia Champion and Helen Rosalie Beggs née Champion Crespigny, both also living at Eurambeen with the occupation of home duties.

The Commonwealth of Australia 1903 Electoral Roll for the polling place of Beaufort, Division of Grampians, State of Victoria, pages 2 and 3 showing the surnames of Beggs and Champion. Image retrieved from ancestry.com

 

Oddly, it appears that Charlotte and Viola were recorded twice. There are entries  on page 4 of the roll for Crespigny Frances and Crespigny Constantia, also both of Eurambeen; Frances was Charlotte’s middle name and Constantia was Viola’s third given name. When names were collected for the roll the surname Champion Crespigny went over two lines and so did their given names. There was not enough space on the form: the result was two Roll entries each.

The Commonwealth of Australia 1903 Electoral Roll for the polling place of Beaufort, Division of Grampians, State of Victoria, pages 4 and 5 showing the surname Crespigny. Image retrieved from ancestry.com

On the 1909 roll Viola’s surname was changed to Crespigny, with her full name recorded as Crespigny, Viola Julia Con. C. At that time she living at St Marnocks with her sister and brother-in-law.

A Victorian state election was held in October 1902 but for this women were as yet not enfranchised. The next year, however, there was a Federal election on 16 December and Charlotte and her daughters were eligible to vote.

The Federal Division of Grampians was retained by the sitting member Thomas Skene (1845 – 1910) of the Free Trade Party, an anti-socialist party which advocated the abolition of tariffs and other restrictions on international trade.

Charlotte and her daughters, from a prosperous family of graziers, probably supported Skene, a pastoralist. Voting was not compulsory, however, and though she was entitled to vote, Charlotte was unwell and probably unable to travel to the polling station at Beaufort to cast her vote.

There was provision for postal voting but it was very complicated, with specific witnesses required.

All in all, the story of my great grandmother’s enfranchisement is not especially remarkable. She was not a fire-breathing suffragist, but an ordinary person who, late in life, accepted a new political privilege with no great fuss.

Sources

• Australia, Electoral Rolls, 1903 retrieved through ancestry.com first published by the Australian Electoral Commission
• Geoff Browne, ‘Skene, Thomas (1845–1910)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/skene-thomas-8441/text14837, published first in hardcopy 1988, accessed online 12 February 2020.
• VOTING BY POST. (1903, December 9). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1957), p. 9. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article10586768
• A new genealogy prompt ~ Through Her Eyes Thursday! #ThroughHerEyesThursday https://thishoosiersheritage.blogspot.com/2020/01/new-genealogy-prompt-through-her-eyes.html

S is for Shrewsbury

My fifth great grandfather Edmund Dana (1739 – 1823) was born in Charleston, near Boston, Massachusetts to Richard Dana (1700 – 1772), a lawyer and a prominent local politician, and Lydia Dana nee Trowbridge (1710 – 1776). He was their second child.

Edmund entered Harvard in 1756 and graduated in 1759. After a brief apprenticeship with a local doctor, he travelled to England, never to return. By 1764 he was at Edinburgh, perhaps he was studying medicine and science at the university.

The Reverend Edmund Dana (1739-1823) A miniature in the possession of my father.

 

At Edinburgh Edmund Dana met the Hon. Helen Kinnaird (abt. 1749 – 1795), daughter of Charles (1723-1767), sixth Baron Kinnaird of Inchture, and his wife Barbara Kinnaird nee Johnstone (1723 – 1765). Edmund and Helen were married on 9 July 1765 at the church of St Cuthbert in Leith, Edinburgh’s port, a few miles from the city.

The couple moved to London where their first three children were born.

On 18 December 1768, at a ceremony in the Chapel Royal of Whitehall, Edmund was ordained a deacon of the Church of England. Two months later he was made a priest and appointed as Vicar of Brigstock Northamptonshire with the chapel of Stanion in the Diocese of Peterborough.

In a letter to his father Richard, written soon after his appointment to Brigstock he explained his new situation and his decision to abandon his medical studies:

My living has been magnified beyond measure, but I have great privileges in it [wh[ich] no other person ever had upon acc[oun]t of its being upon an Estate of Mr Pulteney. I really understood before I took the gown that whatever deficiencys it labor[e]d under Mr Pulteney w[oul]d make good.

In effect, therefore, Edmund had accepted the assurances of his wife’s family, notably of his wife’s uncle William [Johnstone] Pulteney (1729 – 1805), that a career in the church would be assured and well paid. The parish of Brigstock itself was controlled by the Crown through the Bishop of Peterborough, but Edmund’s letter indicates that the land was owned by William Pulteney and that his basic salary would be supplemented. Given the influence of his wealth and position, it would not have been difficult for Pulteney to persuade the bishop to find a place for his niece’s husband.

In November 1772 the Reverend Edmund Dana took up new duties as Vicar of the parish of Wroxeter in Shropshire, in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield. Wroxeter is a village five miles east of Shrewsbury. William Pulteney had first entered Parliament in 1768 as member for Cromartyshire in Scotland, but he had substantial interests in Shropshire and had also contested the seat of Shrewsbury. Successful at the 1775 election, he held the borough until his death in 1805. Because of the property William Pulteney held, he was patron of several livings in the area: that is, he had authority to name the priest who would head the parish as rector or vicar. The previous incumbent at Wroxeter, Robert Cartwright, had died, and the vacancy was free for Pulteney to nominate his nephew by marriage.

Edmund Dana and his family  settled in the region of Shrewsbury, and William Pulteney continued his support. In 1775 the living of Aston Botterell became vacant through the death of the former Rector Nehemiah Tonks, and Edmund Dana was appointed his successor.

In 1781 Edmund Dana received two further appointments as Rector: to Harley and Eaton Constantine. Both parishes were in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield and both lay southeast of Shrewsbury, Eaton Constantine just two miles from Wroxeter and Harley a couple of miles further. The livings were formally in the gift of a certain John Newport, but Newport was under age and William Pulteney was his official guardian.

Helen continued to bear children: thirteen, nine girls and four boys, in twenty-one years. Three died in infancy. Helen died at Shrewsbury on 17 April 1795, aged about forty-five, and was buried at Wroxeter on 22 April. She and Edmund were married three months short of thirty years; he did not marry again.

Though Edmund Dana had no previous contact with Shropshire, the patronage of William Pulteney gave some status to the newcomer. Wroxeter is a notable parish: a short distance east of Shrewsbury, it occupies the site of the ancient Roman town of Uriconium. Some time after his arrival, Edmund Dana became a local magistrate.

An early supporter of the great engineer Thomas Telford, William Pulteney arranged for him to work on the refurbishment of Shrewsbury Castle during the 1780s, and a few years later had him appointed Surveyor of Public Works for the county, where he constructed roads, bridges and canals. Edmund Dana was a member of the trust concerned with roads and streets, so the two men were at least acquaintances. When Telford was commissioned to construct a new prison in the city, close to the castle, Dana had Telford construct a passage from the castle, across the line of the present-day railway, to the main entrance of the prison and then some distance along the River Severn. The route became known as The Dana, and local custom applied the same name to the prison itself.

Lancasterian School with Castle and Dana path. Before construction of the Railway Station in 1848. Shrewsbury Museums Service (SHYMS: FA/1991/125). Image sy8896

Former HM Prison Shrewsbury viewed across the road named The Dana at the end of May 2014. The prison constructed during 1787-1793, closed in March 2013.

 

Some sources claim that Edmund Dana lived in Castle Gates House, close to the entrance to the castle, and it is possible that for a while he did. From the time that he arrived there, however, all his children were born and baptised at Wroxeter, and his wife Helen died and was buried there.

abbreviated family tree showing William Pulteney, Helen Kinnaird, Edmund Dana, William Pulteney Dana (his son who was jailed),  granddaughter Anna, and great- nephew Richard Henry Dana Jr

 

In 1856 Edmund’s great-nephew Richard Henry Dana Jr (1815 – 1882), grandson of Edmund’s brother Francis, visited England and spent three days at Shrewsbury. On the first day he met his cousin Anna Penelope Wood nee Dana (1814 – 1890), Edmund’s grand-daughter. Anna’s husband William Henry Wood escorted him on a tour of the city. Richard Dana was shown the Dana Terrace, “principal walk of the castle, and named from the Rev Edmund Dana, who planned it.” He also saw an old house with black timber cross-beams, where the future King Henry VII was said to have spend the night on his way to defeat Richard III at Bosworth in 1485. There was no mention, however, of Edmund Dana living in the city and, since Anna Penelope Wood nee Dana was nine years old and living near Shrewsbury when her grandfather Edmund died in 1823, she probably would have remembered it if he had.

Richard Henry Dana’s diary entry for the following day, Sunday 10 August, records how he accompanied Mr and Mrs Wood to Wroxeter, where they attended the evening service. In somewhat romantic style, he tells how:

Wroxeter is a fair specimen of the old English parish Church, parsonage and village. . . The church stands in the midst of the graves of the villagers, and the vicarage opens into the Church Yard. In this vicarage, lived and died, Edmund Dana, my grandfather’s only brother. Here he officiated from 1766 to 1823 – a period of fifty seven years. Here he brought his beautiful noble bride, a peer’s daughter, in the bloom of her charm, and here he laid her, under the stone of the chancel, at middle life, the mother of twelve children, loved and honoured by all. Here he lies by her side, and here most of this children are buried. . . . . Here grew up, here played, here walked and studied, and loved, and married, those beautiful daughters, whom Mrs President Adams [ Abigail Adams nee Smith] says were the most elegant women she saw in England, and whom George III called the roses of his court.

He goes on to describe the church itself, with the tombs of Edmund Dana, his wife Helen, and several of their children, placed before the chancel.

Wroxeter Church, Shropshire. Watercolour. Artist: J. Homes Smith. Shrewsbury Museums Service (SHYMS: FA/1991/071/40) image sy1325

Richard Henry Dana remarked that the Wroxeter local bridge, a Roman column in the churchyard, and several trees were named in memory of Edmund Dana who had died 33 years earlier, while the old people of the parish still call him the “old gentleman”, and look upon the present rector, who has been here twenty years, as the “new vicar”, and complain of his innovations.

Excavation at Uriconium by Francis Bedford Retrieved from Wikipedia. Original from the Victor von Gegerfelt collection, Volume K 1:3, Region- och Stadsarkivet Göteborg.

Related posts

• J is for jail: Bankruptcy of William Pulteney Dana

Sources

• research by my father, Rafe de Crespigny
• Dana, Richard Henry, Jr and Lucid, Robert F. (Robert Francis),1930-, (ed.) The journal. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1968.
• Thorne, R.G. “PULTENEY, William (1729-1805), of Westerhall, Dumfries and The Castle, Shrewsbury.” History of Parliament Online, The History of Parliament Trust, https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/pulteney-william-1729-1805.
• http://shrewsburylocalhistory.org.uk/street-names/the-dana

O is for Old Palace Yard

At one time, my fifth great grandfather, Philip Champion de Crespigny (1738 – 1803), lived at 4 Old Palace Yard, beside the Palace of Westminster (the Houses of Parliament). Philip Crespigny was a lawyer: an advocate at Doctors’ Commons from 1756 and a King’s Proctor from 1768 – 1784. He also served as a member of Parliament.

Old Palace Yard was opposite the King’s Entrance to the House of Lords near the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey. It was one of a block of old houses re-fronted in the Georgian style. The residence leased by Philip de Crespigny was the property of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey.

Old and New Palace Yards were two main courtyards of the medieval Palace of Westminster.

“Old Palace Yard, Westminster” watercolour by Thomas Malton, probably exhibited in the Royal Gallery in 1796. No 4 Old Palace Yard is apparently one of the houses pictured.

 

Philip de Crespigny’s maternal uncle, Thomas Fonnereau (1699 – 1779) lived at 4 Old Palace Yard and died there 20 March 1779. Thomas was a member of Parliament; his residence was conveniently close to the Houses of Parliament. (I wrote about Thomas Fonnereau earlier in this series of posts. He commissioned the building of the lighthouse on Lizard point, Cornwall.)

In 1780 Philip re-entered Parliament. In 1774 he had been returned to Parliament on the Fonnereau interest at Sudbury after a contest, but lost his seat on petition. In 1780 he was returned unopposed at Aldeburgh on the Fonnereau interest, and at Sudbury after a contest. He held both seats until 1781 when he lost Sudbury on petition, and continued to sit for Aldeburgh. Philip de Crespigny supported the administration of Lord North, a Tory, or conservative, administration.

On 14 February 1780 P.C. Crespigny Esq. of Old Palace Yard joined the Somerset House Lodge of Freemasons and that year he also joined another Lodge of Freemasons, the Stewards’ Lodge.

Philip Champion de Crespigny (1738–1803), MP by John Opie RA (1761–1807) Portrait in the collection of Kelmarsh Hall and image retrieved through https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/philip-champion-de-crespigny-17381803-mp-49154

 

In 1786 Philip sold the lease of 4 Old Palace Yard to William Wilberforce (1759 – 1833), later to become a noted leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade.

On 16 October 1834 the Houses of Parliament caught fire. Among the buildings burned was 4 Old Palace Yard. Number 6 and 7 Old Palace Yard survived.

The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons by J.M.W. Turner

6 – 7 Old Palace Yard. The Palladian design is said to be by Isaac Ware.

 

In the 1890s and early 1900s the Office of Works acquired the leaseholds to 1-4 Old Palace Yard and 1 – 3A Poet’s Corner. The site was redeveloped as a memorial to King George V.

The statue of George V and the Henry VII Chapel of Westminster Abbey

Related posts

• Philip Champion de Crespigny (1738 – 1803)

Sources

• De Crespigny, Rafe Champions from Normandy : an essay on the early history of the Champion de Crespigny family 1350-1800 AD. Lilli Pilli, New South Wales Richard Rafe Champion de Crespigny, 2017. Can be viewed at Champions from Normandy
• Drummond, Mary M. “CRESPIGNY, Philip Champion (d.1803), of Burwood, nr. Cobham, Surr.” History of Parliament Online, The History of Parliament Trust ,https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/crespigny-philip-champion-1803.
• Library and Museum of Freemasonry; London, England; Freemasonry Membership Registers; Description: Register of Members, London, vol I, Folios 46, 85 viewed through ancestry.com
• “Old Palace Yard Watercolour.” Art in Parliament, UK Parliament, 10 Jan. 2009, www.parliament.uk/about/art-in-parliament/news/2009/malton/.
• Cundall, H. M. (Herbert Minton), 1848-1940, (author.) and Project Gutenberg Masters of Water-Colour Painting. Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, Salt Lake City, 2007. Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22379/22379-h/22379-h.htm
• The National Archives (UK): Office of Works and successors WORK 20/18, Acquisition of leaseholds of 1-4 Old Palace Yard and 1-3A Poets’ Corner (afterwards King George V Memorial Site) 1894 – 1902

• Google books:
  • Pollock, John (20 December 2013). Wilberforce. David C. Cook. p. 54.
  • Metropolitan Improvements; Or London in the Nineteenth Century: Displayed in a Series of Engravings… Jones and Company. 1828. p. 153

Macavity wasn’t there!

Today, 5 November, is the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, an abortive attempt to assassinate King James I of England and blow up the Houses of Parliament. Some of my forebears were English politicians of the time. I’ve been trying to find out if any were involved or implicated or put in danger.

Edward Mainwaring (1577 – 1647), one of my 10th great grandfathers, was elected to Parliament on 30 September 1601 for the borough of Newcastle Under Lyme. However, he was not re-elected in the next election, on 28 February 1604, so at the time of the plot in November 1605, he would not have been present in Parliament.

 

Edward Mainwaring, portrait from opposite page 63 of The Mainwarings of Whitmore and Biddulph in the County of Stafford. An account of the family, and its connections by marriage and descent; with special reference to the Manor of Whitmore. J.G. Cavenagh-Mainwaring, about 1935

 

Edward Mainwaring matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford,  on 8 November 1594. He entered Middle Temple, one of the four Inns of Court in 1595. In his history of the Mainwarings of Whitmore, Gordon Mainwaring says:

At this time there was considerable litigation concerning manorial dues, and lords of manors began to realise that a knowledge of law was essential in the management of their estates. Among the papers at Whitmore is an interesting correspondence between this Edward and his father concerning the refusal of Sir John Bowyer of Knipersly to recognise their right to a heriot [a tribute paid by the estate of a
deceased tenant].

In 1601 Edward Mainwaring married Sara Stone. In 1604 his father died and he succeeded to the Whitmore estate. Perhaps he decided to forgo a parliamentary career to concentrate on running the estate.

Edward Mainwaring was elected again to Parliament in 1625. There is a suggestion that the person elected was not Edward Mainwaring (1577 – 1647) but  his son, also named Edward (1603 – 1674).

Sources

• The Mainwarings of Whitmore and Biddulph in the County of Stafford. An account of the family, and its connections by marriage and descent; with special reference to the Manor of Whitmore. J.G. Cavenagh-Mainwaring, about 1935
• History of Parliament online:
  • Edward Mainwaring 1577 – 1647
  • Edward Mainwaring c. 1602 – 1674
  • Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme 1558 – 1603
  • Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme 1604 – 1629

A visit to Parliament House in Melbourne

Last Wednesday I went on a group tour of Parliament House in Melbourne. This magnificent building is a wonderful example of high-Victorian public architecture.

The double-storey Parliamentary Library, with its gas lights, curving staircases and central ten-sided table is particularly impressive.

 

Hanging in what is known as Queen’s Hall is a portrait of Sir Harry Lawson (1875 – 1952), politician and Premier of Victoria from 1918-1924. Lawson was a first cousin of my great grandmother Beatrix de Crespigny nee Hughes. The portrait, painted in 1981, is a copy of a 1923 portrait by John Longstaff.

Sir Harry Lawson, portrait by John Perry 1981. This copy of ‘Portrait of Sir Harry Lawson’ 1923 by John Longstaff (original held at Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum) was presented to the Parliament of Victoria by the Lawson Family and the Perpetual Executors and Trustees Association of Australia Ltd in 1981.

 

Also on display is crockery from the Parliament House collection, with it a program for a dinner given to Harry Lawson by the Government of Victoria on 20 December 1922, shortly before Lawson’s departure for an official trip to Europe.

The Age, reporting the dinner, called the date ‘Mr Lawson’s lucky day’. 20 December coincided with the 23rd anniversary of Lawson’s selection to Parliament, and he had been offered his first position in Cabinet on 20 December 1913). Lawson served as Premier from 1918 to 1924.

Our group also visited the Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne’s war memorial, in St Kilda Road. Lawson was a trustee of the Shrine of Remembrance. It was commissioned while he was Premier.

Report of the opening of the Shrine on 11 November 1934: VICTORIA’S GREAT SHRINE OF REMEMBRANCE. (1934, November 12). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 – 1954), p. 13. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205078251

 

Further reading

• Donald S. Garden, ‘Lawson, Sir Harry Sutherland Wightman (1875–1952)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lawson-sir-harry-sutherland-wightman-7117/text12277, published first in hardcopy 1986
• Paul Strangio; Brian J. Costar (2006). The Victorian Premiers, 1856-2006. Federation Press. pp. 161–. ISBN 978-1-86287-601-9. from Google Books
• History of Parliament House from https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/about/the-parliament-building/history-of-the-building
• Shrine of Remembrance Conservation Management Plan prepared October 2010, retrieved from http://images.heritage.vic.gov.au/attachment/64891

Y is for Yannasch

None of my forebears has a first name starting with Y, so the third personal name of Jacob Robert Yannasch Goldstein (1841-1910), the husband of my third great aunt, will have to do.

His name ‘Yannasch’, probably a variant of John, means “Jehovah has been gracious”.

Jacob Goldstein was born about 1841 in Cork, Ireland, only child of Isaac Goldstein (c. 1811-1887) and Mary Goldstein née Pulvertaft (c. 1811-1890). Jacob grew up in Belfast, where his father was a general dealer, that is a shopkeeper, and his mother was a dressmaker. In 1852 the Goldstein family lived at 12 King Street, Belfast. Isaac Goldstein was still living at King Street at the time of his death in 1887.

In 1858 Jacob Goldstein, then 17, emigrated to Australia, arriving in Melbourne on 29 April 1858. He could read and write, was a native of county Armagh, and his religion was Presbyterian. He had sailed on the Arabian, which left Liverpool on 27 January with 365 government immigrants. The Argus reported that she had experienced fine weather during the passage, that she was very clean, and that the passengers were in good health. When he disembarked Jacob stated he intended to be employed on his own account.

From the early 1860s Jacob ran a general store in Portland, a Victorian coastal town. We catch a few glimpses of him there over the next decade: in 1863 racing a horse; in 1864 playing cricket with the Portland cricket club; in 1867 a lieutenant with the Western Artillery, part of the Victorian volunteer artillery (he served for 30 years without seeing any active service, achieving the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel); in 1868 writing about birds and ornithology to the local paper.

On 3 June 1868, ‘at the residence of the bride’, Jacob Goldstein married Isabella Hawkins (1849-1916), eldest daughter of the pastoralist Samuel Proudfoot Hawkins (1819-1867).

Jacob and Isabella had five children:

• Vida (1869-1949)
• Elsie (1870-1953)
• Lina (1872-1943)
• Selwyn (1873-1917)
• Aileen (1877-1960)

His marriage and the births of his children were announced in The Belfast Newsletter, an Irish newspaper.

Much of the Goldstein family history has been documented in The Goldstein Story, by Jacob’s grand daughter, Lina’s daughter Leslie Henderson (1896-1982).

Jacob Goldstein: photographs in The Goldstein Story by his grand daughter Leslie Henderson.

 

Leslie argues that Jacob was not close to his father nor to his own children.

Both Jacob and his wife Isabella were interested in social service, devoting much time and effort to work among the poor.

According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, ‘Jacob Goldstein encouraged his daughters to be economically and intellectually independent’. With her more famous daughter Vida, Isabella was a keen proponent of women’s suffrage;  Leslie Henderson believes that Jacob  was less enthusiastic. [The ADB calls Jacob an ‘an anti-suffragist’.]

In Melbourne, the Goldsteins attended the Scots’ (Presbyterian) Church, whose minister the Reverend Charles Strong was forced to resign over heresy charges in 1883. When Strong later set up his own ‘Australian Church’ the Goldstein’s became members. In the late 1890s Isabella and her daughters, though not Jacob, became Christian Scientists, followers of the spiritual healer Mary Baker Eddy.

Jacob died in 1910 at the age of 71.

 

LIEUT. COLONEL GOLDSTEIN. (1910, September 22). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1957), p. 7. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article10462993

 

Sources

• Henderson, Leslie M. (Leslie Moira) (1973). The Goldstein story. Stockland Press, Melbourne
• “1852 Belfast / Ulster Street Directory.” 1852 BSD Streets 1, www.lennonwylie.co.uk/1852streetsatol.htm.
• SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE. (1858, April 30). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1957), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article7293675
• Register of Assisted Immigrants from the United Kingdom. Microfiche VPRS 14. Public Record Office Victoria, North Melbourne, Victoria. Image retrieved through ancestry.com.
• NEW YEARS DAY SPORTS. (1863, January 20). Portland Guardian and Normanby General Advertiser (Vic. : 1842 – 1843; 1854 – 1876), p. 4 (EVENING). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article64627939
• Table Talk. (1864, March 10). Portland Guardian and Normanby General Advertiser (Vic. : 1842 – 1843; 1854 – 1876), p. 2 (EVENING). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article64630873
• THE GAZETTE. (1867, December 18). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1957), p. 5. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5786204
• RARA AVIS. (1868, December 16). Hamilton Spectator and Grange District Advertiser (South Melbourne, Vic. : 1860 – 1870), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article194473216
• 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 28 April 2018.

 

X, her mark, revisited

Second thoughts

On re-reading the ‘Grantham Journal’ piece of 9 December 1893, I find I agree with the interpretation of Linda Curry (in the comments, below). Although she favoured the Catholic candidate, Eliza was persuaded that she should not vote against her own denominational interests, ‘her own’ meaning Anglican. She was a member of the Church of England.

I have no forebears whose names begin with X, but ‘X, his mark’ on a document seems close enough.

Making an X is not a reliable way of identifying yourself, of course, and from time to time illiterate people were tricked into giving false endorsements of their intentions. One of these was my husband’s great great grandmother Eliza Dawson née Skerritt (1838-1899) who lived in Corby, near Grantham, Lincolnshire.

Though she apparently could not read and write, Eliza Dawson was a property owner and therefore entitled to vote for the local Board of Guardians. The Boards were committees that administered the Poor Law in the United Kingdom from 1835 to 1930, elected by owners and bona fide occupiers of land liable to pay the poor rate. The property qualification was abolished in 1894, but in 1893, Eliza, widowed since 1872, was an owner or occupier of land liable to pay the poor rate and so eligible to vote for the local Board.

In the 1893 election Eliza was canvassed by a Mr Walsingham on behalf of Mr William Harrison, the local butcher, who was a member of Church of England. Eliza, however, wished to vote for the alternative candidate, a Roman Catholic, the Reverend Canon Baron. Walsingham seems to have told Eliza that her children could not complete her ballot paper on her behalf but that he could. However, perhaps contrary to her wishes, he completed the ballot in favour of William Harrison. She later asserted that ‘…she did not give him any direct permission to record her vote for Mr Harrison’.

Eliza protested, and in reviewing the election, the Local Government Board  was satisfied that her ballot paper had not been completed in accordance with her intentions and that Eliza’s vote should be disallowed. This tied the vote and a fresh election was ordered.

Witnesses in the case included her sons William and Albert Dawson, and William’s wife Annie.

Local Government Board Enquiry at Corby reported in the Grantham Journal 30 September 1893 page 6 retrieved from the British Newspaper Archive through FindMyPast

Grantham Journal 9 December 1893 page 6 retrieved from the British Newspaper Archive through FindMyPast

Two years before this, at the time of the 1891 census, Eliza Dawson was living at Stonepit Terrace in Corby with her sons George age 20 and Albert age 18, both farm labourers, and her grandson Arthur, age 12, still at school. The house previously enumerated on the Census was in Brown Road, with the occupants listed as Eliza’s son William age 31, who was a chimney sweep, William’s wife Annie, and a stepson, Frederick Munks aged 2.

Eliza presumably owned at least one of these houses, possibly both, giving her the legal status of property owner. (I haven’t been able to locate these addresses on a present-day map.)

I still have much to learn about the Dawson and Skerritt families. Until reading this article I had no idea that Eliza was a Roman Catholic [but see above, at ‘Second Thoughts’] or that she owned enough real property to qualify as a Board of Guardians voter.

A fresh election was held in January 1894. Canon Baron won the popular vote but the successful candidate was the Reverend Charles Farebrother, Anglican priest of Corby Vicarage. Depending on the value of his property, an elector had up three votes. It appears that the wealthier voters chose to vote for the Anglican clergyman.

Grantham Journal 13 January 1894 page 3

Postscript

I am descended from a long line of Huguenots – French Calvinists – on one side and German Lutherans on the other, supplemented by Anglicans (mostly) and various other Protestants. My husband Greg’s family were nominally Anglican, or if not, Non-conformist or, occasionally, followers of unusual creeds, not all of them trinitarian.

So it has been easy to assume that our families were Protestant Christians of one kind or another, and it was a surprise to discover a direct forebear who appears to have been a Roman Catholic.

The evidence is slight, however. To say that Eliza Dawson née Skerritt was described by an 1893 Corby newspaper as belonging to the Roman Catholic church reminds me of the cautious scholar who, seeing a mob of black cows, one of them white, reported that he had observed at least one cow white on at least one side.

There are very few facts, and they are difficult to interpret. Eliza Skerritt married Isaac Dawson in an Anglican Church, possibly before she changed her religious allegiance – if that’s what happened. I have not found her will or probate record, and I do not know whether she was buried a Roman Catholic. I know nothing about her husband’s denominational affiliation, nor her chilren’s.

Greg, raised in a sect which believes the Bishop of Rome to was accurately described by John in Revelation 17, will not be hurrying off to Mass on Sunday. I am waiting for more evidence before I can say with confidence that not all our recent forebears were Protestants.

Related post

• X, her mark

Harry Lawson elected Victorian Premier March 1918

Next month it will be one hundred years since Harry Lawson (1875-1952) was elected the 27th premier of Victoria.

Harry Lawson was the son of John Wightman Lawson (1830-1892), a Presbyterian minister from Edinburgh, Scotland, and his wife Penelope Bell, née Hawkins (1851-1898). Harry was born in Dunolly but the family moved to Castlemaine in 1884.

Harry Lawson trained as a solicitor and entered Victorian parliament at the age of 24.

Next month in Lawson’s home town of Castlemaine there will be a lunch to celebrate the centenary of Sir Harry Lawson becoming Premier of Victoria in 1918.

My great grandmother Beatrix Champion de Crespigny née Hughes (1884-1943) was a first cousin of Sir Harry Lawson. The noted feminist Vida Goldstein (1869-1949) was also a first cousin of both Harry Lawson and my great grandmother. All three were grandchildren of Samuel Proudfoot Hawkins (1819-1867) and Jeanie Hawkins née Hutcheson (1824-1864).

A NEW PREMIER (1918, March 19). The Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 – 1954), p. 6. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article221939194