Kew, One Name Study Talk and Dr Williams Library

Wednesday 9 Apr

Shot out to Kew first thing this morning.

                                           National Archives - The Guardian at the Gate

Ordered two books, then looked at a film of WO 120/22, Records of the 1^st – 13^th Foot Discharged to Pension 1812 -1818, in case they had something different to what I already know  – and no John! No idea why, maybe I just missed seeing his name. I did find Noah FLOOD admitted to pension on 12 July 1814 – poor fellow, what agonies he must have suffered at school.

I also made a note of some of the fascinating letters noted in the ‘correspondence received from the War Office’ section of the Monthly Returns, like -

1845  Relative to New Zealand

1849  Relative to Capt. Henry BURTON for New Zealand

1850  Relative to candidates for Hudson’s Bay

1850  Relative to blank ammunition for local company

1850  Relative to small company being called out for exercises

1854  Relative to pensioners required as orderlies etc to proceed to Turkey

1854  Relative to pensioners required as Riggers in Woolwich Dockyard

1855  Relating to sick and invalid soldiers from the Crimea

1856  Relative to Lunatic Pensioners

1856  Relative to drill of local force

Others related to wives of soldiers, leave of absence, the Patriotic Fund, Clerk of the Malden Union, Income Tax, Fuel for pensioners, window blinds in this office, and last but definitely not least – the Belts of the local Company. 

Reading these slowed down my search considerably, but aside from the wonderful glimpse they give into the paperwork of the time, once I realised that they included named pensioners, naturally I had to continue to read them.

The next book I read was the London 2nd North Returns, followed by the London 1st North regions. And here I had some success. John was found - again in April 1854 - in Section One, Transfers From the District (second from the bottom).

1st Foot - /9d - 3 May 1816 - Pte - John CLAYHILL - From Taunton District. Transfer sent to 1st East London District (WO 22/59)

So this looks like he just passed through the 1st London area.

 At this point I ran out of time, as I was due at the SOG by 2 pm for a talk. So I put in an order for the 1st East book for tomorrow, and headed off to Goswell Rd.

Derek Palgrave is  President of the Guild of One Name Studies (Goons), and was giving a talk on - I thought - doing such a study. However it turned out to be about his PALGRAVE name, and some of the many things they did, and what had been discovered. If you could pick up the odd hint about how to do one yourself, you were lucky. It was not at all what I expected, and the handout he passed around afterwards was totally about the PALGRAVE family. 

So I could have stayed at Kew without missing a thing, but not having hindsight ... 

Current Reading: Aunt Dimity and the Village Witch - another family history type of story, has Nancy Atherton taken up genealogy, I wonder.

 Thursday 10 Apr

Spring is well and truly sprung in Burlington Avenue (the road to Kew). 

The 1st East District book for 1852-62 was very quickly read, and John is registered here, still in the month of April (WO 22/50)

      1st Foot - /9d - 3/5/16 - P - John CLAYHILL - [From] Taunton - [Paid To] 30/6/54 - Perm't

There is no further mention of him in this book, and I have no idea what happened to him next. He was in Haggerstone, near Hackney, in 1858 when Susan died. In the 1861 census he is living with Charles in London City. Maybe both these places were in that district? I reread that book just in case I had missed something, but still did not find him.

After browsing the catalogue under various search terms which came to mind, I had a quick lunch before leaving.

The afternoon program was a visit to Dr Williams Library, again organised under the auspices of the SOG. I arrived with half an hour to spare, so had a brief look around. They are not normally busy, but naturally because they had 45 already booked in for the tour, all sorts of other people chose that day to come in too.

This Library is devoted to records and books about Non-conformists - those who worship at any church other than an Anglican one. Baptists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists were the earliest break-aways, followed by Methodists, Unitarians, Quakers, Salvation Army etc.

In the early days Acts of Parliament prevented Dissenters from holding civil or military office, or attending university, so they went into trade, for example textile manufacturing and iron working, and were extremely successful - just think of the Cadbury and Wedgewood empires for a start.

They created their own academies to train church ministers, and later their own schools. The Religious Census of 1851 (a unique survey of all identified places of religious worship then in existence, including Nonconformist and Catholic chapels and Jewish synagogues as well as Church of England churches) showed that attendance at non-conformist places of worship was nearly as great as that at Anglican churches, in fact in the chief manufacturing areas, thanks to their focus on trade, they outnumbered the Church of England members.                                                                           

Librarian Fiona is from the USA, and had been at Dr Williams for about a year. We began with an introductory talk. Dr Williams (c1643 - 1716) started life as a Presbyterian, but later became a Unitarian. He was very involved in the non-conformist movement, and refused to return to the Anglican religion when Charles II was restored, so emigrated to Ireland. He returned to London in 1687 and became an advisor to William III on Irish matters.

He married twice, both times to wealthy widows, and was worth about $100,000 when he died in 1716. In his will, made in 1711, his prime concern was that Non-conformists have educated ministers, who could then pass on their knowledge and training, and to this end he set up schools, first for those entering the ministry, and later for the children of other non-conformists.

His Library was established 16 years after he died, and was a centre of dissent for over 100 years.     A register was set up for recording the birth of children who were not baptised in the Anglican church, which could then be used as a proof of birth for any occasion on which such was required, in the same way that Anglicans used their baptismal certificates. This has now become a great resource for genealogists who have dissenters in their ancestry.

The Library arrived at its current home - 14 Gordon Square - in 1890. The original purpose of the building had been as a Residence Hall for the Non-conformist university, which explains the warrens of corridors and small rooms all full of books. Dr Williams left about 7,600 books to start the library and 200 years later it had grown to 66,000. Today there are approximately 300,000. Roughly 5% of the collection is unique, and of another 18% there are less than five other copies extant.

I won't bore you with a description of the contents, suffice to say that it includes two Nuremberg Bibles, and over 500 portraits. 

Assistant Librarian Anna then showed us the main research library, and told us a little about what was in it. The most popular books are those dealing with the history of particular chapels and areas, and several of my group were quietly edging towards them as she was talking. The shelves are very high, and there is a gorgeous iron spiral staircase going up to the mezzanine floor, with more books. It looks very like some of the pictures in a large book that Lloyd gave me for Christmas, on the history of the Library, which had amazing photos on every page. 

Finally we were regaled with tea and coffee, and a large selection of biscuits, after which many stayed on to begin their research. I however having realised that it was a late night at the SOG, headed back there and worked my way through some of their Nova Scotia books, on the off-chance my SMART family might pop their heads up. However they are apparently not yet ready to be found.
One day ...

John CLEAL aka CLAYHILL

Tuesday 8 Apr

Be warned this is going to be a very genealogical discussion, as I want to remember it all. Non-genealogists may wish to skim or even skip today’s reading.

First, the background, so family can at least pretend they know who I am talking about. John CLEAL (1791 – about 1863) is my 3-greats grandfather on Dad’s side – it is John's son Charles who came to NZ in 1865. Checking the family before I left, I remembered that on two different census, John described himself as a ‘Pensioner’. Since old age pensions were introduced in England around 1907, this had to mean that he had been in the army, and was a ‘Chelsea Pensioner’ (CP) - see the explanation below for more about them. With so many records coming online I was lucky to find two that referred to him – first his discharge to pension from the 1^st Foot (Royal Scots) Brigade (very prestigious, they are!), reason given as ‘wounded in the right hand at Waterloo!!' Those who were at the NZSG library that night will remember that I was somewhat excited.

This is a transcript of what I found on Ancestry - 

Royal Scots Regimental Registers of Pensioners, 1st Foot
Admission - 26 Apr 1816
Name -         Jno CLAYHILL
Age -            26
Private -       6 [yrs] 7/12 [mths]. Plus Waterloo 2yrs (they got extra years 'service' added on for important battles, so that meant a greater pension rate)
Total Service -  8 [yrs] 7/12 [mths]
Rate Pd -    9
Complaint - Wounded right hand at Waterloo
Where Born - Ilminster, Somerset
Trade or Occupation - Labourer
Remarks - 5' 3", brown [hair], grey [eyes], brown [complexion] 

Then his medal entitlement on Find My Past

Waterloo Medal Roll 1815 

Name:   John CLAYHILL
Rank:     Private
Regt:     3rd Battalion, Royal Scots
Sub-unit: Captain Thomas Moss's Company No 3

I did not have time to follow up any further before I left, but was very keen to see what TNA might hold. 

Next a brief overview of the subject of the day – Chelsea Pensioners. The following is courtesy of Wikipedia, since I couldn’t say it any better.

“During the reign of King William III and Queen Mary II, the Royal Hospital was still under construction, so they introduced a system for distribution of army pensions in 1689. The pension was to be made available to all former soldiers who had been injured in service, [my italics] or who had served for more than 20 years.
By the time the Hospital was completed, there were more pensioners than places available in the Hospital. Eligible ex-soldiers who could not be housed in the Hospital were termed out-pensioners, receiving their pension from the Royal Hospital but living outside it. In-pensioners, by contrast, surrender their army pension and live within the Royal Hospital.
In 1703, there were only 51 out-pensioners. By 1815 this figure had risen to 36,757.
The Royal Hospital remained responsible for distributing army pensions until 1955, following which the phrase ‘out-pensioner’ became less common, and ‘Chelsea pensioner’ was used largely to refer to ‘in-pensioners’.”

So now you understand what I am talking about. CP’s still supply the guards at the Tower of London today, and many will have seen them in their distinctive red coats and black tricorn hats.

I left for Kew nice and early, and spent the whole day working my way through the records of the WO 22 series, which are the Chelsea Regimental Registers of Pensioners.

These records were kept by the districts where the pensioners received their quarterly payments. I had hoped that it would be a record of the actual payments, however what I got was a four-page Monthly Return form listing the changes that occurred in the district that month and sent to the War Office. These are bound together in about ten-year bundles. The full title of this form is the ‘Monthly Return of Changes which have taken place among the Out-Patients of the Chelsea [Army] and Greenwich [Navy] Hospitals in the ________ District, from  __________ to__________ inclusive.” 

There are eight sections on the form, and some of them make fascinating reading.

I)                   Pensioners transferred from this district

II)                 Pensioners transferred to this district

III)              Pensioners newly admitted to out-pension

IV)              Pensions renewed, made permanent, or increased – sometimes this was because they acquired another dependant

V)                Pensions expired or reduced – when judged to be recovered, or when a child reached the age where they would be sent out to work

VI)              Pensions ceased by death – it would be great to find John in this one, as I do not know where or when he died. There are several possibilities, and there is a limit to the number of certificates I can afford. This column also included the spouses, as they continued to receive the pension, or part thereof, after the death of the soldier (John's wife died before him, so no chance of finding her listed.)

VII)           Pensions cancelled by order of the Commissioners of Chelsea Hospital – with a column to write in the crime for which they were struck off! (Naturally John will never be here.)

VIII)         List of correspondence received from the War Office – my first sight of John was in this column, so it certainly pays to read every one

Most sections detail the Regiment, date of discharge to pension, pension amount, and then where they are being transferred from or to, or other information as the section requires.

Since I knew that John was living in Ilminster in Somerset on both the 1841 and 1851 census, I started by ordering WO 22/105, the returns for Taunton, from 1842-1852.                                   

John CLAYHILL (obviously the way they write his surname is the Somerset accent as interpreted by his admitting officer) was first discovered, as I mentioned earlier, as the subject of a War Office letter.

                                   John CLAYHILL 1st Foot: Correction (WO 22/105 Aug 1845)

He is the very last entry on this page. Perhaps one day I will find the original communication.

In the following book, Taunton 1852-62 (WO 22/106), he appeared again, this time leaving the Taunton district for London, in April 1854. 

1st Foot - [Daily Pay Rate] 9d - [Date Admitted] 1816, 3rd May - Pte - John CLAYHILL - to London - [Paid To] 1854, 30th June - Permanent

Ninepence per day is what he got back in 1816 when he was discharged to pension. 38 years later he is still on the same rate - they certainly didn't believe in pay rises back then. To be fair, he may have had increases and decreases before these books start, as he acquired a wife (in 1819) and then at least six children. All of the children would have been over fourteen in 1854, in fact all but Charles were married or dead by then. On reflection, it does not look like his wife (Susan TAYLOR) was being included after all, as she was still alive at this time.

There are 17 books covering the London area, fortunately only ten for the 1854-62 time frame – North, South, East and West areas. Naturally there was no mention of which District in London he was heading for. I took a stab and ordered WO 22/63, London South. By the time I worked my way through the ten years in that book without any result, it was home-time.

Current Reading:Aunt Dimity and the Family Tree

Islington Cemetery

Monday 7 Apr

Neither SOG or TNA are open on Mondays – very inconsiderate of them to choose the same day, so after a quiet morning I went to Islington Cemetery at East Finchley. It is anther grey & drizzly day. 

Walked a mile from the station to the cemetery, then a further 10 mins to the office, where the wonderful Sue explained that they only had time to look up one grave for me on a given day, then did two, and offered a third. They have one of the main cemetery websites, Deceased Online, available free at the office – and I had paid to look  up the references before I left home! Ain’t that the way. 

Sam & Jane BARNES, my three-great grandparents, were only found in the burial register, however their daughter Florence is here with her husband. She checked my references and dug out plans, maps and burial books for Florence and Thomas ANDREW and Frederick TOLFREE, another son-in-law who is buried with his parents and family. I was given A3 copies of ‘my’ sections, showing all the names,with each grave marked, and a coloured map to help find them. Fred TOLFREE died at 39,  and the grave was relatively easy to find, on one of the main roads. It was just legible, so I wrote out the inscription and took lots of close-up pictures. 

I was lucky that the weather was not serious about that rainy day, we had only light showers now & then, & I mostly managed to keep the maps and camera dry. 

 

I was not so lucky with Florence & Tom - they were off the beaten track and in an area covered with ivy and nettles. :-(

Sue had informed me that if either of my graves were in this condition, they would clean it and send me photos, so I later emailed her with the reference of the one I needed. What a great service. 

Current Reading:   The Stately Home Murder by Catherine Aird