Two family churches in Shadwell

Many of the buildings and places associated with our family history disappear or change over time, but churches often survive. They may not tell us a huge amount about our families’ lives, but the fact that they are associated with the key vital events in lives, baptism, marriage and burial, makes them significant places. Today I visited two churches in Shadwell that are connected with my father’s biological family line.

St George in the East

A quick trip on the Docklands Light Railway to Shadwell, then a short walk brought me to St George in the East Church.

My paternal great grandfather, James Herne Everett, was baptised in this church in 1856. His family was living nearby, at 14 Johnson Street and his father was working as a dock labourer. James seems to have been the only one in the family who was baptised there.

St George in the East is an Anglican Church, which was built from 1714-1729. It was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor. He was a leading figure of the English Baroque style of architecture and contemporary of Christopher Wren, with whom he worked as a clerk in the early stages of his career. Hawksmoor’s other works include The Queen’s College and Worcester College at Oxford, and the west towers of Westminster Abbey. He also contributed to the design of St Paul’s Cathedral and Hampton Court Palace (which I will be visiting in a couple of days).

View of St George in the East from the churchyard (Lautrec, 2024)

Ruins of the mortuary, St George in the East Church (Lautrec, 2024)

St George in the East is one of the twelve churches built as part of a plan to build fifty new churches in London. I found the image below in a book in the Internet Archive, which is a great place to go to find images that are out of copyright (note: not all images in the archive are out of copyright – check the dates!). I cleaned this image up in my photo editing software.

Illustration of St George in the East, 1830s. [3] This view is from the opposite direction to the photograph above.

The interior of the church was unfortunately destroyed during World War II and a new interior was built in 1964.

Behind the church is almost two hectares of gardens, which are the former churchyard grounds. There is little sign of graves remaining, though there are headstones lined up along the walls.

St George in the East, headstones (Lautrec, 2024)

St Pauls Church

A short walk to the east brought me to St Pauls Church at Shadwell.

The original parish church was built in 1656 and known as the Church of Sea Captains, though it also served watermen and lightermen, which is of interest to me as I have many of those in my family. It was reconstructed as St Pauls in 1669, but that building was demolished in 1817. The current building dates from 1821. The building survived the Blitz, but unfortunately all the parish records were destroyed. ^[5]

The original St Paul’s parish church, Shadwell, London, seen from the northeast, in an engraving published 20 February 1819 (Public Domain, Wikipedia Commons)

The current church does not quite have the same aesthetic impact of the original church (Lautrec, 2024)

Graveyard appears pretty intact, with many sarcophagi (Lautrec, 2024)

My archaeology training always tempts me to search out and read the conservation plans for buildings and this time I found something intriguing. The plan for St Pauls says that Captain James Cook’s eldest son was baptised there in 1763. ^[6]

The reason that I find this intriguing is that my family connection to this church is my 3x great grandparents who were married there in 1851 – George T Seaborn and Emma Cook. I know Cook is a common name, but I had wondered if there was a connection to him. I was put off by the fact that he was born in Yorkshire. Now I know that he was in the same parish as my Cook family, albeit 90 years apart, I think I will revisit this issue.

Sources

1. Anon, ‘Nicholas Hawksmoor‘, Wikipedia, accessed 23 April 2024  
2. Anon, ‘Hawksmoor, Nicholas‘, Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, accessed 23 April 2024
3. Britton, John; Pugin, Augustus; & Leeds, William Henry, Illustrations of the Public Buildings of London: With Historical and Descriptive Accounts of Each Ediface, Vol. 1, J. Weale 1838
4. Defoe, Daniel, The history of the great plague in London in the year 1665, containing observations and memorials of the most remarkable occurrences, both public and private, during that dreadful period, London, Renshaw and Rush, 1832.
5. Anon, ‘Conservation Area Appraisals and Management Guidelines’, St Paul’s Shadwell Conservation Area, Tower Hamlets, accessed 23 April 2024
6. If you are not familiar with Australian history, his journey to Australia on the Endeavour in 1770 is noted as the first recorded European visit to the continent. We used to be taught that he ‘discovered’ Australia, but this version of history has since been corrected.

Tracking down ancient London around Tower Hill

According to the Wikipedia article on Tower Hill, the most important information about the place is who was executed there. Demonstrating clearly that sources are defined by the values and interests of those who compile them.

I am trying to avoid the most popular tourism spots, as I do not like crowds and long queues. But I still want to experience the history of London, so I chose to visit to the area around Tower Hill without actually going into the Tower of London.

Found these in a tunnel near the tower. King Henry VIII

Queen Elizabeth I. Both by artist Stephen B. Watley

London Wall

A large section of the London Wall runs through Tower Hill. The wall was built by the Romans around Londinium in about 200AD. The Wikipedia article suggests that it was built to defend the city, perhaps from the Picts, but English Heritage points out that the ‘form and design demonstrate a lack of urgency, rather than a response to an impending military threat’ and that, initially the wall covered only the landward sides of the city. This suggests that the purpose was more likely to an expression of wealth and status. However, a riverside wall was added between 250-270 AD and this was probably in response to a threat of civil war. ^{[1, 2]}

The wall included seven gates, which are still reflected in place names, such as Cripplegate, Bishopsgate and Aldgate.

The wall defined the boundaries of London until the later Middle Ages, when population growth led to expansion beyond the wall. Large parts of the wall have been demolished, with only fragments remaining.

Georg Braun’s map of London dated 1572. (Public domain, Wikipedia Commons).

The English Heritage website contains an artist’s impression of the wall, which is fantastic as I found it difficult to imagine what the city was like at that time.^[2]

The section I visited is 10.7 metres above the current ground level. The lower four metres is Roman and the upper part is medieval.

Monument to the Great Fire of London

I expect that most people have heard of the event that is referred to as the Great Fire of London. This was the one that started in Pudding Lane on 6 September 1666. The fact that it is called the Great Fire suggests two things. One, that it was a big fire that had a big impact on London; and two, that it was not the only time London burned. Peter Ackroyd lists seventeen major fires, of which the earliest two, in AD 60 and 125, destroyed most of the city. He also says that from 1833 to 1841, there was an average of 556 fires per annum! ^[3]pp218-9

I find it interesting that most articles and videos seem to focus on why the fire happened. I guess it is a sensational story. But I am more interested in why this fire was so significant. My question is, as I have expressed in some of my other posts, why do some events get greater recognition in historical records and persist in community memory, while others seem to vanish from history as if they never happened? I think it is an important issue, when studying history (including family history), because it reinforces the point that history is not a comprehensive record of everything from the past.

Ackroyd refers to the Great Fire as ‘one of the most formative events of the city’s history’. ^{[3] p225} I do not want to try to answer my question in a blog post, because it would be too superficial for my liking. Still, it is interesting to see what others suggest. According to an article by the BBC in 2016, the significance of the fire was:

• such large areas were destroyed that it provided a chance to rebuild the city, with improvements in design and building materials
• reconstruction and redesign of the medieval St Paul’s Cathedral by Christopher Wren
• rebuilding of 52 churches, 36 company halls and construction of the Monument to the Great Fire
• birth of the insurance industry
• establishment of the fire brigade. ^[4]

Bing’s AI answer to the question also adds that about 100,000 were left homeless. ^[5]

Sources

1. Anon, ‘Tower Hill‘, Wikipedia, accessed 2 March 2024
2. Anon, ‘History of London Wall‘, English Heritage, accessed 2 March 2024
3. Ackroyd, P., London. The Biography, Vintage Books, London, 2000
4. Davies, Sian, ‘Five ways the Great Fire changed London‘, BBC, 23 July 2016, accessed 15 April 2024
5. You can ask Bing a question and the AI tool will provide a summarised answer. This one provided three source citations, two of which were media articles; and some prompt questions which allow you to explore the topic further.

Finding family in West Ham

I think my search engine is faulty, or at least, poorly designed. It thinks that I want to visit West Ham because of football! Even when I added in the word ‘history’, I was told all about the history of the team. Fortunately I know about improving online searches, so I added ‘-united’ to my search terms and the results were much better! I’ll have to write a blog post about that one day.

West Ham, and the areas around it such as Manor Park, East Ham and Forest Gate, are associated with my most recent family history – that of my father’s biological father and his parents and grandparents. They arrived in the area in about 1881, from other parts of Essex (Aveley, Brentwood, South Weald).

West Ham is in East London. I am staying in the west, so getting there was a bit more of a challenge than most of my outings.

Key locations in West Ham (Lautrec, 2024)

West Ham was originally a hamlet on the western border of the ancient parish of West Ham and the county of Essex. West Ham and East Ham were both absorbed into the London Borough of Newham in 1965. This kind of information is important when researching family history. It helps you locate records but it also helps you decide whether or not you are looking at the same person in two different records. For example, records state that my great grandfather was born in Essex and buried in Newham, but they were in fact the same place.

Another important thing to know is exactly what area a name refers to. West Ham, for example, is a hamlet/village, parish, sub-district and a district!

I have not researched the early history of the area, given that my family only arrived there in 1880s. However, I did read that it was an area where some wealthy Londoners built country houses and that there was quite a lot of damage taken to buildings during World War II, resulting in major reconstruction and redevelopment. Despite this, it seems most of the houses of my family are still there. I did not actually get to see them, unfortunately, as I my foot is sore and I had to limit my walking today.

West Ham Cemetery

First stop was West Ham Cemetery, at the end of Tower Hamlets Road.

The cemetery opened in 1857 as one of London’s first publicly-owned cemeteries. It is spread over 22 hectares, with the Jewish Cemetery adjacent.

Gatehouse to West Ham Cemetery

I downloaded a plan of the cemetery before visiting, so I was able to find the sections where my family members were buried.

My father’s biological grandfather, James H Everett, died 1930. His parents James Everett died 1896 and Sarah E H Everett (nee Redknap) died 1885. I did not really expect to find their graves and I was right. I did brave the long grass, but either they had no headstone or it has been lost or fallen.

They are in this bit, somewhere

Headstone for the family of John Everett

I did manage to find a headstone for an Everett family – they are probably related in some way.

One of the reasons I had difficulty is that there are only index records of burials available as the full burial register records were irrecoverably damaged by flooding. The indexed records are available on Deceased Online.

Finding James’ wife, Anne Everett, my father’s biological grandmother, was also a challenge. She died in 1896 and was buried with her father George Thomas Seaborn in section SE. Presumably her mother Emma Seaborn (nee Cook), who died 1914 West Ham, was also buried there but I did not find her record in Deceased Online. This section of the cemetery is quite large and a large number of the headstones are so weathered that they are illegible.

Ann and George are in here, somewhere

Example of weathered headstones

Bow Street Church

In 1804, my 4x great grandparents (on my father’s biological line), Reuben Pressman and Hannah Argent, were married in Bow Street Church. Hannah had been baptised there in 1779 and it is likely that Reuben was also baptised there.

Bow Church is the parish church of St Mary and Holy Trinity, in Stratford, Bow. Not to be confused by the similarly named St Mary le Bow (I was!). It is now located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It lies squeezed between two roads and seems to be bravely trying to resist them pressing in on each side. Double decker buses were constantly parading past – I had to patiently wait for a break in the traffic to get a decent photo!

The church is the oldest building in Bow. It was originally built as a chapel of ease in the 14th century and it is believed to still contain some structures from this period. It was included in the 1711 plan by Hawkesmoor to construct and expand fifty London churches. ^{[4, 5]} It was consecrated as a parish church in 1719.

There are a few headstones in the grounds of the church and a couple of sarcophagi. The gardens are small but gorgeous, I can imagine the church is still popular for weddings.

Bow Church front

Bow Church side wall shows different eras of construction. Perhaps those windows once held stained glass?

I am glad that I made the trip to West Ham and I am not disappointed that I did not find their actual graves. I still feel like I have come closer to them.

Wikitree game of connections

No famous connections to check for this location, but if you want to check your connection to my family, here are a few:

• James Herne Everett – Everett-4935
• Sarah Redknap – Redknap-8
• Reuben Pressman – Pressman-53 and his wife Hannah Argent – Argent-233

Sources and more information

https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/West_Ham,_Essex_Genealogy

1. Newham Council, ‘West Ham Cemetery burial records’, https://www.newham.gov.uk/births-deaths-marriages/burial-records
2. Deceased Online, West Ham Cemetery
3. Findagrave Cemetery ID 658435
4. Anon, ‘Bow Church’, Wikipedia
5. “Stratford-le-Bow | The Environs of London: volume 3 (pp. 489-502)”. British-history.ac.uk. 22 June 2003, accessed 12 April 2024.
6. Bow Church website, https://www.bow.church/heritage

London Docklands

The London Docklands were for centuries the heart of London. They were integral to the establishment and expansion of the British Empire. They were the places where goods arrived from exotic locations such as Constantinople and they were the places from which so many ships left on voyages of exploration and conquest.^{[1] p105} In the 17th and 18th centuries, they became the centre of industry.^{[1] p163}

The Docklands are in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, south of Poplar. They are, as the name suggests, associated with the history of the River Thames and England’s shipping industry.

Museum of London Docklands

I visited the Museum of London Docklands to find out more about this history. If you have not been there yet, I highly recommend it. Though be aware that it has a lot of school groups and they are noisy and annoying!

Entry to the museum is free. Bookings are only required for temporary exhibitions. It is located at No 1, West India Quay. I got there by taking the tube to Canary Wharf and walking over the footbridge.

Slavery exhibition

Some of my ancestors on my father’s adoptive line were Jamaican slave owners, so I was very interested to view the museum’s slavery exhibition.

The museum has made a great attempt at a more honest portrayal of British involvement in slavery, acknowledging how the empire was built on the profits of slave trade. It includes perspectives from the enslaved themselves, notes how the campaign took over fifty years to make a difference and also acknowledges the crucial involvement of women in the abolition campaign. Although I did overhear a tour guide still contributing the abolition of slavery to Wilberforce. The Brits do love their ‘heros’.

ship slave register

Watermen and lightermen

Many of my father’s ancestors were watermen and lightermen on the Thames. I was delighted to find many images of lightermen, models of their boats and also a waterman’s uniform and buckle.

Waterman on the Thames

Model of a lighterman’s barge

Buckle worn by Thames watermen, London

Uniform worn by Thames watermen, London

Sources

1. Ackroyd, Peter, Thames. Sacred River, Vintage Books, London, 2008

British Museum

I feel sad that I am starting to think about museums and galleries the way I think about zoos. Since reading Geoffrey Robertson’s book, Who Owns History and watching shows such as Stuff the British Stole , I have a greater awareness of the practices behind the growth of the collections.^[1][2] I can no longer go to zoos. It hurts me too much to see animals in captivity. I still go to museums and galleries, but I feel guilty.

Having collections (of animals or objects) helps us learn about them and appreciate them. But I also wish that they could be where they are meant to be. This issue is massive and complex, so I will not get into it further here except to say that I think it is important, when viewing collections, to understand the context and history, not just of the cultures that they came from but how they came into the collections. Unfortunately, I usually find the short descriptions in museums frustratingly inadequate for this purpose.

Rosetta stone (room 4). My first university degree was in prehistory and archaeology. So you can imagine how excited I got when I realised that one of the exhibits in the British Museum is the Rosetta Stone. The actual real Rosetta Stone. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, the Rosetta Stone was the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics. It contains a decree written in three different scripts in Egypt in 196 BC. One of the scripts is Ancient Greek, which was already known, so it was used to decipher the other scripts.

For me, the Rosetta Stone symbolises research and understanding, the joy of discovery and the value of good historical documentation!

Rosetta Stone

Robertson says that the Rosetta Stone is one of the objects in the museum which appears to have been obtained legally and, since he is a barrister, I will take his word for it.^[1] It was found by French soldiers and surrendered to England as part of the peace treaty after their defeat at Aboukir Bay. One reason that there is no pressure to return it to Egypt is that many others have since been found. There are seventeen others in the Cairo Museum. ^{[1] pp179-180}

The Sloane Astrolabe (room 1) crafted around 1300, it is one of the oldest mathematical instruments in the museum. An astrolabe is an astronomical instrument, used to identify stars or planets, determine latitude and tell time. It is a precursor to the sextant.

Sloane Astrolabe

This Astrolabe was owned by Hans Sloane and it was his collection that became the basis for both the British Museum and the British Library. While his collection was seemingly bequeathed to the King quite legally, as a collector he was not without controversy. He worked as a doctor on slave plantations in Jamaica and it is claimed that is how he financed his collection.^[3] In 2020, a bust of Sloane was removed from display within the museum in what the Director of the Museum described as an acknowledgement of links to slavery and a commitment to a ‘rewrite our shared, complicated and, at times, very painful history.’ ^[4]

The Parthenon sculptures (room 18) are from the Parthenon temple in Athens and date to between 447BC and 432BC. Renamed by the museum from ‘the Elgin marbles’ in an obvious attempt to try to disentangle them from the person who stole them from Greece, they are perhaps the most well known of the contested items in the museum. I will not get into the debate here, but if you are interested in it, Geoffrey Robinson’s book presents the case for their return to Greece and the museum’s website presents the case for them remaining in England. The fact that they need three rooms to display them emphasises the scale of the act.

The Parthenon sculptures aka the Elgin Marbles

Special exhibitions

There is so much to see in the museum, I could probably have spent a week there. Instead I visited two paid exhibitions – Michelangelo and the Romans. Just a couple of photos for you here:

Michelangelo

A Roman dragon. The full item actually made dragon sounds to scare the enemies

Sources

1. Robertson, Geoffrey, Who Owns History? Elgin’s Loot and the Case For Returning Plundered Treasure, Random House Australia, 2019
2. Stuff the British Stole, ABC Australia
3. Anonymous, ‘Sir Hans Sloane‘, British Museum, The British Museum Story,
4. White, Adam, ‘British Museum removes bust of slave-owning founder Sir Hans Sloane: ‘We have pushed him off the pedestal’, Independent, 25 August 2020,
5. https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/contested-objects-collection/parthenon-sculptures
6. https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/contested-objects-collection/parthenon-sculptures/parthenon

Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square, as you might expect, is named after the Battle of Trafalgar and it contains a statue of the man we have come to associate with that battle – Admiral Horatio Nelson. That was about the extent of my knowledge before this trip. So I did some digging, because I wanted to know more about what makes this place so significant.

Like most of the topics I researched for my trip, there is a lot of touristy-type information available online which I find very unsatisfying. Fortunately, my brother is a Nelson fan and he lent me his precious biography – The Life of Nelson, by Robert Southey.^[1] It was published in 1813, which means Southey was a contemporary of Nelson. Contemporary sources are useful because they can provide insights into the man and the events that later writers could not have. And, of course, as a genealogist, I also checked out his family history on Wikitree.^[2]

Disclaimer: I do not claim this to be a full analysis of the significance of Trafalgar and Nelson – it is just a travel blog, after all! There are some references at the end if you want to read more full accounts of his history, biography and analyses. And yes, I did use Wikipedia to save some time, but I also used other sources.

Nelson, the man

Horatio Nelson was born in Norfolk, England, in 1758 to Edmund Nelson and Catherine Suckling. He comes from a long line of Edmunds – his father, grandfather and so on back to his 3x great grandfather, which is as far as Wikitree has documented his line. He did have an older brother named Edmund, who died in infancy. His father and grandfather were both Reverends, but, at age twelve, he decided he’d rather be in the navy and his uncle, Maurice Suckling, helped him achieve this. ^[1]

Nelson before he became a Lord or Vice-Admiral, painted by John Francis Rigauld in 1781. The painting is held by the National Maritime Museum in London. [3] (Public domain, from Wikipedia)

Nelson suffered from malaria and two of his older brothers died as children, perhaps from that same disease. As a result, he ‘was never of a strong body; and the ague… had greatly reduced his strength; yet he had already given proofs of that resolute heart and nobleness of mind, which, during his whole career of labour and of glory, so eminently distinguished him.’ ^{[1] p14}

One of the things that Nelson is best known for, apart from losing an arm, is that he was considered to be a brilliant military strategist. Which leads me to my key question. Why is Nelson so famous and memorialised in Trafalgar Square?

Commemorations and memorialisations

It is ironic that, after he lost his arm during the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Spain) in 1797, he was of the belief that, not only was his career over, but that he would pass into obscurity.

In official dispatches after the battle Nelson wrote: ‘A left-handed admiral… will never again be considered as useful; therefore the sooner I get to a very humble cottage the better, and make room for a sounder man to serve the state’; and in a letter to his wife: ‘It was the chance of war….I shall not be surprised if I am neglected and forgotten; probably I shall no longer be as useful.’ quoted in Southey ^{[1] p138-9}

Instead, Southey reports that he was ‘covered… with glory… The freedom of the cities of Bristol and London was transmitted to him. He was invested with the Order of the Bath, and received a pension of  £1000 a year. The memorial which, as a matter of form, he was called upon to present on this occasion, exhibited an extraordinary catalogue of services performed during the war. It stated that he had been in four actions with the fleets of the enemy … and actually been engaged against the enemy upwards of a hundred and twenty times, in which service he had lost his right eye and right arm, and been severely wounded and bruised in his body.’ ^{[1] p139-40}

After some recuperation for his injuries, he returned to active duty, against the French and Spanish. And, as we know, this led to the Battle of Trafalgar and his death in 1805.

I’d rather quote from Southey about the impact of his death than try to summarise or paraphrase it myself, as I think his perspective is a lot more genuine than anything I can offer.

What did Nelson and his death mean to the people of England?

‘The death of Nelson was felt in England as something more than a public calamity. Men started at the intelligence, and turned pale, as if they had heard of the loss of a dear friend. An object of our admiration and affection, of our pride and of our hopes, was suddenly taken from us; and it seemed as if we had never, till then, known how deeply we loved and reverenced him. What the country had lost in its great naval hero-— the greatest of our own, and of all former times—was scarcely taken into the account of grief….It was not, therefore, from any selfish reflection upon the magnitude of our loss that we mourned for him. The general sorrow was of a higher character. The people of England grieved that funeral ceremonies, and public monuments, and posthumous rewards, were all which they could now bestow upon him’. ^{[1] pp.373-5}

Nelson’s Column was constructed in 1840-1843, with additional works in 1854. (Lautrec, 2024)

‘The most triumphant death is that of the martyr…the most splendid that of the hero in the hour of victory of victory: and if the chariot and the horses of fire had been vouchsafed for Nelson’s translation, he could scarcely have departed in a brighter blaze of glory. He has left us, not indeed his mantle of inspiration, but a name and an example, which are at this hour inspiring thousands of the youth of England: a name which is our pride, and an example which will continue to be our shield and our strength.’ ^{[1] pp.375-6}

Nelson is still revered, at least by some. The Royal Navy website describes him as ‘the greatest officer in the history of the Royal Navy’ and the Encyclopedia of Britannica says that ‘He is still generally accepted as the most appealing of Britain’s national heroes.’ ^[6] In 2002, he was voted in the top ten of the 100 Greatest Britons in a BBC poll. Not all of the nominees were included for their historical significance. John Lennon, for example, was in position 8 ahead of Nelson. ^[5]

‘Spectacular success in battle, combined with his humanity as a commander and his scandalous private life, raised Nelson to godlike status in his lifetime, and after his death at Trafalgar in 1805, he was enshrined in popular myth and iconography.‘ ^[6]

The Battle of Trafalgar is commemorated each year on on 21 October. This battle was ‘the battle which defined the Age of Sail and which sealed British dominion of the seas for a hundred years.’ ‘Britain’s wealth, prosperity and status as a nation on the world stage still owe much to the courage and skill of the crews of the British ships and their great leader, Admiral Lord Nelson, that momentous day off Cape Trafalgar.’ ^[4]

Sources

1. Southey, Robert, The Life of Nelson, 1813.
2. Anon, ‘Horatio Nelson‘, Wikitree
3. Anon, ‘Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson‘, Wikipedia
4. Anon, ‘Horatio Nelson‘, Royal Navy, accessed 29 Mar 2024
5. Anon, ‘100 Greatest Britons‘, Wikipedia, accessed 29 Mar 2024; Anon, ‘BBC TWO reveals the ten greatest Britons of all time‘, BBC press release, 10 Oct 2002, accessed 29 Mar 2024
6. Pocock, Tom, ‘Horatio Nelson‘, Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed 29 Mar 2024.

More information

https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/admiral-nelson-leader

Anon, ‘Nelson, Horatio‘, Napoleon.org, accessed 29 Mar 2024

Kensington Gardens

Today I went looking for fairies. For those of you who remember the stories of Peter Pan, Kensington Gardens is where Peter lived with the fairies. Since he is the boy that never grows up, perhaps the fairies have not either.

Kensington Gardens lie on the western boundary of Hyde Park and were originally part of that park, at the time that it was used for deer hunting by Henry VIII. Land was excised from the park in 1689 to build Kensington Palace and the gardens.

The current gardens are attributed to Queen Caroline in the 18th century. Queen Victoria added the Italian Gardens and Albert Memorial. The gardens were closed to the public until 1841, when respectably dressed people were allowed in to ‘promenade’. ^[1]

Fountain in the Italian Gardens

Gorgeous statues on the Albert Memorial

J.M. Barrie published Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens in 1906. There is a statue of Peter Pan in the gardens and close by I found the fairies 🙂

Peter Pan

Tinkerbell or her friend?

Sources

1. Royal Parks, Kensington Gardens, https://www.royalparks.org.uk/visit/parks/kensington-gardens

Hammersmith and my Redknap family

My first stop in England, after the airport, is Hammersmith in West London. I will be staying here for ten nights, at Hellenic by Saba, on Shepherds Bush Road.

Hammersmith is now part of the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, but it used to be part of the historic county of Essex. The current borough was created in 1965.

Anyone who has visited London will know the accommodation can be a bit pricey, so Hammersmith is a good location because it is cheaper than central London and Hammersmith tube station provides great access to a lot of places that I intend to visit. As an added bonus, Hammersmith is one of the places in London that some of my family lived, so some of my destinations are within walking distance. The room is pretty small, not even a desk, so my laptop is living up to its name on my lap.

Today was a quiet one, as I needed to recover from the flight! So I spent just a few hours walking around.

The grandmother of my father’s biological father was Sarah Elizabeth Redknap. Her father and grandparents lived on the Lower Mall in Hammersmith in the 1830s and 1840s. I do not know when they first arrived there, it may have been in the 1820s but I have not found records from that time.

Relationship between Sarah Redknap and my father

But my first stop was St Pauls Church on Queen Caroline Street. The current church on the site was built in 1883, so unfortunately it is not the one that my family would have used and a lot of the land was sold off at various times for road construction, so the family burials are all gone. But it is still a lovely building.

St Pauls, Hammersmith (Lautrec, 2024)

The church that my family would have known was built during the reign of Charles I and consecrated on 7 June 1631. It was built of brick, with a large square tower containing six bells. The ceiling was painted with the arms of England, roses, thistles and fleur-de-lis. Windows were painted with Moses and arms of benefactors, such as Sir Nicholas Crispe, a wealthy citizen of London. The floors were paved and pews were wainscoted. ^[1]

St Paul’s Church, Hammersmith by Horatio Walter Lonsdale (1844-1919), from the Hammersmith and Fulham Archives and Local History Centre (public domain)

Sarah was baptised there in 1833, her brother Joseph in 1834 and her sister Georgina in 1836. Her grandfather was buried there in 1834, and perhaps also her grandmother Elizabeth but I have yet to find her burial record.

England is finding more and more of their own history is connected with slavery, and I find it interesting to observe how organisations are rewriting history to acknowledge this. Nicholas Crispe, the benefactor of this church, was a slave trader, which means that the church (and other buildings in Hammersmith) was built on the proceeds of slaving.^[2]

From Old and New London, 1878 [1] (public domain)

After St Pauls I headed down to Lower Mall, which is where the family lived. Lower Mall is the name of the walkway from Hammersmith Bridge through Furnivall Gardens to the historic pub called The Dove. West of The Dove is it called Upper Mall. The division between the two used to be Hammersmith Creek, crossed by a wooden footbridge known as the High Bridge, which was erected by Bishop Sherlock in 1751. The creek was filled in 1936 and Furnivall Gardens created in 1951. The creek had been navigable for small vessels and Thames sailing barges.^[1]

The council has kindly installed an interpretative sign in the gardens, which provide a bit of history and I was very pleased to see the photo below, of barges on the creek. I suspect that family lived on this creek, rather than in one of the fancy houses you can see in the featured image of this post.

The men of the Redknap family, like many other residents of the Lower Mall, were lightermen. A lighterman was a man who ferried goods on the Thames, not passengers. The lighters were large boats used to carry goods between vessels in the river and the docks or the shore.

Thames lightermen, from Mayhew 1861 [3] (public domain)

‘Lighters can only proceed with the tide, and are often moored in the middle of the river, waiting the turn of the tide, more especially when their load consists of heavy articles. The lighters, when not employed, are moored alongshore, often close to a waterman’s stairs. Most master-lightermen have offices by the waterside, and all have places where “they may always be heard of”. Many lightermen are capitalists, and employ a number of hands.’ ^[3]

‘The lightermen differ little in character from the watermen, but, as far as their better circumstances have permitted them, they have more comfortable homes…. they can all, with very few exceptions, read and write. They all reside near the river… They are a sober class of men… A drunken lighterman, I was told, would hardly be trusted twice.’ (Mayhew, 1861) Some lighters were the property of the men who drove them and were generally more prosperous than the watermen (Mayhew, 1861).

The census of 1841 lists 1503 lightermen and 1654 watermen in London. (Mayhew, 1861)

Sources

1. Old and New London: Volume 6. Originally published by Cassell, Petter & Galpin, London, 1878.
2. Porter, R., ‘The Crispe family and the African trade in the Seventeenth century’, The Journal of African History, pp. 57-77; Anon, ‘HUC and slavery‘, Hammersmith United Charities, accessed 23 April 2024.
3. Mayhew, Henry, London Labour and the London Poor, ; a cyclopaedia of the condition and earnings of those that will work, those that cannot work, and those that will not work, 4 vols, 1861. public domain. London: Griffin, Bohn and Co., 1861-2 [accessed at http://www.gutenberg.org]
4. See my family tree on Ancestry, called RustenIvy Family Tree, if you need sources for the family information in my blog posts.

Play the Wikitree connections game

For a bit of genealogy fun during my trip to England I am identifying some people associated with the places that I visit, then using Wikitree to see how I am connected to them. We may not literally be related to everyone in the world, but let us see if we can find a connection with each of these people!

If you want to play along, you can do it too. You need to have a Wikitree account, which is free, and build your family tree back at least three generations – to your great grandparents.

How to play the Wikitree connections game

On each post where people are identified (see how I avoided the word famous?), I will provide the Wikitree ID of that person.

Step 1 Log into Wikitree

Step 2 Open the profile of the person. I find that the easiest way to find a person on Wikitree is to type ‘Wikitree’ and the ID into your search engine (after you have logged into Wikitree).

Step 3 In the top right corner of the profile, between My Wikitree and Add, you will see the ID of that person. Hover your mouse over that and select the second on the list, Connection to Me. That will open a page with a figure representing the distance of your connection, e.g. 23 degrees, and provide a diagram that illustrates the pathway of your connection.

When you do look at the diagram, note how many of the connections are through partners and siblings of your direct ancestors. A great reminder why it is a good idea to research beyond your direct line.

Step 4 Compare your connection to mine. Are you more closely connected to them or more distantly? If you are on Facebook or Instagram, you are welcome to share your connection on my posts there, or you can add a comment to the blog post.

How to use Wikitree

Information about Wikitree

How to use Wikitree

If you are a genealogist and not yet using Wikitree, you might like to read why I think it is a good tool.

Preparing for a family history trip – Part 2

This post is about how I am planning to document my trip, and the tools I plan to use. There is no one way to do these things, but perhaps my account will help you plan your own trips or you may have some better ideas to suggest to me!

What is the purpose of your documentation?

The first step is to examine the purpose of your trip, what you plan to be doing, your documentation needs and the audience for your documentation.

The focus of my trip is family history and cultural experiences. I will be visiting a lot of churches, cemeteries, museums and art galleries. I will not be researching in archives, but I will still need to record family history information and, with luck, I may find documents to copy. I want to take a lot of photographs and some videos. As a writer and an amateur mixed media artist, I also want to record my personal experiences, do some writing and create some art. Some of what I document will be added to my family history database or online family tree, some will feed into blog posts and some, especially the art, will be just for my own personal consumption.

How do you want to manage information?

The next step is to consider options for how you plan to collect, store and process information you gather on your trip. Your choices will depend on the quantity and type of information you will be collecting, how you like to research, how much money you want to spend and how much you rely on tech.

I plan to travel light during the day, with just a note book, a sketch book and my phone. Each night I will share my experiences through a travel blog and social media, so I am taking a small laptop. I did consider using my iPad with a keyboard, but I decided that I would prefer the capabilities of a computer and it is more ergonomic too. I will also be collecting paper memorabilia, both for my family history and my art. I will keep a couple of file pockets for these in my suitcase, as well as an art journal in case I have the energy and time at night to get creative.

My aim is to write blog posts each day, but I do not want to bore my readers with the usual tourist information. So I have been researching the places for lesser-known interesting information and pre-populating my blog with draft articles, which I will add to as I travel. This means that I have to do a lot of research and writing up front, but I am addicted to research and that is not bothering me at all! This pre-work should make posting daily more achievable.

Protecting your information and a backup plan

I have learned from personal experience how terrible it is when you gather a lot of photos, information and records of your experiences and then lose them all. So this time I am much better prepared. I will be storing it all online, as draft blog articles and in Dropbox.

Dealing with photographs and videos requires special consideration. If you are using your phone, check that it has plenty of storage and then devise a strategy to back them up. Simple is best, or it will not happen! I do not have sufficient online storage for travel photos, videos or voice recordings and I do not want to pay for more, so at the end of each day I plan to email them to myself. They will automatically be stored by date taken, which will help me identify them later. It will also make them accessible for me to use in my blog posts and social media. Once I return home I will rename the files by date and location, and add them to my main photo storage system.

Taking family history with you

Going on a family history trip means that you have to take family information with you. You need to decide what information you will need based on the locations and purpose of your trip, and what format is going to work for you.

I do not want to carry heavy folders of information around. I considered installing my family history software on my laptop, but then I would lose the information if it got stolen. So I decided to update my Ancestry tree and Wikitree profiles instead. Some information is being stored as draft articles on my blog. I will also put some PDFs on my laptop about key family groups and print outs of information that I may want to show to other people.

A lot of the people that you talk to on your family history trip will not be familiar with the standard family history formats, such as family tree charts or family group sheets, so you may want to create and print out some information in a different format. For example, I have created an Excel table of family from Cornwall and I plan to create more for my London locations. A table format helps you group people based on location, year of birth, surname or other key information. Tables like this can easily be generated from family history software. My Cornwall list was created by searching for people in my direct line who were born in or died in a place that contains the word Cornwall.

I do not have a lot of family photographs, but if you do, taking copies of these may also be a good idea.

Social media

My main focus will be on my blog and I do not want to make sharing on social media too much of a burden, so I will probably limit myself to a daily photograph or video on Instagram. I will be using my Generations Genealogy account (generationsgenealogyaus), so follow me if you want to see my photos!

If you have any additional tips that you think suit my style and needs, please feel free send me a message through my Contact page.