Considering that I come from a very long line of non-conformists on my father's side of the family, and certainly one or two generations of non-conformists on my mother's side, it is curious that I have in my possession a number of Anglican prayer books. How I came by some of these I am unsure, but it is obvious that they were given as gifts to people unknown to me. They are all very well used, rather battered and falling to pieces. It would be tempting to chuck them out, but each has a story to tell. Someone somewhere gave them and others received them. Who were they ? Ulley Church Sunday School Annie Bartrop - A Prize for good conduct & attention through the year Easter '75 M G Evans. Well I had no idea where Ulley Church is, nor any notion at all of anyone with the surname Bartrop. So first of all where is Ulley ? Ulley is near Rotherham in South Yorkshire, an area I know little about. Bartrop is an unusual name so you would think it should be fairly straightforward looking for people with this name, but no ! it is mistranscribed many times, it has variant spellings, Bartrup, Bartrip, Bartrap and even became Barthorpe. However, the name is centred around Worksop with another little bunch of them in Essex. The next problem in tracing people with this name is that they all lived right on the border where Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and Derbyshire meet and could never quite decide in which county they had been born. Also the registration district of Worksop seemed to cross county boundaries, so although they had been baptised or buried in one county, they were registered at Worksop district. But this all adds to the challenge. This is Holy Trinity Church, Ulley, from Wikipedia, Creative Commons By User:JeremyA. First, who was Annie Bartrop ? And then who was M G Evans? Annie Bartrop was baptised at Harthill just to the south of Ulley, marked on the map above, on 4 November 1866. Now we don't know how old she was when she was baptised, but it indicates she was very young when she received the prayer book at Easter 1875. Her father George was an agricultural labourer and her mother was Sarah. The Harthill baptisms and burials record their children from 1859 to 1870. The 1871 census has George Bartrop at a place called Pennyholme near Thorpe Salvin with his wife Sarah and three children. The place of birth for all the children was Sheffield. This is confusing. Pennyholme was in the parish (just) of Harthill, and where the Chesterfield Canal went into a tunnel. Fortunately in the 1881 census, although George and Sarah had moved on to a place called St Johns with Throapham, Annie Bartrop had gone into domestic service as a "nurse girl" and put her place of birth as Pennyholme in 1867. She was in the household of the Morrell family at Hellaby Hall. This is now a hotel. What a grand place ! I wonder what it was like coming from a large family of humble ag labs and working here ? So by 1881 Annie had left home and it was very soon after this that she got married. Her marriage was in the Wakefield registration district in 1884, so perhaps she had moved to another job as a domestic servant, and she married Fred Martin. Here a penny dropped. The name MARTIN. I had a vague recollection somewhere in the back of my brain that my mother had known someone she called Mrs Martin. In 1891 Annie Martin born Harthill "Derbyshire", no it was Yorkshire, and her husband Fred Martin born Burwell, Cambridgeshire, a railway signalman, were living at Scarlet Heights, Queensbury, Bradford. In 1901 they had moved to Gladstone Street, Bradford, and they were still there in 1911. By studying streetmaps of Bradford I found that Gladstone Street was within a couple of streets of where my mother was brought up in Bradford. And by checking her diary I did find that most Saturday mornings she ran errands for "Mrs Martin". That part of the mystery solved. But there was another name in the prayerbook - M G Evans. This is Trinity College, Dublin, from Wikipedia, photo creative commons by Eric Jones. The Vicar of Ulley Church was an Irish man called William Studdert Evans. He had been born in 1818 in Ireland and educated at Trinity College Dublin. He became a deacon and then an Anglican clergyman. In 1853 he had married Alice Margaret Adelaide the fifth daughter of Francis C Hutchinson who lived at "The Cottage", Briscoe, near Carlisle. Alice Margaret Adelaide had two daughters then died in 1856, a tragically short marriage. The Reverend William Studdert Evans was a clergyman without Cure of Souls in 1861, which meant he did not have a parish of his own, but was a Travelling Secretary to the Missions to Seaman, and was in Bath, but by 1867 he had been appointed to the parish of Ulley near Rotherham. Here he settled with his two daughters, Francis Alice , born Ireland, and Mary Georgina born Cumberland. So the second part of the mystery was solved, the M G Evans was the daughter of the vicar who must have been a Sunday School teacher. Later in life Mary Georgina became an artist and a teacher of drawing. She did not marry. Her grandparents were interesting people. Her grandfather Francis Coleridge Hutchinson was a doctor and had been born at Bencoolen in Sumatra, his father was a Captain in the Bengal Artillery. The family had connections to Dungar Park, Roscrea in King's County, Ireland (now County Offally). The Evans family also had connections to Dungar Park, Roscrea. There were two marriages between the Evans family and the Hutchinson family, and throughout the censuses a variety of grandchildren appeared at Briscoe near Carlisle who were born in Ireland. This prayer book is a complete mystery, I have absolutely no idea at all why I have it, where it came from or who the owner was. It is very well used, falling to bits , spine gone, and pages very loose. The front cover has embossed "Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge". Inside it has the inscription "Elizabeth Barker presented by the Subscription to the Church Sunday School Kirkby Malzeard 1844". There is also a stamp "e.Barker" as if someone had been playing with a printing press. Barker is a surname in the Kirkby Malzeard - Masham - Colsterdale area, and Elizabeth was a very common Christian name for girls. However the nearest that I can come to a match is that there was an Elizabeth Barker born in 1831 at Laverton Ings to Thomas and Susannah Barker. In 1851 they had moved to Kirkby Malzeard Town Street and Thomas had changed from being an Ag Lab to a Broom Maker, Elizabeth was still with her parents, born 1831, Laverton. After that Elizabeth disappeared, if she married and changed her name I have not found her, but it would be lovely to reunite the prayer book with any Barkers from this line. This tiny little book is called "Helps to worship - a Manual for Holy Communion and Daily Prayer" and looks to be the sort of book used in preparation for someone being confirmed. The inscription is that it belonged to Lily Maud Byers, St Hilda's Church 1893. Lillian Maud Byers was born in 1877, so she would have been about sixteen when she received this. It is not as well thumbed as the other prayer books, but nevertheless someone treasured it enough to keep it. Lily (if that is what she preferred) was born at Loftus on the Yorkshire coast and her parents were Willian Byers (sometimes written down as Byiers, making it tricky to research) and Lucy Annie Byers. William was a baker and came from Scotland, but went to Nottinghamshire to be a baker and confectioner by 1871. There he met Lucy Ann Yorke and they married in 1873, and then moved to Loftus in Yorkshire where William continued being a baker and confectioner. Lily was their second child. By 1881 William Byers had moved to Darlington in County Durham, a growing industrial town. This is Saint Hilda's church. To me it looks a bit bleak, not at all like the parish churches in our villages in the dales. In 1891 William was living on Brunswick Street, quite a poor area of Darlington, and Lily was working as a woollen mill hand bobbin setter.The birth places of some of her brothers reveal that the family had lived at Thornaby between moving from Loftus to Darlington. Lily Maud Byers married in 1899 to William Lambert from Richmond. I would love to know how they met. It was a very, very short marriage indeed. In 1900 William Lambert died aged 27 years, leaving Lily pregnant with her first child. In 1901 Lily Maud Lambert was at 50 Salisbury Terrace, Darlington, widow, with her 6 month old daughter and two of her younger brothers and a younger sister ! Poor woman, bringing up baby on her own and a twelve year old and an eleven year old and a six year old ! Meanwhile her parents were at 1 Burns Yard, Darlington, so it may be that the fortunes of William the baker had taken a downward turn and they had moved into smaller accommodation and farmed some of the children out onto Lily. By 1911 Lily was at 8 Haughton Road, Darlington, widow, and worked in a confectionery shop. She died on 21 April 1932 and the inscription on her tomb stone in West Cemetery, Darlington has "His Love Guides Us". I know what happened to her daughter, perhaps more next time. But these tiny little gifts could so easily be overlooked, or cast aside, but each inscription hides a story. I have a few more which I will share in future blogs.
0 Comments
|
AuthorThis is where you can share creativity with me. I believe that everyone has something creative within them, and it is a joy to find ways of being creative. Blogging is NEW to me, so here goes ..... Archives
January 2024
Categories |