The family leave Tunstall and split up in 1875

In 1875, Jane Betsy, her daughters, Louisa, Emma Jane, Mary Ann (Polly), Laura and Rosa May left their family home at Tunstall and moved to a terraced house in Heigham Road, Norwich.
   To try to discover why, I have tried to explore every aspect of their lives and traced brothers, sisters and cousins all over the country and abroad. It is very complex. Deals, investments, marriages and contracts had been arranged in an attempt to keep properties and farmland within the family and to pay for the annuities Jane Betsy and her surviving sisters expected from their father, Stephen Bately's, bequest.
   Stephen Bately had aspired to be of yeoman or gentleman status. But by the end of 1875, when Jane Betsy, her son Harry, daughters, Louisa, Emma Jane, Mary Ann (Polly), Laura and Rosa May moved to Norwich, land values and profits from farming in Norfolk had declined. In competition with cheap imports from abroad, agriculture in Norfolk was  in a steady decline.
   The problems Emma's cousin, Stephen Bately Skinner encountered with the Bailiffs and Sheriff were likely to be to do with the expectations of his family. The land is only capable of sustaining annuities if it is profitable. The pictures my aunt Nancy took, above, are of the area in 1935, when Stephen's widow Rebecca had retired from farming and moved with her sister Sarah Ann Fabb to Hembsy.
   By the 1930s, as far as I know, Woodlands Farm at Stokesby was the only remaining farmland in Norfolk which was run by any of the Skinner family's connections.
   The amount in trust, which her late husband, James Pollard Skinner, had designed to top up Jane Betsy's annuity from her father varies in value according to the letters and documents which mention it.
    It was Harry Skinner, who proved his father's will in 1871. Thirty six years later, when Somerset house contacts Emma Jane to ask how the Skinner trust fund is to be divided, Harry is in Yarmouth, in touch with his sister, but knows nothing of it. As far as he was concerned, he had invested it in a farm which had bankrupted him. His Uncle Alfred Neave had restored it and Harry had paid it back to him in 1888.
    At the end of 1875, Louisa, Jane Betsy's eldest daughter died in Norwich at the age of 30. Jane Betsy, Emma Jane, Mary Ann (Polly), Laura and Rosa May all live in Heigham Road, Norwich. Emma Jane and Laura work in Jarrolds and Mary Ann is likely to have had a job at a stationers.
   In 1876, when his mother and sisters were settled in Norwich, Harry married Emma Fill and later that year their first daughter Gertrude Emma, Jane Betsy's first granddaughter was born. Harry's family lived in Freethorpe. He ran a shop, coal merchants, carriers and post office until 1880. In the 1881 census Harry has three little girls and a small son. His wife is living with her mother in Norwich and Harry's cousin Annie Skinner is at Burlingham St Edmund helping him with the farm and the children. The Skinner cousins, from Thrigby, James Thomas, Alice and Eleanor occupied and ran Staithe Farm at Tunstall, until the end of the Skinner lease, from 1875 to 1883.       
   In the time between 1875 and 1907, when his sister Emma Jane received the query about the Skinner trust fund, her brother Harry's movements are more easily traced than those of her sisters. Harry appears in directories and newspaper reports, as a farmer in Burlingham St Edmund, a draper in Norwich and a coal merchant in Yarmouth.
    In 1907 Emma Jane's husband, Joe Joyce worked as a wharf checker for frozen meat imports. Cheap food imports are another reason why farming profits in Norfolk had declined. Joe's daughter, May Gertrude worked as a telephone receptionist. Did she ring her Uncle Harry up? Did Emma Jane write to him? I think she may have done.
   From the reports in the Norfolk newspapers about his bankruptcy in 1887, Jane Betsy had invested in Harry's farm at Burlingham St Edmund in 1880. Jane Betsy knew he had also used an amount which was due to be paid to Rosa May, when she reached her majority or was married. What she didn't know, was that Harry had also used the amount put aside by his father to top up his mother's annuity. This latter amount, Harry was ordered by the bankruptcy court, to restore in 1887. Between 1875 and 1884, although the family had left Tunstall, they were still in touch and from surviving letters, appear to be close.
  Mary Ann married Frank Stebbings in 1881 and moved to help him run a business in Lowestoft. Laura married Job Sharpe in 1882 and moved to Gloucester to help him run an ironmongery. Emma Jane married Joe Joyce in 1883 and moved to Mildmay Park, London.
    It is not clear why Jane Betsy took the decision to leave her home and birthplace in Tunstall, but surviving family letters suggest she is not well physically. After her eldest daughter, Louisa died in Norwich, it is quite likely she may have gone into a depression.
    That Emma Jane and Harry kept in touch is proved by one of my aunt Nancy's pictures, below. It is dated 1928 and was  from Agnes Jane Skinner, Harry's second wife and widow outside her home in Yarmouth. The name of the house is "Rosa Villa." 
    

Comments

Barbara Critchley said…
I've added a few details about entertainments in Great Yarmouth in the early years of the 20th century. The indoor circus was built in 1903 and the Gem theatre, which also acted as the first cinema was constructed in 1908.
June 18, 2020 at 11:31 AM
Barbara Critchley said…
15th July 2020. since writing this, I have discovered Jane Betsy's first grandchildren, Harry's daughters, Gertrude and Mildred almost certainly died at Burlingham St Edmund. My reason for this is that Harry's wife, Emma, is buried in the churchyard there after she died in Yarmouth 1904. Jane Betsy almost certainly severed connections with her only surviving son Harry. As Georgie Lesbini's letter indicates, she also gives up all matters of "business." The letter, to Emma Jane, expects she is looking forward to Jane Betsy resuming her 'parental duties. This letter has either been written before Jane Betsy and her children left Tunstall, or Georgie Lesbini, writing from Paris, is not aware they have left.
July 15, 2020 at 7:58 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Strong family ties with rural Norfolk and Yarmouth in the 1920s

Image
I don't know what date Jane Betsy's daughter, Emma Jane, inherited enough money from her mother to take her family out of rented accommodation and to buy a house. There is a pencil note on the postcard of a house, similar to the one my mother was born into, (above) which gives a price of " £5 00, 83 year lease." I don't know, either, how long May Gertrude worked at Avenue Telephone Exchange after she was married. The question of what happened to the trust fund left to Jane Betsy in 1871 continues at least until 1912. May Gertrude's first daughter, Muriel Joyce, was born the following year in 1913.    What I do have is a description of the house from my mother, Margaret, who was born in 1920. She writes for her own grandchildren in 1984:    "I was born at 8 o'clock on 24th December 1920 at Portland Avenue, Stamford Hill, London N.16. My oldest sister is seven years older than me and my sister Nancy 4 years older. We lived with my grandmother, Emma Jane...
Read more

The Tunstall mystery

Image
In the 1860s, the Skinners of Tunstall are photographed outside the farmhouse. Jane Betsy on the left with her husband James Pollard Skinner, The little girl is Laura, next to Henrietta Louisa, seated is Mary Ann and standing, Emma Jane. I have some letters and documents which indicate there is a mystery surrounding the farm at Tunstall where the brothers and sisters in the letters grew up. Jane Betsy Bately and her five sisters married farmers. There were no surviving Bately brothers to inherit the family property.    The tragedy of Jane Betsy's son, James Charles's death from typhoid occurred on 29th October 1870. The following February Jane Betsy's husband, James Pollard's death from cirrhosis, was followed in the summer by the death of 16-year-old Thomas, who died from consumption. It must have been hard for the family.    In accordance with his father's will, as the only remaining trustee of the estate, Harry lodged the capital his father  left with N...
Read more