Life and times of James Pollard Skinner

The picture above is early portrait photography. I will put a portrait of pioneer portrait photographer Joseph Nicéphore Niépce below. It is from the same period and helps to date the one above.
   The portrait above is of James Pollard Skinner, probably taken in the late 1830s or early 1840s. He is notable for his large eyes, which are apparent in the picture of him with his wife and some of his daughters seated outside the farmhouse at Tunstall.
   James was born in 1817. That date and his name has been put on the back of this portrait by his granddaughter May Gertrude. He is dressed in a similar style to the portrait of Joseph Nicéphore Niépce which is 1830s.  It was probably taken at about the same time. Both portraits are heavily touched in. This is probably why he appears to have rather small ears. My friend who restored this picture has suggested it was intended to be a cameo portrait which did not work out.
   In the 1840s, James Pollard Skinner was on the electoral register and farming with his father, also called James, at Tunstall. Thanks to the investigations of my co-researchers, James Skinner junior  had taken over the farm at Tunstall from Stephen Bately, who had previously been the farmer. James Pollard Skinner married his landlord's daughter, Jane Betsy Bately on March 21st 1843, in the parish church of Caister, in the district of East and West Flegg, in the county of Norfolk.
   James, Pollard was 25 and Jane Betsy, daughter of Stephen Bately, esquire, was a minor, when she married, at the age of 20. Quite a few people signed the register. They were Jane Betsy's uncles W.B. Crow and N.O.Bately, father, Stephen Bately, uncles William Boult, G.C.Bately and John C.Norton.
  Again from the information I and my co-researchers have discovered from family history websites, there is no reason to suppose James Pollard Skinner was anything other than a competent farmer, well able to keep his large and growing family and pay their school, apprenticeship and medical school fees. In 1869 he is sending fresh produce to his sons, James Charles and Harry, who are both studying in London. The "two brown bags" he sends, with the fresh produce from the farm, are a hint they can go out and do their own shopping. His sons do not take the hint. James Charles says of the two brown bags "the use of which to Harry and myself are a mystery."
   In the summer of 1870, James Charles's letter  mentions  the "miracle healer" in London which  "the mob has failed to lynch" several times when they have been out after him. He writes this healer might be able to cure his father of his "old complaint." James Pollard has clearly been unwell for some time. It is apparent his second son Harry and his daughter Emma Jane are rallying around and helping, even to write letters to James Charles on behalf of their father. We know now their father was suffering from a terminal illness. The cirrhosis which killed him could have been an inherited condition and could account for the early deaths in other members of the family.
   James Charles has been obtaining rhubarb pills for his father. These are taken to detox the system. From the letter in which he encloses them, they have been helpful in the past. James Charles also hopes the stove, which is being installed in Tunstall will 'serve the purpose.' This is another clue his father is not at all well at this stage and the farmhouse at Tunstall is cold. Whether it is the illness or his temperament, James Charles's letters also hint his father is depressed. He refers to an "epitome of farm losses," in his father's last letter and says that farming, like any trade or profession, has its ups and downs and "the happiness of our lives depends on how we look on things in general." The letter is encouraging to his father about the steps he has taken to reverse his fortunes at the farm. 
   When the tragedy of the death of James Charles at the Fever Hospital strikes, it is Harry who has been corresponding with his 'bro' and writes to the hospital and pays his brother's bills. James Charles died on 29th October 1870. His father, probably even more depressed and heart-broken, succumbed to the cirrhosis which killed him on 20th February 1871. In the summer of that year, young Thomas Skinner died at the age of 16 from tuberculosis. Wife and mother Jane Betsy and her six remaining children, Henrietta Louisa, Harry, Emma Jane, Mary Ann (Polly), Laura and six-year-old Rosa May continue at the farm and deal with the triple tragedy as best they can.
   Harry is the only remaining trustee of the will. James Pollard Skinner and Harry could not have envisaged the mess, mix-ups, muddle and problems this will would cause in the years to come.
   James Pollard Skinner is buried in the churchyard of the now redundant and semi-derelict church at Tunstall. Also buried there are his son James Charles and his daughter Henrietta Louisa. The picture below is of the church at Tunstall. It is from a website of stories from Norfolk, one of which describes the bells from the church making ghostly sounds in the marshes, where they are reputed to have been lost.
   Also below, is the picture of the early portrait photographer Joseph Nicéphore Niépce.
    Below that I have put some file notes of Jane Betsy Skinner from A W Soward Esq, Secretary at the probate department of Somerset House from 1907.


Comments

Barbara Critchley said…
Since writing this, I have discovered a little more about 2nd great grandfatherJames Pollard Skinner. He, his father and brother were well known for breeding good Norfolk horse stock. They were also competent at managing horses for transport and farm work. He appears in the Norfolk press and was fined a few shillings by the Mayor of Yarmouth for riding a horse on a Yarmouth wharf. He chased his wife's stolen ducks, in the 1850s, to the back of a pub in Yarmouth, but failed to get a conviction of the thieves at the Mayor's court. When his father died in 1868, he and his brother at Thrigby dealt with his affairs, which suggests they had equal shares in his properties. He was noted in the press for being a genial host at the mid-summer tea-parties they held in the large barn, gardens and grounds at Tunstall in the 1860s. I'm guessing here, but Jane Betsy's closeness to her sister Charlotte Allard suggests to me James Pollard and Francis Allard might have enjoyed a drink or two together whilst their wives nattered. He paid £350 in fees for his son James Charles's studies to be a surgeon at St Mary's Hospital. He and his wife Jane Betsy suffered the loss of six of their children in infancy or childhood. The shock of his eldest son's death on October 29th 1870, may have hastened his own death.
December 9, 2020 at 8:04 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 family leave Tunstall and split up in 1875

Image
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.   ...
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