Deaths, debts, duties and the Yarmouth connection



The picture above is Marine Parade, Great Yarmouth. Following in the  footsteps of my Norfolk ancestors and their large families, my researches have taken me through the social changes which resulted in an inevitable decline in the family's fortunes. Gone are the days of a genteel retirement in Great Yarmouth enjoyed by previous generations.

I discovered a really good clue, which has helped me unravel the turn of events, in the British Library National Newspaper Archives. It's an advertisement from the Yarmouth Independent newspaper for a property sale to take place in the  Star Inn on 25th April 1871. Four properties are to be auctioned in St George's Road, Great Yarmouth on behalf of John Pollard Skinner and the trustees of his brother's will, the late James Pollard Skinner (my great great grandfather).  Also for sale, according to the advertisement, are stables, gig house, warehouses, two cottages and a large yard in the rear of Camperdown Place.

I have discovered the source of the money invested in the trust fund for my great great grandmother, Jane Betsy's annuity top up. The residue of the sale would be used to pay debts and to run the farm at Tunstall to the end of the lease. Any profits would be invested to be split between his children when they gained a majority and married, according to his will.

Because the Skinner brothers shared ownership of the properties, if there hadn't already been close family ties between the cousins, because their fathers were brothers and their mother's were Bately sisters, this auction proves their finances were linked as well.

I can only go by the documentation and facts from The London Gazette. Sixteen years after the auction in 1871, On 29th October 1887, Norfolk farmer Alfred Neave becomes a trustee of James Pollard Skinner's only surviving son, farmer Harry Skinner's, debt. On 6th December 1887 Alfred Neave takes some money in to the Norwich solicitors and invests it in a mortgage. Less than a week later, on 12th December, the Norwich solicitors' London agent summons widow Jane Betsy and daughter Rosa May to court in chancery on 12th January. On the 27th December 1887, Rosa May marries Edward Dennis Ballinger.  On the 31st January 1888 John Pollard Skinner dies. On 13th February 1888, Harry Skinner, debtor, will pay a dividend  to Alfred Neave Trustee. On 17th March 1888, that dividend is fixed at 4/9 in the pound and the first and last payment of the debt is received from Harry Skinner by the Norwich solicitors. On 10th September 1888 Alfred Neave's trusteeship of Harry Skinner's debt is ended.

If one thing is clear, it is Jane Betsy's trust fund was missing before September 1887, when the Norwich solicitors write to Jane Betsy in response to Rosa May's  inquiry about it. Spent, it would attract death duties together with anything else perceived to be belonging to the late James Pollard Skinner, which might have been sold by the family. After the death of John Pollard Skinner on 31st January 1888, it would include the estate of both brothers and leave another former Bately sister Eliza Charlotte a widow.

In 1893 when James Pollard Skinner's widow, Jane Betsy makes her will, there is no mention of anything inherited from him. As far as she is concerned it has gone. Maybe she knows this. She is keen Rosa May has her share, or, if that is not possible, Rosa May's children, but definitely not Rosa May's husband Edward Dennis Ballinger. Perhaps Rosa May missed out on her father's bequest, some of which had got 'lost' and she was given the will to take to Gloucestershire with her as a guarantee she was a beneficiary when the money turned up.  Rosa May dies on 3rd December 1893.

How the death of Jane Betsy's brother in law Sherwood William Page fits into the story, I am not yet quite sure, but that occurs in November 1894, leaving another former Bately sister, Louisa, as a widow.

In September 1895, Jane Betsy's nephew Stephen Bately Skinner is running Corporation Farm in Thrigby when he has to answer revenue demands from Norfolk's Under Sheriff and Bailiffs. According to his letter to his cousin, Emma Jane, these demands are triggered by the expectations of his sisters for a share of their late father John Pollard Skinner's estate.  Stephen dies in June 1896. His widow Rebecca continues to run the farm with her sister Sarah Ann Fabb. 

In May 1896 the mortgage Alfred Neave took out  in December 1887 was paid off, according to the Norwich solicitors, and he received the principal and re-conveyed the property.

Fourteen years later in 1910, after Jane Betsy's death, my great grandmother, her daughter, Emma Jane receives the enquiry from the probate department of Somerset House asking who the other beneficiaries of her father's trust fund for her mother were. Emma Jane is unaware Rosa May has died. She informs Somerset House the fund has not been paid out to her or her three sisters.

In September, Emma Jane takes a trip to Thrigby, perhaps to make inquiries. She sends a post card back to her daughter and son-in law and asks if they think Finsbury Park is the best station to alight from for her return journey.  The picture on the front of the postcard is of Thrigby Hall. I'll put the message from great grandmother Emma Jane below the advertisement in the Yarmouth Independent.






Comments

Barbara Critchley said…
Having established the Batelys were the owners of Tunstall and the Skinners were the farmers. The ownership of the Tunstall farm, lands and some more at Cantley, had transferred to a trust for Jane Betsy and her sisters. The trust was run by her brothers in law Sherwood William Page and Alfred Neave. The Bately property at Tunstall depended on the Skinner family to maintain it. The profitability of farming had declined in the last decades of the 19th century. After Jane Betsy's death the probate department of Somerset House had records of an amount which had been put aside thirty five years earlier. The Skinner family had departed from Tunstall in 1883. By 1906 there is no evidence the family owned anything in Norfolk which could be sold and distributed to Emma Jane and her sisters.
December 9, 2020 at 9:43 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