Secrets of bachelor uncles, worries for single cousins

View towards the River Yare from Burgh Castle (taken in May 2018), where 3rd great uncle Frederick Joyce and his sisters, 3rd great aunts Frances, Cecilia and Emily Joyce lived in the 1890s.

 Great grandmother from Tunstall, Emma Jane, had married into an Islington Family, the Joyces. Her mother-in-law Elizabeth Ashby, who was a nurse, was living with her unmarried sister (also a nurse) Emma Ashby Davidson, in Croyden in 1891. As far as I know, Emma Jane never met her father-in-law, Thomas Joyce, a mercantile clerk, who had died ten years earlier. She may have met his younger brother Frederick Joyce. He was a bachelor and had been a customs clerk. He retired with his three unmarried older sisters, Frances, Cecilia and Emily, to The Grange, Burgh Castle on the River Yare. (picture above).

   I have a note in the Joyce family records, that, although Frederick Joyce was a bachelor, nevertheless he fathered some children. Two of Frederick's sisters, who he had been living with in Croyden, Frances and Cecilia, had been teachers before they moved to Burgh Castle with him. Their younger sister Emily, who also moved to Burgh Castle with brother Frederick, had previously lived with her sister in law, Elizabeth Ashby Joyce, in Mildmay Park. 

  It is likely great grandfather Joe Joyce made several trips to Norfolk in the 1890s. He would, no doubt, have met up with his uncle and aunties for the funeral of his sister, Elizabeth Juniper, in the summer of 1890.

   After the sales of property, horses, live stock, furniture and equipment from the estate of John Pollard Skinner, his family invest the money in the farm they had lived on most of their lives. Trustee Mr Rising advertised the lease of Warnes Charity Farm for tenders in 1890. Stephen Bately Skinner, Annie Skinner, Harriet Skinner and Arthur Skinner take up the lease. Their mother, Eliza Charlotte retired to 93, St George's Road, Great Yarmouth, with her other surviving children, Eleanor and Fred. Her other daughters Eliza Harriet and Alice look for work as housekeepers.

  Alice Skinner answers an advertisement in Southampton. She moves out of Norfolk to work as a housekeeper there. Her sister, Eliza Harriet Skinner, takes a job as a housekeeper for vetenary surgeon, John Barr, in Acle. It appears the job does not go well for her. She is soon advertising for another post as housekeeper from John Barr's address in Acle. The reason for this becomes apparent in a press report.

   John Barr had to sack his groom for drunkenness in August 1892. He had been paying Henry Olley junior 10s. a week. Before this, Eliza Skinner, "single woman and housekeeper who kept the accounts," had sent Olley to Mr Malletts corn merchants of Halvergate for 2 stone of flour, which he bought and brought back with the bill for 3s/6d. She gave him the money to pay the bill and he returned with a receipt. Malletts claimed they had not receipted the bill. Fortunately for Eliza Harriet, Olley pleaded guilty and was sent to prison with hard labour.

   It is frustrating my grandmother tore out the pages of her late uncle James Charles Skinner's day book. It was probably because, from what I can see of the shards of paper left in there, they were accounts which show the Tunstall Skinners were not prospering. It is doubly frustrating because Harry had been keeping the accounts in there as well. In doing this, she had turned her back on her mother's family and their financial struggles and researched her father's family the Joyces. She visited the graves of her great aunts, Cecilia, Frances and Emily, in the churchyard at Burgh Castle, near the Roman fort. Cecilia died on 5th August 1892. I visited the churchyard and the Roman fort a couple of years ago. Next time I visit, I will make a point of looking for the three Joyce family graves there.

    Below, James Charles Skinner's daybook, where the accounts of James Charles and Harry have been torn out and details of the Burgh Castle Joyces have been recorded. The red-covered book has a few of Emma Jane's accounts in Aden Grove and the little address book is invaluable for locating their families.