Tales of Tunstall, Norfolk

The letters Emma Jane kept tell a story. They were kept for the memory of a life-style and home that had gone forever. In 1870, Emma Jane was 18 and her brother Harry was 21.    I knew nothing of Harry until I read the letters. I had only heard of the 2nd great uncle James Charles, who had qualified as a doctor when he died of typhoid.    The first mention of Harry is in James Charles's letter to his father of 29th November 1869. It also mentions the food parcel which has arrived. The contents are itemised and also "2 brown bags the use of which to Harry and myself is a mystery."    James Charles always signs his letters, J.C.Skinner whereas his brother always signs Harry Skinner or just Harry. James Charles and Harry's letters indicate their father is not well and that it is "an old complaint" or he is "much the same." They also concern themselves with the farm, the "marsh hay" and "drilling wheat on the marsh"    An aspect of ...

I am going to unravel the myths and legends which surround the tragic circumstances and fall in fortunes of Jane Betsy and her children in stages.    This part of her story starts in Tunstall, surrounded by her family (above), in comparative gentility. It finishes in a terraced house in London with, what must have been, an enduring sadness for lost loved ones and the well-remembered life-style which went with it. Tragedy of Dickensian proportions struck her in 1870 and 1871. Her tear-stained letter to her daughter Emma Jane bears witness to the first 'heavy blow to the heart' as she puts it herself.    The death of her husband, shortly afterwards is beginning of more pressing problems. It was followed in the summer of the death of her 16-year-old son, Thomas, this was another 'heavy blow to the heart,' for her.    Thomas had been ailing, as Harry writes to James Charles the previous autumn. Harry says they have been sitting up with him "all night" and uncon...

When I saw a chancery case among the papers kept for more than 150 years I thought there would be some sort of lengthy case as described in one of my favourite books, Bleak House by Charles Dickens.   The case however, is disappointingly straightforward, but why it was ever brought to Chancery is another question altogether and one I still struggle to find answers for.    The summons to court was sent to widowed Jane Betsy and her unmarried daughter Rosa May on 12th December 1887. The case would be heard on 12th January 1888. The case was taken out by the Norwich solicitors. It still strikes me as an extreme way to deal with a lump sum which her son Harry had lodged with the Norwich solicitors to top up his mother's annuity.    I have to go back to Bleak House for the image which came to mind. I thought of my 2nd great grandmother, Jane Betsy, as a sort of eccentric Miss Flight, living in the attic at 81 Aden Grove with her caged birds, called, Hope, Joy, Y...

Was there a crock of gold at the end of the rainbow?    When chasing facts and figures, there are many possibilities to be considered. Was the money or land there in the first place? Had it been invested in a loss-making venture? Had it been spent? Were there swinging debts to pay? Did someone make a mistake?    From Jane Betsy's daughter Laura's letter of 1886, with her husband Job's overwritten part on the back,  the will of Jane Betsy's husband James Pollard stipulated there should be an amount to top up the annuity from land inherited from her father.    Jane Betsy's father Stephen Bately bequeathed her and her five sisters an annuity from land rents. Jane Betsy, Harriet Virtue, Eliza Charlotte, Louisa, Emma and Charlotte benefitted from this. They all married farmers. Until legislation later in the century, they could not own/inherit the land themselves. Also, the annuities depend on the land being retained and farmed profitably. It is now cl...

From the surviving letters and documents between James Charles, Harry, Emma Jane, Jane Betsy and her cousins Jane Bennett, Georgie Lesbini, Mary Ann Howlett and Mary Boult, I have come to the conclusion there was a major decline in the inherited family fortunes, which was inevitable.    Jane Betsy, with her drawing 'accomplishment' and five of her sisters had a Jane Austen-like search for husbands in an era when manors and estates were still privately owned, oldest sons inherited them, younger sons went into the church or took commissions in the army or navy. They were born just after the Napoleonic wars, when farming was profitable and fresh food was produced, milled and distributed on the nearby River Bure navigation and  turnpike roads. When Jane Betsy and her sisters were getting married to their farmer husbands, in the 1840s and 1850s, the new railway network was already linking the Tunstall and Acle area with the cities of London and Norwich.    It was nev...

The letters James Charles sent home from his lodgings in London in the summer of 1870 reveal that he, Harry and Emma Jane (above) were involved in running a Sunday school. Harry has his brother send music to be played and from James Charles's remarks about it, he approves of 'Abide with Me', but is not so sure about the other piece, for which which he doesn't give a title.    The Sunday school the young people are talking about was Wesleyan Methodist. The movement was based mainly on the teachings of John Wesley, who had taken a mission over to an American colony of Savannah Georgia in the 1730s, to promote Anglicanism over there. By the 19th century, there were Wesleyan Methodist chapels all over Norfolk. As can be seen from Mary Boult's letters, the movement had great appeal among the young.    It looks as if the enthusiasm for Wesleyan Methodism in the family was shared by grandmother, Harriott Crow Bately. The Methodist chapel they are likely to have attended wa...

Going back to 1870, there was a letter I missed because I thought it just a condolence. It was from Mr Gillett of Rose Villa Halvergate. He sent it on November 18th 1870. It has been read so much in the past, it is falling apart. It is addressed to Jane Betsy and her husband. It enclosed something, we have to guess what that something was. The enclosure  has not been kept. This is what it says:- "Rose Villa Halvergate     Nov m 18th 1870          Mr Gillett herewith begs respectfully to offer Mr Skinner the enclosed thinking the contents so consolatory that he and Mrs S might derive consolation, and a desire to retain them, altho' it may bring to remembrance the sad loss they have sustained for which he offers his sincere sympathy having himself passed through the like troubled waters of affliction, but in the midst all it is the christian's part to be submissive to the Divine Will .    With this he presents his condolence to Mr ...