Tales of Tunstall, Norfolk

The brothers, James and John Pollard Skinner were noted for breeding, keeping and managing horses. These were good and useful skills on a reasonably large farm when they were both working the land on opposite sides of the River Bure.    The picture of the carriage outing, above, comes from a first cousin once removed, with whom I spent many happy hours delving into my fathers side of family history.  This side all originate from the north west of England. This picture shows parents James and Ellen with two of their children, Mary and Seth. From the researches of my cousin Molly and I, that branch of the family also left the land and moved into the towns to work in retail, commerce and industry.    Back in Norfolk when James Pollard Skinner made his (apparently) contentious will in December 1869, of which, thanks to my co-researchers, I now have a copy, we agree, he was unwell and depressed.   His depression is indicated in the letter he received from his me...

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 S...

Jane Betsy had left Tunstall by the end of 1875. She lived in Norwich for about eight years and then moved to London, where she spent the rest of her life. She kept letters and photographs of the people she had loved and lost.    The photograph above was probably taken in the late 1840s and is a very early photograph for which the sitters had to pose of several minutes with their heads in a clasp to keep them in one position.  Who are the couple above? Why did Jane Betsy keep it?     After careful examination of all the pictures I have of that branch of the family, I have come to the conclusion it is Stephen Bately, Jane Betsy's father and Harriott Crow Bately her mother.    Because it has been taken with a long exposure, something like 10 minutes, the photographer has added features which may have been blurred on the original picture, particularly by blinking. The set of the eyes, whether blinking or not, stays much the same though. Jane Betsy re...

How much did Jane Betsy know of the events which involved and split her family in the 1890s? The photograph of her, above, shows her at the age of 61, with a Mona Lisa smile. It was taken in a Stoke Newington photographic studio in September 1884. With her are daughter, Emma Jane, son in law, Joseph Joyce and baby granddaughter May Gertrude.     Jane Betsy spent the final decades of her life in a crowded terraced house in Stoke Newington. Her three surviving sisters lived out their days in St George's Road and Marine Parade, Great Yarmouth.    The close affectionate families of the Skinner brothers, James and John Pollard Skinner became estranged, split apart and even aggressively confrontational in the mid-1890s. Was Jane Betsy aware of any of this? The evidence I have, carefully kept by our branch of the family, is that she was not.      Letters show Jane Betsy's daughters and their husbands have agreed Harry had lost or spent the Skinner bequest set...

Here she is, Jane Betsy Skinner of Tunstall in an elegant crinoline. This photograph was taken in Great Yarmouth in the late 1850s, judging from the quality of the image and the style of the dress.      Jane Betsy was born at nine o'clock in the morning at Tunstall on the 21st January 1823.     She had an older sister, Harriett Virtue. All her younger sisters,  Eliza Charlotte, Emma, Charlotte and Louisa were also born at Tunstall. One of their parents, Stephen or Harriott Bately kept a notebook with a pencil record of the date and time each of them was born.     In 1831, Jane Betsy was given a sketchbook for her eighth Birthday. She filled it with her  competent and stylish drawings. They depict rural life, including cottages, distant mills, streams, milking buckets and three-legged stools.    When she was nearly nine years old, on 7th January 1832, Jane Betsy and her family were subjected to an armed robbery at Tunstall, according...

Battle lines were drawn in the 1880s which created two distinct factions in the fortunes of Jane Betsy of Tunstall, her immediate and extended family.      The two pictures I have of Jane Betsy, standing outside the farmhouse and seated looking relaxed and happy with her husband and four of her daughters, show a confident lady-like person. Widowed at the age of 47, when her youngest surviving child, Rosa May was five years old, she remained at Tunstall and continued to run the farm until 1875, when it was taken over by her sister's oldest son, James Thomas Skinner and his sisters, Alice and Eleanor, all from Thrigby.    As I have mentioned before, Jane Betsy's Wesleyan Methodist faith had sustained her through the tragedies, or "blows to the heart" in her words, which she suffered in 1870, 1871 and again in late 1875 with the death of her eldest child and daughter Henrietta Louise.    Women could not own property when Jane Betsy's father made his will ...

Widowed and with six surviving children, Jane Betsy Skinner gives up the farm in Tunstall and moves to  Albion Terrace, Heigham Road, Norwich, where her eldest daughter, Louisa died.    In 1876, her only surviving son, Harry, gets married to Emma Fill and runs a shop, post office, carrying service and coal agency in Freethorpe.    By 1883 Jane Betsy's daughters, Polly (Mary Ann), Laura and Emma Jane have all married and moved out of Norfolk.    I still have difficulty working out why the Norwich solicitors take the extraordinary step of summoning the widow, Jane Betsy and her unmarried daughter Rosa May to court in chancery in January 1888. The implication the Norwich solicitors make, by taking this action at this time, is the two women are untrustworthy.    In fact, thanks to the researches of my friends,  after Jane Betsy left Tunstall, it was occupied by her nephew and nieces from Thrigby, James Thomas Skinner and Alice and Eleanor Sk...