Tales of Tunstall, Norfolk

Picture of  Thomas  Moy's coal trucks. Thomas Moy started his enterprise in Colchester. By the 1890s he was organising many more coal agencies and depots in London and the East of England. Photograph supplied by railway historian and photographer J.E.Connor. My Norfolk ancestors from Tunstall moved from remote rural living to urban life. When her cousin Stephen died at Corporation Farm, Thrigby on 5th June 1896, great grandmother Emma Jane and her mother Jane Betsy heard about it at their home in Stoke Newington. Brother Harry heard the news at St Augustine, Norwich. His four children were doing well at the Norwich schools and colleges, especially in physiognomy and drawing.     Harry had been running the farm at Burlingham St Edmund until 1887, when he sold everything and took Mr Rising's advice to file for bankruptcy. After that he worked as a draper. Five years later he became a canvasser (or salesman) for coal merchant Thomas Moy, when Moy's took over f...

This superb picture of reed harvesting in east Norfolk comes from Norfolk Tales, Myths and More The documents and letters kept in my family tell a story of a rapid decline in fortunes and an apparent splitting up. The name and relationships with the Skinners was forgotten or ignored. Investigating this in the 1980s my mother obtained a copy of Jane Betsy's, 2nd great grandmother's, wedding certificate with James Pollard Skinner, 2nd great grandfather. The wedding was in Caister rather than Tunstall, where he and his father were running the farm she had been living on with her parents and sisters.   On the certificate are listed the names of six men, including Jane Betsy's father. It looks as if there was no escape for James Pollard Skinner. He would inherit an obligation to the Bately's from his father and he would take on the further responsibility of a wife and family. Apart from Jane Betsy's father, uncles William Barnard Crow, G.C. Bately, N.O.Bately, John C. No...

Alfred Edward Joyce, Emma Jane Joyce, Joseph Joyce standing at the back, with May Gertrude Joyce (right) and a friend sitting at the front . My grandmother, May Gertrude had a very clear idea of gender roles. Women should get married. Their husbands should keep them. It was an even stronger rule when the women had children. Even if the husband had cleared off or died, it was a woman's duty, as far as my grandmother was concerned, to stay at home and look after them. I think her ideas may have been shaped by her own experiences.    May Gertrude had worked a sixty-hour week as a telephone receptionist (see my blog post "Jane Betsy and the Hello Girl"). She was a receptionist at the Avenue Telephone Exchange in the City of London. She had been dealing, according to some humorous jottings and anecdotes she noted, with many stroppy male customers. After her grandmother, Jane Betsy, died (1st April 1906) there was enough money to afford to be married. She and my grandfather wer...

  St Catherine's church Ludham, where Harriet Virtue and infant son (William Sherwood), John Henry, Sherwood William, and Louisa Crow Page are buried. It's difficult to track down 3rd great grandmother Harriet Bately's family, the Crows. There are also Crows with an 'e' on the end, but perhaps they wanted to distinguish themselves from the other lot. In terms of farmland and farms, they had married into other families in the same line. This was at Tunstall in the case of my direct ancestors and at Stokesby. A previous generation of Filby Crows had married into the Fabb family. It's also possible Harriet's father, or other relative moved to Sunderland. Her brother William Barnard Crow was farming at Wickhampton. His daughters, cousins, are letter writers, Mary Ann Howlett (pianos) and Jane Bennett (a bookshop proprietor who emigrated to the United States). Also, Georgie Lesbini, whose daughter Sapho became a short hand typist in London and features in my gran...

Open countryside at Wickhampton, Norfolk. The picture is from Norfolk Tales, Myths and More, where the story of how brothers fought to the death over an inheritance, as the villagers looked on, is told. The story also tells us how Wickhampton and nearby Halvergate got their names. Perhaps the most potent myth in family history, is the idea there was some kind of wealth or land, which is still within reach of descendants if they could only prove ownership. This concept is also corrosive and destructive, as illustrated by Charles Dickens in his novel Bleak House. I am still mystified as to why the will of 2nd great grandfather, James Pollard Skinner, should have caused so much fuss. A small lump sum for his widow, Jane Betsy's annuity top up, was officially restored by Alfred Neave and her surviving son Harry in 1888. According to great great grandfather's instructions, everything else had been sold. All his bequests had been fulfilled and distributed.    My ancestors and their ...

  Stokesby, East Norfolk, Picture from Geograph. I have been trying to find out how Stokesby, a little village on the edge of the Norfolk Broads features in our family's history, when they all lived in Tunstall, just the other side of the River Bure.     Initially, I know about it from my mother, aunts and their parents visits to Woodlands Farm, Stokesby. Talking to cousin Marian recently, she remembers staying at Woodlands Farm with her brother Peter and parents Alfred and Gwendoline. Whereas my mother remembered staying with Rebecca Fabb at Runham, where there was an outside toilet, (picture below of her there as a child) cousin Marian assured me there was an inside toilet at Woodlands Farm, Stokesby, and this is where she remembers staying with auntie Ethel (Fabb) when she was a child.    The area features in censuses and local authority administration as Stokesby with Herringby. The connection with my ancestors is with my 3rd great grandmother, Harriet Batel...

Ludham Bridge on the River Bure. Jane Betsy's brothers in law Sherwood William Page and Alfred Neave are from Ludham. Also from there,  her aunt or cousin Charlotte and her son Alfred Norton Huke. Nearly all the people mentioned in the story of the fortunes and misfortunes of my Norfolk ancestors are related to them in some way. Edward Dennis Ballinger and Alfred Norton Huke are no exceptions. These  two people are the reason my 2nd great grandmother, Jane Betsy, made a revised will.    Edward Dennis Ballinger, of Gloucester, was Jane Betsy's son in law, related to her by his marriage to her youngest daughter Rosa May. Specifically cut as a beneficiary, this may be why neither she, nor the daughter she was living with in Stoke Newington,  Emma Jane, were informed of Rosa May's death.    Alfred Norton Huke first came to my notice in Georgie Lesbini's (Jane Betsy's cousin) letter to Tunstall, in which she has heard a rumour he is engaged to Ann Boult, bu...