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Topic: Joseph Walter CARTER in 1871 Census in Melbourn (Read 1168 times)
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Keith Sherwood
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Retiringtype,
I expect the excerpt from The Times is what I'll get for my £8, but never mind. All very fascinating, and thanks for continuing to play the relentless bloodhound!
keith
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Keith Sherwood
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Retiringtype,
What an amazing read that was! Seems that in the early hours J.W.C. was, slightly the worse for drink, wandering round the pavements of a corner of The West End with a revolver (might this have been the one he had in 1880 - surely not) loaded with six bullets. One of these he fired towards his heart, but the bullet glanced off a bone and out again, leaving a superficial chest wound.
He'd also written a short suicide note, with rather an obscure quotation by the poet Shelley. He was taken to St Bart's Hospital for treatment.
He was remanded in custody until the following Saturday, but whether he would have been charged then, I know not...
keith
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janan
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Goodness 
In English law, suicide was a crime until 1961, and attempted suicide could be punished (though it rarely was).
from
http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/contentviewarticle.asp?article=1240
Jan 
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ALL CENSUS DATA INCLUDED IN POSTINGS IS CROWN COPYRIGHT, FROM www.nationalarchives.gov.ukbedfordshire - farr, carver,handley, godfrey, newell, bird, emmerton, underwood,ancell buckinghamshire- pain cambridgeshire- bird, carver hertfordshire- conisbee, bean, saunders, quick,godfrey derbyshire- allsop, noon devon - griffin, love, rapsey dorset- rendall, gale somerset- rendall, churchill surrey/middlesex - douglas, conisbee, childs, lyon groombridge |
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Keith Sherwood
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Jan,
Goodness indeed! These CARTER's are providing a thoroughly diverting journey through the past. Must get hold of any local newspaper stories about his ultimately successful attempt on his life the following year in Ramsgate. Rather strange to think that he's buried in his parents' grave just a few miles up the road from where I live, though whether his poor mother Elizabeth (who spent over half her life in an asylum, as you know) was actually brought all the way back from Kent to Cambs five or six years after Joseph Walter died is another matter...
keith
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janan
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Keith
Poor Joseph seems to have had a sad short life, he was probably much affected by his mother's insanity, especially as his birth may well have been the precipitating factor.
Jan
Just noticed you don't have CARTER amongst your profile names
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ALL CENSUS DATA INCLUDED IN POSTINGS IS CROWN COPYRIGHT, FROM www.nationalarchives.gov.ukbedfordshire - farr, carver,handley, godfrey, newell, bird, emmerton, underwood,ancell buckinghamshire- pain cambridgeshire- bird, carver hertfordshire- conisbee, bean, saunders, quick,godfrey derbyshire- allsop, noon devon - griffin, love, rapsey dorset- rendall, gale somerset- rendall, churchill surrey/middlesex - douglas, conisbee, childs, lyon groombridge |
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Keith Sherwood
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Janan,
As I was up to my maximum of 500 characters allowed on the surname interests I hadn't room for CARTER - my most recent line of family enquiry (and becoming the most exciting!). But I've deleted one of the Suffolk villages - Groton - associated with my LINGLEY family now and have inserted CARTER.
Thoughts like quart into a pint pot, or cart before the horse, perhaps.
Have now also received by PM from Retiringtype the full text of the Shelley quote, from "Notes on Queen Mab".
Though even with those lines in front of me, I'm still not entirely clear what Joseph Walter's mind was wrestling with. I've re-checked, and he had drafted out his will that totally excluded his wife in January 1879; that attempt on his life in April 1879; then presumably sometime after that his wife Blanche would have been filing for divorce on grounds of insanity or unreasonable behaviour, perhaps...
keith
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janan
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Could you post the quote? I'd be very interested to read it - in my other life off here I'm a psychiatric nurse.
Thanks
Jan
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ALL CENSUS DATA INCLUDED IN POSTINGS IS CROWN COPYRIGHT, FROM www.nationalarchives.gov.ukbedfordshire - farr, carver,handley, godfrey, newell, bird, emmerton, underwood,ancell buckinghamshire- pain cambridgeshire- bird, carver hertfordshire- conisbee, bean, saunders, quick,godfrey derbyshire- allsop, noon devon - griffin, love, rapsey dorset- rendall, gale somerset- rendall, churchill surrey/middlesex - douglas, conisbee, childs, lyon groombridge |
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Keith Sherwood
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Jan,
It's extremely long, could I e-mail you with it? Can't remember whether I've got your e-mail address, perhaps you could PM me...
keith
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janan
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Thank you for the link Retiringtype.
I see what you mean Keith - it is very difficult to work out what he was feeling at the time, other than angry that is. It would seem to suggest he wanted a divorce but perhaps there were no grounds? On the otherhand why then did he kill himself when Blanche divorced him  
Hope you can find out more
Jan
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ALL CENSUS DATA INCLUDED IN POSTINGS IS CROWN COPYRIGHT, FROM www.nationalarchives.gov.ukbedfordshire - farr, carver,handley, godfrey, newell, bird, emmerton, underwood,ancell buckinghamshire- pain cambridgeshire- bird, carver hertfordshire- conisbee, bean, saunders, quick,godfrey derbyshire- allsop, noon devon - griffin, love, rapsey dorset- rendall, gale somerset- rendall, churchill surrey/middlesex - douglas, conisbee, childs, lyon groombridge |
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Keith Sherwood
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Sorry, been diverted for a while here...
...and thanks for doing the honours for me, Retiringtype. Until I get to see what the divorce papers/proceedings contain, I'm not entirely sure of the sequence of events. It definitely lists the divorce as Blanche v Joseph Walter, though to be perfectly honest I'm not certain that this is any way significant. I can't tell when exactly the action might have been started.
I imagine that some time after 1872 (perhaps quite soon) the two of them became estranged, but once Joseph Walter started to try and do away with himself (quite publicly, too) then Blanche must have thought she ought to do something. I wonder whether she knew what he had written in his Jan. 1879 will...
keith
I'm imagining too, that the dash between the words "It's" and "hypocrisy" must have indicated a written Victorian blasphemous word, edited out by The Times. Answers to what it might have been on a postcard, please...
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janan
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Did you notice he seems to have misquoted Shelley? Who said "Chastity is a monkish and evangelical superstition" rather than a "virtue"
Jan
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ALL CENSUS DATA INCLUDED IN POSTINGS IS CROWN COPYRIGHT, FROM www.nationalarchives.gov.ukbedfordshire - farr, carver,handley, godfrey, newell, bird, emmerton, underwood,ancell buckinghamshire- pain cambridgeshire- bird, carver hertfordshire- conisbee, bean, saunders, quick,godfrey derbyshire- allsop, noon devon - griffin, love, rapsey dorset- rendall, gale somerset- rendall, churchill surrey/middlesex - douglas, conisbee, childs, lyon groombridge |
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Keith Sherwood
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Yes, I had,
But perhaps he was writing it down from memory, and anyway it looks as though he was an extremely troubled person by now...
keith
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