Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - hoppout

Pages: [1] 2
1
Yorkshire (East Riding & York) / Re: Parrotts of patrington/patrington haven
« on: Wednesday 23 February 11 00:23 GMT (UK)  »

Sootybear wanted to know about the Patrington Haven Parrott family's links to the Rank family of flour fame. My 2x gt grandfather Fewson Hopper (b. 1822) lived with Robert and Jane Parrott (1841 census) and was apprenticed to them as a fisherman. He later joined the lifeboat crew and was promoted to mate and then Master or coxswain (1865-77), retiring to become lighthouse keeper at Saltend.

William Hopper, Fewson's father, sold his flour mill to the Rank family and there several intermarriages between the two families. The Parrotts, being friends, may also have been involved.
The Rank connections included Joseph Rank (the power behind the flour-making giant RHM) and J Arthur Rank, the film maker.

hoppout

2
Lincolnshire / Re: Brummit's Ropery Lincoln
« on: Sunday 23 January 11 00:38 GMT (UK)  »
Robert,

Regrets, but lost sight of Mary Ann and John Robert Henry Wheatley after the 1871 census, also Harriet who disappeared from William Roberts' life; perhaps they all went off to America and their new life didn't work out for their marriage. My gt grandfather William Roberts took up with Mary Clayton, but they never married, though they ran the Strugglers Inn for 15 years together, and Mary Clayton went on to be the sole publican of the Fox and Hounds on Steep Hill (now Browns restaurant). Wm Roberts died in the workhouse. I was curious about the Clayton name because it was the surnme of my mother, who died aged 27 in 1936 when I was a baby. I was evacuated to Skegness from Grimsby because of this and spent 17 years with foster parents. Obviously, would like to know more. My paternal ancestry is less complicated as I have gone back 11 generations to 1687. A family website on tribalpages has more than 1800 names and is run from America.

3
Lincolnshire / Re: Brummit's Ropery Lincoln
« on: Saturday 22 January 11 16:45 GMT (UK)  »
Alan, Thank for for the cemetery photo, which I will print out. I have William Ernest on my Ancestral list.

Geoff, The ancestor who died in 1897 was William Roberts, the father-in-law of William Wheatley.

Robert, Your information that William Wheatley's emigration to America was real news to me. Quite a jump from blacksmith to vet. He must have trained hard for both, but had little time to practice that hard work as a vet.  I have a daughter over the pond, in Oregon, and she had to re-train as a nurse.

Thank you all

hoppout

4
Lincolnshire / Re: Brummit's Ropery Lincoln
« on: Monday 17 January 11 18:05 GMT (UK)  »
For redroger

The quest was a simple: To locate the Lincoln inn managed by my gt-gt-grandmother more than a century ago. It led me to a famous Steep Hill address, once upon a time named after a trophy winning racehorse, and a ghostly photographic image of a woman looking out of an upper floor window.

The building and that same bow window, which is still to be seen in the 21st  century, is now Browns Pie Shop and Restaurant, recently visited by Josie Thurston, executive editor of this august magazine, who sampled its fare after the restaurant’s success in winning a cuisine award.

My visit to the premises almost two years ago was less successful from a culinary point of view, merely because  I found the restaurant closed . I was with my wife and our 20-years-old American granddaughter, a history student  who was on holiday with us in Ipswich.  Our visit to Lincoln was part of a historical tour, so we were disappointed to find 33 Steep Hill in darkness.

We were about to leave the area when I noticed the shadow of someone moving around at the back of the premises. On impulse, I knocked on the door and a young woman came to see what I wanted. I explained that by great-grandmother, Mary Clayton, had been the publican for several years when the building was the Fox & Hounds Inn. 

“We have a photograph of the Fox and Hounds,” she announced, “I will get it for you to look at.” She returned with a very large framed black and white photograph looking down Steep Hill from near the top of the road, propped it up on the counter and allowed me to take a digital snap of it.


It was not until I returned home and enlarged by photograph on the computer that I discovered the image of a woman  looking out on to the street from the upper floor window - the same bow window to be seen in the 21st century.

Could the woman, who appeared to be wearing a large hat, be a guest at the inn, or perhaps my great grandmother? I wonder…I have no photograph of her to be sure.
Sorry, I have been told the photo cannot upload because of time

5
Lincolnshire / Re: Brummit's Ropery Lincoln
« on: Monday 17 January 11 17:26 GMT (UK)  »
Thank you Geoff.

Thomas Roberts and his wife Ann, the parents of William Roberts, are listed in the 1851 census as living at 1, Brummitt's Ropery. I will try and find another ghost story, Redroger.

6
Lincolnshire / Re: Brummit's Ropery Lincoln
« on: Monday 17 January 11 16:12 GMT (UK)  »
Alan
In all the confusion over ancestors and the Strugglers, we seem to have lost sight of 5 Brummitt's Ropery. I followed Geoff's accurate coordinates and found the Ropery both east and west. The fact that we both had ancestors possibly living in the same house, does seem too much of a coincidence. Was the area part of the workhouse set-up at one time? Or was it allied to a nearby foundry?

Incidentally, my maternal gt grandfather William Roberts is listed on the board of past publicans of the Strugglers. The poor old boy was born in  one workhouse (Boston) and ended his life in another (Lincoln). He had a pauper's funeral. His partner Mary Clayton died at the Fox and House in 1911 and is mentioned in both the Steep Hill publications.

I guess this closes the correspondence on this subject.

Hoppout

7
Lincolnshire / Re: Brummit's Ropery Lincoln
« on: Monday 17 January 11 00:08 GMT (UK)  »
Well, Alan,  would you believe it? And thank you Geoff for the info and coordinates.  My name is Peter, aged 74  and I live in Ipswich, a town in the news after its football team took a 7-0 thrashing by Chelsea, then went and beat Arsenal 1-0 in the Carling Cup semi. As I said, I am a writer and I write lots for Lincolnshire magazines.  I will have one in the next Lincolnshire Poacher.

I recently wrote the following about the Strugglers Inn

Cathedral dog was stuffed by my ancestors

The item came at the very end of the first of the BBC’s two Antiques Roadshow
programmes from Lincoln Cathedral, and then came the shock realisation that my
ancestors had played a unique role in Lincoln’s macabre history.

Presenter Fiona Bruce showed a stuffed lurcher dog in a glass case and asked if
anyone knew the name of the animal.

I knew not the name of the lurcher, but I do now know that my maternal great

grandparents, William Roberts and Mary Clayton, must be the ones who had the

animal stuffed.

Fiona told viewers that the lurcher had belonged to the poacher William Clark,

“the last man to be hanged at Lincoln Castle, just a stone’s throw from here, in

1877, and his faithful dog used to follow him to the local hostelry, the Strugglers Inn

(interpreted by Fiona as ‘struggling meaning hanging‘),  and when without his master, 

he pined away.

“The landlord had him stuffed and placed across the bar.  He was then found, a few

generations later, stuck away unwanted and unloved, and he was given away to the

castle museum where, in a touching end to the story, he was reunited with his owner,

William Clark, who is buried in the castle grounds. But one mystery remains: what’s

the dog’s  name? No one has been able to find out.”

Fiona invited viewers to ‘phone in if they could solve that particular mystery.

My great grandparents, who remained unmarried,  were in charge of  the Strugglers

Inn from 1875 to 1890, and although William Roberts (who was by trade a sheep

dipper)  was listed as the landlord, I strongly suspect that it was Mary Clayton, with

her family experience of the licensed trade, who ran the pub. She went on to become

sole publican of the Fox and Hounds Inn on Steep Hill after they left the Strugglers.

Roberts died a pauper in 1900 after living in Lincoln workhouse.

As for William Clark, he was sentenced to death at Lincoln Assizes on March 8th

1877, for the murder of Henry Walker, a gamekeeper at Norton Disney,  the previous

month.  He was arrested at Lowestoft, and at the trial two colleagues testified that they

had been with him when he shot  Walker dead.

The hangman, on March 26th 1877 was William Marwood, a cobbler, of Church Lane,

Horncastle. At the age of 54, he persuaded the governor of Lincoln Castle goal to

allow him to conduct an execution. The efficient way in which he conducted the

hanging of William Horry without a hitch on April 1st 1872 assisted him in him being

appointed hangman by the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex, for which he was paid a

retainer of £20 a year plus £10 per execution.

Marwood developed the “long drop” technique of hanging, which ensured that that

the prisoners’ neck was broken instantly at the end of the drop, resulting in the

prisoner dying of asphyxia while unconscious.

 This was considered somewhat more kind than the slow death by strangulation

caused by the “shot drop” method, which was particularly distressing to prison

governors and staff who were required to witness executions close up following the

abolition of public executions in 1868.

It would seem that my great grandparents looked after the lurcher during the

period of Clark‘s  trial.  The dog is said to have walked over to the castle to wait for

its master, but pined to death after the execution was carried out. It’s ghost is said to

haunt the castle grounds at night .

The Strugglers Inn, which my younger daughter Alison visited with friends last


year, was the nearest licensed premises to the castle regularly used by the

prison warders to ply prisoners with alcohol,  to make it easier for them to face the

horror of the  morning executions.  However, some prisoners struggled with the

warders on being returned to the prison, hence another story which gave rise to the

name of the pub.

The story was of particular interest to me for as a young reporter in Lincolnshire

during the 1950s and ‘60s,  I covered several murder trials when Assizes and Quarter

Sessions were held inside the castle walls.




8
Lincolnshire / Re: Brummit's Ropery Lincoln
« on: Sunday 16 January 11 15:11 GMT (UK)  »
Hello Alan

Thank you for replying so swiftly; it took me three years! The Brummitt's Ropery query gets more interesting by the hour.  A few points to make, and I am sure I will be making more later. I have been looking up my records and see that the 1871 census RG10/3374 F21 gives the occupiers of 5 Brummitt's Ropery, Reservoir Street, Ln St Pauls, gives the following: William Roberts, 44, sheep dipper, b. Swineshead; Harriet Roberts, 41. wife, b. London; William Wheatley, 22, son-in-law, blacksmith, b. Ln; Mary Ann Wheatley, 19, heads wife, b Scotherne; John Robert Henry Wheatley, aged 3, son,  b Ln; William Ernest Wheatley, son, 7months (both grandsons).

As William and Mary Ann were married in 1868, Mary could only have been 16 years of age (the legal minimum) and and JRH Wheatley would be born soon after - perhaps a shot-gun wedding. However, William Ernest did not survive infancy and died in 1872, in Lincoln.

After a lifetime of journalism and writing, my instincts lead me to believe that we are on the same track and that the address of both our families is the clincher.

As it happens, William Roberts and Mary Ann did not stay together; William took up with another Mary Ann (Clayton), and together they ran The Strugglers Inn in Lincoln, and Mary later became publican at the Fox & Hounds on Steep Hill. William died in 1897 in Lincoln workhouse.

More later

Hoppout

PS: As this is my third post, perhaps we can be on more personal terms next time




9
Lincolnshire / Brummit's Ropery Lincoln
« on: Friday 14 January 11 17:38 GMT (UK)  »
A long time ago, Alan 7636 asked about  Brummit's Ropery Lincoln, which is where my great grandfather William Roberts lived during the 1870s. One of Alan's surname interests was Wheatley, and William Wheatley, blacksmith, was also living at 5 Brummits Ropery at that time. Any interest?

Pages: [1] 2