Good Morning Lisa!
This is an email I sent to my Mam yesterday - I'm hopeful that you might want to read through and correct anything you feel I might have gotten wrong. Please also read my comments afterwards because my Mam has already corrected me about the date of Thomas Gibsons death.
Hi Mam,
I've been doing some digging now on your Dads family.
Robert Gibson was the name of your Great Grandad. He was born in 1829 in Horton which is West of Blyth and no longer really exists. Here is a map from 1820 (1st attachment at the bottom, just click on it) and you can see that Horton was west of Blyth and south of what they called Coopen (now Cowpen) with a few houses.
He married a lady called Jane Thompson, I've found them living at Coopen Colliery, Waterloo, Morpeth in 1871. At that time He was 42, Jane 39 and they had 2 children Barbara aged 11, and John Thomas (your grandad) was 8. He was a coal miner.
By 1881, they'd moved to Newburn, by this time your Grandad was 18 and it shows that by then he had another sister called Mary, who was 4. As Jane was 49 by this time I have a sneaking feeling that Mary might actually be Barbara's baby as she was 21 and still living with them and unmarried. Maybe this might be why they moved from Cowpen to Newburn - anyway, I haven't really looked into it too much but the pits in Blyth were doing really well at the time, sending out more and more coal, and so it can't have been for lack of work.
In 1901 your Great Grandparents were still alive and kicking - only 70 and 72 - but your great grandad was STILL working in the pits! They still had your Grandad living with them in Mount Pleasant in Newburn aged 33 - but there was another young lady living there too - Christina Foxton, a 21 year old servant from Whitby. I wonder how they met? This was your Grandma! Your great grandma Jane died later that year and your great grandad Robert wasn't far behind her, he died the following year.
What might have been a bit scandalous at that time was that your Dad's sister Esther was born to John Thomas and Christina the year before, and she must've been pregnant with your Dad before they got married (I've got Grandad born in 1903 - I always thought it was 1901?).
They went on to have more babies, Barbara, Louisa (I'm in touch with her great granddaughter Lisa Robinson through researching the family tree, she lives in Middlesborough) Christina (born and died the same year - your Dad would have been 7.... imagine the trauma of a little 7 year old boy losing a baby sister - so sad). I have records of them having other children - James, Thomas and George Edward, with gaps of 3-5 years between each. She had her last baby at 41 and was 65 when she died in 1946. Your Grandad, who was a bit older than Christina, died less than six months afterwards. Is this where the story comes from - dying from a broken heart?
Does this all sound right? Do you have any photos of any of the characters above - the ones I took pictures of on the iPad when I came up?? I recall one sitting on the steps of a caravan - who was that one again? and his friend who died? I might be able to find a newspaper cutting about the explosion.
That's it for today I think, let me know if you think it's right,
Lots of Love,
Jacquie xx
So Lisa after I sent this my Mam told me that Thomas (Grandad Tom) definitely died before Christina. She knew that Christina had been a servant, or rather had worked as Tom's housekeeper before she fell pregnant, but she was delighted to hear that she's actually been in the family home while Tom's parents were in their final years. It seems to fit in with the nature of what she remembers about her Grandma. She remembers staying with Christina the day Tom was buried, it seems that Christina was very ill and couldn't go to the funeral, she remembers being at the window with her Grandma, 'saying goodbye to Tom'. I've had a quick look on ;'find my past' and there was a Thomas Gibson who passed away in 1945, which may be him. I'd be interested to know whether the locations fit in with the back story you have. I've taken the details from the census mainly.
So the photo I'm referring to I need to work out how to send. My Mam has confirmed that it is of Tom. The trouble is there are two of them on the photo and I need her to confirm which one - there's an interesting back story (my referring to 'explosion') which I'll fill you in on if you haven't heard already.
The 'died from a broken heart' bit - I just remember that from family chats...vaguely really, that someone had lost his wife and died soon afterwards. Turns out not Tom and Christina then.
Photo to follow - my Mam is trying to remember the name of Tom's buddy - who was a Roma Gypsy. I used to tease my Mum that Tom was a Gypsy (he clearly wasn't) because they look so alike on the photo.
Hope you haven't fallen asleep reading this!
Jacquie
x
