RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Keith Sherwood on Sunday 28 October 07 11:10 GMT (UK)
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Hi, Everyone,
The extra hour in bed this morning (Clocks going back an hour, I mean, here in England) got me thinking about how London I feel about my family. On my maternal side I suddenly realised that gt-gt-gt-grandmother Alice COCKER was born in Derbyshire in 1806/7; gt-gt-gt-grandpa James KERSHAW born in Lancashire in 1803; gt-gt-gt-grandpa Henry Pakeman GURNER was born in Cambs in 1796;and gt-gt-gt-grandma Mary Ann WHITE was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales in 1795. Yet from the 1820's/1830's onwards both merged-by-marriage families were living in London, as was the case from thereon. Thus I always felt as if London was in my family's blood. I've always supported Arsenal football club with a clear conscience that this was my "home town team".
There was of course an extraordinary migration to London from all parts of the British Isles from the late 18thC through to the 19thC.
The only phrase that definitely rings true is: "Permanent Londoners", which is an amusing one given to a book by Judi Culbertson and Tom Randall published in 1991 by Robson Books describing the permanent inhabitants of London's Churchyards and Cemeteries...
So, who feels a true Londoner, through and through?
keith
P.S. Thinking about this further, still on my mother's side, two more 3-times-gt-grandparents Richard HULLAND, b. 1795 in Devon and Mary Smith b. 1804 Lincs can also be thrown into the mix. Can't help but imagine all these six direct ancestors travelling to London (either on their own or with their families) some time between the 1790's and the 1830's and getting married to one another in 3 London marriages in 1821, 1826 and 1831...
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Hi again, Everyone,
Nearly two years on, and this post is being consigned to the Completed Requests. More like "Incomplete Requests", does anyone have any 2009 thoughts about this topic now, before it sinks into oblivion once more...
regards. keith
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Hi Keith,
the problem here is that is not limited to Londoners.
The title would need to be changed to
TRUE XXXXers - can we use such a phrase about our families...?
where XXXX would then be any part of any country.
or
How long do you have to be in the XXXX community before you are considered a "native" ?
For instance, how long before imigrants in any country are recognised as citizens of that country - and I don't mean the 'official' recognition (naturalisation docs. etc) but acceptance by the local community.
Just in case anyone feels like joining in, I'll move this to the "Lighter Side".
Bob
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Thanks for that, Bob,
We'll see whether it gets any bites now...
keith
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This is a super topic Berlin-Bob,, I'm surprised it sat idle for so long!
Although I've discovered I'm not as "cockney" as I thought ! I am still thinking of myself as a true Londoner. If I give up on the only fact I know to be correct, [that I was born there] I would be even more confused about my identity !!! :)
The more I find about my ancestors makes me wish they had given DNA as part of the census!
I haven't worked out how to put happy faces on yet. but if I had I would have used many happy ones!
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Another thing I've noticed is that whenever I've traced back families that appeared to remain in London (i.e. all the generations I've looked are born in the London or Middlesex area), I usually end up losing trace of them some time in the 18thC, as the various parishes are often very difficult to sort out clearly; whereas families originating from rural parishes often offer a clearer picture in earlier times - back to the 16thC, I mean...
keith
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Hi Kieth,
I identify myself as a Londoner, even though I haven't lived there for many years, the London sound can still be heard in my accent.
I was born there, my mother was born there, as was her father and his father (all from Middlesex).
My father's side migrated to the Metropolis in the 19th century, from Herts. and Ireland but they all made a living on the streets of London as laundresses, butchers, bakers, coppers and costermungers (where else would you find a costermunger)? ;D
I've watched the Thames tides, worked in a street market and breathed REAL smog.
Yes, I'm a Londoner ;D
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How long do you have to be in the XXXX community before you are considered a "native" ?
Down here in West Sussex I was once told by a villager that one had to reside there for 30 years before they were consisdered local. Well I have lived here since Nov 1971 so am now considered after 38 years I am now a "local"
Back to the title of this post - I have always understood that a True Londoner was also called a cockney who had to be born within the sound of Bow Bells.
Jean
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Its the 'incomer' thing isn't it ...
... I've lived here in rural Monmouthshire for 30 years now, yet am still considered to be an 'incomer'. Whats worse, is that my son, born here, is likewise an 'incomer' !!
I was brought up in London, my parents were both born and brought up there ... yet I never felt I was a true Londoner, just because from when I was very young, I didn't like living there, and got out as soon as I could ! (Aged 18 !)
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Back to the title of this post - I have always understood that a True Londoner was also called a cockney who had to be born within the sound of Bow Bells.
If you live close enough to Bow Bells, that's alright, but if you live further away, you may be a cockney, or you may not. Unfortunately, this definition doesn't take the prevailing weather conditions on the day of birth into account.
Depending on which way the wind was blowing ..... ;D
see also:
A study was carried by the city in 2000 to see how far the Bow Bells could be heard,[citation needed] and it was estimated that the bells would have been heard six miles to the east, five miles to the north, three miles to the south, and four miles to the west. According to the legend of Dick Whittington the bells could once be heard from as far away as Highgate.[14] The association with Cockney and the East End in the public imagination may be due to many people assuming that Bow Bells are to be found in the district of Bow, rather than the lesser known St Mary-le-Bow church.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockney
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in my village im 5th generation flaxon family now we are up to 7 generations but a lot of us married people from out the village even now my mam will say oh they not from the village theve only lived here just after the war.
neil
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How long do you have to be in the XXXX community before you are considered a "native" ?
Down here in West Sussex I was once told by a villager that one had to reside there for 30 years before they were consisdered local. Well I have lived here since Nov 1971 so am now considered after 38 years I am now a "local"
Back to the title of this post - I have always understood that a True Londoner was also called a cockney who had to be born within the sound of Bow Bells.
Jean
The whole "cockney" thing is frought with problems. There were periods when there were no bells at all (St Mary Le Bow was destroyed in the great fire of 1666, and more recently in 1941, when the bells were not reinstalled until 1961). Also, as others have pointed out, under certain conditions Bow Bells can be heard over considerable distances.
London has always been a magnet for those seeking their fortunes, and the population was also vastly increased with the importation of young men and women to act as domestic servants to the rich, which is how many of us have parents and grandparents from London, when the family's roots were elsewhere.
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Turning this on its head, my husband considers himeslf a true Welsh man (and Cardiff City Season Ticket holder!) even though his father was born in eastern Europe, and his maternal grandparents were born in Bristol and Devon.
(And he doesn't speak Welsh either!)
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My grandmother was born within the sound of Bow bells - provided they were ringing in 1888/the wind wasn't blowing too strongly from the west/you didn't have muffled hearing through an ear infection/or whatever else might affect it. Her father was a fireman, but hearing the family speak, I don't think you'd have had a clue as to where they came from.
I think of the OH's family as Londoners as they spent most of the C18th/C19th there, but they originally came from Gloucestershire. I wonder how many people have true London ancesters who've lived in the city from (at least) the beginnings of parish registers? Not many I'd guess.
Carole
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A very interesting one.
I very much feel like a Londoner, but my father's family came to Greenwich from a) Kent and b) Essex and c) Rutland in the 19th Century; whilst my mother's family were a) Belgian and b) East Londoners.
My mother, the half Belgian one, felt a Londoner because she lived, as her family had before her for at least forty years, in poverty in East London - she'd EARNED her place, so to speak.
My father, with his generally South of the River ancestry, always felt like a North East Londoner because he was born in Walthamstow E17.
I relocated with my family to Oxford in 2004, and was interested to ask my children (now 15 and 18) whether they felt they were Londoners or not, having lived elsewhere for a significant part of their lives. They both feel Londoners, and we have kept very close links with the capital by almost weekly visits, which I note - as I write it - has been very important for me.
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Hmmm a true Londoner....I was born in London, as were my parents, their parents, and their parents and even their parents. I married a Londoner and my children were born there but I haven't lived there for over 30 years.
I am proud of my roots and still say I am going "home" when I visit so Yes I guess I am a true Londoner.
Irene
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My grandfather and father were Londoners, and I was born in Walthamstowe, London,
(yes it's in Essex now, but it say London on my birth-cert.),
so if the wind was in the right direction ...... say no more ! :D
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Hi Bob, I don't think you will find Walthamstow is in Essex - it's in Waltham Forest, which is most definitely London - E17!
When I grew up, close to there, in Leytonstone (now most famous for being the place of birth of David Beckham ;)), our school books always had Essex County Council on.
However, when the boundaries were changed, it really became London.
I still cling to my high heeled white stilettoes, though, as I'm sure you do. ;D
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Great Galloping Clodhoppers! Bob and Igor,
that's three of us on 'ere with War-FAM-stow connections :o
Eighteen years of my mis-spent youth was in E17, though I lived in Abingdon nr. Oxford before that and was born in Fulham ;D
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You've got the pronunciation quite right, Colgan, WarFAMstow it is.
Long Rule Hoe Street and the Market! ;D
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'cors I 'ave Strav, worked the market and at the dogs.
Couldn't put on airs and graces there, could I? ;)
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My Dad - my handsome avatar - was also from Walthamstow.
I once bought him a mug, which had, written on the outside
I'M A MUG FROM LEYTON
and he pointed out to me that it should have said
I'M A MUG FROM WALTHAMSTOW.
::)
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I have 2 branches of my family that I haven't traced out of London yet. 2 births in Rotherhithe in 1803 &1807 (I'm hoping that these baptisms will soon appear on ancestry then I might find some parents whose trail might lead out of the city) and a marriage in London in 1817 on a different branch. But I'm not sure where the bride and groom come from as the groom dies pre 1841 and the bride is just born Middlesex obviously in 1841 and I lose track of her after that. So I could have true London blood. I grew up in rural North Wales though so I'm not a Londoner in that sense, quite happy to visit for the shopping etc but not to live there!
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my lot are true londoners by default-I can't get back beyond their births in Great Yarmouth in the 1790s and arrival in the capital about 1815. They stayed within a half mile radius of the Camberwell Rd for the next 130 years-though it seems as though they tried almost every street in the district! If I can't get much from the Norfolk PRs, at least I'm getting a lot out of the newly released LMA records
Monique
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I have 2 branches of my family that I haven't traced out of London yet. 2 births in Rotherhithe in 1803 &1807 (I'm hoping that these baptisms will soon appear on ancestry then I might find some parents whose trail might lead out of the city) and a marriage in London in 1817 on a different branch. But I'm not sure where the bride and groom come from as the groom dies pre 1841 and the bride is just born Middlesex obviously in 1841 and I lose track of her after that. So I could have true London blood. I grew up in rural North Wales though so I'm not a Londoner in that sense, quite happy to visit for the shopping etc but not to live there!
what names on the marriages?
Monique
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'cors I 'ave Strav, worked the market and at the dogs.
didn't work the dogs, but my dad, his dad, and his grandad sold stuff on the markets (Lambeth) and later my dad built up a business in the welsh markets (Pontypridd, Maesteg, Bryn Mawr, Llanelly, Abergavenny, etc). I also worked the markets with him for a while ;D
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Ah! Bob, so you are a barrow boy too.
Gives one a very broad outlook on life, doesn't it ;D
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An other lad from Walthamstow here born in Thorpe coombe lived in corbett road went to wood st primary school and I remember walking the few yards to school with a hankie of my face because of the smogg! Them we moved to sinnott road and went to st andrews school and then moved up to William elliot whitingham school until I was 13 and we moved to Billericay thus ending my bit of being a londoner.
Mum was born in the Rising sun pub in woodford new road, but dad was a lincolnshire lad.
So am I a Londoner or an Essex boy?
David
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Ive been wondering about this and here seems to be the appropriate place to ask a question - my mother always said, with a great deal of pride I might add, that she was "born within the sound of Bow Bells".
Could you please enlighten me as to what this meant - I'm guessing the bells were a particular church (??) and was there a particular reason that she should be proud of the fact or was she just patriotic?
thanks, Viv :D
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Hi Viv,
see Reply #9 (http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,264644.msg2788394.html#msg2788394)here on the topic :)
Bob
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Ah! Bob, so you are a barrow boy too.
Shouldn't that be a Costermonger? ;D
Jean
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Monique - the marriage is Charles Chance and Jane Sheppard. I haven't explored them as much as I could . That is the next branch of my family that I am going to dig into when I have the time, I'm sure there's more that I can find about them. If I still get dead ends I shall put up a thread though.
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In response to DaveanPat, I know the Rising Sun on the Woodford Road very well. Lots of traffic on the front, now, but the back still faces on Epping Forest. It's a very beautiful bit of London, no wonder they used to do chara trips from the East End out to the "country" there.
;)
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Ah! Bob, so you are a barrow boy too.
Shouldn't that be a Costermonger? ;D
Jean
Ooooh, posh, aren't we ! Actually, it should barra' boy ;D
Funnily enough, among ourselves, a lot of us "barra' boys" used to use cockney rhyming slang, even in Wales. Spiced with various yiddish phrases borrowed from the jewish traders, it was a almost a seperate language :)
Bob
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Ah! Bob, so you are a barrow boy too.
Shouldn't that be a Costermonger? ;D
Jean
Not so Jean.
Strictly speaking, a costermunger sold apples. A wider meaning, they sold fruit & veg :)
The other barra' boys sold all kinds of stuff, clobber, cat meat, crockery etc... ;D
I know The Rising Sun, had a bit of slap n tickle out the back after a couple of shandys :o :D
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I know The Rising Sun, had a bit of slap n tickle out the back after a couple of shandys
ALMOST TOO MUCH INFORMATION Genie ... :o ... but interesting, nonetheless !! ;D
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The other barra' boys sold all kinds of stuff, clobber, cat meat, crockery etc... :D
... and of course .... SWAG (which meant Sold Without A Guarantee)
ALthough sometimes some of this was cheap, because it actually did "fell off the back of a lorry !" most of it was bought from reputable wholesalers and was "cheap at 'alf the price !!", mainly because it was produced in China and Hong Kong.
So whereas the 'high street shops' would sell trade-marked 007 toys and stuff
(yes it was in the 'original' James Bond days), we sold genuine 0071/2 stuff ;D
Bob
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2 of mine come from Stepney - does that mean I have cockerney blood? ;) ;D
I never considered myself anything really - I like to move around alot, my family are from all over the place, and us 'English' are mongrels anyway! :P
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Hi again, Everyone,
SO pleased to see that this thread has jerked into life again after lying dormant and neglected for nearly 2 years...
Used to really enjoy an evening at Walthamstow dogs, but hasn't it had to close down now? Surprised not to discover any Cockney rhyming slang on here, but anyway, up the apples and pears for me now and an early bedtime...
keith
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Yes, Keith, the 'Stow is dead and gorn :'(
That's the thing about London, it always there but it mutates.
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An interesting thread. I was born in Guys Hospital, within the sound of Bow bells and the street where the hospital is, Melvyn Bragg reckons is where the original cockney accent comes from. I moved from London when I was 4 but stayed often with my grandparents in southwark so i kept my accent. My ancestors are in london, but only from about 1840. Two separate branches came from Bristol but their descendents met in London and married. Members of one branch may have been transported after the Bristol riots, another branch may well have part-owned the ship or been the insurance broker for the ship they were transported on:)
Roofy
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Strictly speaking, if you were born between 1941 and 1961, there were no Bow Bells to be born in the sound of :)
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Strictly speaking, if you were born between 1941 and 1961, there were no Bow Bells to be born in the sound of :)
Why? Had someone nicked em ;D
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No, they were destroyed by WW2 bombing, and not re-installed until 1961 :)
During the war, church bells were only rung to signal an invasion anyway.
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A cockney is someone who is born within the square mile that is the original City of London,and therefore a true Londoner.
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Oranges and Lemons say the Bells of St Clements ;D
A Londoner may or may not have the distinction of being a Cockney :P :D
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Back to the original question...
My Father's family have lived in Southwark for the last 200 years, when my Grt x 4 grandparents married in the 1770s. The female line may be traced further back to the 1720s in the City and Westminster, so I guess this would make me a true Londoner.
But my Grt x 4 Grandparents are only part of the equation, as in total I should have around 64? Grt x 4 Grandparents, and they certainly do not all come from London.
Regards
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Very interesting, Dave,
And having recently got hold of a book about people in Pembroke at the turn of the 18th/19thC I've discovered there that my gt-gt-gt-grandmother Mary Ann WHITE was a witness at her brother Robert's wedding in Pembroke in 1812, yet by 1821 she was marrying my gt-gt-gt-grandfather Henry Pakeman GURNER in London. One does wonder when she actually went there, and how a young woman from far-west Wales met a young tea dealer from Cambridgeshire in London's sprawl...
keith
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I'd always considered my family to be Liverpool through and through but I really haven't got much further back in Liverpool than about 1800 on one line only. Like London, Liverpool is made up from people from everywhere who came to perhaps seek their fortune or at least try and get work.
So although I'm a mix of many counties and chuck in a few other countries, I'll always be a proud Scouser and a red.
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…good to see this thread twitch into life again after nearly six years of silence, Beeonthebay!
And I must say, tying up my very first post and now yours, that Arsenal was most lucky to get away with a scoreless draw against the Reds on Monday night…
Keith
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I am a Londoner by heritage as my great gran was born in Islington in 1889. She left London in 1919 when she met her second husband who was born in Durham. I am well pleased to have London ancestors.
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This is an interesting subject.
My parents always told me I had Dartford (Kent) in my blood as our family had been there forever. Not true - my mother seemed to have forgotten her father came from Devon in his late teens and settled in Dartford. Although her mother had been born and bred in Dartford, one set of grandparents moved around London and the Kent coast quite a lot but only touched base with Dartford to baptise their children. Her other set of grandparents were from Brighton and had been there for about four generations.
My father was nearer the mark - his father's line had been in Dartford for a couple of generations having also moved around most of Southern England but his maternal line also came from the Kent coast where they had been forever.
So, now I don't feel quite so bad having moved away. ;D
Rishile
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So sad to open this with a reply from GenieColgan ... she's sorely missed ....... :'(
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Lydart,
I imagine that that's the way of things, when a thread springs into life and then lies dormant for as long as six years in this case.
Genie Colgan looks as though she was/is a real London character, but I'm afraid I'm completely in the dark about what might have happened to her since 2009. Do PM me to let me know, or let the world know (or the world who is ignorant of what happened to her) on this thread, please…
Keith
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anniversary - August 29th 2012
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=614730.0
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My great gran's father was born just a few hundred yards from Oxford Street in Feb 1860 and his father was born in Soho and mother in Shoreditch. 3 places that eptomise London. Great grans mother was born in Sussex but grew up in Stoke Newington, Bow, Lambeth, Walworth then Holborn. The fact she was not born in London but grew up there is exciting. She was deffo a Londoner anyway, baptised there, educated there, grew up there, married there, had children there and lived there until she died. She spent 12 years in Bow, so she was an East Londoner mainly but spent her childhood in several areas of London. Her paternal grandmother Ann Roberts was born in Bermondsey, which was probably more Surrey as the street she was born down was near to Rotherhithe.
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Dawnsh,
Thanks so much for putting me in the picture about this very sad event from almost three years ago. I come on this site only sporadically, so am not quite up to speed with everything that has been happening in the Rootschat Community…
…and Coombs, very interesting details of this enduring Londoners theme, thank you…
Keith
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And tracing when ancestors arrived in London can be done if the oldest ancestor on a line was born in London according to a census or baptism, even if before the census era, more so with a less common name. A ancestor wed in London in 1784 and was from Norfolk originally, he had a rare name.
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By the by,
Saw Ralph Mctell perform "Streets of London" at Skegness a couple of weekends ago at their Folk Festival. I saw him play this in Norwich when I was a student nearly 50 years ago.
Some things just never change...
Keith
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Difficult to be a "true" Londoner when London has been gradually creeping outwards over the centuries.
SWMBO's father's family were plodding along as ag labs in rural Highgate when somebody came along and build houses all round them. They ended up as a rather complex tribe of chimney sweeps.