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Messages - Mike A

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1
Hello Perry,
Sorry, but I have no information at all on your 4th great-grandfather, Paul Harding. I have not heard his name before in my line, so it may be a completely different family.
Best of luck with your search.
Regards from Oz,
Mike A

2
Picking up this thread again:

Re Eliza Harding - she was born in Ballincollig on July 24 1864 (I have her birth certificate) but cannot find any further information about her. I have only found 15 death records for “Eliza Harding” and the only one of those that might fit is the death of a child named Eliza Harding in 1866 in Millstreet, County Cork. The birth year is given as “about 1863” and age as “3”. As I have been unable to find any other reference at all to Eliza, it may well be that she died at an early age.

Arthur Harding Jnr was born on May 9 1866 in Ballincollig, and was raised in Ireland until his early teens. (My brother John recalled that he had a strong Irish accent and “was a nice bloke”)). He apparently came to England for work when he was about 15 years of age - on Census night 3 April 1881 he was boarding with Robert and Jane Higgs at 9 Frogmore Street, Wandsworth, London, occupation “Labourer”.

Arthur Jnr married Minnie Margaret Allsop on March 7 1896, in Dartford, Kent. Minnie’s grandfather was James Harding and I understand that Arthur and Minnie were first cousins, which would make James also Arthur Harding Snr’s father. However, Arthur Harding Snr and Margaret Long’s marriage certificate records his father’s name also as “Arthur”, occupation “Law Clerk”. This doesn’t seem to fit any of the facts as I understand them and could be an error. As per my last post, if "James Harding" was in fact Arthur Snr's father, then my search is back on track!

Margaret Elizabeth Harding (my mother) was born in Wilmington, Dartford on April 21 1897 and the 1901 census records Arthur, Minnie and Margaret aged 3, living at 10 Dorset Terrace, Wilmington, Dartford, Kent.

Arthur Harding continued working as a labourer and my mother told me that at one stage when they were living in Hendon, Arthur had had to walk to St Albans for work. My Aunt, Edith Rose Harding, was born in 1907 at Fleetville, St Albans, Hertfordshire. This seems to coincide with a period when Arthur had found work at St Albans.

In 1911, Arthur, Minnie, Margaret (my mother) and Edith Harding were living at 36 Borthwick Road, West Hendon, London NW9. (1911 census). Arthur’s occupation is given as “General Labourer”.

Arthur died in Colindale on March 15 1942. I was born on 9 February 1942 and I remember my mother telling me that Grandad did not get to see me before he died (I don’t know why, as we lived close by in Hendon). Apparently at that time he was a doorman at the local picture house and he had walked across the road to post a letter, turned around and then simply dropped dead from a heart attack. This story was well-known in my family and is particularly remembered because my mother died on Feb 11 1964 in strangely similar circumstances – she had just posted a letter and was talking to a friend near the post box when she collapsed and was taken to the nearby Colindale Hospital with a brain haemorrhage and died a few hours later.

Minnie Harding died on January 7 1954 aged 87. Interestingly, she died while living with Edith in a small apartment block that had been built directly opposite the Colindale cinema and close to the spot where Grandfather Harding died after posting a letter. In her later years Minnie suffered some dementia and confusion, but I remember visiting her that day after school and her mind was quite clear. Aunt Edith told me to say goodbye as I probably wouldn’t see her again and sure enough she died later that day.

Edith had a very late marriage to James Waller in 1963. She had suffered from very bad arthritis from an early age and found walking very difficult. I don’t know what happened to her after that, or when she died.



3
Hi Annie!

Thanks very much indeed for this information - I don't think there can be much doubt that this is the correct entry for the marriage of the Arthur and Ellen Harding who are found back in Lancashire in 1891 and 1901.

The question that now remains is, "Is this the same Arthur Harding (my great-grandfather) who was married to Margaret Long in Ireland in 1866, when my Grandfather Arthur (jnr) was born? Given all the other information I was able to find in the Army records in Kew, it certainly seems likely!

The clincher now would be to find a death record for "Margaret Harding", nee Long, sometime between my Grandfather's birth in Ireland in 1866 and the marriage of Arthur Harding and Ellen Young in India in 1872.

Thanks again for the help.

Mike

4
Hi Daisy,

Thanks for all the info. You are not the bearer of bad news at all - quite the reverse, as you have saved me from heading off down the wrong track with the info about Arthur Coventry Harding and wasting hours of effort. Thank you!

The RC priest in Ballincollig would not let us look at the original records for ourselves   ::), but he searched through them himself while we were there and said he could not locate a marriage entry for Arthur Harding and Margaret Long for the period during which we thought they would have been married.

The puzzling part is that the Arthur Harding in Lancashire fits most of the criteria for my great-grandfather (i.e., born in Croydon, service with the Army, service in the East Indies, occupation in 1901 grocer/shopkeeper, etc) and if his wife's name was  Margaret it would in my mind have been pretty conclusive.

However, the IGI entry for his son John that you found earlier -

HARDING John
Birth; 24 Jul 1873 India Office Ecclesiastical Returns-Bengal Presidency...Misc...India
Father; Arthur HARDING
Mother; Ellen

clearly shows his mother's name to be "Ellen". From the census returns we also know that she was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, not Ireland, so this can't be an alternative name for "Margaret" Long. Since it is clearly a different person, the key question if this is the same Arthur Harding seems to be "what happened to Margaret?"

I have asked my Ballincollig contact, Mrs Jordan, if she can follow up to see if there is any record of Margaret Long's death there, but I will certainly follow up your suggestion to see if Margaret in fact died in the East Indies and Arthur remarried while over there.

There is no record of that event on his service record, however, and I did not have time while in London to check the Pay and Muster books for the late 1860's/early1870's to see if there was a marriage allowance entry paid to him.

I may also follow up your suggestion and get one of the children's birth certificates to determine Ellen's maiden name, but I'll do a bit more digging first.

It is entirely possible that there were two Arthur Hardings both born in Croydon and who both served in the Army in the East Indies, but I would not have thought the coincidence to be very likely. However, the single factor that now makes me think this a possibility is that whereas my great-grandfather was born in Croydon in April or May 1835 (from his Army discharge papers), the Arthur Harding in Lancashire was born about 2 years later (if the census records for 1891 and 1901 give his age accurately).

It's certainly a puzzle, but each little piece of information that comes to light is helping to unravel it.

Regards
Mike

5
Hi, CI - thanks for the offer.

If you happen to come across any census entries for LONG or O'BRIEN families in the Ballincollig area, I'd be very interested to see them.

One of the things I discovered while in Ballincollig is that there is probably a connection between these two families. My great grandmother was Margaret Long and the Long family may have been living in the Kilnaglory area. I think Margaret's mother was Judith "Brian" and 24 years  later (in 1864) the godparents of my grandfather's sister Eliza were Morgan and Julia "O'Brien". In 1866, my grandfather's godparents were Laurence O'Brien and Julia Manning (she may have been the Julia O'Brien of 1864).

I have to share a rather funny and very "Irish" comment that I got from the Aer Lingus check-in clerk at Cork airport when leaving there on Wednesday of last week. When I said that I was travelling from Cork to London and then on to Singapore, Sydney and Canberra  - (34 hours travel, phew!) - his reply was, "Sure, if you go any further, you'll be coming back...!"

Cheers,
Mike

6
Hi Daisy,

I'm back from my overseas trip including visits to the Family Research Centre in Islington, the National Archives in Kew Gardens and Ballincollig in Ireland. I found lots of very useful information which has unravelled the puzzle considerably.

I found my Great Grandfather Arthur Harding's Army Discharge Papers and also references to him in the Pay and Muster Books in the National Archives. These confirm that:
1. He was born in Croydon in April or May 1835;
2. He joined the Royal Artillery on 25 August 1857, serving in the 2nd battalion, 8th Brigade as a "Gunner/Driver" on enlistment;
3. He was promoted to "Collar Maker" on 1 February 1862 and was posted with the 8th Brigade to Ireland from about 1863 to 1866;
4. He was promoted to Corporal on 1 February 1867 in Woolwich and re-enlisted for a further ten years on 10 October 1867;
5. He was promoted to Sergeant Collar Maker on 2 October 1869 and transferred to 3 Brigade on 1 July 1877;
6. He was discharged on 2 October 1878 in Rawul Pindi, East Indies, after serving a total of 21 years and 39 days in the Royal Artillery, including several years in the East Indies (the actual figure has been partially scratched out and is hard to decipher but it looks like 10 (?) years and 294 days).

However. I have also located a marriage record for "Arthur Coventry Harding" - December Quarter 1871, in Richmond, Surrey and on the same record page is shown "Ellen Brooks".

An Ellen Brooks was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, in 1845 - this is two years out for the Ellen Harding shown in the 1901 census, but given the birthplace it seems a very likely possibility that this is the Ellen who married Arthur Harding. The only difficulty is matching the length of Arthur's service in the East Indies with the marriage date of 1871, but on the other hand it does fit with John Harding's birth to Arthur and Ellen Harding in the East Indies in 1873!

While I was in Ballincollig I was able to obtain the Baptismal Certificates for my Grandfather and his sister, which confirm that their parents were Arthur Harding and Margaret Long. Margaret was clearly from a Catholic family, hence their baptism in the RC church. I also believe I have located her Baptismal Certificate from the same RC church in Ballincollig. She appears to have been born and baptised on 5 April 1840. Her parents were John Long and Judith Brian. Now here's a fascinating fact - the RC church also found a birth/baptism entry for another Margaret Long, born to the SAME parents, but 5 years earlier! The godparents recorded on that certificate are different (though there is a surname connection), so this is not a duplicated entry with a different date. It seems highly likely that the first baby Margaret died and the second baby girl (my Great-Grandmother and Arthur's wife) was named after her.  Apparently this was a fairly common practice in those days.

What happened after my Grandfather was born in 1866 I don't know - but Arthur Harding senior clearly returned to England in late 1866 and re-enlisted in 1867.

I think it is possible that Arthur senior left my grandfather and his sister Eliza with their mother or her family when he returned with the Army to England and I am guessing that perhaps Margaret Harding nee Long died sometime after that. (I doubt that the marriage would have broken up because, being Catholic ,Margaret would not have agreed to a divorce which would have precluded Arthur marrying Ellen in 1871, if indeed that is what actually happened).

This certainly seems the most likely scenario at the moment and has opened up several more possible leads.

There is lots more I could tell you - this was a VERY rewarding trip for me! - but this post is already rather lengthy! Thanks for the leads that you provided, which helped me to match all this info.

Cheers,
Mike

7
Daisy,

Thank you once again! That is definitely the right family - Arthur born in Cork, Minnie born in Wimbledon, Surrey, and Margaret Elizabeth Harding, b.  21 April 1897 in Wilmington, Kent (my mother). This picture shows her at the age of about ten, I think.


I would never have thought to look under "Hussey" - it's too far removed from "Harding"! The Internet is a wonderful resource, but we do have to rely on the accuracy of the transcriptions.

Re your previous post, could you let me have the link to the information on 68 Battery RA, please? I did a search and Google found the first line of the text you posted, but when I tried to open that site, I got an error message saying it could not be found.  ???

Thanks again,
Mike

8
Hi Daisy,

Thank you for this interesting information - it is most helpful and may assist in narrowing my search down considerably.

Regards
Mike

9
Got it at last! Now you can see who we are talking about.

O.K., back to the thread topic - I have to thank Leofric most sincerely for the lead to my Grandfather's sister, Eliza, whose existence I was not previously aware of. I've now received Eliza's birth certificate from Mrs Jordan in Ballincollig and it reveals a few more interesting facts! Eliza was born on 24 July 1864, in Ballincollig. Her parents, Arthur Harding and Margaret Harding (nee Long) are clearly identified as being the same couple on my grandfather's birth certificate, and Arthur senior's occupation is again given as "Collar Maker, Royal Artillery".

However, he is shown on this certificate as resident in "Curragh of Kildare", so sometime between 1864 and 1866 he must have moved from the Curragh Military Barracks to the Ballincollig Barracks. There are records of graves in the British military Graveyard in Ballincollig between 1860 and 1865 belonging to soldiers of the Royal Artillery in N°. 2 Battery, 9th Brigade, H Battery, 6th Brigade, and E Battery, 8th Brigade. All this lends credence to the theory that he was a British soldier born in England and posted to Ireland. This gives me some specific information on which to base my search when I visit the National Archives in May.

Mrs Jordan has also uncovered the fact that Eliza was baptised in the Catholic Church in Ballincollig on 24th July 1864 and Arthur was baptised there on 18th May 1866. (The birth certificate gives her name as 'Eliza', but the baptismal record uses the full name 'Elizabeth' - perhaps she was named after Arthur's sister?). On both occasions the sponsors were Laurence O'Brien and Julia Manning. Julia Manning is listed as the informant on Eliza's birth certificate. Laurence O'Brien is listed as one of the  principal landholders in Ballincollig in the 1875 directory. Since my mother was raised in the Church of England, I always understood that my grandfather and grandmother were C of E and I assumed that his parents were therefore Church of Ireland. Just goes to show you shouldn't assume ANYTHING in this game!

Next line of search is the Ballincollig Catholic Church records to see if we can locate the marriage of Arthur Harding and Margaret Long. I don't know if my great-grandfather was Catholic or not, but if not, perhaps Margaret Long was and Arthur agreed to have the children baptised in the Catholic Church. This may lend further credence to the idea that Arthur senior and his sister Elizabeth were born in Surrey, while Margaret was born in Ireland and met Arthur when he was posted there with the Royal Artillery. However, the County Kildare reference has thrown another yet factor into the equation when searching for information on her and her family!

As Mrs Jordan said in her email to me, the puzzle unfolds slowly......!!

Mike

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