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    For some months a small band of us with distant connections to a certain Grenville Miall have been unearthing the progress of Grenville Miall and what a story it has turned out to be.    It is still not finished because we cannot find out what he was up to in 1871, why he used the assumed name of Walter Charles Washington when he actually did get married in 1873 or whether he was really deceased by 1891.

        Grenville was born in the New Forest Workhouse at Eling Hampshire in the second quarter of 1848.     His parents George Horatio and Jane Miall who had not been long appointed to the positions of Master and Mistress of the Workhouse when on the 9th January 1848 there was something of an uprising in the Workhouse by many of the inmates.   Those who may be interested in the long story of the uprising can find it in the Hampshire Advertiser of 15th January, 1848.    Grenville’s older brother George Pellew Sallaway Miall who was born in 1832 was fortunately not in the workhouse at this time but may have been living with his grandparents in Portsea.

Births Jun 1848
Miall    Grenville New Forest  8  210

         In 1861 the 12 year-old Grenville was living with his brother George P S Miall who at the age of 28 years was a National School Master living at Midhurst near Chichester, Sussex.

        At this point of time we can only guess where Grenville may have been for the 1871 census.  If he was telling the truth when he married Mary Jane Deakin/Dakin in 1873 then he might just have been a Soldier of the 5th Dragoon Guards, stationed at Hulme, a suburb of Manchester very close to Mary Jane’s home in Ardwick.     On the other hand, the name he assumed at that time was totally different for he was calling himself ‘Walter Charles Washington’ and his father, now a Gentleman, had become Horatio Walter Washington.

     Some two or three days ago I was looking through photos of my late wife Edith who passed in Cairns in May 2007.    She had told me about one photo in particular of herself and her friend Judith Jensen, both nurses at Footscray Hospital, Melbourne in the early 1950's.    The photograph was taken in Trafalgar Square after their voyage from Melbourne in the Otranto Aug/Sep 1955.   They both went on to Copenhagen which I had always thought to be Judith's home.  Ede worked there as a live in Nanny for some months before going to Scotland where she married her first husband Dick Stewart.

     The passenger list gives Judith Jensen birth date as 31st October, 1931, travelling on a Danish passport, country of last and of future residence, Australia.

      Being inquisitive I decided to see if I could find more about Judith in Ancestry and there is a tree which does have her being born in 1931, but in Australia with her father being Olaf Waldemar Herman Jensen of Copenhagen who migrated to Australia in 1909.    Olaf or Oluf married a Dorothy O'Brien in Melbourne in 1924 and they lived in Newport Melbourne but later on in Williamstown where Judith grew up, went to school and became a Nurse.

      It more or less all fitted in until I found that this Judith Jensen had married Peter Nelson in 1952 and they had a son John born 1954 who died in 1957.   So now it looks most unlikely that this could be the same Judith Jensen, Ede's old friend.    However, remembering that Ede did go to High School in Williamstown as did Judith, I can't help wondering since both born same year, both nurses, both with Copenhagen ancestry.

     I then turned attention to Olaf Jensen and again one public, and two private trees popped up in Ancestry.    A quick look in Family Search and I found his birth registry record, born Oluf Valdemar Herman Jensen 9th February 1890 and baptised there in May 1890.

     There was another Oluf/Olaf Valdemar Jensen born in Copenhagen with an age in 1917 that virtually matches the above.    However I have now looked at all of the first Oluf's war records and they just cannot be one and the same.

      Nevertheless there is more mystery in the war records for these include a letter to the Australian Military via the Danish Consul in Melbourne from an unknown wife in Copenhagen.

    Malcolm

   I am currently doing my best to transcribe pages I purchased from National Archives on a Land litigation between William Hutton of Eccleshill with Edward Ackroyd in 1685.   I can work out all the land names in the dispute for there was what looks like the same dispute a year earlier and the details of that have been transcribed and published on the net from the Cause Case Court.
CP.H.3830
Reference:CP.H.3830
Repository:Borthwick Institute GB 193
Court:Consistory
Case: Tithe (wheat, barley, oats, hay)
Details:13 Pieces; No deposition; Has libel; Has sentence
Outcome:  defendants won
Date:17/7/1684 — 11/12/1684
Participant:Edward   Ackroyd [Aikeroyd;  Akeroyd; Aikroid]
Role:plaintiff
Details:male; yeoman
Location:Calverley (YorkshireWestRiding)
Place(s):Stone Stile (Stonesteele) : undefined
Calverley (Calverley) : ecclesiastical parish
Notes:farmer of tithes
Participant:William   Hutton [Hutton]
Role:defendant
Details:male
Location:Bradford, St Peter (YorkshireWestRiding)
Place(s):Eccleshill  (Eccleshill, Ecklesall, Ecclesall) : undefined
Bradford, St Peter (Bradford) : ecclesiastical parish
Participant:Elizabeth   Fairbank [Fairbancke;  Fairebanck]
Role:defendant
Details:female
Location:Bradford, St Peter (YorkshireWestRiding)
Place(s):Eccleshill (Eccleshill) : undefined
Bradford, St Peter (Bradford) : ecclesiastical parish
Location:Near Middle Field (Neare Middlefeild, Greate Middlefeild, Neare Midlefeild) : fieldname
Location:Far Middle Field (Farre Middlefeild, Farr Middlefeild) : fieldname
Location:Over Fagley (Over Fagley) : fieldname
Location:Johnson's Fagley (Johnson's Fagley) : fieldname
Location:Fletcher's Fagley (Fletcher's Fagley) : fieldname
Location:Walkers Fagley (Walkers Fagley, Aikeroyds Fagley) : fieldname
Location:Calverley (YorkshireWestRiding)
Place(s):Calverley (Calverley) : ecclesiastical parish
Stone Stile (Stone Steele, Stonesteele) : undefined
Location:Milner Close (Milner Close) : fieldname
Location:Cole Pit Close (Cole Pitt Close) : fieldname
Location:Phagleys Close (Phagleys Close) : fieldname
Location:Wood Close (Wood Close) : fieldname
Location:Springwell Close (Springwell Close) : fieldname
Location:Nether Field (Netherfeild) : fieldname
Location:South Field Close (Southfeild Close) : fieldname
Location:Old Leylands Close (Old Leylands Close) : fieldname
Location:Rycroft Close (Rycroft Close) : fieldname
Location:Norman's Plot (Norman's Plott, Norman's Flatt) : fieldname
Location:Meane Close (Meane Close) : fieldname

      One great thing I've learned from all this is that the Church had sold off their rights to collect Tithes to Land owners and Hereditary Tenants who more or less owned the land in many cases.
      This as to be expected led to disputes over who should have the tithes.

      I can tell by a land memorial of 1829 that my Hutton ancestors were intestate but could claim the land because parents, grandparents etc. were there, and the Deeds show them being on the same land called Near Radfield, Middle Radfield and Far Radfield.

      The earliest date on the Deeds is 1712 just 32 years later than the 1685 court case and so I think it possible that Middlefeild (e before i ? ) later on became Radfield.

       Are there any old maps for that 17th century period in Eccleshill?    I think there could be judging by the short example of tithe records which the West Yorks Archive Office have on one of their pages.

        'Farmer of Tithes' -   How can you farm tithes?

 Malcolm

 It is very rare indeed that we come across something so beautiful in our research that it has to take precedent over everything that follows.    I knew nothing about John Baron a Poet of Blackburn until he came up in a break-through news report in the Preston Herald 12th December, 1863, about William Lonsdale’s migration to Melbourne.    This mentioned that his brother-in-law was a local poet.    Since we had already found William Lonsdale living with his sister Nancy and her husband John Baron in 1851 it had to be him and this Poem by John Baron comes shining through:
TO NANCY.

                      Oh; listen, fond Nancy;
                      Methinks I could fancy
No other sweet creature that moves here below;
                      Wherever I meet thee,
                      With pleasure I greet thee—
Thy image shall guide me wherever I go.
                      Oh, were I thy true love,
                      My vows I'd renew, love,
And pledge them no more to be broken by me;
                      Then do not despise me,
                      For dearly I prize thee—
My heart, dearest Nancy, is centred in thee.

                      Thy kindred may slight me,
                      Yet, love, I'd delight thee,
If thou would'st go with me to some shady grove;
                      For there would I tell thee
                      What dangers befel me,
When far from thy bosom my fault was to rove.
                      Thy smile like the morning,
                      My dark mind adorning,
Dispels from my soul the thick gloom of despair;
                      Like cyrstal drops streaming,
                      Thine eyes, love, are beaming,
Dispersing a halo which none can compare.

                      Then give me thy hand, love,
                      'Tis all I demand, love,
And angels shall greet us with smiles from on high;
                      No grief shall confound us,
                      When wedlock has crown'd us,
For then will I wipe the dark tear from thine eye.
                      Thy children shall bless thee,
                      And tenderly press thee,
Whilst thou on their lips shall imprint the sweet kiss;
                      And when Death shall smite us,
                      Our God shall invite us
To regions rich-flowing with comfort and bliss.


     The help we now need may lie within records possibly held at Blackburn Library or even the County Court records.     There was an article in the Preston Chronicle June 19th, 1858 under a heading about the Quarterly Meeting of the Members of the Blackburn Philanthropic Burial Society and a sub heading, The Claim of the Friends and Relatives of the late Peter Lonsdale.
     In this dispute we read that Peter Lonsdale’s contribution card was held by a Mary Duerden and she had also been paying his contributions until he died in the Blackburn Workhouse in March 1858.    It went on to tell that Mr John Baron who was also a claimant and a brother-in-law of the deceased, had said that the matter would shortly be tried in the County Court.