Author Topic: Captain French - Kendal  (Read 38918 times)

Offline Yorkslass

  • RootsChat Aristocrat
  • ******
  • Posts: 1,533
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Captain French - Kendal
« on: Thursday 09 October 08 22:48 BST (UK) »
Hello all,

Can anyone tell me anything about Captain French, Kendal.
We have ancestors marrying there in 1851.
I've googled it, but all that comes up are maps and addresses for business etc.

It sounds as if it has some history, but I can't find anything!

Any help appreciated,

Yorkslass.
Norris, London 1800's
Bird, Gt Yarmouth 1800's
Smowton, Yarmouth/Norwich 1770
Dublack, Yarmouth
Binks, Essex
Wilcock, Lancashire
Kettlewell, Yorkshire

Offline Ecneps

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 13,604
  • Rosalie Mathilda Jönsson 1916-1999
    • View Profile
Re: Captain French - Kendal
« Reply #1 on: Thursday 09 October 08 23:53 BST (UK) »
In the 1841 census there's Captain French, but in the 1861 census, that seems to be Captain French Lane ~ here's a picture of that 'One of the narrow streets that climb the hillside westwards from Kendal's main street'
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/167454
and a map here  http://www.rootschat.com/links/04hj/ 

Barbara
`There are two lasting bequests we can give our children -  One is roots - the other is wings`- Hodding Carter

Census and bmd information is Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk and www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk

Lincs & Yorks - SIVILLS PREDGEN    Norfolk - EBBS WHITEROD ZIPFELL       Sweden - JÖNSSON CRONBERG ANDERSSON      Yorks - SPENCE HIDE HIRD      Durham - DALKIN SELBY RENWICK

Offline genjen

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 5,427
    • View Profile
Re: Captain French - Kendal
« Reply #2 on: Thursday 09 October 08 23:57 BST (UK) »
Captain French Lane is less than a hundred yards from where I am sitting right now. What I don't know is whether or not there is, or was, a chapel where a marriage might have taken place.

I think that it was originally an area of Kendal, rather than just the one street. If I can dig out my history of Kendal books tomorrow, I'll see what I can find.

Jen
All Census Look Ups Are Crown Copyright from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

ESS: Howe French Cant Annis Noakes Turner Marshall Makerow Duck Spurden Harmony
SCT: Howe Shaw Raitt Milne Forsyth Birnie Crichton Duncan McBeath Daniel Hay Robertson Jaffrey Smith McDonald Alexander Craighead
NRY: Bushby Smith Bland Iley Cunion Kendrew Thornbury Favell Lonsdale Crossland Rudd Pratt Gibson
WES; Dickenson Jackson Ewbank Waller
STS: White
SRY: Knight
DUR: Smith Littlefair
HAM: Williams Grose Lush Venson

Offline Yorkslass

  • RootsChat Aristocrat
  • ******
  • Posts: 1,533
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Captain French - Kendal
« Reply #3 on: Friday 10 October 08 00:07 BST (UK) »
Hello,

Thank you both for looking this up for me, Barbara and Jen.

Barbara, the photo is lovely - it looks like the place hasn't changed much in 150 years - pretty hillside cottages.  I do wish the enumerators had put actual street numbers on those censuses - then we could find the very place, as it's obviously still there.

Jen, how lucky you are to live there!  William Wilcock and Agnes Read were married at the Parish Church in Kendal on 23 March 1851, and their first son was born at Captain French 14 December 1852.

It is the name that intriques me -did a French Captain live in Kendal, and become so famous that a street was named after him?  I wonder.  I really would appreciate your looking in your Kendal Books.

Thanks again to you both,
Yorkslass

Norris, London 1800's
Bird, Gt Yarmouth 1800's
Smowton, Yarmouth/Norwich 1770
Dublack, Yarmouth
Binks, Essex
Wilcock, Lancashire
Kettlewell, Yorkshire


Offline Ecneps

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 13,604
  • Rosalie Mathilda Jönsson 1916-1999
    • View Profile
Re: Captain French - Kendal
« Reply #4 on: Friday 10 October 08 00:12 BST (UK) »
I've walked up the road, but never thought about the name until now, I can't seem to find anything about a Captain French, but the local library probably knows, if your books don't tell you, Jen!  From the National Archives site there are land documents etc. going back to the 1700s for Captain French Lane, so its history goes a good way back.

Barbara
`There are two lasting bequests we can give our children -  One is roots - the other is wings`- Hodding Carter

Census and bmd information is Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk and www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk

Lincs & Yorks - SIVILLS PREDGEN    Norfolk - EBBS WHITEROD ZIPFELL       Sweden - JÖNSSON CRONBERG ANDERSSON      Yorks - SPENCE HIDE HIRD      Durham - DALKIN SELBY RENWICK

Offline genjen

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 5,427
    • View Profile
Re: Captain French - Kendal
« Reply #5 on: Friday 10 October 08 00:26 BST (UK) »
I've just had a quick look where I thought my books ought to be but guess what... they've disappeared. And it being after midnight, I thought I'd leave it until morning to go rummaging. I know that one of my books has references to Captain French and how it got its name. And yes, failing all else, I can nip into the library and do a quick search there.

The Parish Church is two hundred yard in the opposite direction.  :D

Jen
All Census Look Ups Are Crown Copyright from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

ESS: Howe French Cant Annis Noakes Turner Marshall Makerow Duck Spurden Harmony
SCT: Howe Shaw Raitt Milne Forsyth Birnie Crichton Duncan McBeath Daniel Hay Robertson Jaffrey Smith McDonald Alexander Craighead
NRY: Bushby Smith Bland Iley Cunion Kendrew Thornbury Favell Lonsdale Crossland Rudd Pratt Gibson
WES; Dickenson Jackson Ewbank Waller
STS: White
SRY: Knight
DUR: Smith Littlefair
HAM: Williams Grose Lush Venson

Offline Ecneps

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 13,604
  • Rosalie Mathilda Jönsson 1916-1999
    • View Profile
Re: Captain French - Kendal
« Reply #6 on: Friday 10 October 08 00:53 BST (UK) »
Jen, I didn't mean that you should go to the library, just thought maybe Yorkslass could contact them if your books didn't have the story :)
Look forward to hearing about the Captain, curious that there doesn't seem to be anything about him on the web or local Kendal sites  :-\

Barbara
 :)
`There are two lasting bequests we can give our children -  One is roots - the other is wings`- Hodding Carter

Census and bmd information is Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk and www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk

Lincs & Yorks - SIVILLS PREDGEN    Norfolk - EBBS WHITEROD ZIPFELL       Sweden - JÖNSSON CRONBERG ANDERSSON      Yorks - SPENCE HIDE HIRD      Durham - DALKIN SELBY RENWICK

Offline Yorkslass

  • RootsChat Aristocrat
  • ******
  • Posts: 1,533
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Captain French - Kendal
« Reply #7 on: Friday 10 October 08 10:56 BST (UK) »
Good morning Jen,
I'm sorry you have to go rummaging- I know what you mean about things "disappearing".  It happens to me all the time!

I don't want to put you to any trouble - if you can't find your own book, please don't make a special trip to the library.

Thanks again,
Yorkslass
Norris, London 1800's
Bird, Gt Yarmouth 1800's
Smowton, Yarmouth/Norwich 1770
Dublack, Yarmouth
Binks, Essex
Wilcock, Lancashire
Kettlewell, Yorkshire

Offline genjen

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 5,427
    • View Profile
Re: Captain French - Kendal
« Reply #8 on: Friday 10 October 08 11:48 BST (UK) »
I found it - lurking behind a load of my partner's spy novels. How did that happen?

Here are some passages from a chapter named "Captain French Lane, Tenterfield and their characters" in Memories of Old Kendal by Jack O'Connor. Published 1961. I hope I'm not breaking the rules here and that the acknowledgement makes it legit!

"It would be difficult to separate Captain French from Tenterfield - one is part of the other. Captain French traditionally owes its name to a certain Captain French but our local chronology supplies the added name of Brougham's Lane, after the name of the parliamentary candidate in the 1818 election. Evidently, the inhabitants favoured the True Blues."

"In Speed's plan of 1614, this lane is called Rotten Row - or Routine Row - so named because the corteges went by that route from Soutergate to the old cemetry on Kirkbarrow, the church burial ground. The Captain French from whom it took its name was a churchwarden at the Parish Church in 1660. He it was, perhaps, who built most of the houses in the little thoroughfare."

" Like Fellside, Captain French and Tenterfield inhabitants had handlooms to provide them with extra bread and dripping."

" There is something about a community such as Captain French which is less noticeable in suburban areas. Interwoven into the fabric of the inhabitants' lives is something from the vocation they followed............As Kendal was divided from Kirkland by a tiny beck*, it follows that Captain French Lane had its territorial divisions. The clan spirit was as much in evidence as over the border. The place names are not recorded on the survey maps but Neddy Broo, Pig Hull Square, Back Folly and Bush Yard were thresholds over which you 'stept at thi peril.'"

" The names of the handloom weavers........included Tom Smith, Dick Troughton, Harry Wardley, William Wilcocks, Edward, Jackson, George Noble, Harry Megson and a Dixon whose forst name couldn't be remembered."


There is masses more of this but I don't want to post stuff which is not of interest so I'll stop there.

* the tiny beck in question is currently in spate, running literally just outside my front garden wall!

It was, like a lot of Kendal on this side of the river, basically an area of woollen industry. There are references to the tenterhooks on from which materials were stretched to dry. How many people when talking about being apprehensive about something, refer to being "on Tenderhooks", so misquoting the real term, of "on tenterhooks" which is what is is really all about.

If you want more, give me a shout.

Cheers,

Jen
All Census Look Ups Are Crown Copyright from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

ESS: Howe French Cant Annis Noakes Turner Marshall Makerow Duck Spurden Harmony
SCT: Howe Shaw Raitt Milne Forsyth Birnie Crichton Duncan McBeath Daniel Hay Robertson Jaffrey Smith McDonald Alexander Craighead
NRY: Bushby Smith Bland Iley Cunion Kendrew Thornbury Favell Lonsdale Crossland Rudd Pratt Gibson
WES; Dickenson Jackson Ewbank Waller
STS: White
SRY: Knight
DUR: Smith Littlefair
HAM: Williams Grose Lush Venson