Family history, Pottery, Poulson, Shepherd

It all started out so well for John Walden Poulson…

Poulson brothers 1899 letterhead
Poulson brothers 1899 letterhead

John Walden Poulson – the Wastrel, my great grandfather – as the oldest son of Edwin Llewellyn Poulson should have taken over the family pottery business in Ferrybridge, Yorkshire.

Edwin and his older brother Thomas had built up the West Riding Pottery business over their lifetimes from what their father, Walden Poulson left when he died in 1861. As a rough gauge of how things had grown, Walden willed less than £300 (about £45,600 in 2025 terms) in 1861, but when his oldest son Thomas died in 1893, he left £6,650 (just over £1 milion).

John Walden started as a 19 year old clerk – at least that was what his first marriage certificate showed…

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Family history, Poulson, Shepherd

All in the family with wife #2

The Wastrel was a widower, but not for long – my great grandfather John Walden Poulson in 1901 was 31 with four young children and an earthenware manufactory to manage for his father (and owner) Edwin.

When I first wrote about the Wastrel’s second marriage in 2018, I had sent for the marriage certificate and puzzled over why it took place in Newcastle-on-Tyne, a long way from Knottingley where he and his family lived. Even today, the train ride is nearly 3 hours. The marriage was on February 25, 1901, so this wasn’t some summer holiday lark. As far as I knew, no one in the Poulson family had anything to do with anyone in Newcastle.

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Family history, Poulson

The wheels finally fall off for the Wastrel

Sydney Hotel, Goole, Yorkshire
Sydney Hotel, Goole, Yorkshire

John Walden Poulson – The Wastrel; my great grandfather – had so much going for him, but couldn’t seem to avoid turning every advantage into a tale of risk, broken promises, embezzling and very likely drinking and gambling. Some parts of his tale are very public (were covered in local newspapers), but lots of the details I’ll probably never know for sure. Today he might be diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but in the late 1800s even if there had been such a diagnosis, there wasn’t anything to be done other than watch a life unravel. Continue reading The wheels finally fall off for the Wastrel →

Family history, Jenkins

Richard Standish D’Ouseley’s complicated life

Rose Fitzgerald Meredith c 1914
Rose Fitzgerald Meredith c 1914

My stepmother Margo’s grandmother, Mary Sophie D’Ouseley, made a name for herself as a watercolor painter (a small selection of works is above) in the late 1800s. I remember Margo’s mother, Rose, had a few of  her mother’s paintings when we were kids – she lived with us for a few years in the 1960s when we were “between parents”. I had no idea about D’Ouseley family history – if Rose knew, she didn’t say, and of course we never asked at the time. Mary Sophie’s father, Richard Standish D’Ouseley, had died in 1886, long before Rose was born, and Mary D’Ouseley died when Rose was 2, so she never knew her mother’s parents.  Mr. & Mrs. D’Ouseley didn’t live together for a substantial part of their marriage so there’d have been no big family Christmas gatherings anyway. Fortunately, newspaper archives and online records help to sketch out parts of the D’Ouseley family’s story.

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Family history, Snover

George Sznarwakowski, Joseph and Arla

Gratiot Avenue, Detroit. Detroit Publishing Company, Library of Congress
Gratiot Avenue from Woodward, ~1900-1910

Detroit, Michigan in May 1902 had just celebrated its bicentennial, was America’s 13th largest city (& growing) and had a huge community of immigrants (12% of the population didn’t speak English, the highest percentage in the US). It would later become the Motor City, but even then, Detroit was the world’s largest manufacturer of heating and cooking stoves, built ships, produced cigars and tobacco, pharmaceuticals, beer, rail cars and heavy equipment. The city directory boasted of improvements in roads, water supply, street cars, public lighting and the number of books in its public library. Detroit was a city on the move.

1903 Detroit directory
1903 Detroit directory

Why is May 1902 in Detroit relevant? That’s roughly when George Sznarwakowski was conceived, probably in Detroit. He was born February 17, 1903. Papa – Robert Francis Sznarwakowski – barely knew his father. George died at 27 years old just before Papa’s fourth birthday.

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Family history, Poulson, Williams

Twenty-somethings in Portsmouth in the 1920s

Gamps in a swimming costume
Gamps in a swimming costume

My paternal grandparents married in St. Luke’s Church in Portsea (Portsmouth) in April 1923 after about 3 years of knowing each other. Portsmouth wasn’t a family home for either of them. Gamps and his sister Goggie had left their home in Knottingley, Yorkshire to live with their Aunt Mary in Portsmouth in 1910. In 1913, Goggie went to Chiswick Hospital to train as a nurse; in January 1914 their uncle died. August 4th Britain declared war on Germany and that day my 17-year-old grandfather lied about his age to join the 2nd Hants. Battery; on October 9th he was on his way to India.

Nanny’s family ran a tobacconist in Portsmouth after her father, Ernest Henry Williams, retired from the Army in 1907 – she was born in Malta during one of their overseas tours (two younger brothers were born in Bermuda). Whether they realized it or not, something Gamps & Nanny had in common was having moved around and being apart from most of their families.

I don’t know how they met but had long assumed it was via Gamps’ friendship with fellow bank clerk and cricket fanatic Ernie – Ernie was married to my grandmother’s older sister. Turns out there was a bit more to the story.

Gamps in India (seated, 2nd from right)
Gamps in India (seated, 2nd from right)
Portsmouth Evening News 5 Aug 1914-King needs you
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Family history, Procktor

William Procktor-poulterer, porkman & cheesemonger

Procktor ancestors

The jobs you see in old census records sound so odd to 21st century ears. Some no longer exist – stay maker, maltster, lime burner – and some have changed so much they’re barely recognizable – tallow chandler (candle maker & dealer), cordwainer (shoe maker), braid picker (selecting & wrapping cord & ribbon), wheelwright (made & repaired wheels).

My 3rd great grandfather, William Procktor, was a poulterer – he sold game and poultry – in the middle of the 19th century in the East End of London – he moved around Stepney & Shoreditch and one of his locations was 58 London Wall, the road along the long gone city walls. His father was a mariner from Bermondsey and his children all moved “up” as best they could and did not follow their father into the business. London was a very different place by the end of William’s life.

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Family history, Forster, Procktor

Procktor, Forster & Owen families blend in pre-WWI Stoke Newington

I usually think of London as “big” – it certainly felt that way when I was a student there in the 1970s. During recent research on my maternal grandparents and their forebears, I plotted homes (using census and electoral rolls) on an old ordnance survey map. Once I realized how short a walk it was from one house to the other, it became apparent that for three families, Stoke Newington was more like a village than part of the capital city of a huge empire.

To keep family stories from becoming too abstract, I’ve included another bow tie chart showing the relatives mentioned in this story – my mother’s parents, her grandparents, and one set of great grandparents. My mother was born in Chingford, Essex – her parents had moved away from Stoke Newington a year or two earlier – but Wynne’s first cousin, Olive Marie Procktor (whose son was a DNA match, leading to unraveling this tangled family connection) was born in Stoke Newington and baptized in the church in which her parents married.

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Family history, Poulson

From Knottingley to Chelmsford via Wakefield Girls’ High School and Newnham College Cambridge

My paternal grandfather’s oldest sister – 7 years older than John Ernest Llewellyn Poulson – was probably the reason her parents were married. She was born just 4 months after John Walden Poulson and Mary Ann Shepherd were married on Christmas Day 1889.

I knew her as Aunty Poul – half of Poul & Blacker, retired teachers, who lived in Chelmsford. Helen Blacker was the gym teacher at the Chelmsford Girls’ High School where both taught. I think I visited their house once – Emily died in 1966 – and don’t recall any stories about her other than my father saying she was the headmistress of a girl’s school (she wasn’t, but I think he believed that was a better part in the play if you were a “spinster” teacher) and him insinuating they were closeted lesbians! Aunty Goggie was the sister my grandfather was closest to as they had grown up together in Portsmouth; she was my Dad’s favorite aunt.

Uncovering more of Emily’s story showed an accomplished woman, even with the few pieces I’ve been able to gather via Ancestry, FindMyPast and the British Newspaper Archive.

Continue reading From Knottingley to Chelmsford via Wakefield Girls’ High School and Newnham College Cambridge →
Family history, Williams

Troubles with Shrivells- Brighton ancestors

Shrivell ancestors

I chuckled the first time I heard my paternal great-grandmother’s maiden name – Clara Shrivell. Not a polite thing to do, but she was long dead and my father wasn’t fond of her – described her as the old battle-axe – so my rudeness didn’t start any trouble. The trouble began as I tried to organize the family tree with so many large Shrivell families re-using first names, and living in the same area – Brighton. Before 1841 there was no census to help, and many parish records, most from St. Nicholas Church, are transcript only and missing helpful features like name & profession of father on marriage certificates so you know which Cornelius went with which William (or Thomas, or Robert, or…).

I’ve never met a Shrivell or lived in Brighton. The closest I come is maternal grandparents who retired to Worthing (next town over from Brighton) which we visited many times as children. Legions of retirees taking walks along “the front” – the paved pedestrian path running along the top of the beach – seem in no way connected to the 19th century’s hustle and bustle of bricklayers, ironworkers, watchmakers, servants, fishermen and families crowding the now-demolished cottages near Brighton’s beach. I am intrigued by the stories I’ve turned up about the variety of occupations and types of people. I even found the first example of a relative sentenced to transportation to Australia, along with a mixture of hardworking tradesmen, drunks, petty criminals, one city surveyor and assorted colorful characters.

Continue reading Troubles with Shrivells- Brighton ancestors →