All posts by jo.snover@gmail.com

Family history

On the street where you live…

Little Snagbrook Hollingbourne, Kent
Little Snagbrook Hollingbourne, Kent

Many of the family stories have some relationship to the place in which they occurred – Knottingley, Yorkshire, or Detroit, Michigan – or to what a house or location meant to the people in the story. Good vs. bad neighborhoods, city vs. country, showy and fancy vs. warm and cozy. Sometimes it helps to know how far apart or near each other people’s homes were – Google maps tells me that it would have taken Len (my maternal grandfather) 15 minutes to walk over to Winnie’s (my maternal grandmother’s) house. This picture is of a house I have very fond memories of – Little Snagbrook, where Jill & Sven, Tim, Kate and Clive (aunt, uncle and cousins) lived in the 1960s. This picture was from 2010 when I was lucky enough to (a) be allowed to walk around by the current occupant and (b) have a beautiful sunny day in September to light up all the old brickwork. Continue reading On the street where you live… →

Family history, Poulson

For the love of cricket

Knottingley cricket team 1908
Knottingley cricket team 1908

Full disclosure: I’m not a cricket fan. I played in the back garden at home, but other than knocking rose buds off our Dad’s bushes, I don’t think I accomplished much. The slow pace, oddball terminology – such as silly mid off for a fielding position – and difficulty of knowing who is winning make it hard for newcomers to follow.

David, team Captain, Holmwood Park
David, team Captain, Holmwood Park

Cricket does appear to have interested male Poulsons for generations though, starting with John Walden Poulson – the Wastrel – and his younger brother Thomas, both of whom played for the Knottingley Cricket Club (Thomas is second from right, back row). John Walden was captain of the Knottingley team (prior to life veering off the straight-and-narrow) – he took more than just a casual interest in the sport. That continued to his son – my grandfather, John Ernest Llewellyn Poulson – the bank manager, and grandson – my father, John David William Poulson, the actor/director – seen here looking very pleased with himself at his junior school, around 1938. Cricket has been supplanted by football with my brothers – three of them still play/coach as adults – although they all played cricket a little at school. Football, however, is more than just a casual interest… Continue reading For the love of cricket →

Family history, Poulson, Williams

Best friend, banker, brother-in-law…

My grandfather, John Ernest Llewellyn Poulson, took a job with Barclays Bank after leaving the Royal Field Artillery around 1920, apparently helped by his grandfather, Upstanding Edwin, who offered assistance to Gamps (given his father the Wastrel, John Walden Poulson, didn’t or couldn’t).

I initially thought Ernest Izod Arundel Ellis worked with Gamps at Barclays, but he worked for a competitor, Lloyds, initially in Southsea. I have only found a little information about Uncle Ernie; his father, James Morgan Ellis, was an explorer, described in an obituary as “…pioneer of the development of the British-owned islands in the central Pacific.” – but I believe Gamps and Ernie met as young bank clerks because a boarder introduced them. They were about the same age, both just leaving the service, both tall and handsome, both cricket lovers and bank clerks – and became friends.

Continue reading Best friend, banker, brother-in-law… →
Family history, Poulson, Shepherd

John Walden’s unraveling starts with a boat trip

Thomas standing in for John Walden Poulson
Thomas standing in for John Walden Poulson

Somewhere in the early 1900s, Upstanding Edwin’s oldest son – John Walden Poulson, the Wastrel – transitioned from promising oldest son of a local family to an intractable problem that defied family attempts to help him.

John Walden was captain of the Knottingley cricket team – younger brother Thomas played too. When Thomas married Lily Taylor in September 1901, the newspaper write up talked of the crowds outside the Wesleyan chapel. John Walden was there with his new wife Emily, and daughters Emily, 11, and Nellie, 10, were bridesmaids. But by the time his youngest brother Charles married in 1909, John Walden had vanished, although Doris (Aunty Goggie), 13,  was a bridesmaid and Ernest (I think Gamps, who was John Ernest Llewellyn), 12,  was a page. Something had changed… Continue reading John Walden’s unraveling starts with a boat trip →

Family history, Poulson

Thomas Llewellyn Poulson marries

Thomas with the cricket team
Thomas with the cricket team

On September 9, 1901, John Walden Poulson – The Wastrel – attended the wedding of his younger brother (and fellow cricket player) Thomas. There were apparently large crowds – for a small town – outside the Weslyan Methodist Church in Knottingley to wish the young couple well and watch local sort-of celebrities!

Two of my great aunts – Emily and Nellie – were bridesmaids and Mary Ellen, the three Poulson boys older sister, made the trip from Portsmouth. This was possibly the last family event where Edwin and all of his children were there. Both weddings took place at the local Wesleyan Chapel – the picture is at the head of the post. Continue reading Thomas Llewellyn Poulson marries →

Family history, Politics, Poulson, Shepherd

Edwin & John Walden – “…determined to carry the election at any cost”

Knottingley, Yorkshire
Knottingley, Yorkshire

John Walden Poulson – the Wastrel – was growing up. At the very end of 1889 the 19-year-old became a married man, and in May 1890 a father. By the 1891 census he was Pottery Manager, versus just  clerk on Emily Muriel’s birth certificate in 1890. In the Summer of 1891 his second daughter, Nellie Gwendoline was born and he was living next door to his father Edwin on Marsh End in Knottingley.

Over the next 5 years,  business and political affairs appeared to be progressing for John Walden. In December 1892 he was elected to the Ferry Fryston (Ferrybridge) school board and was involved in Liberal politics in the Pontefract district – following his father Edwin Llewellyn Poulson.

In February 1893, Pontefract (the district in which Knottingley and Ferrybridge was situated) had a by-election for Member of Parliament – the current MP resigned when his father died, making him Lord St Oswald… Continue reading Edwin & John Walden – “…determined to carry the election at any cost” →

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 sent for the marriage certificate for his second marriage, I was puzzled as to 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. Continue reading All in the family with wife #2 →

Family history, Poulson

Aunty Suzanne from Leeds

Ethel Suzanne as a young woman
Ethel Suzanne as a young woman

I don’t remember meeting Aunty Suzanne, but I do remember getting birthday presents of pretty – fancy – dresses from her, the sorts of clothes I didn’t normally have. Ethel Suzanne Poulson was actually a great aunt, the youngest of my grandfather’s (Gamps) five sisters.

I haven’t yet done a blog post on wife v2.0 for John Walden Poulson – the Wastrel – but Ethel Suzanne was born March 9, 1905, in Knottingley, Yorkshire, and her Mum was Emily, the Wastrel’s second wife. Just after her fifth birthday, her Dad took off for Canada and she spent a large chunk of her childhood with her maternal grandfather, John Henry Shepherd in Ferrybridge – he had variously been an inn keeper, horse dealer and farmer over the years. Continue reading Aunty Suzanne from Leeds →

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 had left when he died in 1861. As a rough gauge of how things had grown, Walden willed less than £300 (about £35,000 today) in 1861, but when his oldest son Thomas died in 1893, he left £6,650 (£820,000 today).

John Walden started as a 19 year old clerk – at least that was what his first marriage certificate showed… Continue reading It all started out so well for John Walden Poulson… →

Family history, Snover

Teenagers in Detroit – depression to war manpower boom

George Sznarwakowski death certificate
George Sznarwakowski death certificate

George and Robert Sznarwakowski were only 17 and 15 when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, but they were effectively adults courtesy of the hardships of the Great Depression and their father’s sudden death over 10 years earlier from “meningoccus meningitis” on February 21, 1930.

In reading old newspapers to flesh out the story told by census and  directories, this tumultuous period in a city that was on a meteoric rise came painfully into focus – a blend of family tragedy in losing their father with national and world events. Continue reading Teenagers in Detroit – depression to war manpower boom →