19th Century
Sail and Steam
When I was a child, there were still working horses on the streets, though motor cars had been around for over fifty years. The milkman, the coal merchant and the rag-and-bone man all had horses. One of my earliest children’s books had a picture of a milkman’s horse ‘eating its breakfast out of a nosebag’. … Continue reading
The King of Instruments
Do you know your diapason from your dulcet treble? Would you recommend unisonal duplication of manual stops and couplers? Do you approve of Robert Hope-Jones’s innovations? To whom would you attribute the introduction of the ‘Melody attachment’? My great-grandfather, Thomas Casson, designed church organs at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th … Continue reading
Some Victorian weddings
I have just heard of a wedding taking place this summer which is to cost £55,000, a shocking expenditure in my opinion. But will it be any more festive than some of the weddings that took place between 1863 and 1870, uniting various members of my family then resident in Merioneth, North Wales? The most … Continue reading
The redoubtable May Osmund Alonzo Durant
As promised in my last blog, I now reveal some of the history of this remarkable man. He was born at Tong Castle, Shropshire, in May 1816, the youngest of 14 legitimate children. We know little about his childhood, except that by 1822 his mother left the family home for the last time. At the … Continue reading
A Detour with the Durants
Some time ago I blogged about the last will and testament of one of my ancestors. He had stipulated that if the husband of his married daughter Catharine so much as crossed the threshold of the family home, she would lose her inheritance. I was not particularly interested in following up this daughter, as the … Continue reading
Lloyd George Knew My . . .
. . .well, not my Father, but my great-great uncle. We usually think of family history as covering the lives of people who were not public figures in their own right, but they sometimes appear at the periphery of the lives of the famous. Randal Casson (1850 – 1914), younger brother of my great grandfather, … Continue reading
What Do I Think I’m Doing?
At the last meeting of the Writing Family History group, we thought it would be good to take stock of our projects, so that’s what I’m doing. Three years ago I was approaching near-retirement and clearing up my late parents’ house, my stepfather having died in the autumn of 2010, leaving some papers about my … Continue reading
An old legal document
Further finds unearthed while clearing the house include an impressive legal document, handwritten on parchment. Measuring 60cm x 75 cm approx it is an indenture dated 11th March 1859 between Sarah Newnham Hall of Paddington Green [a widow] and Thomas Tidy of Titchbourne St, a builder.It is an 80 year lease which refers to a … Continue reading
Mrs Chapone’s Advice
In this season of New Year resolutions, there is usually an explosion of self-help books, instructing us how to keep fit, healthy and happy. It so happens that I have just started to peruse a self-help book from the 18th century, having reached the appropriate date in my ‘shitty first draft’ . One of the … Continue reading
The Right to Bear Arms
One of the next things on my To Do list is to visit the College of Arms, having had abolutely no joy in e-mailing them or attempting a telephone conversation. I want to know the full significance of three sealed documents which have come down my family from the early 19th century. The first … Continue reading