Henry Perryman: a parish constable?

The last post was about my ancestor's brother, Alfred Perryman. This one is about their father, Henry Perryman. Coincidentally the year 1842 features again.

Henry and Elizabeth Perryman lived in Buckinghamshire, England at Dorney or the hamlet of Eton Wick just down the road. Henry worked as a servant or agricultural labourer.

By 1842 (the year his son Alfred was in court for some shady dealings involving fish and his younger brother John was sent to jail for dangerous driving*) Henry was 50 years old. This notice appeared in the paper:

Windsor and Eton Express, 1 Oct 1842

It refers to a meeting of ratepayers in Eton for the purpose of agreeing on a list of 17 men in the parish recommended to the justices of the peace to appoint as parish constables. Henry Perryman is the last name on the list. After 1842 (The 'New Constabulary Act' mentioned in the headline above) Chief constables were appointed at the quarter sessions for each hundred and parish constables were appointed by the Justices of the Peace. A Parish Constable was unpaid (except for expenses) and it was an annual appointment. The position was almost obsolete because the Parliament in 1839 passed the County Police Act that gave counties the chance to create paid police forces throughout the country. Prior to this, for hundreds of years, constables had been appointed to help keep order in the parish. The job was actually onerous and unwanted because they could be called on to escort prisoners, collect taxes, police non-attendance at church, police alehouses, watch out for drunkenness, detain fathers of bastard children, appear at inquests and so on.

If the Justices approved Henry's appointment I wonder if this was the first time he had been called upon to act as constable. And I wonder if he welcomed the task. By 1842 his youngest child was 15 so he didn't have a large young family to support so he probably had more time to devote to the task. It would be interesting to have a look at the Parish Chest for the area because that's where the constables' accounts were kept.

Update: My friend Jo has found an article, published a month after the one above, that confirms Henry's appointment to the constabulary.

Windsor and Eton Express, 12 Nov 1842

* Read about it here

Alfred Perryman in court

My grandmother's grandfather, Zechariah (Zachary) Perryman, migrated to Australia in 1849. Zechariah and his siblings were all born in Dorney, Buckinghamshire, across the Thames River from Windsor Castle. This post is about one of his older brothers, Alfred Perryman. (According to Family Tree Maker Alfred is my '3rd great uncle'.)

In  July 1842, when Alfred was about 19, he was working as a fishmonger and his actions required a court attendance. It was reported in the local paper, the The Windsor and Eton Express on 9 Jul 1842:

Windsor Police - Monday [Before John Clode, Esq.,(Mayor) and Robert Blunt, Esq.] 

Alfred Perryman was charged with embezzling the value of some fish he had been entrusted to sell for John Fullilove [?]. The case appeared however not to amount to the charge, and the magistrates dismissed it, advising them to settle it between themselves.

In December of the same year Alfred was in court again, this time as a witness. Apparently he was a passenger in a cart being driven by his uncle, John Perryman, when he crashed into a cart being driven in the opposite direction. According to the report in The Windsor and Eton Express, on 10 Dec 1842, the driver of the other cart was thrown off but John Perryman failed to stop and render assistance. Uncle Alfred supported his uncle by stating that Charles Cannon appeared to be drunk and driving erratically but the magistrates weren't convinced. They were particularly unimpressed by John Perryman's failure to stop.

It's worth reading the final discussion between John Perryman and the magistrate just for entertainment value.

John Perryman, of Dorney, was charged with wilfully driving his cart against the cart of Charles Cannon, of High Wycombe, chairmaker, and damaging it, and also with causing severe injuries to the said Charles Cannon.

The complainant, an aged and infirm old man, stated that on the afternoon of the 19th of November, as he was driving his pony and cart (in which there were 17 chairs) along the road leading from Slough to Salthill, he saw at some little distance the defendant driving his cart in the opposite direction. Witness drew to his own side, close to the grass, leaving, as he said (for he had since measured the width of the road) full 14 feet of road for the defendant to pass him. The defendant, however, crossed the road, and drove against his cart, breaking one of the shafts off, and pitching him into the road on his head, his pony going on, one of the wheels passed over his leg, and he was dragged along for some yards until he let go his hold of the reins. His head and leg were much bruised by the occurrence.

The defendant, who was a perfect stranger to him, drove off without rendering him the least assistance. Witness returned to Eton directly, and went to the Rev. Mr. Cookesley.

Mr. Cookesley said when the complainant came to him he was certainly in a very bad state from his injuries, and he was covered with mud. The witness added, that the same evening, being unable to go home from the injuries to himself and the damage to his cart, he went to Mr. Harding's of Eton, where he saw the defendant, and told him he must recompense him, but he refused to pay anything. Witness had ever since, until yesterday, been confined to his bed. The damage done to his cart was about £1, but he did not know what amount his doctor's bill would be.

Mr. Nathaniel Bacon, of Eton, said he was going along the same road and met the defendant in his cart, directly after which he saw the complainant and his cart, damaged as described. Complainant asked the witness to take notice of his wheel tracks, which he did, and he found that there was plenty of room, for the defendant to have driven by, for the complainant's cart wheels tracks were within five or six inches of the grass on his proper side.

The defendant, in his defence, said the complainant was driving in a zigzag direction from one side of the road to the other, and that it was he who caused the collision. The complainant appeared, from his manner of driving, to be drunk, and his (defendant's) nephew, who was in the cart with him, noticed that before the carts met each other.

Mr. Cookesley said, the complainant came to him directly after the occurrence, and he was perfectly sober.

The defendant called his nephew, Alfred Perryman, who swore to the best of his belief that Mr. Cannon was drunk; he inferred so from his driving from one side of the road to the other, and he remarked it to his uncle at a distance of twenty or thirty yards.

Mr. Cookesley said the conduct of the defendant was most brutal in leaving the complainant in such a state without offering him the slightest assistance.

The magistrates inflicted a fine of £4 5s and 15s costs making £5.

Defendant - I can't pay it, and I won't pay it.
Mr. Tower - Then you will have six weeks hard labour in the House of Correction at Aylesbury.
Defendant - Very well, then I will go to prison.
He was then ordered to be committed, on which he asked if he might not be allowed some time to pay the money.
Mr.Tower - No, you said you would go to prison.
Defendant - I thought, sir, you meant you would give me six weeks to pay the money [a laugh]
Mr.Tower [laughing] - Oh!  No, after what you said, you must go to gaol.

He was then taken away in custody.

Alfred married Emma Ayres three years later, in 1845, and continued to work as a fishmonger. In the 1851 census they were living in Peascod Street in the parish of Crewer, a street that is a stone's throw from Windsor Castle, and had a son Edward aged nine. Alfred Perryman died at Windsor in 1854. He would have been only 33 years old. His son, Edward Perryman aged 19, was working as a butcher's man in Peascod Street in 1861. He was probably working with his stepfather Richard Cox, a master butcher, whom his mother had married in 1858.

Peascod Street, Windsor. The castle is in the background.

Sepia Saturday: The Church Army, WW1

When my husband's grandfather, Roy Phelan, was an Aussie soldier on leave in London he purchased a handful of postcards depicting the Church Army Soldiers' Hostel and posted them home. They show various rooms within the building that were used by soldiers on leave or recuperating from illness - the dining room, the recreation room, the bedrooms - and must have been popular because there are numerous images of the same postcards on the web. Roy may have stayed there as he was a man of faith and was also injured in 1918.

The hostel was set up by the Church of England in the Buckingham Palace Hotel and run by the Church Army. The Army also set up refuge huts in France.

Postcard of the Church Army Soldier's Hostel, Buckingham Palace Hotel

Soldiers in the canteen, Church Army Soldier's Hostel

An Australian called Canon David Garland (who was the architect of Anzac Day) talked about the Church Army in a speech in Australia 1917. This is an extract from that speech:

Extract from a speech by Canon David Garland, the architect of ANZAC Day, November 1917.

And this article was published in a Queensland paper in 1917. I found several similar articles in other Australian and New Zealand papers.

Brisbane Courier, 22 May1917

Roy also sent this photo home. It shows food canteens being carried to through  the trenches to soldiers serving on the Front. The text has been hand written but there's nothing written on the back.

WW1 Postcard. Carrying food up the front line on the Western Front.

This blog has been written in response to the Sepia Saturday prompt that shows a Salvation Army magazine photo of a soldier eating. You may find some more soldiers marching on their stomachs over at Sepia Saturday.

Thomas Round's 'brave death'

Thomas Round was a first cousin of my great-grandfather. His parents were William Round and Elizabeth Chaundy who lived at Prahran, Victoria. I've had Thomas' name on my tree for a few years but nothing else other than his birth and death dates because he died in Victoria when he was 15 years old.... I thought.

Last night I was Troving - just checking this and that, following random thoughts - when I landed on this newspaper article.

 The Telegraph, St Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra Guardian, 17 Jul 1875

That's a surprise!! Thomas didn't die in Victoria. He was lost overboard from the barque 'Formosa' off Cape Leeuwin, Western Australia. So, of course, I then searched Trove for more articles about the incident.

The first article I found was a poem that his father wrote. William Round, a law clerk, was a prolific contributor to newspapers (I've written about him here ) so the fact that he published a poem wasn't a surprise, and it really is quite poetic. The first poem has the footnote 'Europa' and the second 'Camellia'. I like the first better and can't work out if William was the author of the second.

The Telegraph, St Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra Guardian, 24 July 1875

IN MEMORIUM SACRA

THOMAS ROUND

(Who was lost overboard the barque “Formosa” off Cape Leuwin, on the 4^th inst.)

Last year, ‘mid hearty farewells, the “Formosa” sailed away,

We wished our sailor boy God-speed, and a merry Christmas Day,

And a safe return from Shanghai, that glowing tropic land;

We little dreamed no more on earth to grasp his honest hand.

He sent us long, long letters across the ocean’s foam.

To tell us of the sights he’d seen, and how he longed for home,

Anticipation cheered our hearts and his; in two weeks more

The barque would enter Melbourne’s port, and Tom would come ashore.

We thought too slowly rolled the hours before should dawn the day

That brought us him for whom we made such preparations gay;

The children prattled merrily about their sailor brother,

His room was made all ready by his fond and happy mother.

The ship arrived in safety, but all too soon we learned

That he whose merry face we longed to see had not returned.

His fellow-sailors told the tale (a tale, alas, told of),

At duty’s call he faltered not, but hurried up aloft.

While ‘midst the heavy breakers the ship was madly tossed,

And in that tempest wild our sailor-boy was lost. 

Ah, bitterly we grieve for him, it seems too hard to bear,

Our darling boy for whose return we offered many a prayer.

But He holds the waves within the hollow of His hand

Knows what is best though first it seems so hard to understand;

He cheered his sailor-followers on the Lake of Galilee,

He stood beside our sailor-boy in that dread storm at sea.

And ’mid the grief of nature, we fondly realise

The thought that Tom has entered port – the port of Paradise,

His Saviour-captain gave the word, twas His divine behest,

Our sailor-boy has landed at that haven fair of rest.

EUROPA

The Telegraph, St Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra Guardian, 24 July 1875

According to several newspaper reports young Tom fell from the foretopgallant yard during a stormy night and was drowned. The ship was unable to turn around to search for him.

The Age, 16 July 1875

The Telegraph, St Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra Guardian 17 Jul 1875

The Tasmanian 24 Jul 1875

I broadened my search of Trove newspapers and found another article, published three years later, that details how the Tom Pearce who survived the famous shipwreck of the 'Loch Ard' went to the same school (Mr McKenzie's Prahran Academy) as young Tom Round.

The Telegraph, St Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra Guardian 27 Jul 1878

And finally, the reason Tom's death was registered in Victoria was not because that was his home state. It was because Melbourne was the first port of call after his death.

Sepia Saturday: Cheeky lads

This week's theme photo for Sepia Saturday is delightful. I'm almost persuaded that those boys were all perfectly behaved, well-mannered, respectful, clean and never argued with each other or their parents. Almost.

I've selected a photo from an album I purchased on the web, an album where there is no indication of names or locations but there are some very interesting (to me) snapshots of the 1930s in England. This particular photo has some damage and the background is more in focus than the boy but I like it. I like his facial expression, his saggy pockets, his dirty knees, his twisted socks, his polished shoes and his cap. Is he wearing braces under his jumper? I note that the lad's cap has a badge. Does that indicate that he's dressed for school?

Lad with a cap

So many of my Australian family albums have photos of kids in floppy hats and bonnets or they are bareheaded ("Take your hat off for the photo, Jack, and get your hands out of your pockets.") and I couldn't find a single one of a boy wearing a cap or playing games with caps. But I did find this photo that matches the lad in the photo above more than the theme photo. It's a holiday photo, probably a beach in Victoria. The lady at the back is Edie Sims who was a sister of my husband's grandmother. Don't the ladies look elegant in their woollen bathing costumes. Would their bathing caps have been waterproof or did they just try to keep their heads out of the water? I have another photo of the two ladies actually sitting in the water. I have no idea who the boys are but the one on the left in the floppy hat is obviously a cheeky one. And why aren't the boys wearing bathers?

Edie Sims (at the back) and others unknown.

If you want to see more lads in caps playing games you can head on over to the Sepia Saturday page.

Sepia Saturday: Roy saw a ghost (on a postcard)

Roy Phelan was a country lad from Victoria, Australia so England (let alone the trenches of France) must have been a shock. He spent some time around Codford when he first arrived in Europe in 1918 and after the war he remained in England for about six months while he recuperated from a bad shrapnel injury. So he, like many other soldiers, was a tourist.

And, like many other soldiers, he bought postcards to send home or to keep as a record of his visit. For this post I've selected several of his postcards from a visit to Hampton Court Palace. None of these has been posted or written on the reverse. The Palace is outstanding even in the UK so I can only imagine how overwhelming it must have appeared to Roy.

Entrance to Vine and Gardener's Cottage, Hampton Court Palace. Postcard c1918.

South-East Front, Hampton Court Palace.
Is it possible that the lawn was dug up for vegetable gardens in WW!?

The third postcard is my selection for the Sepia Saturday theme of 'horror and Halloween'.

It is also Hampton Court Palace and shows the ghost of Jane Seymour. Apparently she was seen every night! I wonder if she still appears. Roy must have been intrigued because we don't have a lot of ghosts her in Australia and especially not in his home town of Mitiamo that was only about 40 years old at the time.

The Hampton Court Palace Ghost.
 Queen Jane Seymour's Ghost.
As seen nightly near the private stairway, leading to apartments formerly occupied by her.

******

Now, close your eyes if you are easily shocked. You've been warned.

This an old sepia photograph taken by a member of a photography club in Melbourne in the 1950s. It is one of a collection of photos donated to the Genealogical Society of Victoria.

Experimental photography and development techniques.

If you want to see more horrible photos sidle on over to the Sepia Saturday page.

Sepia Saturday: Time

It's late. Or is it early?

The lady is just arriving home and it appears to be five o'clock in the morning. The milkman has started his rounds.

This postcard is in an album with a number of other printed postcards and real photo postcards that appear to have been received by one lady living in Melbourne, Australia in the early 1900s. This one is dated 3/6/1909.

I wonder if the card was chosen because the sender and the receiver had both been to balls and may have arrived home in the wee hours. The postcard has a caption "Just by way of a change" but the meaning of that defeats me.

Postcard

Postcard reverse

C/0 Mrs H Clarices[?]
Wallace St, Germanton
Dear Violet
Just a line to let you know I have not forgotten you. I will write you a long letter as soon as I can & send you a postal note for things you have gotten for me & for the opera cloak I think it is very cheap I went to a ball last night & had a grand time I was wishing you were here I can waltz all right now we went in evening dress pale pink & everyone said we were dressed the nicest don't [know] who was belle yet but as soon as the paper comes out I will send it to you don't forget to send me the photo of the ball you were at. I was surprised to hear you are such a flirt. I have another boy he as[sic] only one hand he is very nice & got plenty of money, the one that give me the gloves is off I had three after me to take me to the ball so I picked the one armed bloke he is so nice looking. give my love to all at home
Edie xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Edie hasn't named the "one-armed bloke" but apparently the fact that he has money is important. I hope he had the sense to see Edie's real character. And I'd like to know the background to her comment about Violet being a flirt.

This post is in response to the Sepia Saturday theme photo that includes a clock. You can see other responses here.

Sepia Saturday: Discarded studio photo

Unknown couple with child

Once upon a time this image was important to someone. The couple, and a child (their child or a grandchild?), dressed in their best clothes and went to Bardwell's Studio studio in the city of Melbourne, Victoria. Did they walk, take a train or tram, or did they travel by horse and cab?

The photographer instructed the man to take off his hat and place it on the pedestal, told them how and where to stand, and took some images. I wonder why the child is looking directly at the camera but the adults are looking at something or someone to one side?

The photo was developed and printed and eventually collected by the subjects. Money changed hands. Maybe the photo was placed in a frame and placed on the mantlepiece. Maybe it was added to an album. They knew who they were so there was no need to write names on the back of the photo. Maybe extra copies were ordered and given to other members of the family.

Time passed, people died, the photo was bundled in with others and eventually discarded. By chance it was rescued and donated to a library.

Who are these people? No one knows but it has value as a historical record of clothing styles, hair styles, beard styles, studio portraiture and photographers.

This post is in response to the theme photo for Sepia Saturday's 300th anniversary, a photo of an unknown people, that was also rescued.

Sepia Saturday: The best medicine

In September 1918 Roy Phelan was on the front line in France when he was badly injured, hit on the head by shrapnel. Somehow, in the middle of all the noise and mayhem, Roy was stretchered out and taken to a Field Hospital at Abbeville behind the lines, and then across the channel to England. He spent months in hospitals in England recuperating and was still very ill when he returned to Australia but recovered and lived a long and happy life.

His family back in Australia were informed that he was seriously ill and the first few letters they received from Roy after he was injured were written by a nurse. This one was written to Ann Sims who was later to become his wife.

29th Sept 18

Dear Miss Sims

3782 Pte R.J. Phelan, 46th Btn, asked me to write to you to let you know he was admitted to this Hospital, the Third Australian General, on the 18th inst.

He has a nasty wound in his head but has shown a slight improvement the last couple of days. He is quite cheerful again.

He asked me to explain to you that he will be unable to write to you for some little time yet.

He sends you his best love.

With best wishes

I remain

Yours faithfully

P. Murdock

(Aust. Red Cross)

Amazingly, I found a photo of Miss Murdock and the other nurses who served at the 3rd Australian Hospital on the Australian War Memorial's website.

Miss Murdock is second from the right in the back row.

Roy gradually recovered his health and his good humour and wrote home about some of the concert skits and social occasions he had been involved in and made light of his health problems. But some of his treatment must have been truly awful and he would have seen his fellow inmates going through some tough times as well. He sent home these two postcards. Maybe laughter is the best medicine.

Watching someone else being "done"!

Being "done" oneself!

This blog was in response to the Sepia Saturday theme image below, a cutout bookmark advertising medicine. I can't imagine what medicine Roy would have had to take but you can see what others have written on the same theme here.

Sepia Saturday: Sisters

Twins

The theme photo for Sepia Saturday this week is two sisters with their dogs, so I've chosen some photos of sisters in our family albums. Except for the first one, which, as it turns out, most closely matches the theme photo. It's of twins, probably from the Leeds area of England. That's all I know because it's a photo I purchased online, a 'found' photo.

From time to time I purchase random albums or bundles of photos because I think old snaps are interesting and scanning them to post on Flickr  gives them a second life. Goodness knows what I'll do long term with the originals - maybe the family will sell them again when I'm gone. It must be a common problem for all collectors.

The twins are neatly dressed in matching clothes and hairstyles, but there's only one dog. And it's yet another photo where the subjects are asked to look into the sun:) Maybe the 1950s?

And here are some family photos, three generations of sisters. First my mother-in-law Shirley and her sister Mary in the 1920s. Then my sister Anne and me in 1973 (with a dog and a lamb). Then my daughters Kerrie and Gemma in the 1980s. There is a younger generation but they are all boys.

Shirley (left) and Mary Alford

Lorraine and Anne

Kerrie and Gemma

You can find more sisters or dogs over at Sepia Saturday.

Bondi Beach

These four photos are in a Phelan family album. It's Bondi beach, Sydney, some time in the 70s I think. Bondi isn't in our patch so it must have been a holiday. I suspect that the photographer didn't even venture on to the beach because the photos appear to have been taken from a car park, and probably on the same day. They probably just went to have a look at the famous beach. Nowadays about three million people a year visit the beach - but not all at the same time fortunately. On a warm weekend in summer you might have to share with only 40 000 other people.

Coastal New South Wales is almost like a foreign country to us because we never visited when I was a child growing up in the neighbouring state of Victoria, and my husband's family was the same. If we wanted a day at the beach or a holiday on the coast we went to one of the numerous sandy beach towns along the south coast of Victoria. And we never saw crowds like this. Sometimes we had the long stretches of sand to ourselves.

One disadvantage of our beach visits was that we didn't have surf lifesavers watching, we didn't have to swim 'inside the flags' (note the red and yellow flag on the left of the first photo), but luckily none of us ever had a mishap in the ocean. This beach is the home of the first lifesaving club, established in 1907.

I've never been to Bondi. Should an Aussie admit to such a thing?

Bondi Beach

Bondi Beach and famous Bondi Baths built in 1931.

The baths are saltwater and tidal and have a heritage classification. In fact, the whole beach has a heritage value. The baths are also the home of the Bondi Icebergs, a club for people who swim there throughout the year.

Bondi Beach

This photo was taken on a different family holiday at Mission Beach in Queensland. Warm days and kilometres of sandy beach to share with ... hardly anyone else.

Mission Beach, Queensland. 1990s

This post is in response to the theme photo, a postcard of Bondi as it used to be. You can see more responses over at Sepia Saturday. Or you could pack your bags and head downunder in time for summer.

Sepia Saturday: YMCA teams

I'm on the road on a caravan holiday this week and don't have access to my old picture files, but I do have access to the photos I scanned for the Genealogical Society of Victoria so I've selected one of theirs.

The photo was taken in the 1920s in Victoria at a YMCA camp. It appears to be the volleyball and baseball teams, in white 'uniforms'. Perhaps the teams are defined by the colour of the tie each man is wearing, or maybe it's a YMCA tie. The photo isn't clear enough for me to decide one way or the other.

The young men look happy to be where they are. (As an aside: I wonder if the side part in hair will ever come back.)

YMCA camp baseball and volleyball teams, Victoria, 1920s

This post has been in response to the Sepia Saturday's theme photo in which the women are wearing loosely tied neckties over white dresses.