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.