Sepia Saturday - Four Faces of Feisty Females

Sepia Saturday encourages bloggers to record and share their family history through photographs.

When I saw this prompt, I knew immediately which photograph I would use - the lovely portrait below of my great grandmother Maria Danson nee Rawcliffe of Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire. 

 

Maria has been at the heart of my family history activities and  even as a child her name attracted me as a mixture of down to earth Lancashire grit (Rawcliffe) and a more exotic Spanish side with her dark looks and the name Maria.  There was an apocryphal family story that "granny's dark looks" came from Spanish sailers shipwrecked after the Armada on the Lancashire coast. 

Maria was born in 1859 on the 15th January which 114 years later was the day my own daughter was born - a coincidence which delighted me.  She was the 7th out of 8 daughters of Robert Rawcliffe and Jane Carr.  She was  only 18 years old when she married James Danson in 1877.  They had ten sons (8 survived infancy)  before their only daughter Jennie, born  in 1897.    Maria was widowed in 1906 and two sons died in the First World War and Mari died in 1919 at the age of 60. 

 

How old do you think Maria is here?  I find the photograph difficult to date. Is she around  40 years old? i.e.  the year is  1899. 

 

Maria's life has given me endless stories for my family history and posed lots of questions.  Her name for a start seemed quite exotic compared with her sisters - Anne, Jane, Jennet, Margaret, Alice, Peggy and Martha.  Father Robert Rawcliffe was an Ag. Lab. and he and his wife just "made their mark" on their wedding certificate.

 

Another puzzle remains over her name - Maria on her birth certificate.  but in many official documents including the 1881 census,  her marriage certificate and my grandfather's birth certificate it is Martha - the name of her youngest sister who died at 4 months old.  Maria was only just four years old at the time, so could hardly have remembered her, so why did she choose to adopt her name?  To her three granddaughters who are still alive. Granny's name was Maria. This is what makes family history so fascinating! 

 

Maria's only daughter, my great aunt Jennie (1897-1986 ) was   by all accounts, quite a feisty character. She was the only daughter and last child of James Danson and Maria Rawcliffe  born on 24th December 1897, after eight surviving brothers - George then aged 3, Frank 5, Albert 7, Tom 9, William 12 (my grandfather), Robert 16, John 18 and Harry 20 - a large family in a small terraced house. Her father died when was eight years old,

 

I  love this photo below of Jennie with the "modern" hairstyle of the 1920's.  She went to work in they local post office and was determined to lead her own life, much to the dismay of her five unmarried brothers who were used to her running the home after the death of their mother (Maria) in 1919.

 

 

 

 

My mother Kathleen Danson was Maria's granddaughter - and her life  could be summed up as "Happiness is Stitching".  She was apprenticed as a tailoress at the age of 14 and was still making her own clothes and home furnishings when she was in her  80's.   

 

 

Completing the four generations - myself, Maria's great granddaughter,  aged 3 years old here.

 

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 Click HERE to find other Sepia Saturday faces.

 

Sepia Saturday - Hanging Out

Sepia Saturday encourages bloggers to record and share their family history through photographs.






I had almost abandoned posting something this week, then suddenly remembered (and managed to find) this  photograph of my daughter hanging between two giant wheels outside the National  Railway Museum at York. 

She as born in January so under the star sign Capricorn which we always felt was very apt as the was like a little goat - had to be climbing, clambering, jumping  over everything.  So it was not surprising that at  primary school she became a member of the gymnastics team. 

Her own daughter looks like following in Mummy's footsteps.   

What is it about boxes and children?

Click HERE to see how other bloggers are hanging out.

Sepia Saturday - School Day Memories

Sepia Saturday encourages bloggers to record their family history through photographs.

I  come from a family of teachers (two uncles and an aunt), married a teacher and both my brother, daughter and myself have been trainers in our particularly fields.  So teaching is in the blood there somewhere.  My husband taught   physics, and quickly found that to admit to this fact  brought to an end any social conversation.  

 

I did toy with the idea of becoming a teacher myself, but my Aunt Edith (right)  put me off.  She won  a scholarship to Fleetwood Grammar School, riding the four miles on her bike in all weathers.  She became a teacher at Burn Naze School in Thornton Clevelys (a poor area of town in the 1920's and 30's)  and had a keen memory for past pupils (particularly black sheep)  and humorous incidents such as excuse notes, written  for absences.  Unfortunately her memorabilia from her teaching days must have been thrown out at some stage as I never came across it following her death - such a pity.   


Here is my first school photograph from the 1950's.
 

I attended Devonshire Road School, Blackpool, Lancashire.  I am on the second front row, second from the right, next to the boy in the  striped pullover. The fashion and hair styles here  were so typical of the day - the girls with plaits, pudding basin haircuts, side slides or fancy top ribbons.

I counted a class of 46 - double today's standard for class size!   We sat in serried rows of  battered  individual desks with inkwells,  and I remember chanting our times tables, copying handwriting,  the hated mental arithmetic sessions which I dreaded,  and of course reading which I loved.

Playing the triangle in my infant school percussion group  is one of my earliest school memo.ries.  I was not too pleased at being given  this instrument.  Like everyone else, I wanted the favourite choice  - the sleigh bells. 

Eve Wednesday afternoon we gathered in the hall for community singing and I learnt such patriotic songs as The British Grenadiers, Hearts of Oak, The Bonnie Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond, Bluebells of Scotland and my favourite Men of Harlech, sung with much gusto.  Sea shanties were also popular as we swung from side to side to sing What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor?   Are these now all forgotten,  as I doubt that children are familiar with them today? 

 



There was not a strict uniform at my primary school, but I was desperate to wear a gymslip and tie.   My mother did not like them, but eventually I got one handed down from my cousin and wore  the school red and navy striped tie and the red girdle round my waist, feeling I had stepped out of one of the school stories I loved to read.

We didn't seem to get  individual or class photographs at my secondary school (girls only)  but I remember two occasions when the whole school (about 500  of us I think) gathered on the playing fields for a massive group photograph.  The first year pupils sat cross legged on the grass, with the staff in their academic gowns seated  on chairs, and the rest of the school grouped behind, either standing or  balanced on gym forms.  The result was a large rolled photograph in a scroll box.  Unfortunately I did not see fit to keep these and threw them out when I was having a major sort-out, prior to getting married.   I regret it now. 

My recollection of my teachers is they all seemed quite elderly (though this probably was not the case) and most would fit the now old fashioned description of "spinsters". 

Miss Robinson (English) was a great mimic at adopting dialects and accents.  She brought to life the characters in such plays as "Midsummer's Night's Dream", "The Rivals" and "She Stoops to Conquer". 

I liked Miss Jones (Latin).  Unusually for me, one day I was brave enough to write on the blackboard the jingle "Latin is a language as dead as dead can be.  It killed off all the Romans and now it's killing me!"  Fortunately when she walked into the classroom she saw the humorous side of it.  

Another Welsh teacher was Miss Edwards who more than anyone made me want to study history - my first love.  It is amazing what facts I learnt many many years ago come back to me when answering quiz questions on TV.

Miss Mutch (German) scared me.  She was from the Shetland Isles, bit of a bean pole, with cropped grey hair and given to wearing viyella checked blouses and v-necked pullovers.  She was burdened with the schoolgirl ditty of "If you miss Miss Mutch, you don't miss much".  I felt doomed from my first German lesson  when my attempt (in front of the class)  to pronounce a lovely German "Ich" came out as "Ick".   Still I persevered.  She was a good teacher, her lessons stuck with me, and I can still get-by in tourist German when abroad. 

From my first term at grammar school, science bored me stiff.    Our science teacher went by the unfortunate name of Miss Smedley, which was far to easy to change to Miss Smelly.  I could not work up any enthusiasm for learning about microscopic creatures such as the amoeba and hydra, nor get  fired up over a Bunsen burner. My  science knowledge is very poor, which is an awful admission to make in the modern world. The irony is I went on to marry a physics teacher! 

We moved to Edinburgh where I finished secondary education and for  the first time in my school life  I was  taught by men   Mr Scott-Allan continued  to develop  my interests in the past with a new dimension to it now of Scottish history, and Mr Ironsides (known as Tin Ribs) kept  Latin alive for me.

I feel I went through education at the best of times, inspired by some dedicated teachers. School days were happy days.   

 

Click HERE to discover other bloggers school day memories.  

William Dower - Scottish Joiner & African Missionary

 A pioneering South African Missionary, a politician, a  test cricketer   - and one of the leading scientists of the  20th century - you can stumble across some amazing stories when you start to delve into sidelines of your family history. 

Such was the experience of my cousin, Stuart who was researching the family of his great grandmother Isabel Edward from Banchory, Aberdeenshire.

Isabel's sister Jesse married William Dower in 1865 and  the photograph here shows  Wiiliam Dower himself (1837-1919) and his wife Jesse Edward (1838-1924),  with their respective parents - William's parents John Dower (1808-1872) and his wife Jane Forbes (1811-1866) and Jesse's parents   Alexander Edward (1811-1879) and  Margaret Stewart (1811-1905)

The original of this wedding photograph is in the museum in Kokstad, South Africa.

William Dower, after following his father into the local building business,  went to Edinburgh University on a bursary and was ordained as a Congregational Minister.    William was appointed by the London Missionary Society as a Wesleyan Missionary in South Africa and he and his new wife Jesse set sail there  in 1865. 

In March 1870, William and Jesse set out on an ox wagon journey to East Griqualand and the town of  Kokstad, where he was asked to take on the role of pastor.  

William drew the plans for the first family home in Kokstad and did much of the building himself, completing it in 1871.   The  windows and doors were made by his father and imported from Scotland. The building still stands and is now a craft outlet.

 

The church building was also built by the Reverend  Dower .    In the Gothic revival style of the time, it has beautiful examples of woodwork bearing testimony to his skill as a carpenter.

The opening in 1877  was marred by sadness, in that the ceremony was due to be performed by William's eldest child  Mina Margaret Jane. but she died just a week before the opening date, aged only 11.    .

The  Griqua Church Kokstad built by Rev. William Dower  and opened in May 1877    Jesse is in the centre front and William is just behind her. The other lady in the photo who looks very much like Jesse is Jesse’s sister Margaret Edward. Margaret Edward was a qualified teacher and at one time had taught at the Free Church School at Inch in Wigtownshire. She followed William and Jesse out to South Africa and became the teacher at the local school.   William went on to write a definitive history of the area in "The early annals of Kokstad and Griqualand East".

 William Dower and his wife Jesse taken in Blackpool in 1913

when they made a visit to England.

 

William and Jesse (left) with Jesse's sister Isabella Edward

 and her husband John Ingram Smith

 

William and Jesse had  family of eight - four sons and four daughters.

• The two eldest  sons William John Dower  and James Martin Dower  became minsters, with James marrying four times between 1901 and 1927 - his wives possible dying in childbirth. 

• Third son Edward Ebenezer Dower was a champion of 'native' citizens' rights and higher education in the Cape. who  in 1908  became Secretary For Native Affairs, Cape Town.

 

• Youngest son Robert Reid Dower was a cricketer who played for South Africa against England in 1899.  He later became a lawyer, but when he died in 1964, he was the oldest South African Test cricketer.   

•  Daughter Jesse  Edward Dower married a German mining engineer Semmy Joseph Blumlein of Jewish descent. They settled in Britain and Semmy took out citizenship in 1903.  Their son Alan  Dower Blumlein (1902-1942)  has been described as "the greatest electronic engineer of the 20th century", notable for his many inventions in telecommunications, sound recording, stereo, television and radar.  
   
  But that is another story!

William Dower died on died 21 December 1919 at  "Banchory", Innes Street, Uitenhage, South Africa - his house named after his birthplace in Scotland.  He left behind a legacy in the country he came to love and a family who made their mark in many different fields.

A-Z Challenge - Z is for Zetland & Zell am See

Join me on his A-Z journey  into  A SENSE OF PLACE with reminiscences on places that are connected with my family history or are part of my own personal memories.

Z IF FOR:


ZETLAND  - the old name for the Shetland Isles, the northern most isles of Scotland, situated 110 miles from the mainland and closer  to Bergen in Norway than to Edinburgh. Shetland stretches around a hundred miles from north to south. with over 100 islands in the group, 15 of which are inhabited.

Early Shetland was occupied by Pictish peoples. They left no written history but ancient  towers called brochs, carved stones and beautiful silver objects. From about 800 AD, however, the Pictish peoples were either displaced by - or absorbed into - waves of immigration from Scandinavia as the Vikings expanded westwards.

 

Shetland remained under Norwegian control for around 600 years. Their rule ended as the result of a marriage treaty in 1468  when King Christian I of Norway mortgaged Shetland to the Scottish crown to raise part of the dowry for the marriage of his daughter Margaret to King James III of Scotland.  James went on to annex Shetland to the Scottish crown in 1472, though the Nordic influence remained strong on the islands.

 

A photograph from my third cousin Stuart, whose Smith ancestors came from Shetland. . 

 

 

ZELL AM SEE

 

Another place on our Austrian journeys lying between Innsbruck and Salzburg.  The local mountain the Schnittenhohe is over 6000 feet high. 

 

 

 

We have come to the end of my A-Z Journey into a Sense of Place. 

Thank you for joining me in my reminiscences. 

   Your comments have been much appreciated.

A-Z Challenge - Y is for York

Join me on his A-Z journey  into  A SENSE OF PLACE with reminiscences on places that are connected with my family history or are part of my own personal memories.




Y is for YORK

As a lass from Lancashire, I crossed the Pennines with my family to live in Yorkshire for four years as a teenager.  Home was the village of Upper Poppleton and school was four miles away in York. 

York then was quite a sleepy town then  ahead of its status as a university city and its honeypot draw for tourists, but I  was surrounded by history

Micklegate Bar

In Roman times it was  called "Eboracum"  then the Vikings came and renamed it "Jorvik", before it became Eoforwic under the Saxons.  York flourished in medieval times, illustrated in the famous narrow street of the Shambles. 

The mediaeval city  walls  with their entrance gates, known as bars, encompassed virtually the entire city.  I walked every day for the bus home through Micklegate  Bar which during the Wars of the Roses had been decorated with the heads of leaders killed by one side or the other.

The magnificent Minster was  built in Gothic style over the years 1220-1482, and contains England’s greatest concentration of medieval stained glass.  The Archbishop of York was second only in religious power and influence to the Archbishop of Canterbury. A full forty other churches were built in the city during the medieval period, contributing to York's  rich heritage of architecture, spanning timbered buildings to Georgian elegance in the Mansion House and Assembly Rooms.

Street names are fascinating - Gillygate, Coppergate, Baggergate, Monkgate, Swinegte, Stonegate and Petergate, with the longest Whipmawhopmygate.  Gate here does not mean an entrance  but is derived from the Scandinavian  "gata"  meaning "street"  

One of the most photographed views of York from the city walls looking towards the Minister.



The Shambles

 
St. William's College

 

By 1660 York was England's third largest city after London and Norwich.  In the 19th century York became a major centre for the railway, thanks to the "Railway King" George Hudson, with the first railway station built in 1839. 

 

My school,  Mill Mount Grammar School for Girls had the city crest as its badge and was a very formal, academic establishment with strict rules on wearing of school uniform etc.  I recall  visits to the famous Castle Museum, then regarded as well ahead of its time in creating period rooms and  a Victorian street; being part (as a programme seller) of  the famous York Mystery Plays, performed in the grounds  of St. Mary's Abbey every ten years, and a lunch by the Lord Provost at the Mansion House to welcome German  pen friends to the city - this was regarded as very significant being only 15 years after the end of the war.

 

On a more prosaic note we visited York's famous chocolate factories of Rowntrees (Kit Kats, Smarties & Aeros)  and Terry's (Chocolate Oranges).  My memory  apart from the free samples,  was of the boring job that some staff had,  drawing the squiggle on top of a chocolate box selection  as the sweets  passed along a conveyor belt.   

 

it was at York that my love of history crystallised, thanks to an inspirational teacher - Miss Edwards.  I have much to thank the city for and just writing this post makes me want to go back there.  A visit is definitely called for!

Join me on the last  stage of this A-Z Journey as tomorrow we reach Z.

A-Z Challenge - X is for EXperiences

Join me on his A-Z journey  into  A SENSE OF PLACE with reminiscence on places that are connected with my family history or are part of my own personal memories.


Place names beginning with X abound in China and there are some in Wales and Greece  - but I have been to none of these.   So I must admit here to deviating from my Sense of Place theme  and focussing on  some of my family history EXperiences, beyond travel.


X is for:


EXcitement at finding ancestors who were unknown to me. After many years of appearing on message boards etc. with minimal success, my blog was discovered by three different third cousins and resulted in new photographs and new stories. 
 

A wedding photograph of the family of my third cousin, Stuart

 

 

EXchanging Information: In pre-Internet days this activity came from joining Family History Societies and studying their listings of Members Interests. Now the world is open to us. My first venture into Internet research on my Bryning connections resulted in more information in four weeks than I had unearthed in four years. A wonderful tool - as long as you check sources!

 

 

EXamining Records: The fascination and pleasure in touching documents written over a century ago that relate to my ancestor's life.



Roxburghshire Militia List of 1797
Courtesy of Heritage Hub, Hawick -
www.heartofhawick.co.uk/heritagehub

EXceeding EXpectations: When I first started on my family history trail, I thought I would be lucky to trace my very ordinary Danson family back to the 1841 census. I have far exceeded that, discovering my great great great, great grandfather John Danson, born 1736, son of Peter.   Here is his signature from his will found in Lancashire Record Office.
 

EXpressing the family stories: Research is an all absorbing task, but turning the facts, names and dates into a family story that people are interested in reading, whether through blog or book, is my favourite FH occupation. 
 

EXcursions into Local and Social History - The possibilities are endless. for adding colour to a family story.............,,,,,

• Was your ancestor alive when a Napoleonic invasion threatened  towns and villages ready to light beacons to warn of the French attack? 
• Might your ancestors have seen the Jacobite army marching through Scotland and the north of England in 1745 as Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) attempted to take the Hanoverian throne?
• What entertainment did your ancestors enjoy locally?

Concert poster in the collection  of the Heritage Hub, Hawick www.heartofhawick.co.uk/heritagehub

 

• The coming of the railway to a community must have been a thrilling event to witness, with local newspapers giving extensive coverage of the excitement generated.



Peebles Station in the Scottish Borders, c 1910.
With kind permission of the Heritage Hub, Hawick
www.heartofhawick.co.uk/heritagehub

• What about the impact of the invention of the sewing machine on the task of making a family's clothes?
• Might your female ancestors have seen suffragettes campaigning locally? 

 

A suffragette meeting, at Towerknowe, Hawick in the Scottish Borders, 1909.

Note - the number of men there.  

Photograph by permission of Scottish Borders Council Museum & Gallery Service

 from the Hawick Museum Collection.



• When was your local cottage hospital built, or the local football club formed?
• How did your ancestral town or village mark Queen Victoria's Jubilees in 1887 and 1897 and her death in 1901? 

 

The possibilities for stories are endless. 

And finally after all of this - EXhaustion!

 

My father enjoying a snooze in our garden in Edinburgh c.1960's