Family Trees

Showing posts with label Ellery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ellery. Show all posts

Friday, 19 September 2008

William Ellery in Liverpool 1910

William Ellery was born in Bodmin in 1837 and is recorded in every census return from 1841 to 1901. For all of his married life he worked as an Outside Customs Officer in Liverpool. According to the London Gazette he was appointed, in 1910, as Examiner of Masters, Mates and Fishermen with the Board of Trade. Or was he?

A quick check on FreeBMD revealed that a William Ellery died in Liverpool in 1909 - but there had always been two William Ellerys, of almost identical ages, living in Liverpool - so which one had died in 1909? A few days later I received a copy of the 1909 death certificate from Southport and the information recorded clearly identified this to be my William Ellery.

So, unless there was an amazing delay in gazetting the appointment, William Ellery, Outside Customs Officer of Liverpool, was not the William Ellery who became the Board of Trade Examiner of Masters, Mates and Fishermen at Liverpool in 1910.

Tonight I decided to update my Ellery family tree and tidy my files. In doing so I noticed that the 1901 census recorded William Ellery as "retired" Customs officer. That clinches the deal. But who is the other William Ellery, the one who is mentioned in the London Gazette of 1910?

Sunday, 7 September 2008

Mrs Ralston's Photograph


Over the years we have collected some really old family photographs - glass negatives and, possibly, some tintypes as well as the usual snapshots, and today we got out the framed pictures with the intention of photographing them.

One picture is particularly interesting as it is still in its frame but the frame is falling apart, allowing us to remove the picture. After a lot of internet research, I think that the picture must be a tintype which has been coloured. It fits most of the criteria - the image is on metal, it can only be viewed properly at the right angle, it has been tinted or coloured and, from the style of lady's costume, appears to have been taken around 1887-1888.

On the frame backing there is a postage label. "Don't Crush", it implores, and is addressed to my great grandmother, Mrs Ralston (nee Ellery) of 2, Sea View Buildings, Hoylake Road, Moreton. The sender was Howard Ford & Co., Ltd., Russell Buildings, School Lane, Liverpool. I immediately hot-moused it to my favourite site, Liverpool Photographers, but there was no mention of Howard Ford. Then reality took over. This lady is wearing a bustle, Mrs Ralston had the shop at Sea View Villas around about 1930, the two don't match. A quick look at Kelly's 1938 Directory for Liverpool and suburbs revealed the answer: The afore-mentioned Howard Ford & Co., Ltd., were hosiery manufacturers (they later became famous for the Bear Brand range of quality lady's stockings and tights); Mrs Ralston's shop was a gentleman's and lady's outfitters, selling, amongst other things, socks and stockings. During the 1920's or 30's the frame had been in need of repair and the cardboard packaging from a recent delivery of hosiery had been recycled for the purpose. That also explains why the postage label demanded "Don't Crush" instead of "glass - fragile - handle with care".

And who is this lady, so smartly dressed? The postage label does help, because we now know where that picture was between the wars. With the help of other photographs and glass plates, we believe the lady to be Mrs Ralston, herself, when she was about 20 years old and known as Miss Amelia Ellery of 24 Grampian Road, Liverpool.

Tuesday, 2 September 2008

William Ellery of Liverpool

A few nights ago I decided to have yet another go at identifying my ancestor, William Ellery. This time the catalyst was the Civil Service Evidence of Age List available on subscription at Find My Past. William Ellery, born at Bodmin, was a customs officer at Liverpool. The List provided one crucial piece of data - William Ellery was born on the 3rd May 1837, just before the modern system of collecting bmd registrations was begun.

The next part of the chase should be preceded by "with some certainty" as it involves piecing together clues from the census returns, transcriptions of parish registers and other published genealogies. The story is becoming clearer but at one point, at least, there must have been more marriages and widowings than I have found.

"With some certainity", the story seems to go like this: The Family Search site does not list William Ellery's birth or christening, so the earliest clues have to come from the 1841 and 1851 census returns published online by Ancestry. In 1841 William and his older brother Nicholas are living with their widowed mother Elizabeth, a shoebinder, at Downing Street, Bodmin; in 1851 all three are living with Elizabeth's unmarried brother, William Bray, a boot and shoemaker of Bodmin. By 1861 both brothers have left Cornwall - William is in Liverpool and Nicholas is in Uppingham, but Elizabeth has two young grandchildren living with her. The Family Search website yielded the information. When William Ellery was only 19 he married the 30 year old Mary Jane Bligh, daughter of Richard Bligh, a retired printer, of Fore Street, Bodmin. At the time, William was a musician, a bugler in the Royal Cornwall Rangers. Two children were born in quick succession, then Mary Jane died. All this happened between the 1851 and 1861 census returns.

There is less certainty about the rest of the story. We know that William Ellery removed to Liverpool and started a new family with Grace Warburton. (No marriage certificate yet, but it is not unusual for the GRO record to be missing). His sons were brought up in Bodmin. I have to assume, knowing what little I heard about William Ellery, that he wanted or needed a better future, that he could not take the babies with him to Liverpool when they were well looked after in Bodmin, and that hopefully he earned enough to do his best for them.

As to William's parents? According to his marriage certificate, William was the son of Nicholas Ellery, a hatter, who was trading in Bodmin in 1830, and of Elizabeth. On the census returns, William Bray states that Elizabeth is his sister and suitable records for the birth and christening of both William and Elizabeth are on the Family Search site. However, a Nicholas Ellery married Elizabeth Ellery, widow of his brother Richard, but this seems to relate back to an Elizabeth Brewer, not Elizabeth Bray, and some of the dates don't match, so this is for another day....