John Salthouse, Liverpool ship owner in 1754

Salford Local History Library has a good collection of books relating to the North West generally as well as a good collection of records pertaining, as you would expect, to Salford. The books that I like to look through are part of a series purchased by subscription many years ago and, as such, some volumes relate to places a little further afield, such as Liverpool and Cheshire.

On my visit last week I found a book which records letters sent to the Customs House in Liverpool in the eighteenth century. Fortunately these books are well indexed and I quickly found a reference to John Salthouse, who was part owner of the 'Bee', a square-sterned snow of 45 tons, built at Liverpool in 1752; the master was John Newton. This is the account of the 'Bee's' activities sometime after the letter was written, included in the book as a footnote:

"The Bee, the third of Newton’s Liverpool ships, had been built and fitted out by Mannesty for the notorious slave captain, the “Old Blasphemer”. Newton, however, was taken suddenly ill and had to resign command the day before she sailed. On this, her maiden voyage, she was cut off by the slaves and run ashore, and the master mate and surgeon were all killed. Newton joined the Customs service in Liverpool, and later the church, to become the noted evangelist, slaver reformer and, with poor Cowper, the author of the Olney hymns".

I have no idea, yet, whether this John Salthouse is related to my family and, whilst preferring not to be associated with a slaving ship, history cannot be re-written. The stories of my ancestors, whatever those stories may turn out to be, are stories of their lives, not of my life.

The Seventh Son

Christmas is lovely, a welcome break before winter sets in properly and lots of glitter and lights to cheer me up (not to mention chocolates and Christmas cake), but it's not a good time for delving into the family histories. There are just too many other things competing for priority, not least of all the day job.

When the latest clutch of certificates arrived on my doormat this morning it felt like a welcome return to "the good old days"! I had been particularly keen to discover whether my grandfather, Jim Salthouse, really was "the seventh son of a seventh son" - to which he attributed his luck in life. I had found two births in the indexes which were most likely to be his brothers. The certificates duly confirmed that Richard Salthouse (1880) and Henry Salthouse (1888) were both the children of William Salthouse and Janet Braidwood. My grandfather, born in 1897, was now confirmed to be a Seventh Son.

But he was not the seventh son of a seventh son. His father was certainly one of seven sons - but he was the first son, not the seventh. So grandfather could easily have said, for all we know, that he was 'the seventh son of seven sons'. Did this make him lucky?

Perhaps his near-claim to a charmed life resulted in a near-lucky life? He was the youngest of 10 children, born when his mother was 46 years old and with a gap of seven years between him and the previous child, Janet. When Jim was of school age the family moved to Ditton, Widnes, possibly in the hope that the eldest brother, 'Our Will', might recover from TB, but 'Our Will' died in 1906 and in 1912 Jim's father, William Salthouse, died of bronchopneumonia. Jim appears to have had engineering in his blood and he studied at Widnes Technical School and obtained an apprenticeship at Widnes. The first World War internvened and, when the family returned to Liverpool, he was able to transfer his articles to another engineering company. His apprenticeship completed, he immediately went to sea, eventually becoming a commissioned officer. Unluckily he was torpedoed twice, luckily he survived relatively unscathed.

After the war he married Maud Ralston. Sadly their first child died after a few weeks of life. When my mother was born the depression had set in and Jim was unemployed. He obtained work in Southport and had to walk from Liverpool to Southport every day. Presumably he accepted lifts if he could but he said that the depression was so bad that there were few vehicles on the roads. Eventually he got work as a driver with Jarvis Robinson Transport (JRT) in Liverpool - he got the job because of his engineering background as much as for his driving skills, and he drove their best lorry, a Scammel 8-wheeler, between Liverpool and Hull. His luck ran out, though, when one of his vehicles, which was supposed to have been repaired overnight, went out of control and he was badly burned in the resulting fire.

Although the build up to WW2 created new opportunites, Jim was probably considered to be the wrong side of 40 to rebuild his engineering career, but he did get better jobs and was also the sergeant in the Home Guard responsible for keeping the Home Guard and Volunteer vehicles running throughout the war. In the late 40s he went into semi-retirement in North Wales but he never stopped working on his passion - motorbikes - and was well known in the Llangollen area for the work he did with vintage motorcycles.

So, was he lucky or not? He might have hoped for a better career had the wars and the depression not intervened, but he did well to survive two wars, unemployment in Liverpool and that awful accident.

Thomas Fisher of Liverpool

He was Thomas Fisher of Kendal, really, a currier who established a good, solid business in Liverpool and who eventually earned the titles of leather merchant and gentleman. Throughout his working life he traded at 137 Dale Street (recently converted to apartments with an empty shop space at ground level) where he employed a fair number of men and girls to make, amongst other things, boot uppers which were then sold on to shoemakers here and in Ireland. He also took over the leather seller's shop of Thomas Salthouse at 232 Scotland Road, Liverpool.

Thomas Fisher moved to The Acres, Lower Bebbington, and his three daughters married from there. The eldest daughter, Sarah, married Benjamin Payne Coxon, son of Captain John Crow Coxon - was he the famous Captain Crow's descendant?

After Thomas Salthouse died, a John Fisher took over the leather seller's shop and premises at 232 Scotland Road. Do you happen to know whether these two Fishers were related? A quick search around in inconclusive; the only Thomas and John Fisher that I have found (of the correct age and location) have different parents.

Thomas Salthouse of Liverpool

This weekend I have been researching the life of Thomas Salthouse who occupied property at 224 Scotland Road, Liverpool, where he traded as a leather dealer.

I can't be certain of Thomas' parentage, but he could have been the son of George Salthouse and Mary Burns and christened on the 18th August 1802 at St Nicholas, Liverpool (IGI). On the 15th January 1827 Thomas Salthouse married Elizabeth Depledge at St George, Liverpool (IGI). In 1841, when he was about 38 years old, he was living at Litherland and working as a leather tanner.

By 1851 Thomas Salthouse had moved to 224 Scotland Road, Liverpool, from where he was carrying on business as a leather dealer. I knew that Thomas died in 1859 and my particular interest was the next owner or tenant of the property or the person who took over his business.

For a long time I "lost" 224 Scotland Road at this point. On Ancestry the property disappeared - right up to the 'clearances' it appears to have been just a gap in between the houses, possibly a building that had literally fallen down and never been repaired or rebuilt but demolished instead. What happened to his business? I put the case on a back-burner for a while.

Over the weekend I had another trawl through my collection of CD books. The 1858 Post Office Directory turned up Thomas Salthouse - not at 224 Scotland Road, but just a little further along the street at 232 Scotland Road! Good news! Now that I had a new address for the business I had a chance of discovering the new owner, if any. (The directories revealed what the census did not show - 224 Scotland Road did survive for many years; after Thomas Salthouse left it was occupied by William Ashley Wilson, an engineer and shopkeeper, and in 1881 Kelly's Directory it is the Northern District Post & Money Order & Telegraph Office & Savings Bank, but I didn't have access to so many directories when I started all this!).

It is possible to walk along a street using Ancestry but (unless you have a surname to start you off) it's not always easy, especially in a city, to find the right piece and page. There is an easier way, however, with Find My Past, which has an address search facility for the 1861 census. But neither 224 or 232 were included in the addresses for Scotland Road, Liverpool. Either they had both been demolished or they could have been business accommodation only, therefore there would have been no return for them on the census.

Back to the CDs - this time to search for the new address 'Scotland Road'. Some of the trade directories had street directories which were quite easy to find, others needed a search on 'Scotland Road'. The first reference that I found to 232 Scotland Road was in the 1869 Slater's Directory of Lancashire and this gave me the all important name of the new owner - Thomas Fisher. Thomas Fisher was listed at two addresses, 137 Dale Street and 232 Scotland Road, Liverpool. A quick check through the census returns showed that Thomas Fisher was from Kendal and had been working as a currier at Dale Street since at least 1841 when he had an apprentice currier, Robert Collingwood. I wonder if Thomas Fisher had bought his leather from Thomas Salthouse and then extended his business interests by taking over the business at Scotland Road and thereby keeping control of his supplies? The 1855 directory shows two Thomas Fishers trading in Liverpool, one as a currier (Dale Street) and the other as a bootmaker, the families of these I shall sort out another night, but at least I have a means of going forward again.

And, as Thomas Salthouse does not seem to be related to my Salthouse family, why am I so interested in his business and his successors? Because my great-grandfather, William Salthouse, who left Alderley to work in Birkenhead as a nurseryman and then, when he became of age, joined the Lancashire Police Force, subsequently left the police force (having received a reward for bravery) "to go into business on his own account" - according to the police records. This was just after the 1871 census and subsequent records show him as a leather and hide warehouseman, though he always declares himself to be an employee, not the owner. If he had gone into business with Thomas Salthouse that might have led us to a connection between the two families, but in his day the Scotland Road business was owned by Thomas Fisher, later by John Fisher and I can't find a family connection there. Not yet, anyway.

That wedding in Alderley again!

The CD containing the marriage records of St Mary, Alderley, includes the wedding which took place on the 27th December 1851 between Mr John Bruce of Liverpool and Miss Maria Josepha Bell of Alderley.

Miss Bell was the daughter of the late Rev Isaac Bell; at the time of the 1851 census Maria and her older sisters were teaching at their mother's school for girls at Heawood Hall, Alderley. I don't think that the Bells were a wealthy family but, by virtue of being the daughter of the well-known Reverend Bell, this was quite a large and important wedding and was noted in the Manchester Times in January 1852. The witnesses were Eliza Bell, William Bell, John Garniss and Thomas Garniss. After the wedding the couple settled in Liverpool.

But who was John Bruce? Neither the bride or the groom were giddy young people, John Bruce was about 40 years old and Maria was about 35 years old. John Bruce had been a clerk in Liverpool's HM Customs office and his older, unmarried, sister lived with him; there was usually also a younger relative living with them as part of the family. According to the marriage certificate, John Bruce was the son of another John Bruce, manufacturer, and had been born in Northampton, possibly at All Saints. Quite possibly John's father had died before the 1841 census, but I may have found him in an 1825 census, as a manufacturer of ladies' shoes in Northampton.

How did John Bruce of Liverpool and Maria Bell of Alderley meet? Geographically they were miles away. True, train journies were relatively easy, but they were unlikely to meet, for example, at the shop or at a concert. Was there a third party? Did any of Maria's siblings live in Liverpool? Did John Bruce have any occasion to visit another family in Alderley?

Answers on a postcard! (email of course!) Because, as yet, I can't find this missing link!

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?

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.

Little Annie Salthouse

My grandfather, Jim Salthouse (James Thomas Salthouse), used to say that he was the seventh son of a seventh son, but when my mother recited the names of her aunts and uncles he turned out to be the youngest son of only five sons - William Salthouse, John Braidwood Salthouse, Francis Walters Salthouse, Alfred Salthouse and himself, James Thomas Salthouse.

The 1881 census (then the only census available online, at Family Search) partly soved the mystery - another child, Richard Salthouse, was listed. Presumably he died young, but he had never been mentioned by my grandfather - possibly conversation never got round to siblings who had been born and died long before my grandfather was born in 1897. So now there were six sons; would there be any more?

Gradually more information became available on Free Bmd and Lancashire Bmd and it is likely that Henry Salthouse, 1888-1889, will prove to be the last son needed to make up the "seven sons" - of which my grandfather would have been the seventh son.

Which brings me to this morning's post. I received a copy of the death certificate of little Annie Salthouse, a previously unknown sister to my grandfather, named after her aunt, Annie Salthouse.The older Annie Salthouse had kept the village shop in Nether Alderley and seemed to have been the head of the family for many years. Little Annie Salthouse died of tubercular meningitis in August 1880, poor little thing, it doesn't alter anything, but I'm glad that she has been found and included in the list of William and Janet Salthouse's 10 children (at the last count).

Alexander Ralston

One of my grandmothers was a Ralston - Gertrude Maud Ralston. This is one of those families where you find the earliest recorded person first and then gradually prove the connection as more and more information becomes available on the internet. That first person was Alexander Ralston who was listed in the Liverpool Poll Book of 1832 as a Block Maker of Upper Frederick Street, Toxteth.

Yesterday I revisited the excellent Toxteth Park Cemetery Site, a free site, generously given, and now graced with a site search engine. A quick search for "Ralston" provided a lot of new information. Alexander's wife, Sarah [Coleman] died in 1876, his daughter-in-law, Catherine, died in 1862 and one of her children died in 1863 - along with another of Alexander's grandchildren; the two babies, who would have been first cousins, were buried together in one ceremony. There were other, previously unknown, children, too. Sites like this are excellent for finding those children who were born and who died between the census years and who can't be identified from the bmd records (usually because the surnames are too common). My next task is to find out why there were so many deaths at this time - was it the Lancashire Cotton Famine or the cholera epidemics or some other reason?