Internet Power

This has been a delightfully busy week! Courtesy of the wonders of broadband and the internet, I have been chatting away to a surviving member of 62 Squadron, and to the daughterof another member of the squadron. I have also met two new members, previously unknown, of the Belton family, and been chatting again to some far-flung Salthouse family. New pictures have also come to light and I'll be working on them soon.

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.

Ann Salthouse and James Hathaway

My internet wanderings turned up a lovely surprise tonight! I had been Googling "Salthouse Didsbury" and I discovered a photograph of my great great aunt, Ann Salthouse, who was born in 1812 at Didsbury, and who lived in Ewelme, Oxfordshire, after her marriage to James Hathaway. This is a wonderful find, the earliest picture I have ever seen of any of my Salthouse relatives and the likeness is there. Ann seems to have been a very strong and indomitable character.

The photograph and some information about Ann and her family is on the Oxfordshire Family History Society website at http://faces.oxfordshirefhs.org.uk/Anne_SALTHOUSE.html. It is very generous of the family to post the photograph on the internet and share this information.

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.

Moses Chappell

Late last night I was wandering around the net and looking for inspiration in my Favourites list, when I spied a link to the Lancashire Online Parish Clerks, another of my favourite free sites created by generous volunteers. This site lists transcriptions, as you would expect, of many pre-1837 bmds for the county. Much of the information is also available on the Family Search site, but these are (I believe) new transcriptions - and every source of information is worth checking, you might just find that one extra snippet of information that fits everything together.

I had decided to search the whole county for Salthouse marriages and the database returned several pages of results. Right at the very end - in 1836 - one name jumped off the screen and lit up in front of my eyes: "Moses Chappell!" I exclaimed. "Mmmm", said the one member of my family still trying to stay awake - they are all used to such exclamations and take little notice these days...

Moses Chappell. He was a witness to the wedding of Ellen Salthouse and James Massey Ashcroft at the Collegiate Church, Manchester on the 30th May 1836.

The story begins with the death certificate of my great, great, grandmother, Sophia Salthouse (widow of Anthony Salthouse), who died at Hulme, Manchester on the 1st April 1859. The registrar was notified of her death by James Chappell. Who was he? His full name name proved to be James Light Salthouse Chappell - a pretty good clue that he was a relative of some kind! Following his life forward through the census returns and trade directories was a joy, but tracing his ancestry was more difficult. James Chappell was born in 1827, the son of Moses Chappell and Sarah - but Sarah who?

Over time I have searched and re-searched the relevant websites but no suitable Sarah was ever found, even less a Sarah Salthouse. So last night I looked, instead, for the birth of Ellen Salthouse and she proved to be a hitherto unknown daughter of Anthony and Sophia Salthouse of Didsbury; when she married she became Mrs Ashcroft - and Moses Chappell witnessed that marriage. Checking back through my records I noticed that on one census an Annie J Ashcroft was recorded as the niece of Sarah Chappell. Still with me on this? One final search for Moses Chappell's wife, presumed to be a Sarah Salthouse, and the IGI turned up just one record for the time and place - Sarah Salthouse, daughter of Anthony Salthouse and Sophia, previously unknown to me despite many trawls of the IGI.

Now I can finally link the Salthouse and Chappell families. Anthony Salthouse and Sophia of Didsbury had several children, one of their daughters, Sarah Salthouse, married Moses Chappell; another daughter, Ellen Salthouse, married James Massey Ashcroft and Moses Chappell was one of the witnesses to their marriage. Sophia Salthouse was probably widowed before 1837 and spent the next 20 years employed as a monthly nurse. In 1859 she was living at Hulme and her nearest family was her grandson-in-law, James Chappell, who lived just around the corner and, I assume, looked after Sophia during the illnesses and when she died and who notified the registrar of her death.

The main mystery has been solved, just some loose ends for further research. A result!

Rev. Robert Salthouse

Would you pay for information which is already available, free of charge, on the internet?

Subscription sites are fine - I wouldn't be without my subscriptions - but it's always worth checking out the free sites first. Take, for instance, Find My Past, who now advertise that they have over 20 million baptism, marriage and burial records on their site. Undoubtedly some of these may be exclusive, but I did not find any baptism or marriage records relating to my research that are not already available, free of charge, on the Family Search site, or available on the National Burial Index CDs which I purchased a while ago. The same applies to the Family History Online Site - which also contains the 1851 Manchester unflimed census returns - something else which I had bought in CD format over the years. So I would always support and check the free sites first, then make best use of the subscription sites by knowing exactly what I need to pay for.

This was prompted by the August issue of "Who Do You Think You Are", on tracing Anglican Clergy. The magazine brought to my attention a new website that I had never visited before: Crockford's Clerical Directory. The initial search is free of charge (excellent) but my search for the Rev. Robert Salthouse resulted in absolutely no results at all - I wasn't surprised by that as I had checked a copy of the directory previously and found no result, but I am still surprised that neither he nor his predecessor are mentioned. The magazine article and Crockford's site also referred me to The Clergy Database, my Reverends were not there either. It was not a wasted journey, however, as the sites contain more information and more links that I could find useful another day. If the Rev. R. Salthouse had been listed, and if he had been more central to my research, I might well have subscribed for a year and extracted some very useful information.

The Rev. R. Salthouse has turned up in other parts of the internet, though. His birth is not listed on Family Search, but there are census returns for 1841 and 1851 that look hopeful. In 1861 Robert is a scripture reader, lodging with a family in Preston, in 1871 and 1881 he is the incumbent at St James, West Derby, but he is not in the 1891 and 1901 census. There are quite a few announcements of weddings in the Liverpool Mercury 1866-1867 at which Robert had officiated; Liverpool Record Office has a copy of a sermon he gave at St James on the 14th November 1869 (possibly his first sermon as incumbent after removing from St Peter's and All Saints in Everton), and by smply trawling the internet, I found a reference on an antiques site to a silver goblet, made in 1872 by Wordley & Co., Liverpool, and engraved with "Ethel Eleanor Briggs from her godfather Robert Salthouse, February 1874". The Rev. Robert Salthouse shouldn't be too difficult to follow through one evening.

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).