Tag Archives: london

20Mar/15

Holborn

London Stories, , , ,

Picture this at the turn of the last millennium – around 1000 AD. You are sitting on a high branch of a tree growing in the middle of Holborn Circus and looking to the west, up High Holborn. The Hole Bourne Stream runs through the area and empties into the Fleet River, over to your right, which joins the Thames at Blackfriars. The City wall, built by the Romans, is just on the other side (from here) of the Fleet, with an imposing entrance called Ludgate. Most ordinary Londoners speak the East Saxon language, in common with the Essex villagers who live in the area from here to the mouth of the Thames.

There is a large cattle market by the stream which overlooks a few small lakes. A track wanders through the lakes, giving the locals access to the market. The de Grey family builds a nice house here, just outside the City, and they call it the Manor of Purpoole, referring to the market near the lake. Around the city wall to the north from here, there are swamps and rough country – caused partly by the wall itself. There are wild boar and deer in the woods that you can see from your tree, some cattle graze on tree-lined paddocks and corn ripens in fields cared for by tenant farmers. To the south of the Thames you can see the dense smoke of the brick-makers’ ovens.

The Prudential Building, Holborn

The Prudential Building, Holborn

Skip a thousand years and look around from your tree branch high above the Circus. The Hole Bourne stream has been buried but the name has survived, mangled to Ho’b’n and we spell it Holborn. If you listen carefully, you may hear the locals say the L, even though it isn’t actually pronounced. The cockneys of London are the direct inheritors of the East Saxon language used so long ago.

The Prudential building (above) now sits where the market was, the Fleet River is in a culvert under Farringdon Street and the Purpoole name is preserved in Portpool Lane that joins Grays Inn Rd to Leather Lane. The roads and streets of London follow the the hedgerows and pathways of those ancient paddocks and fields while the deep deposits of clay to the south of the Thames have been used to make millions of bricks for London’s yellow-brick buildings.

Portpool Lane

Portpool Lane

20Mar/15

Gray’s Inn

London Stories, , , , , ,

The Inns of Court are ancient institutions and as you walk around our neighbourhood you’ll see signs of them: Staples Inn, Clifford’s Inn, Furnvials’s Inn, Barnard’s Inn, but there are four really famous ones – Lincoln’s Inn, Inner Temple, Middle Temple and Gray’s Inn. They have a serious teaching function, but many of their buildings are also occupied by operating legal chambers. You join one as a law student and through them, you get “called to the bar” ie become a barrister. Not everyone who joins an Inn becomes a barrister, or even wants to, but there are few other ways to become a lawyer, and none (until 2004) if you wanted to be a barrister.

Gray's Inn

Gray’s Inn

If you walk up High Holborn to Chancery Lane tube station, you will meet Gray’s Inn Rd at the lights. Cross the road and then just past the Cittie of Yorke pub, turn right into Warwick Ct  – you’ll miss it if you blink. At the end of it, through an imposing arch, is an entrance to Gray’s Inn. These are the arms of each of the Inns and the notice “School of Law.” Gray’s Inn has the gold griffin on a black background.

Inns of Court

Inns of Court

Famous people associated with Gray’s Inn? Queen Elizabeth I was patron and “a loving glass” is still raised to Good Queen Bess. Shakespeare performed his plays there, and part of a captured Spanish galleon has been made into a wooden screen in the Hall. Thomas a’Becket was chaplain of the chapel and he occupies the centre of the stained glass triptych behind the altar. Sir Francis Bacon was a member as was Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt.

The Walks, as the gardens are called, were laid out by Sir Francis Bacon and much of what he did endures. Verulam Buildings on Gray’s Inn Rd were named after him. Almost all the buildings were destroyed by German bombs in WW2, but a few choice buildings survive.

At the entrance to Gray’s Inn you’ll see a nice bronze relief of Sun Yat-Sen, who overthrew the Manchu dynasty in China in 1911. You could say “We taught him everything he knew…”

Sun Yat Sen

Sun Yat Sen

20Mar/15

The resurrectionists

London Stories, , , , ,

There were three great slums in Victorian London, perhaps the worst slums in the whole world; Spitalfields, the Mint and St Giles-in-the-Fields. I have mentioned St Giles before, perhaps a mile from Holborn, behind CentrePlace. Mint St was the area around the Southwark fire station, literally the site of King Henry VIII’s mint, just behind Union St, and the Spitalfields slum was the Bethnal Green/Shoreditch area to the east of Shoreditch High St. This particular slum was described in 1845 as having “the most intense pangs of poverty, the most profligate morals, and the most odious crimes (which) rage with the fury of a pestilence.” Into this mix of poverty, low morals and crime, throw in a nice money-making scheme supplying bodies to the local hospitals so that they could teach anatomy, and you would generate one of the most disgusting and disturbing crimes humanity could dream up – body-snatching, in this case, for profit.

Sign in Giltspur St, Smithfield

Sign in Giltspur St, Smithfield

The sign above is in Giltspur St, opposite St Bartholomew’s Hospital. It tells the story of the Fortune of War pub, in which bodies were laid out so the surgeons from St Bart’s could select and pay for the ones they wanted. I often wonder how the surgeons of St Barts these days deal with their consciences when they leave work through the exit that faces this sign.

The men who carried out this skin-crawling, “trade” were variously called Resurrectionists (guess why!) or body snatchers. They would hang around looking for funerals and then the night after the ceremony they would lift the body, strip it, drag it on a trolley through London to their markets, sell the body, and then sell whatever useable clothes and jewelry the body might have possessed. There are also stories of lifting the flagstones in churches and replacing them carefully, so the families never knew the body had been removed.

Most of the churches of London had graveyards, and the graves were almost always shallow-dug. It was the work of an hour or so to remove a body from its coffin and supply it to the nearest paying surgeon, replacing the flagstone as they went. You can see in this picture I took in St Bartholomew the Great, that the caskets were buried very shallowly – the gap in the clay is the lead from the casket. There are stories – and some convictions – of gangs who supplied freshly murdered bodies, but I know of no surgeons who were prosecuted for causing the demand, or for desecration, or even for receiving stolen property.

Lead casket, St Bartholomew the Great

Lead casket, St Bartholomew the Great

The work of the body snatcher was to supply bodies for dissection in London’s teaching hospitals. Their  surgeons had no access to the bodies of executed criminals, so they started paying for fresh bodies, and did not ask too many questions about how the body was obtained. The most famous anatomist and surgeon in England was John Hunter. He did ground-breaking work in venereal disease, gum disease and gun-shot wounds. 3000 items of his work are displayed in the Hunterian Museum, in the Royal College of Surgeons, behind Lincoln’s Inn Fields. All of his items are from purchased (ie snatched) bodies.

I found this topic difficult enough to research and write about so I have no intention of giving you some samples from the Hunterian Museum. Suffice it to say that you will find it in the Royal College of Surgeons in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. I have attached a photo of a 19th Century cauterisation instrument. I could have shown you artificial leeches, twelve-bladed bloodletting instruments and other 18th and 19th Century medical paraphernalia, but I have spared you.

19th Century cauterisation instrument, Hunterian Museum

19th Century cauterisation instrument, Hunterian Museum

Royal College of Surgeons, Lincoln’s Inn

Royal College of Surgeons, Lincoln’s Inn

20Mar/15

Helen Hinkley, 1865, London

London, UK, New Zealand, , , , , ,

6 July 2001

Mr Jim Spence

Christchurch

NEW ZEALAND

Dear Jim

I have brought to England all the material about the Orange family that you sent me. A few weeks ago, I was browsing through it all and I realised that I had heard of Southwark and couldn’t think why.  They ordained the latest Bishop of St Albans in Southwark Cathedral and while I was looking through your material I saw Helen Hinkley, 53 Union St, Southwark.  Within weeks, I was called to a job interview at Sainsbury’s 169 Union St, Southwark and I spent the day, either side of that interview, wandering around the area that Helen would have known so well.  In a week or so, I was appointed to a job with Sainsbury’s in Rennie St, just around the corner from Union St.  I sent the following to Mum:

I have landed a very nice job as a Technical Support Analyst on the Help Desk for Sainsbury’s head office in Rennie House, Rennie St, Southwark.  Pronounced SUTHic.  The place is often confused with Suffolk because lots of Brits can’t say the th in Suthic, so it comes out suffok anyway and people say to me, “Oh, you’re working in Suffolk – that’s a long way from St Albans ….”

Now, Mum.  Your grandmother, Elsie’s mum, Helen Orange, nee Hinkley (I’ll call her Helen Hinkley for the moment) was born in 1865 and lived at 53 Union St, Southwark.  When she left for NZ in 1883, she left from a very good place to leave. It’s easy to picture the Dickensian pea-soup smogs and imagine peering through slit eyes as you pick your way to work through the grubby brick buildings, skipping past horse droppings, breathing the foul and putrid air and listening for the trains hissing  and rattling noisily overhead, as they make their way to London Bridge or Blackfriars.

She was a nurse in London, did you know? I’d love to know if you ever met her – she died in 1928, and you would have been 7 at the time, and she divorced your grandfather in 1924, so it’s quite possible you never meet her.  However – back to Southwark.  I’ve taken to walking all around the Bankside area that Helen would have been familiar with and I have been looking for anything older than 1883, so that what I am looking at, she would have seen.  

Well, there is a lot.  Firstly, her house is still standing.  

53 Union St Middle house was Helen Hinkleys.

53 Union St – middle house was Helen Hinkley’s.

It’s just the shell and is being refurbished for business premises, but many of the houses around it are still in 1883 condition and you can easily get a sense of the dust, grime and poverty of the area.  It was primarily a warehouse district and many of the Victorian era buildings still standing, although converted to modern use mostly as offices, have retained the lifting gear attached to the outside walls.  

She would have been familiar with the Southwark Cathedral, which was called the Church of St Mary Overie when she lived there – it became a cathedral in 1910.  It’s only a few streets away, adjacent to London Bridge.

Southwark Cathedral

Southwark Cathedral

She would have been familiar with the stories of The Clink – the prison that gave all others the name.  It’s just a few streets away, even though it wasn’t an active prison when she lived there, the rubble from a huge fire in the area in 1814 was still there in 1883 and its underground vaults still exist, too. It was the prison for the Duke of Winchester in Winchester Palace and it started life in the 1300’s.  A really horrible place.  

Entrance to the Clink.

Entrance to the Clink.

Southwark has been home to prostitution and crime since Saxon times.  The Duke of Winchester “regulated” the brothels and owned a large section of Bankside since King Steven gave it all to him in the 1130’s. The Clink was his private prison and he held life and death over its inmates until the prison was destroyed in 1780.

Prisoner in the overhead cage outside the Clink.

Prisoner in overhead cage outside the Clink.

There is a little bit of Winchester Palace still standing – a wall and a large rose window – and under that is the Clink. In Clink St, of course.  The palace itself, in its heyday, was inside a fully-walled area of about 200 acres; all that’s left today is that bit of wall with the window, and the remnant of the Clink.

Winchester Palace, the last fragment.

Winchester Palace, the last fragment.

She would also have been familiar with St Paul’s Cathedral towering over the Thames on the other side of the river, and all the other works of Sir Christopher Wren in the area built in the late 1600’s, early 1700’s.  

St Pauls Cathedral.

St Pauls Cathedral

His chief mason, by the way, was a man called Edward Strong who was a citizen of St Albans and is buried here in St Peters Church. The Blackfriars bridge Helen crossed to get to The City from Bankside is the same one I cross to get to work, because it was built in the 1760’s; by an engineer called Rennie, incidentally.  She would have been familiar with the Blackfriars rail bridge, too, that crosses the Thames and swings through Southwark on a big brick viaduct.  I suspect that then the arches would have been open, but today they are bricked up for lockups – and there is a very large amount of space to be let under the arches of a rail bridge.

Ivor Adams, my cousin on my grandmother Sadie Tearle’s side, who has worked in The City most of his life, said that Bankside was the haunt of the Teddy Boys in the 1920’s and 1930’s and even today, in spite of all the upgrading that has been done there, areas just to the south, like Peckham, and Elephant & Castle, are still poverty-stricken and crime-ridden.  If you stay close to the river, you’re ok. It’s very nice.  I walked 7 minutes from work down The Thames Walk to the Tate Modern, a coal-fired electricity station that has been converted into the largest indoor space I have ever seen.

Tate Modern.

Tate Modern.

And they use all this space for an art museum. Free admission, too.  I could only spend 10 minutes there but the building outside is massive in brick, dominated by a tall red-brick chimney that has been a feature of the Bankside skyline for nearly a century.  Inside, it is light and airy and there are overhead cranes quietly tucked away waiting to move large and heavy exhibits.

I have attached photos of the landmarks in the Bankside area that Helen would have seen.  

I have also found Glen Parva, Blaby, Leicester, where Albert Edward Orange (1865-1942) came from.  It was a Roman settlement and nestles in a crook of the A426 and the Leicester Ring-road. There is a Great Glen in the area as well as Peating Parva, Ashby Parva and Wigston Parva.  Elaine’s cousin, Jack Dalgleish, lives in Leicester and we have been to see his family several times.  Would you like some photos of 1870’s Glen Parva? Next time we go to Leicester we’ll stop and have a look to see what is left.  Do you have a street name?  That would be a real help.

Kindest regards

Ewart Tearle

18Mar/15

Tearle, Otho George, 1892, Willesden, UK (RAMC)

London, UK, War Stories WW1, , , , , ,

“National Roll of the Great War” has this entry:

Tearle, G (RAMC)

Tearle George RAMC National Roll

This is the entry for Otho George Tearle 1882, service number 47279, 29th Btn Middlesex Regt and 331034, 335th Lowland Field Ambulance, RAMC, who married Ellen Yule nee Rogers. He seems always to have called himself George. He was at the above address for the birth of two of his children. Son of Jonathon 1862 of Stanbridge and Alice nee Kearns and g-son of William 1832 and Catharine nee Fountain. Another member of the Willesden cell. Brother of James Harry Tearle.

Pamela wrote to me, asking what I knew of Otho George. Here is what I wrote to her:

Our common grandparents were Thomas b 1806 and Mary nee Garner. Thomas was a son of Richard 1773 and Elizabeth nee Bodsworth. Thomas had two sons of interest to us, James 1827, the eldest, born in Toddington. If you have a look at my pictures site, http://www.flickr.com/photos/27466815@N03/ you will see recent pictures of Toddington. You could walk there from Stanbridge in a couple of hours, and I intend to do so. Chalgrave is at the end of the High Street, on the Dunstable road.

Thomas and Mary’s third son was William 1832, born Stanbridge. James married Mary Andrews from Eggington. They had Levi, my great-grandfather, but not so long ago that our dear Jennie Pugh still remembered him very well. Levi’s eldest was Arthur and he was my grandfather. I never met him, but I did see Sadie, my grandmother about 4 times.

When James died in 1887, Mary married Charles Shillingford in 1888. Both James’ and Charles’ headstones are still standing in the Stanbridge churchyard. When Charles died in 1891, Mary married your gg-grandfather William 1832, and he outlived her by some 6 years, dying in 1920. We’ve often talked about Mary marrying her husband’s brother, which might be illegal, but there must be some way round it. Perhaps because she was Mary Shillingford when she married William, she wasn’t still the widow of James. I don’t know, and I certainly don’t think she did anything wrong. Actually, neither did Levi Tearle, her son, who was a very staunch Primitive Methodist, because he was a witness at her wedding to William – in Watford. She died in Levi’s house and he signed the death certificate as “present at the death.”

Now, your William 1832 had a son Jonathon (always called, and spelt, John) who went to London and had your grandfather Otho George – and the rest is history.

So our gg-grandfathers were brothers. If you go to Stanbridge Church, you will see the side-by side headstones of my gg-grandfather James and another of his and William’s brothers, John.

The George Tearle who married Ellen Yule did so on this form – you might like to send away for it. The date is remarkable.

Name: Otho G Tearle
Spouse Surname: Yule
Date of Registration: Jan-Feb-Mar 1948
Registration district: Willesden
Registration county (inferred): Middlesex
Volume Number: 5f
Page Number: 489

I had a look to see who the Yule girl was and her entry says:

Name: Ellen Yule
Spouse Surname: Tearle
Date of Registration: Jan-Feb-Mar 1948
Registration district: Willesden
Registration county (inferred): Middlesex
Volume Number: 5f
Page Number: 489

So that means that Otho George Tearle and Ellen Yule were your father’s parents – and certainly that Otho George was your grandfather.

I have attached Otho George’s baptism. You can see that his parents were Johathon and Alice, and that he was born in Notting Hill, London.

Now, interestingly, there is an 18yr old George Tearle of Notting Hill in Pentonville gaol in the 1901 census, and he is our Otho George.

Jonathon Tearle is a son of William 1832 and Catherine nee Fountain. A very famous family on the Family Tree. This is the same William who married my gg-grandmother Mary nee Andrews when both of them were in their 70s. You can see her story on in the Tearle Stories section, along with William and Catharine nee Fountain’s story.

Your g-grandfather’s name is not John, but Jonathon – but they called him John anyway, even in the census returns.

George died in 1961, the form below would show you the address at the time.

  • Name: Otho G Tearle
  • Death Registration Month/Year: 1961
  • Age at death (estimated): 78
  • Registration district: Willesden
  • Inferred County: Middlesex
  • Volume: 5f
  • Page: 214

I have come across a significant document that might help us to identify your grandfather.

An army document from WW1 shows your father, and some of his siblings with their birth dates and places, and George, and Ellen, and their address all on the same page.

Otho George lists his family on entry to the army.

Otho George lists his family on entry to the army.

Ellen is Ellen Yule, not Rodgers, which is most likely her maiden name, and she is described as a Platonic wife.  Pvt George Tearle’s army number, by the way, was 331034

From Pat Field:

It does seem however that Ellen Rogers married William J A Yule and they had 8 children together, then William Yule disappears until his death in 1944.  All the children except for one were in the Kensington and Chelsea Workhouse School in Ewell Surrey in 1911.   Ellen was in North Kensington with one daughter, Ellen aged 7.  It appears she then lived with Otho George/aka George and they had 3 or 4 children, one being Brian’s father Charles Walter Yule.  There are military records on Ancestry that are very informative naming Ellen Yule as George’s Platonic wife and listing 4 children.  Only 3 of these were Tearles because the oldest daughter was born a Yule.

I would think from this that William J A Yule was in some form of institution and this is why Ellen and George could not marry until 1948, after William Yule died.

18Mar/15

Charles Walter Yule Tearle, 1919, Harlesden, UK

London, UK, , , , , , , , ,

Brian Tearle has asked me to see if I can find his Willesden ancestors. This is what I have found:

Brian’s father is Charles Walter Yule Tearle, b1919 in Harlesden, Willesden, Mdx.

In the years since I took up the quest to find out who this man and his family was, I had a good deal of help from, especially, Pat Field of Bedfordshire and Sue Albrecht of Auckland.

Brian sent me his father’s birth certificate, and that said his father was George Tearle and his mother was “Ellen Tearle formerly Rodgers”. Importantly, it also noted the address: 77 Carlysle Avenue, Harlesden and that he was “Private, Royal Army Medical Corps (General Carman).” That hit a note; G Tearle, the soldier in the National Roll, was also from the same address and had the same job in the army; they would be the same man.

Brian then sent me his father’s marriage certificate and it showed they were married in the Petersfield Registry Office in Nov 1940. Charles was a sapper in the Royal Engineers, as well as being a railway porter in civilian life. His father was George Tearle. The marriage certificate did not help me a lot, because the name George Tearle doesn’t tell us much.

I came across the medical records of all the Tearle men who had been injured, or at least came to the attention of an army hospital. The medical records were kept at Chelsea Hospital, and a George Tearle was amongst them. The Attestation page was crystal clear – George Tearle, 77 Carlysle Ave, Willesden. He was 34yrs in Dec 1915, (born 1881) and he was a labourer. The army gave him the number 331034, and put him in the Middlesex Regiment, and from there he was transferred to the 19th Coy, RAMC in Sep 1916. His infringements were relatively minor – 7 days confined to barracks for a guard duty error, and 14 days imprisonment for being 36hr late from leave.

And then I came across the page about his family:

Address 77 Carlysle Ave, Willesden

His “Platonic Wife” Ellen Yule and children:

Ellen Dorothy 1903

George 1912

Alan John 1913

Athol James 1914 and

Charles Walter Yule 1919.

Now I knew all this about him, and he definitely was Charles’ father, but I still didn’t know exactly who he was. And a platonic wife, with children, seemed an odd expression.

It was Pat who solved the problem when she found George’s marriage certificate of 1948; it was a revelation. His name was Otho George, he was 65, a bachelor and he was marrying Ellen Yule, aged 69, a widow. George’s father’s name was Jonathon Tearle and Ellen’s father was Alfred Rogers. We also found George’s baptism in St Michael and All Angels, Paddington, in Oct 1884, his name certainly was Otho George and his parents were Jonathon and Alice Tearle. Sue had also found a previous marriage for Ellen Rogers to William James Alfred Yule in 1897. She was finally allowed to marry George when William Yule died.

Otho George 1882, born in Willesden, was a son of Jonathon Tearle 1862 of Stanbridge and Alice nee Kearns, who were married in 1882. They had two boys in WW1, and one of them, James Harry Tearle 1891 of Willesden, was killed in the Somme in 1917. Jonathon was a son of William 1832 and Catharine nee Fountain, and traces his lineage back to John 1741. His father became my step-gg-grandfather when he married my gg-grandmother, Mary nee Andrews in Watford in 1893.

18Mar/15

John Tearle, 1856, Stanbridge, UK

London, UK, , , , ,

I saw John first in the 1901 London census, where he was a Foreman Platelayer on the railway. His eldest son, John 22, is a Stoker. Another son, George is said to have been born in Stonebridge, Mdx. Here is a transcript of the census return:

1901 John 1856 Stbg Elizabeth 45 John 22 Louisa 18 George 12 Horace 5 Freda 4 Herbert C 1 in Willesden Mdx.

I dug back into John’s past.

In 1891, John and Elizabeth are living in 5 Melville Rd, Willesden and he calls himself a General Labourer.

1891 John 1856 Stbg Elizabeth 35 John 12 Laura 8 Arthur 4 George 2 Ethel 4m in Willisden Mdx

Now, this is the interesting bit:

In 1881, John and his new wife are in Northall, but they have with them their new son, John 1879, who was born in Middlesex. I found their marriage:

Name: John Tearle

Year of Registration: 1877  

Quarter of Registration: Oct-Nov-Dec  

District: Leighton Buzzard  

County: Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire  

Volume: 3b  

Page: 895

and she is Elizabeth Tompkins of Eaton Bray. The certificate says John’s residence at the time of marriage was Northall and his father was John Tearle, Labourer. Also interestingly, they are living in a house immediately next door to John and Charlotte Irons.

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1881 John 1857 Stbg Elizabeth 24 Northall John 2 Mdx in Northall

In 1871, John is 15ys and living with John and Charlotte Irons – he is John’s nephew.

1871 John 1856 Stbg neph John Irons 56 Charlotte 53 in Northall

In 1861, John is 5yrs old, living in the household of his uncle John and Charlotte Irons. He is their nephew.

1861 John 1856 Stbg nephew of John Irons 41 Charlotte 1818 Edels in Northall

I could not find the link that made John Tearle 1856 a nephew of John Irons, so I concentrated on his parents; who were they? One of them was John, not surprisingly, a labourer and in the village was a John Tearle who in 1840 had married a Northall girl called Eliza Irons. I sent off for their marriage certificate, too.

wp1d69de5d_05_06

Eliza Iron’s father was Edward Irons and a search though the IGI gave me the marriage of Edward Irons and Hannah Tarman in Northchurch, Herts, on 12 Aug 1803. They had 10 children, and two of them were Eliza, born 1818, and John Irons, born 1814, one of Eliza’s elder brothers. Another brother was Thomas Irons born 1812, and Ann Irons, born 1821, they were here making their marks as witnesses to this wedding. There was no question I had the right family. As we can see from the marriage certificate, John was born to an unmarried Mary Tearle, almost certainly of Stanbridge. I went looking for her. In the 1841 census, a John Tearle aged 20 with a wife Eliza 20, a daughter Sarah aged 2 and a daughter Mary aged 4m, are living in Stanbridge only a few houses from Abel Tearle and Martha nee Emerton. Abel has his children living with him as well as his 65yr old father-in-law, Joseph Emerton. In villages, families combine and re-combine to give support to each other. And to a certain extent, in a village as small as Stanbridge, everyone is also a neighbour. If our John is 20, then he was born about 1820. Barbara reminded us that there was a Mary Tearle who baptised a  “John son of Mary Tearle a bastard” in 1823. Mary was the daughter of John 1770 and Mary nee Janes. The Stanbridge PRs record her baptism in 1803.

We have to be careful not to get too tied up over accurate dates, here, because John is a bit woolly either on his maths or his birth date, or both, because in 1841 he is 20, in 1851 he is 32, in 1861 he is 40 and in 1871 he is 54. He died on 1 Oct 1877.

There is the fascinating picture of John in the 1871 Stanbridge census with an unmarried daughter Mary Ann (29) and her daughter Annie, as well as another unmarried daughter, Jane (26) with her son Zephaniah.

So the last son of John and Eliza, John 1856, did not live with his family, although admittedly not very far away from them, but lived with his uncle and aunt, John and Charlotte Irons. Why? I think the answer lies in the fact that his mother Eliza died in Dec 1856, probably of childbirth or one of its many complications. Unusually, John did not remarry, probably because he had daughters who were old enough to look after him so he didn’t need to marry again quickly, as many of the village men had to do. John 1856, therefore, was given to his childless uncle and no doubt into a very grateful and caring little family, no matter how poor they were.

So why did he go to Willesden?

Richard Tearle has pointed out the following:

“As I’m sure you’re aware, Willesden, Harlesden and Stonebridge are very close together in London and, all of these places tie in with Watford and Leighton Buzzard as being important places on the (then) fairly new LNWR line from Euston to Scotland (via Preston!!)”

There was work – and there was family.

We know John and Elizabeth were in London between 1881 and 1891, because in the 1891 census, John is recorded as having been born in 1879 in Alperton, then Louisa was born in Willesden in 1882.  In 1881, Jonathon 1862 (son of William 1832 and Catharine nee Fountain) was in Willesden, George 1844 of Stanbridge and Lavinia nee George were in Kentish Town, George 1855 of Slapton and Elizabeth were in Mile End, Old Town (a railway town) John 1831 from Toddington and William were in Acton, Joseph 1834 of Dagnall and Elizabeth nee Naylor were in Hammersmith, William North Tearle and Emily were in Camberwell. It’s noo far a stretch to point out that there are family ties throughout all of this, but the strongest ones are to George 1844 and William North and Emily. George is a Stanbridge man, so ties to the village are very strong, and a railway voyage was an adventure. William North T and Emily must have gone back to Leighton Buzzard to have their last child, because Monta Monica 1876 died in Leighton Buzzard in 1877.

So we have now uncovered the story of John 1823 and his son John 1856. Interestingly, we have also visited the stories of John’s mother, Mary 1803, and even of his grandparents, John 1770 and Mary nee Janes. In two sons, we have traversed from 1770 to 1901.

18Mar/15

Tearle, James Harry, 1891, Willesden, UK (Rifle Brigade)

London, UK, Roll of Honour, Roll of Honour WW1, War Stories WW1, , , , , , ,

Here is his service record from the CWGC

Name: TEARLE, Initials: J H
Nationality: United Kingdom Rank: Rifleman
Regiment/Service: Rifle Brigade Unit Text: 12th Bn.
Age: 26 Date of Death: 16/03/1917
Service No: S/21464
Additional information: Son of John and Alice Tearle, of Willesden, London; husband of Dorothy Amelia Tearle, of 123, Malvern Rd., West Kilburn, London.
Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead Grave/Memorial Reference: V. A. 2.
Cemetery: SAILLY-SAILLISEL BRITISH CEMETERY
James was born in Paddington, says SDGW. The CWGC adds that he was 26 when he died, hence b1891.

National Roll of the Great War says:

Tearle, J H, Rifleman,

Tearle James Harry National Roll

It took me a while to find out the story of this family, but Barbara Tearle of Oxford reminded us that John and Alice are actually Jonathan and Alice nee Kearns, and that Jonathan 1862 of Stanbridge was a son of William 1832 of Stanbridge and Catharine nee Fountain. Here are two brothers, members of my own family, who have gone to Willesden. So I have a common ancestor for them. William’s father and Jonathan’s grandfather is my gg-grandfather, Thomas Tearle 1807 of Stanbridge who married Mary Garner of Toddington.

The army notes (below) that he was killed “In Action”, and that one small gratuity was sent to his parents, and one small gratuity was sent to his wife.

James Harry Tearle UK Army Effects

James Harry Tearle UK Army Effects.

Here is Sailly Saillisel British Cemetery in the Somme Valley, Pas-de-Calais, France.

The gate Sailly Saillisel British Cemetery

The gate, Sailly-Saillisel British Cemetery.

Massed graves Sailly-Saillisel British Cemetery

Massed graves – Sailly-Saillisel British Cemetery.

J H Tearle in Book of Remebrance Sailly Saillisel British Cemetery

J H Tearle in the Book of Remebrance, Sailly-Saillisel British Cemetery.

James Harry Tearle Sailly Saillisel British Cemetery

James Harry Tearle headstone. “God’s finger touched him and he slept.”

07Apr/14
The London Regiment City of London Battlions Cornhill WW1 Memorial 3rd Btn for Arthur Walter Tearle 1881

Tearle, Arthur Walter, 1881, St Pancras, London

War Stories WW1, , , , , , , ,

Ethel had deep concerns when Arthur told her he was going to join the army and fight in the war that was raging across Europe in 1914.
“You’re nearly 35 years old, why do they need you?” She had read the newspapers and had become increasingly alarmed at the lists of casualties being published every day. “You’ve got three children, do you just waltz off and leave me to look after them by myself? If you are killed who then cares?”

She knew she was repeating what every mother had said to their sons, but she was sure this was different – Arthur wasn’t a fit young man looking for adventure, he was working for a well-established educational publisher and he had a family to care for. Not to mention Ethel herself. She had not married him in the Prince of Wales Rd Wesleyan chapel in 1898 to see him disappear in 1914, killed in action in some muddy hell-hole in France or Belgium. Her sister Edith had been her bridesmaid, Arthur’s own sister Minnie had signed the register, surely they would not approve of this? She did not have time to consult them; on the 29th Oct 1914, Arthur showed her a copy of the form he had signed in the Edward St Recruitment Office not far from where they lived.

“I’m in the Territorials,” he said. “Mind you, it’s only a reservist battalion.” He looked at her hopefully, waiting for approval.
“3rd Reserve Battalion (City of London) The London Regiment” she read out. “We’re not in the City. Why them?”
“They recruit over here. And besides, we were married in St Pancras, remember? That’s where the HQ is.” His chin went up, “I’m in the Royal Fusiliers.”
“Reservist, eh? Listen to this.”
She read out a short note from the form
“… to subject himself to liability to serve in any place outside the United Kingdom in the event of National emergency.”
“What do you think the War is? It’s a National emergency. The minute they get hold of you, you’ll be outside the United Kingdom all right!”

Arthur Walter begins his army service

Arthur Walter begins his army service

Why could he not see this?
She looked up from the form and saw disappointment, and even an echo of her own exasperation, on his face.
“I know you’re doing the right thing,” she said slowly, “but this is going to be hard for us. You, me and the children. When do you start?”
“Tomorrow morning.

The 3rd (City of London) Battalion, The London Regiment. (The Royal Fusiliers)
Enlistment numbers show the stark reality of the sheer quantity of men enlisting for what we now call World War 1, and which our parents referred to as The Great War. The 3rd Battalion enrollment numbers rocketed from 1947, the enrollment number of the man who enlisted on 3 May 1914 to 3148, being the enrollment number of a man who enlisted on 18 Dec 1914. A total of 1201 men for one battalion in just seven months. After 1916 many regiments and battalions were disbanded and re-organised and the numbering system became chaotic and non-sequential, but during the months above, the numbers are orderly and sequential. The Long, Long Trail has a section on the London Regiment, and the 3rd Battalion, that gives further background into the regiment that Arthur had just joined

The Long, Long Trail notes that the 3rd Division of each regiment consisted mainly of Section D Reservists, who were normally soldiers who had fulfilled their 5 years service in the regular army and were waiting out their 5 years on reserve.
“All those surplus to the immediate needs of the regular army battalions were posted to the Special Reserve. Thus the (usually) 3rd Battalion of each regiment was massively and very rapidly expanded. Very large numbers of men passed through the SR battalions before being posted to the regular units.”

The record is silent as to where Arthur was trained (most of the London Regiment was trained on Hampstead Heath) but it is quite specific that he was “Home,” as the army calls it, in basic training, from 29 Oct 1914 to 22 Dec; just 55 days. On the 23rd Dec he was on a ship, bound for Malta and the Egypt Theatre of War.
“Reservist?” A shocked Ethel mourned the fact that Arthur could not have Christmas with his family.

Gallipoli
Malta was not under direct threat in 1914 and 1915, but it was a strategic post in the Mediterranean and housed hospitals for repatriating the wounded as well as supply depots for onwards goods and munitions deployment. Whatever he was doing in Malta, and the record is also silent on this, Arthur worked, or trained, perhaps, for 106 days until, on the 7th Apr 1915, he was posted to the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (MEF), to fight in the Dardanelles Campaign. This engagement now forms part of the history of both the London Regiment and the ANZACs. Gallipoli is where New Zealand became a nation and ties with Australia were permanently bound. The 25th April each year is a National Day for both countries.

Vice-Admiral Sir John De Roebecks describes the landings at Anzac Cove and Cape Helles on 25 Apr 1915. Since this was an amphibious landing, I assume that Arthur spent the time between 8 April and 25 April in training for the assault on the Gallipoli beaches. The Vice-Admiral does not specifically mention the 3rd Division but he does say the 2nd Division (Royal Fusiliers) embarked on the warship the Implacable and landed at 07:00 with no casualties, the accompanying warships having given excellent covering fire.

“The nature of the beach was very favourable for the covering fire from ships, but the manner in which this landing was carried out might well serve as a model,” said the Admiral. I think that Arthur was amongst these men. The rest of the Gallipoli campaign is well covered by the many histories written about it and The Long, Long Trail has a very balanced view of the conflict over the entire peninsula.

It is worthy to note that John Henry Tearle 1887 of Hatfield (Service number: 9054) was also there. He was killed on 29 June 1915 and is memorialised on the Hellespont Memorial. I assume he was killed in the Helles area, so he probably survived the original landings and was killed in the Battle of Gully Ravine, which began on 28 June 1915. I shall explain the relationship between John Henry and Arthur later.

Conditions in Gallipoli were appalling. Fighting was almost hand-to-hand and the bodies could not be buried, food was scarce and munitions poorly serviced. Death, disease and sickness were rampant, yet there are legends of donkeys carrying the dead being allowed free pass through enemy lines, of truce hours when the dead were buried and soldiers took the opportunity to swap food parcels with the enemy – for instance, tomatoes were swapped for potatoes. They were fierce fighters, but there was a time and a place for fighting and when there was a truce, then you did not fight.

For almost an entire year the two sides fought over hills and rocky outcrops, trying to force an advantage. Finally, Churchill realised this was no back door into Germany and more pressing concerns drove his attention elsewhere. Gallipoli was the worst disaster of WW1.

025 Lone Pine Cemetary Gallipoli

ANZAC graves, Lone Pine, Gallipoli.
Copyright Genevieve Tearle 2004

Gallipoli was also nation-building for the Turks. Their now legendary leader, Attaturk, built his nation firmly on temporal lines; there would be no blurring of church and state. In 1934 he built a memorial to the events of the Dardanelles Campaign and he made the following promise:

“Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives…. You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours…. You the mothers who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.”

Thousands of Kiwis and Australians who visit ANZAC sites every year in honour of their grandparents take heart from  this message.

In Dec 1915, Arthur was struck with typhus. He was looking forward to the evacuation, which had been ordered on 8 Dec 1915, but this was a bitter blow after the months of fighting he had endured. The Long, Long Trail concludes that 260,000 Allied troops were killed, and 300,000 Turks. They had fought themselves to a draw.
Arthur was evacuated to Valletta Hospital in Malta, where he started his convalescence after his initial treatment for typhus. He looked at the stone walls and the high, vaulted ceilings from his cot and saw a surgeon with a small group of on-lookers standing around the soldier’s bed next to him.

The surgeon was wearing a bloody apron, his badge of office since the days of the barber-surgeon, and he dropped the chart he was reading onto the soldier’s bed and turned to Arthur.

“This man contracted typhus in Gallipoli and has done well to come through it as far as he has,” said the surgeon to the little throng, grouped around the bed, one in a seried rank of beds, crushed into the long, narrow room. He turned his back to the window, the better to read Arthur’s chart in the gloom. “However, he has now developed gastritis and this will prolong his treatment, mostly with a change of diet. Gastritis is a common complaint after a serious trauma such as Enteric Fever.” The surgeon used the army term to ensure his students were up to date with the latest advances in military medical technology.

They moved off, satisfied with Arthur’s progress. His stomach was on fire and he gritted his teeth at the waves of pain and nausea. “I suppose he thinks I’m lucky to be alive,” he said. “What does he mean about a change of diet?”
“No Friday curry,” said an orderly.

C Savona-Ventura, in a scholarly but not very well organised essay on the Military Hospitals of Malta (The Nurse of the Mediterranean) notes that during the Gallipoli campaign 2500 officers and 55400 troops were treated at Valletta. This hospital has a long and chequered career, involving an essay on its improvement from none other than Florence Nightingale herself, charging the hospital with unsanitary conditions, poor treatment of patients and understocking of supplies. The British government set up a commission and recommendations were made, but nothing was actually done. It is generally agreed that Valletta was insufficient (and always had been) for the uses it was put to. It was here that Arthur had contracted gastritis, which is a nasty inflamation of the stomach, probably including a peptic ulcer.

He was returned to England where he spent time in Chichester Hospital, Lewes, then Braydon Hospital, then a spell in Newport Pagnell. He returned to duty on 2 May 1916, but was unable to work.

He was examined at Hurdcott Camp Hospital in Wiltshire. This was originally set up for various London Rifle brigades, but in August 1916 it was taken over by the Australians who used it for convalescing soldiers who would be there for six months or more. In the hills around Fovant, where Hurdcott is situated, you can see The Fovant Badges.  These are regimental badges cut into the chalk and still tended today. The 6CLR (6th battalion, City of London Regiment) is clearly there. It will serve to remind us of the London Regiment.

On 10 Oct 1916, they reported on Arthur, and two days later, he was recommended for discharge from the army as “No longer physically fit for active service.” I have reproduced a short part of the report, below, but let me transcribe it, since it makes grim reading.:

“Origin Dec 1915 Gallipoli. Had Enteric Fever, during operations, & was sent Malta Valetta Hospital. Was convalescent and then developed Gastritis. Has had it ever since. Sent England. Is losing weight & is very emaciated. Bad sickness, cannot keep food down, gradually getting worse, and much weaker. Result of active service. Infected with MEF Permanent.”

On the 27th Nov 1916, he was formally examined and discharged. He had been in the army on active service for two days short of two years.

Arthur Walter 3063 army discharge

This report from Chelsea Hospital also tells us that he had three children: Hilda Alexandra, born 1902, George Ewart born 1909 and Winifred Agnes born 1913. A Children’s Allowance of 1/6d per week had been paid for each of them, I assume in addition to his 3/6d weekly pay as a private in the army. He was recommended for three medals – the Victory, The British, and the 1914-1915 Star.

These may have been the same medals as many others received at the end of WW1, but they cannot disguise the fact that Arthur started service at the beginning of the War (hence the 1914-1915 Star) and served overseas for a significant part of his term of service. Nor can they hide the sacrifices he made and the enduring pain he, and his family, suffered as a result of his original decision to help in the effort to defend his country. On the 20th of Dec 1916, Arthur signed for the receipt of the first of his medals. Note that it states that “The Badge will be worn on the right breast or on the right lapel of the jacket, but not in Naval or Military uniform.”

Arthur Walter receives his War Badge

Arthur Walter receives his Silver War Badge

Here is the record the army used to ensure his award was correct.

Arthur Walter Tearle WW1 Silver War Badge

Arthur Walter Tearle WW1 Silver War Badge

On the 24th Aug 1918, he received his King’s Certificate, which was the formal acknowledgement that his king and country would no longer require him for any kind of active service. I do not know if Arthur had recovered enough from his gastritis for the army to conclude that it was no longer their problem, or if the army paid his pension until the end of his original contract, or whether he was actually fit enough to resume his profession as an educational publisher’s assistant, but on the 20th Nov 1919, his army pension was stopped: “No grounds for further award.” All ties with the army were now cut and five tumultuous years in the military were over.

According to Arthur’s grandson, his girls had no children, but George had a family, and one of his boys bears the name Ewart, and that son has a boy called Ewart as well. Quite where the name comes from in Arthur’s family is a mystery, but mine comes from the Ewart family of County Antrim in Northern Ireland, via my maternal g-grandmother. I am not familiar with other members of Arthur’s family to know if their Ewart is family, or a name that Arthur or Ethel met in London.

I am now in a unique position to move backwards into Arthur’s past, to see into his family history for as far back as three hundred years, and possibly to see what the links are between the families that we call the Willesden cell – in other words, those families living in London NW10.

Arthur’s past
Here are my notes on Arthur in the 1901 census in London:
1901 = Arthur 1881 St Pancras Ethel 20 in Kentish Town LON

My other notes will follow this format:

1901 refers to the census year,

Arthur 1881 St Pancras references the person of interest on that census page, the year he was born and the place he was born.

Ethel 20  (and others) lists the other members of the household and their age.

In Kentish Town tells us where they were living. If the location is not immediately obvious, the I have added an identifier (LON – London).
Arthur and Ethel are fairly newly married, given that they did so when they were just 17 (I have the wedding certificate) and they are living at 30 Grafton Rd, Kentish Town. Arthur is a Publisher’s Storeman. Arthur’s wedding certificate stated that his father George Tearle was a Railway Platelayer, so that would account for their presence in Kentish Town – George had found work at one of the major railway workshops of the 19th century.

Arthur’s birth was registered in the first quarter of 1881, but I’m fairly sure he was born in the Dec of 1880 – the birth certificate would solve that question – but there is no doubting his parentage; George Tearle 1844 born in Stanbridge, Beds, and Lavinia George, born 1846 in Mursley, Bucks. In one jump, then, we are back to the traditional birthplace of almost all the Tearles in the world today. I found George in 1901, too:

1901 = George 1844 Stbg Lavinia 55 Annie 25 William 21 Ethel gd 2 in Kentish Town LON

They are living at 25 Ashdown St, Kentish Town, and this return tells us quite a lot about George’s family – for instance, that since Annie was born in Kentish Town, then George has been working for the railways for at least 25 years. Given that Arthur does not list Ethel amongst his children for his Children’s Allowance, then I assume that Ethel, 2yrs old and George and Lavinia’s grandchild, is Annie’s daughter. Let’s keep going back:

1891 = George 1844 Stbg Lavinia 45 William G 11 Arthur W 10 in Kentish Town LON

The family is living at 7 Ashdown St, Kentish Town. This may be the same house as in 1901, because since the Post Office gave the houses the numbers in the first place, it’s possible they simply changed the numbers. William and Arthur are both at school, and both were born in the district of St Pancras, which covers Kentish Town.

1881 = George 1844 Stbg Lavinia 35 Sarah 9 Annie 7 Minnie 5 William 1 Arthur 2m in Kentish Town LON

George is a Railway Labourer and it looks as though Sarah, the eldest, was born in Middlesex, Kilburn, though I’m not quite sure what that tells me except that by age 27, George and Lavinia were no longer living in Bedfordshire. Annie and everyone after her were all born in St Pancras so George has taken up his railway job by at least 1872. There is Minnie, by the way, who officiated at Arthur’s wedding, and just a little aside; they are living in Prince of Wales St, which was the address Ethel gave at her wedding, and it was also the address of the Methodist chapel where the wedding was held. So that’s how Arthur and Ethel met.

1871 = George 1844 Stbg Lavinia 25 in Willesden Mdx
Now this is really interesting – George and Lavinia, with no children, are in Willesden, and George is a Platelayer on the railway. He is 26yrs. He is fresh from the country, so who else is in Willesden? No one. Was he the first? It seems that he may have been.

In 1881 Jonathon 1862 Stbg is there, a porter for Thomas James Shackle, a “Modeller in Sugar.”

In 1891 there is a list: Annie 1874, George’s daughter; Hannah Estaffe, nee Tearle 1865 of Stanbridge; John 1856 and Elizabeth and family; Jonathon again; Zephaniah 1869.
And the same again in 1901.

I shall come back to their interrelationships once I have traveled a little further back in time.

In 1861, there is a completely different picture as we approach the roots of Arthur’s tree. We are on the Eggington Rd, Stanbridge, John and David Flint, the bakers, are next door, young Frederick Janes the butcher (only 26 and already a stand-alone businessman) with his wife Rebecca, is two doors away, but we are standing in front of Mary Tearle’s house.

1861 = Mary 1805 wid of Toddington, John 21, Ann 19, George 16, David 11, Elizabeth gd 4, all born in Stanbridge.

Mary is a char woman, originally from Toddington. She washes clothes, cleans houses and probably the local pubs; this is hard physical work and the chemicals she has to use cause permanent redness and angry welts on her hands and arms. She is already a widow, even though only 56. We now know George has an elder brother John, a younger brother David and a sister Ann. I checked the 1871 census to see if Mary was still there:

1871 = Mary 1805 Tod David 21 Elizabeth gd 14 in Stbg

She was. Her son John, now 31, lives next door and her grandson Levi 1850 (my g-grandfather) is next door on the other side, working as a blacksmith with William Thompkins.

1851 = Thomas 1807 Stbg Mary 46 John 11 Ann 9 George 6 David 1 in Stbg
1851 = James 1828 Stbg p1 Mary 23 in Stbg
1851 = James 1828 Stbg p2 Levi 8m in Stbg

In 1851 the whole picture becomes clear. Let me show you how clear: in the picture below of Stanbridge church with the John and James headstones in the foreground, the one on the left is George’s elder brother, John 1840 “For 60yrs sexton of this parish” and on the right is James 1827, my gg-grandfather and the father of Levi 1850, above, the blacksmith. He is also George’s eldest brother.
I’m not quite sure how all of this works, but John was a Methodist and worshiped in the chapel next to where the school still stands. However, he had the job as sexton of the church and yet still called himself an Ag Lab on the census. Either his job was entirely voluntary, or Ag Lab, as an occupation, also covered the work of a church caretaker. This is the family of which Arthur Walter Tearle 1880 of London is a member. You can go to Stanbridge and touch their headstones.

Next door in 1851 lived Abel 1810, Martha nee Emmerton and their family.

Abel’s grandfather was Joseph 1737, the father of one of the major Tearle branches, while Thomas’ grandfather was John 1741, Joseph’s brother and himself a founder of a major Tearle branch. One step further back is their father, Thomas 1710. We are now back to the ancestors (Thomas 1710 and Mary nee Sibley) of almost every Tearle alive today. If you read John L Tearle’s groundbreaking work “Tearle; A Bedfordshire Surname” you will be able to see how John L took the family roots back to John 1610 and his wife Joan.

I have a little snapshot of Lavinia George and her family in Mursley, Bucks in the same census, on the other side of Wing, on the A418, close to Wingrave, which certainly has Tearle connections. Use the Search function to see the Wingrave stories.
1851 = Lavinia George 1846 Mursley, Bucks
We have a final glimpse in the 1841 census of Thomas and his family. James 1828 is already in service.
1841 = Thomas 1811 Beds Mary 1806 William 9 Emma 3 John 1 Stbg
6 doors away from them as they live on the Leighton Rd, is John 1791 and Elizabeth nee Mead. He is Abel’s brother.
1841 = James 1828 Beds MS in HeathnReach
This is Thomas’ boy, James, my gg-grandfather working as a manservant in Heath and Reach – not too far from Stanbridge, but I would still think it was an uncomfortable distance from home. He grew up to marry Mary Andrews 1830 of Eggington, albiet they married as minors, and she had quite a colourful career which you can read about from her link.
So let’s go back to Willesden and see if we can tie up some of the relationships we have discovered there.

The Willesden cell
We now know, with some surprise, I must admit, that George 1844 from Stanbridge, was the instigator of the Willesden cell. Upon reflection, I think it grew because George was the first. In finding a job on the railway he had blazed the trail for others who had to leave the country and farming life as rural England became more mechanised and fewer farm workers were needed. He had found a stable job with reasonable earning that did not require very much education – a kind of transition job between skilled but poorly educated farm work and the increasing demands for literacy in the urban workforce.

The memorials to John 1840 and James 1827 are close together.

The memorials to John 1840 and James 1827 are close together.

Here are closeups of the two headstones – first, John the sexton:

John Tearle and Maria nee Bliss headstone Stanbridge

John Tearle and Maria nee Bliss headstone, Stanbridge.

Then James Tearle, his brother:

James Tearle and Mary nee Andrews headstone Stanbridge

James Tearle and Mary nee Andrews headstone, Stanbridge.

Looking at the detail of the movement to London, there are certainly links between the members of the cell:
1881 – Jonathon 1862, Stbg

He was a son of William 1832 and Catharine nee Fountain. George, John (the sexton) James and William were all brothers. In fact when James died, his wife Mary nee Andrews married William. William was also a railway worker and had been since at least 1861. Perhaps he showed George the benefits of working on the railway. So Jonathon went to London and lived near his uncle while he became used to the urban ways of doing things. He married Alice Kearns in 1882 in Marylebone, and their son, James Harry Tearle 1891 was killed on the Somme in 1917.

Jonathon and George certainly had a common ancestor – Thomas 1807 and Mary nee Garner.
1891 – Annie 1874 Stbg – George’s daughter. She had moved across London to be with her dad.
1891 – Hannah Estaffe nee Tearle, 1865 Stbg. Hannah Married James Estaffe in 1888, in Stanbridge. Her mother was Mary Ann 1841, dau of John 1823 and Eliza nee Irons.
1891 = John 1856 Stbg Elizabeth 35 John 12 Louisa 8 Arthur 4 George 2 Ethel 4m in Willesden, Middlesex.

This is Hannah’s family from Stanbridge; John 1856 and Elizabeth – I do not know her maiden name. Hannah is the grand-daughter of John 1823 and Eliza nee Irons. John’s mother was Mary 1803, daughter of John 1770 and Mary nee Janes. His grandfather was John 1741, who was the father of Thomas 1807. John 1770 is the brother of Richard 1773 (who married Elizabeth Bodsworth) who was the father of Thomas 1807. It’s possible that John 1856 knew all this, but it’s equally possible that he had village connections, and being from Stanbridge and a Tearle, opened up London for him, with George and Jonathon’s help.

1891 – Jonathon again
1891 – Zephaniah. He was the son of Jane 1844, dau of John 1823 and Eliza nee Irons. Jane was the sister of John 1856. So Zephaniah is also a grandson of John and Eliza nee Irons. Once John 1856 and Hannah arrived, it was easier for Zephaniah to make a living in London.

The picture does not change in 1901 so I have a clip from a directory of 1936, and I’ll leave it to you to suggest who these families might be.

Tearle families in NW10 George George John Thomas-Sidney William Zephaniah in 1936

Tearle families in NW10, 1936

Here are the families as listed in the directory:
Alfred in Iverson Rd
George in Aboyne Rd
George on the North Circular
John in St Johns Av
Thomas Sidney in Minet Gdns
William H in Severn Way
And it is certainly Zephaniah in Fairlight Av, Harlesden, because that was his address when he died in 1951.

The Gallipoli cousins
Let me now fulfill my promise to explain the relationship between the two men who fought at Gallipoli. Arthur’s father George 1844 was the son of Thomas 1807 and Mary nee Garner. Thomas’ brother Richard 1805 left Stanbridge, married Martha Walker and established a family in Soulbury, Bucks, members of which are still there.  Richard’s grandson, William Francis, born Soulbury 1857, moved to Hatfield, near St Albans and married Sarah Kefford. Their son, John Henry Tearle 1887 died in Gallipoli in 1915. So John’s g-grandfather and Arthur’s grandfather were brothers. Read the story of Norman 1919 Soulbury to see the tragic deaths on the same day in WW2, of two other men with Soulbury (and therefore Richard and Martha) beginnings.

I have discovered the following statistics about WW1
74 family members joined the war effort.
14 were killed, including Louisa nee Lees.

Of the few hundred Tearles alive in the world in 1901, this is a very valiant answer to the call to arms. We certainly “did our bit” and our grandparents paid most dearly the price to keep our countries (at both ends of the world) free from the oppression an invading country would surely enforce.

Summary:

When Pat Field showed me the identity of Arthur Walter Tearle 1880 of St Pancras, as opposed to other Arthur Tearles I had confused him with, it came as a blinding shock of light. So many pieces fell into place all at once, especially around the very problematical families in the Willesden cell. I hope I have shown you the relationship between the members of that cell and hinted at the network that was operating – on a very informal and family-oriented way – to protect the family as it left Stanbridge and made its way, somewhat reluctantly, I think, given how slowly it developed, along the newly laid roads of the railway. In its early stages the, the railway was laid from Euston Station in London all the way to Preston in Lancashire. By 1848, there was even a branch line to Dunstable as close to Stanbridge as Stanbridgeford. It was built by none other than Robert Stephenson himself. A group left Leighton Buzzard for Preston in the 1850s led by Joseph 1838 and Sophia nee Kibble. Joseph’s brother George 1825 and Maria nee Franklin started the Yorkshire Tearles and George 1818 was the patriarch of the Watford cell which expanded even to Australia; and now we can see that George 1844 was responsible for setting up the Willesden cell. We can see now how easy it was for members of the group to come and go from Willesden – first stop, Euston, then Dunstable and on to Stanbridge.
The harrowing story of Arthur Walter and Ethel is at once part of the intense micro-world of individual families struggling to survive, but at the same time it also serves as a backdrop and even a model for the greater story of the Tearle family expansion.
This has been a difficult and very moving story to tell, but intensely satisfying in its conclusion.

Footnote:

On a visit to London in Feb 2016, Elaine and I found the WW1 memorial to the men and women of London City and County who had fought in the Great War. It sits at the foot of the steps to the London Corn Exchange in Cornhill, across the road from the Bank of England.

WW1 Memorial Cornhill

WW1 Memorial, Cornhill

The dedication states that it is for all the battalions, rather than named casualties:

Dedication of Cornhill WW1 Memorial

Dedication of Cornhill WW1 Memorial

The most important reason for showing it here, is that this memorial is all there is to remember that Arthur fought in WW1. On the back of the memorial is the battalion he fought with, even in Gallipoli – The London Regiment, (City of London) 3rd Battalion, the Royal Fusilliers:

The London Regiment City of London Battlions Cornhill WW1 Memorial 3rd Btn for Arthur Walter Tearle 1881

The London Regiment, City of London Battlions, 3rd Battalion, the Royal Fusiliers, for Arthur Walter Tearle 1881, on the WW1 Memorial, Cornhill.

The agonising pain that Arthur suffered for the rest of his life will be remembered with this beautiful tribute to those who died, and those who lived in suffering, alongside him.