- We meet on the 1st Thursday of the month (Except July) at Ocklynge Junior School, Victoria Drive. BN20 8XN (entrance in Farlaine Road), Old Town, Eastbourne. (to see map click here).
However, we may have to adjust our dates to meet school commitments –so please note the dates shown in the published Programme. - The doors open at 7:00 pm, with the speaker starting at 7:30 pm,
- The cost for attendance at a meeting is £1.00 for Members and £3.00 for Guests and Visitors.
At the meetings we have:-
- Speakers talks on Genealogy and local history subjects.
- A help desk where you can seek advice on your research problems.
- Transcribed MIs on compact disk for local genealogy research..
- We have a limited number of back issue genealogy magazines.
- Refreshments during the interval. (Suspended for the time being).
To give you an idea of some of the subjects covered some speaker reports:-
“6th January 2022. Understanding Old Family Photographs Speaker: Stephen Gill. Family Roots meeting on Zoom.”
By: Jenny Wootton.
Stephen Gill has been a photographer for 50 years, and has been restoring photographs professionally for the last 20 years. He invited us to look a lot more closely at our family photographs to investigate what more we can learn from them than just the faces of our ancestors, as we focus on the main item in the viewfinder and often miss other clues that can give background to our family’s history. He showed a Daguerrotype portrait of a lady, taken 180 years ago, and ask “Why was it taken?” When enlarged, the photograph showed she was holding a small child and would have had to hold that child still for 30 seconds while the photo was being taken. Daguerrotype was a French invention, and photographers in England would have had to pay a licence fee to use it over here. They were in use in the UK from 1840 to 1851, and the easiest way to identify a daguerrotype photograph is to tilt it at an angle away from you and the positive image turns to negative.
They were printed on copper and the old photos show very detailed clarity in the images.
Ambrotype is another photographic process produced by silver on glass, where the image stays positive when tilted, but the image is not so clear as daguerrotype. Other forms of photography are ferro-type and tin-type, used between 1845 and 1940. These are printed on very thin metal and are very dark, but can show a lot of detail. All daguerro-, ambro-, ferro- and tin-type can only be produced singly and the image always appears in reverse (so any words on the photograph appear back to front).
Small carte-de-visite photographic cards were developed in Paris and quickly became popular in the Victorian era. These can be roughly dated by the shape of the card – before 1870 the corners were square, but after that date they had rounded corners. In 1862 there were not many photographers producing this type of image so the backs were plain but as the craze quickly spread across the world photographers started to advertise their services on the backs of the cards. It was a convenient way to carry an image of a loved one with you in a wallet or pocket, and became acceptable in all levels of society. Even Queen Victoria had her image printed on a carte-de-visite. Cartes-de-visite were particulary popular with soldiers fighting abroad when sons and husbands could send an image back to their families or loved ones, and in the 1860s when there was civil war in the United States the U.S. government taxed photography as a way of raising money for the war.
Later cabinet cards were produced which were four times larger than the carte-de-visite and were produced so that they could be displayed in a frame or cabinet. They were often an enlargement of a carte-de-visite and when taken out of the frame the lines on the edge give a clue to the earlier carte-de-visite.
Closer examination of old photographs often give clues to their date. In early photographs subjects had to stand very still for quite a long time while the exposure was being taken and often evidence of a posing stand can be seen behind the subject to stop any movement. Postcards made from original photographs were sometimes heavily retouched.
In 1888 Kodak produced a camera that came ready loaded with film. Once the films was used up the camera was given back for developing and a new camera was handed over. This made taking photographs much easier as it was not necessary to visit a professional photographer.
Families could now take their own pictures but it often meant someone was missing from group photographs, which was usually the person taking the picture.
Stephen showed us examples of photographs he had restored. One showed three men in 1920s America, wearing identical rings on their left hands identified with a gangster gang, and with Colt 45s on their watch chains. After restoring the photograph he was able to identify one of the men from a carte-de-visite picture of his uncle.
He showed us how to build up a picture of what was happening at a certain date and time from clues in a photograph. A man carrying flowers, smartly dressed with polished shoes, on a quiet street was likely going to meet a young lady or visiting his mother on a Sunday, rather than going to a football match. In larger towns there were often street photographers and families, couples, individuals were happy to pay to have a photograph taken when out for a special occasion or visit. It can be interesting to put together clues to come up with where, when and why a photo was taken.
Most early photographs were taken in black and white which can give very clear expressions, but colour photography shows much more detail and is easier to date. Stephen also recommended looking through a magnifying glass to pick out more detail and taking time to study each photo, making notes of anything interesting.
Stephen Gill’s website can be found at www.photo-consult.co.uk. He has written a book on dating photographs entitled “The Family Detective”.
“4th November 2021. Commonwealth War Graves Commission Speaker: Dave Hatherell. Family Roots meeting on Zoom”
By: Jenny Wootton.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) was set up to commemorate the 1.7 million soldiers, sailors and airmen who died during the First and Second World Wars. The Commission looks after 2,500 cemeteries in 150 countries and terretories around the world, and employs 850 gardeners to tend them. The largest cemetery is at Tyne Cot in Belgium, which contains the graves of 12,000, and the four smallestcemeteries are in the UK. The work of the CWGC is financed by Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, South Africa and the United Kingdom, with the UK paying 78% and India paying the lowest as most of their war dead were cremated.All those who died in the First and Second World Wars qualified for a war grave if they died between 4th August 1914 and 31st August 1921 during WW1, and between 3rd September 1939 and 31st December 1947 during WW2.
Sir Fabian Ware, who was too old to fight during WW1, joined the Red Cross and while working in France was concerned to see the numbers of wooden crosses scattered across battlefields where soldiers had fallen. He recorded details of the dead and where they were buried and suggested that proper burial sites should be created and the bodies re-buried where their loved ones could visit their final resting place, as the decision had been taken in 1915 not to re-patriate the dead. The Imperial War Graves Commission was created by Royal Charter in 1917 to establish war cemeteries and memorials across the battlefields where the men had fallen in Europe and across the world.
The Commission set high standards for all its work and employed the most eminent architects to design the cemeteries – Sir Edwin Lutyens, Sir Herbert Baker and Sir Reginald Blomfield. Three principles were set forthe design of the headstones – that each man should be commemorated by name (where identified), the headstones should be permanent, and that there must be no differential in style. The standard layout on the headstone depicts the service badge, name, rank, regimental service, sometimes age, and date of death of each individual. Families of named dead had the opportunity to add a personal commemoration. Every cemetery also had a copy of the Cross of Sacrifice, and if the site held more than 1,000 graves the Stone of Remembrance was also added, which bears the inscription Their name liveth for evermore, chosen by Rudyard Kipling from the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible. Kipling lost his own son Jack in the First World War.
Many of the bodies were never found and large memorials were built to commemorate the names of those with no known graves, so that everyone who had died would be remembered by name. The largest memorial is the Menin Gate at Ypres (now Ieper), carrying the names of 54,000 dead. At Thiepval in France the large memorial carries the names of 72,000 and the burials of a further 600 who died on the Somme. There are large cemeteries to the fallen in Gallipoli, Iraq, Singapore, Hong Kong and Egypt, as well as in the UK and Europe.
The majority of CWGC cemeteries in the UK are for military personnel who died at home, in hospitals or in UK waters. There are also 600 plots in UK churchyards and cemeteries in family graves but known to the Commission. Public cemeteries are expected to keep the headstones clean and the site maintained, and a grant is offered towards their upkeep.
CWGC cemeteries are looked after by their own gardeners, and headstones checked and restored when damaged. Where cemeteries are damaged by further war activity they are reconstructed to the same high standard. Re-burials and re-dedications are arranged where further remains from either of the two wars are discovered, and every effort is made to identify the deceased before re-burial near to the place they were found, with full military honours.
CWGC Archives
The Commonwealth War Graves Foundation has been created to highlight the work of the Commission and bring the stories of the 1.7 million commemorated to light. Casualty archives were digitised in 1988, and can be searched online for individual casualties. They are not complete and are constantly being updated when new remains are found and can be identified, or names are known but have not previously been recorded on any memorial.
Their archives contain 10,000 items relating to the history of the Commission, including personal correspondence, staff records, minutes, photographs and plans. Many have been digitised.
The archives contain correspondence between Fabian Ware and the Red Cross and government offices, detailing how he carried out where the graves of the fallen were located. It includes “The Graves of the Fallen”, a document laying down the principles of the IWGC, which upset many families because it did not allow repatriation of the fallen. Staff cards of members working for the Commission give information on 8,000 staff, covering a range of employment types, often details of their military service, sometimes family records. The archives also contain architectural plans of the cemeteries and photographs.
The CWGC Archives are able to be accessed at the Commission Headquarters in Maidenhead by appointment, and you would need to notify them of the records you want to access before arrival. Details can be found of the CWGC website at www.cwgc.org
“7th October 2021. The Art of Criminal Conversation: Divorce records and where to find them Speaker: Claire Moores. Family Roots meeting on Zoom”
By: Jenny Wootton
Claire Moores’ interest in the history of divorce started when she researched a family divorce in 1882. She discovered that a wealth of information about families can be found in historical and legal divorce records.
“Divorce” and “separation” concerning the break-up of a marriage are two very different terms. Divorce enables partners to re-marry, but before legal divorce only death could give that right. There were many unhappy marriages in the past but society and church authorities usually forced couples to stay together, and it took many centuries for this to change.
For a man to legally divorce his wife, before changes in the law, required an Act of Parliament, and therefore was normally only available if he had a large estate that could support the heavy costs. It was very rare for a woman to leave her husband as this would have severe financial implications unless she had her own inheritance.
Before legal divorce there was Presentments for Living Separately if a couple could no longer live together. Cases were presented before the Poor Law Commissioners from as early as the 1630s, but the disgrace of having to appear before the Commissioners was often enough for couples to get back together again.
There were grave social and political side effects to making changes in divorce law. The Church of England believed marriage was indissoluble; women feared changes might encourage more husbands to divorce them; wealthy men were happy with the current laws and did not seek to change them. In Common Law a wife had no legal personality. Eighteenth century litigation gives a large wealth of documentation.
There were five ways to break up a marriage:1 – serving in Church Courts for separation from bed and board, or restitution of conjugal rights; 2 – desertion or elopement; 3 – wife sale; 4 – full divorce by Act of Parliament; 5 – private separation, by negotiation between spouses.
A declaration could be made through the Ecclesiastical Courts that no marriage existed. Documents for annulment, usually in Latin, are held in Consistory Court papers, where reasons for annulment are given. The causes were often bigamy, or marriage to a minor without parental consent. Bed and board separation allowed couples to live separate lives, for reasons of adultery, prolonged cruelty, a combination of the two, or separation by mutual cooperation.
Eighteenth century newspapers often had notices of wives eloping and taking away household goods. A husband could put a notice in the paper so the wife would not be able to get credit as a husband was responsible for her debts, but a husband could leave and have no come back by his wife!
A man could sell his wife to get rid of her, particularly among the lower classes of society. A wife was regarded as a husband’s property, and was therefore saleable.
Parliamentary divorces required three separate law suits. Firstly adecree had to be made in the Ecclesiastical Courts, then in the Common Law courts, and then by a private Bill before Parliament. This then enabled a man to marry again and was mainly confined to titled men who needed to get an heir to inherit the family estate. Searches for divorce papers can be found in Parliamentary Archives.
Another source is Actions for Criminal Conversation (adultery), which include the trial discussion between the legal representatives of the two men involved in adultery cases, where wealthy men could afford to engage legal representation. This was very expensive and was used to obtain financial damages. The papers include witness statements, which were often published for sale to the public in sensational cases.
Most legal separation cases were from the husband’s point of view where the wife was not allowed to give evidence, but Private Separations were often more detailed as both sides were allowed to have a voice. A separated wife could be abducted back to her husband, or he could have her removed to an asylum. A Separation Deed was drawn up which could be highly detailed with personal conditions of separation laid down, including custody of any children.
Caroline Norton, social reformer, politically campaigned for more rights for women in cases of divorce and separation, including the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, which widened the availability of divorce. It was still expensive and cases had to go before London courts and were not available in regional courts, and did not help the lower classes.
Research in newspaper articles can give greater details of divorce proceedings but often do not give the full details, as they will only be looking at from a journalist’s interest.
Claire finished her presentation by stating that until the 20th century divorce was a prerogative of the wealthy classes and many accounts were one sided, favouring the male point of view, particularly in society cases. Always look at original documents, and consider the motives behind witness statements – who was the real guilty party?
” 2nd September 2021 A Sussex Farm during the 1950s Speaker: Ian Everest Family Roots meeting on Zoom” By Jenny Wootton.
Ian Everest told us about his early life on a farm at Bishopstone, near Eastbourne, where he was brought up, and showed us photographs of farming life from the 1890s onwards. The farm was Manor Farm at Bishopstone, comprising 1,000 acres, and the land stretched from Alfriston to Tide Mills near Seaford. It was a mixed farm, having bothcattle and crops, and crop rotation was important in the early days when not many chemicals were used on farms. The population of Bishopstone was 118 in the 1950s, but with the decline in farming today it is now down to 69. Most of the inhabitants had some connection with the farm and the workers lived in tied cottages, which had very basic accommodation – brick floors, stone sink, only cold running water. Water was boiled in a large copper for washing and baths, and there was only an outdoor toilet.
The farmer was Lionel Willett, a very well respected man, who hunted with the South Downs Hunt and was a founder member of the National Farmers Union in Lewes. He fought with the Sussex Yeomanry in WW1, and had one son, John, who was sent to Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester. When John came home he wanted to modernise the farm, but Lionel did not want to know. He bought John a cine camera to keep him out of the way, and suggested John made a film of the life of a year on the farm.
Ian then showed us the film John had taken, which started at ploughing time, with preparing the seed bed for cultivation and sowing the seed, and then moved on to hay-making. The standard working week was 48 hours, starting at 7.00am, with a break at 9.00am for ‘lunch’, and then ‘dinner’ time at 12.00 noon. Home grown vegetables and cheap cuts of meat werethe main fare for meals.
At the beginning of the 20th century oxen were used to drag the heavy ploughs, and as machinery began to be used on the farm they became too slow and by 1928 shire horses had been introduced, but not much changed in farming until the Second World War. Machinery arrived which baled the hay into round bales, which had to be lifted by hand onto the trailer. During WW2 the downland was ploughed up for wheat to feed the home population, which meant the land was no longer available for hay cultivation, and farmers had to grow another crop to feed their animals, so they planted grass for sileage. Harvesting had to be done in fine weather, and the wheat was cut and bound into sheaves, which were stacked into stooks by hand. Rabbits frightened out of the field during the harvesting were caught and were a valuble food supplement for the farm labourers and their families. The sheaves were gathered in and built into ricks, which were beautifully thatched. Once a year there was Rook Day to reduce the numbers of rooks that tried to get in and destroy the corn ricks. The corn was threshed to release the seed which was loaded into hessian sacks, and the stalks were then used for animal bedding.
During WW2 farmers were encouraged to diversify their crops as imports from abroad became difficult. Imported cotton was no longer available so farmers were asked to grow flax, which could be used forfibre to be made into clothing. Lionel Willett was tragically killed in a shotgun accident and his son John had to take over running the farm. In 1956 he introduced a combine harvester to make gathering in the corn a much easier operation.
Manor Farm also kept dairy cattle and had a herd of Channel Island Guernsey cows, initially to raise calves to grow the herd and then the cows went into milk production. There was also a herd of beef cattle, which were raised on Willett farmland at Pevensey. They were pedgree Sussex Red cows, and the suckler herd and calves were sold to other breeders.
Farm workers were very skilled men, but farming was dangerous work, as it still is today. There were no risk assessments or safety guards when handling the farm machinery, or dousing the cattle with chemicals.
Manor Farm went into decline between the wars and in 1930 Lionel Willett was approached by a development company who bought 800 acres of his land, and Mr Willett became a tenant farmer. The company started by building a railway station, which opened in 1938, but development stopped because of the Second World War. After the war the Government was lobbied to halt over-development of land and the Town & Country Planning Act 1947 was introduced, which meant local authorities had to approve any planning proposals for re-development of land, and Bishopstone village was saved.
John Willett had so enjoyed his amateur film-making that he turned his career to film development and gave up farming. The farming in Bishopstone declined and the land was sold to two men. The farm cottages were sold off and developed into holiday cottages and private homes. About ten years ago the remaining land was put on the market and split up. There is no longer a farmer living in the village, all the farm buildings have been turned into family homes and the land is now farmed remotely.
” 5th August 2021 The Paintings of James Owen, local Eastbourne artist. Family Roots meeting on Zoom – Speaker: Russell Owen”
By Jenny Wootton.
Our speaker in August was Russell Owen, chairman of the Eastbourne Local History Society, who gave us a talk about his great-great grandfather James. James Owen was born in Scotland on 28 February 1846. He came from quite a wealthy family in Glasgow, where his father owned Whitehall Veneer Saw Mills. He married Marion Russell in 1880 and moved to London, where he worked as a commercial traveller, before finally moving to Eastbourne in 1883. James and Marion had three boys born in Glasgow, and then two girls born in Eastbourne, where they lived at Ambrose Cottage in Channel View Road. James worked as a house decorator, but he also produced watercolour paintings for himself and for clients of scenes around the town. He painted some scenes many times, but each one was different. James died in 1929 and is buried in Ocklynge Cemetery. The house in Channel View Road was damaged by bombing during the Second World War, and was looted.
Many of James’s paintings were copies of earlier etchings of Eastbourne made by other artists, in particular those of George Stewart who made paintings of Eastbourne in a similar style but about 15-17 years before James arrived, but many of his watercolours were of places and buildings James himself would have seen when living in the town. He also painted scenes outside Eastbourne, such as Herstmonceux, the Wilmington Giant and a series of views of Seaford.
Some of James Owen’s watercolours were turned into colour postcards by Brookers in Sussex Gardens, now Terminus pedestrian precinct, who had a shop about where the present W.H.Smith store is located. Theyproduced two series of six postcards as Ye Olde Eastbourne series, featuring very attractive watercolour scenes of old Eastbourne.
James Owen did some paintings on commission, and he also made pencil drawings, and Russell Owen and his family still have several of his original paintings and have attempted to buy others whenever they have come up for auction. Some of his images are on exhibition in the Towner Art Gallery, and Russell has also done an exhibition of many of his original watercolours and other memorabilia at the Heritage Centre, Eastbourne.
He also produced a booklet in 2014 of his great-great grandfather’s watercolours, available from the Heritage Centre and the Towner Art Gallery.
“1st July 2021 Family Roots outdoor visit. Guided walk round Pevensey Village with Rob Slater”
By Jenny Woottoon
It was a rather damp evening when 20 Family Roots members met outside the old Court House Museum and Gaol in Pevensey High Street. Inspite of the weather, it was great to be able to meet up with other members after so many months of not seeing anyone. Rob Slater, curator of the museum, took us on a tour of the village explaining that in medieval times Pevensey had been a bustling port, when large ships were able to sailright inland up the Haven River, before it gradually silted up making this impossible. The sea is now two miles away at Pevensey Bay.
Rob took us round the churchyard of St Nicholas’s church, pointing out several interesting graves of notable parishioners and the war graves of villagers who gave their lives in the First and Second World Wars. We ended our tour back at the museum where we were allowed to visit the old gaol that was beneath the court house, and then to look at the interesting artefacts in the museum upstairs.
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[eliteaccordion][elitetoggle title=”4th June 2021 Opportunities and Challenges of Genealogy in the Technological Age
Speaker: Dr Nick Barratt”]Nick Barratt, well known family historian through his connection with “Who Do You Think You Are?” programme, was our speaker on Zoom in June. He stated that changes in family history research are constant but have been different through time. From ancient days where generations of family lines are recorded in the Bible, through to Tudor times when it was important that families could trace their lineage in order to claim inheritance to land that was being sold off after the disillution of the monasteries, to the Victorian era when more interest was taken in tracing one’s ancestry, to the present day when there has been an explosion of interest in research with so much being available on the internet and through programmes like “Who Do You Think You Are?” The pandemic has accelerated some changes, with online being the first environment that people go to, with the increasing interest in DNA making online connectivity with families. It maybe that digital family history societies will become the norm, which allows meetings to take place anywhere, but denies shared humanity when meeting face to face.
The financial crash of 2008 meant funding for archives and libraries was reduced, leading to staff cuts and shorter opening hours, and pressure was put on them to close some offices. This led to the advancement of digital services, with more records and datasets becoming available to search online.
The boom in DNA and a yearning to be connected with relatives around the world has led to more family trees being uploaded onto family history research sites than records from archives, but the information in them is not always trustworthy. Nick advised caution about what information you put online, as data uploaded does not always belong to you but becomes accessible to others.
Social media such as Facebook could become an interesting archive for the future. People are beginning to use digital technology to bring ancestors back to life by enhancing photographs and films.
Storytelling has long been a way of passing on family histories in the past, and educating the young of today through digital storytelling could encourage them to ask their families about their background. There may be a role for family history societies to work with schools to encourage young people to make links with the past. Today’s experiences with black lives matter and people from diverse backgrounds need to be recorded for the future, and projects should be collaborative and inclusive. There could be a real role for family and local history societies to be involved and lead such projects.
Nick then gave case studies of three community projects he had been involved with in different parts of the country. Each project encouraged local people to record stories about their communities, writing down histories and talking to people about their memories. The projects were kept for the community and their research would not be sold to Ancestry or FindMyPast where it would disappear online. It is important to record what is happening today, caring for each other today to creat memories for the future. Genealogical research is not self-indulgent. We need to share our lives with others.[/elitetoggle][/eliteaccordion]
[eliteaccordion][elitetoggle title=”6th May 2021 First Steps in Family History – some guidance and techniques
Speaker: Roy Winchester, Publicity Officer for Sussex Family History Group”]
Roy gave us a brief look at his own family history and how he got started on his own research after his father received a letter asking about the Winchester family. He explained that family history research is like a jigsaw puzzle, with different people and different places that will eventually slot together, but be prepared for surprises along the way.
Where to start: start by writing down what you already know about your family. Take your time, ask other family members what they know. Collect photographs and show them around the family, which may help to prompt memories, and remember to write down names of the people in the photos. Try and separate fact from legend, but be aware that there may be some truth in the fiction. Record your discoveries and start to build a family tree.
There are many family history websites available on the Internet, but keep in mind that these are only finding aids and not all facts recorded may be true. Record people by their birth surname, and keep a note of where you found your information to avoid duplicating work at a later date. Indexes of births, marriages and deaths from 1837 onwards are free to search online at FreeBMD. The indexes are divided into four quarters in each year and are nearly complete up to present day. If you cannot find a person’s birth in the quarter you expect them to be, try looking in the next quarter, as parents have 42 days in which to register. Using the references from the index will enable you to order certificates from the General Register Office for £11 for an official copy or £7 for a PDF copy. Birth certificates will give the mother’s maiden name as well as the family name; the marriage certificate will give the names and occupations of both couples, it may give their age or state of “full age” (ie. over 21), whether they are single, divorced or widowed, and the names and occupations of the father of both bride and groom; the death certificate will give details of the informant of the death, which may be a relative, but may also be a neighbour or doctor who may not have known the deceased. Be aware that if the informant did not know the person well the information about name and age may not be accurate.
Censuses from 1841 to 1911 can all be searched online, but some websites require a subscription. The census was taken every ten years and will show who the head of the household was, and how others living at the same address were related to the head, giving ages and occupations and where each individual was born. It can help to build up a family group through several generations and can show where they lived over a lifetime. The 1841 was the first census that recorded names of the whole household, but ages of adults were rounded to five yearly intervals and birth places were only recorded as born in the census county by Y for yes, or N for no. From 1851 onwards more helpful information on each individual is given, and the 1911 census will tell you how long a couple had been married, how many children they had had and whether any of the children had died.
Census records are closed for 100 years, so the last one available is for 1911. The 1921 census has been digitised and will be available online in 2022, but that will probably be the last one available in our lifetime as the paperwork for the 1931 census was destroyed by bombing in the Second World War, and the census was not taken in 1941 because of the war. In 1939 a Household Register was compiled in anticipation of feeding the nation during the war, which is now available to search online. It recorded individual members in a household, their dates of birth, their marital status and occupation, but not the relationship to each other. It also only gives information on people who are known to have died as the records of individuals are closed for 75 years so some names will be blacked out, and some females may have their maiden name crossed through and a married name written above where these have been traced through NHS records.
You should be aware that your ancestors’ names may appear to be misspelt when transcribed. This happened particularly in earlier records when often people were illiterate and the enumerator writing for the census may have misheard a name or had to guess at the spelling.
When tracing ancestors before 1837 you will need to look in parish registers for baptism, marriage and burial records, which started from 1538. Most churches will have deposited these registers in the local record office, apart from the current ones which will be kept in the church safe. Duplicate copies of the registers were made and sent to the bishop. These are known as Bishop’s Transcripts and for Sussex these are housed in West Sussex Record Office in Chichester. The earliest parish registers were hand written and record baptisms, marriages and burials all in the same book. Many of the parish registers have been transcribed and indexed, and are available online via one of the family history internet sites. In 1754 Hardwicke’s Marriage Act produced formal printed documents for recording marriages.
When looking for places where your ancestor lived many record offices hold copies of the electoral roll and local directories, but it helps to know the town or area where your ancestor may have lived. Local and national newspapers are being digitised for the whole country and most publish family announcements of births, deaths and marriages. If your ancestor died in an accident or unusual circumstances the newspaper may contain details of an inquest.
Wills and probates are another useful source for research, and often name family members who have come into an inheritance. Wills from 1858 have all been indexed and the indexes can be searched online. Memorial inscriptions on graves often carry names of family members buried together and give dates of death and sometimes of birth. Other sources to research as your knowledge of the family progresses is in military records, railway employees lists, criminal records and manorial records, to name a few. And for help and advice always consider joining your local Family History Society.[/elitetoggle][/eliteaccordion]
[eliteaccordion][elitetoggle title=”1st April 2021 Sussex Family History Group – the first 50 years
Speaker: Mick Henry”]Mick Henry, Chairman of Sussex Family History Group (SFHG), was our speaker for the Zoom talk after our Annual General Meeting. After a slight technical delay, he told us about the Sussex FHG and how it started fifty years ago. The initial meeting was in Sussex Mansions on 15th November 1972 with Michael Birchall (founder member) and a few keen family historians friends. It was decided to hold a public meeting at the Grand Hotel, Brighton on 21st March 1973 to gauge interest for starting a society, which was well attended. The Group now has 3,500 members and holds monthly meetings on five different sites around Sussex. The SFHG magazine “Family Historian” was also started in 1973.
In the beginning the SFHG library was stored in Michael Birchall’s flat in Kemp Town, Brighton. Later the library moved to the treasurer’s flat in Beechwood, Curwen Place, Brighton. As the library collection grew SFHG rented cupbards in St Michael’s Church Hall, Lewes, and members were allowed to use the hall for research twice a week, run by Phil Lucas. Sussex FHG now rent a dedicated research room in The Keep (East Sussex Record Office) for their library, and work closely with staff in the Record Office.
The first talk to the society was given by Frank Leeson about the Sussex Marriage Index. The index contains over 300,000 marriage entries from 1538 to 1837, was initially released on CD and has now been uploaded to the SFHG website. SFHG have also transcribed baptisms for the whole of Sussex, and have completed 94% of baptisms. They are transcribing burial records, which is 90% complete for Sussex. They also have an index of monumental inscriptions for Sussex, containing 186,000 records including many photographs of headstones. All their databases will be uploaded to the new SFHG website by the end of 2021 and will be available to members.
Other collections include a depository of 10,000 wills of Sussex people, which can give valuable information about family groups and where to find further information; and a collection of 749 paper copies of family histories researched by SFHG members. MyTree database on the SFHG website allows members to contact other members researching the same surnames. Family announcements from The Argus newspaper have been transcribed and indexed, covering the period 1900-1950. The 1851 census for Brighton and a large proportion of West Sussex villages has been indexed. The society has this year started transcribing and indexing the Hellingly Hospital registers.
Mick Henry told us about a personal project he has just taken on to transcribe the diaries of Nicholas Oxley, farmer at Cowden Farm, from 1814 to 1818, covering 1,593 days of local and family events, including weather reports and farming terminology for the period. Mick intends to create an index of all the families mentioned.
“4th March 2021 Workaday Eastbourne Speaker: Alan Wenham ”
Alan Wenham, a well known local historian who has given several talks to Family Roots already, gave us an interesting insight into the development of the essential services that make Eastbourne work.
Alan started his talk with Water. The principle water supply to the town was via springs in Motcombe Gardens, but in the 1850s, with the arrival of the railway and the increase in population in the town a greater supply was needed and a reservoir was built on the site. This worked for a while but in 1857 the 7th Duke of Devonshire appointed George Wallis as his local steward and water engineer, who developed the Eastbourne Water Company, owned by the Duke, with offices in Trinity Trees. He also joined the local council and stood for Mayor of Eastbourne. He built a pipeline from Motcombe to a water tower at the Seaside/Susans Road junction, but this was not good enough and the poor water system contributed to an outbreak of scarlet fever in 1863. With the population growing the Eastbourne Water Works built a pumping station to the north of the town, fed by coal, which pumped water to a reservoir in St Anne’s Road. By 1881 they had built a pump house to expand the Bedford Well and drilled down 75 feet through chalk into the sand below. This was the largest well in England, and a second reservoir was built in Paradise Woods. By 1895 the population had grown so much that the water from the well was no longer suitable for drinking, and new wells were sunk near the old fishing village at Holywell, and also at Friston by boring a tunnel to gravity feed the water to Paradise Woods. The Eastbourne Water Company was always privately owned, later servicing Bexhill and Battle. The main supply of water to the town today comes from Arlington Reservoir which was opened in 1971.
Sewerage – the Local Board decided in the 1860s that a proper sewage system was needed, with an outfall into the sea at Langney Point, which was opened in 1866. Twenty years later the population had grown to 27,000 and a parallel system was needed and a pumping station was built at the junction of Channel View and Wartling Roads to pump storm water and sewage to the outfall at Langney Point. Vent pipes were installed around the town to vent the smells out of the system. In 1997 a proper treatment plant was built at Langney Point, resembling a Napoleolic fort, in harmony with the several Martello towers along this part of the Sussex coast.
Waste disposal – in 1875 the Public Health Act made local authorities responsible for collecting waste and householders were required to provide suitable bins to contain it. The rubbish was burned in an incineration plant in St Philip’s Avenue, which was outside the town, and the ash was dumped in the Princes Park area. The furnaces were lit at 9.00am on Monday and burned night and day until 5.00pm on Friday. Incineration continued until the 1960s when the waste was buried in landfill, and by 1974 Eastbourne Borough Council had ceased responsibility for waste disposal which was transferred to East Sussex County Council.
Electricity – electricity was first demonstrated in Eastbourne in 1881 in the Floral Hall of the Winter Garden, which was powered by a generator in the Devonshire Baths. The Central Electricity Generation Station, run as a private company, was built in Junction Road at the back of the railway line, to serve the whole of the town. Albion Hotel was the first building to get electricity. Electric street lights were very expensive and often broke down, causing a charge to the council. In the end the Borough Council bought the company and moved it next to the incineration plant in St Philip’s Avenue. In 1902 there were 500 customers using electricity for lighting but could only use it for a few hours a day. By 1930 about 14,000 customers had electricity. The electricity generators were powered by coal and in 1926 a separate rail branch line was built to bring coal into the power station. In 1927 Eastbourne’s electric system was joined to the national grid, and in 1948 local generation of electricity ceased.
Gas – Robert Cooper, a brewer and chemist, was chairman of Eastbourne Gas Company. The company was based close to the marshalling yards of Eastbourne Station, but moved to Lottbridge Drove in 1859/60. The first customers used gas for lighting indoors and street gas lamps. It was very expensive to use for cooking, until 1924 when the thermostat was invented. Demonstrations of cooking by gas were established in 1932. The production of town gas finished in the 1960s when off shore gas became available.
Coal – coal was essential in Victorian times for cooking and heating and it was brought in by boat and unloaded on the beach. One of the main suppliers was Bradfords, who had a major coal yard near Whitley Road railway bridge. Other coal merchants were Rickett & Smith and Hollands, and each company had their own offices along Station Parade, and deliveries were made all round the town by horsedrawn delivery carts.
Bricks – bricks were not a natural product in Eastbourne when the Martello towers were built and they had to be imported by barge from the Thames estuary, but the town had clay. Some clay was extracted in the Roselands area and other areas around the town, but those areas became unsuitable for development and were mostly turned into playing fields or left as ponds.
Telephone – a private telephone company was started in Ivy Terrace in 1882, and then moved to Grove Road. In 1922 the exchange was moved to the General Post Office building in Station Parade, then moved to St Anne’s Road when the exchange was automated. In 1927 police telephone boxes were established in Eastbourne, only the third town in England to have them.
Alan Wenham illustrated his talk with many historical photographs of the different establishments, and responded to several questions after his talk.
“4th February 2021 A Grandmother’s Legacy: My Journey Speaker: Jenny Mallin”
Jenny Mallin gave us an entertaining talk about her five grandmothers and the recipe book that had been handed down through the generations. She introduced us to five generations of her family living in India in the days of the British Raj, and the brave determined women who ran the family’s household and had to cope with instructing local Hindu cooks in preparing western style dishes.
Her 4x great-grandmother Wilhemina Sausman came from a weaver family from Yorkshire and travelled to India in 1844, at the age of 15, as the bride of Benjamin Hardy, a school teacher. Benjamin’s family had lived in India since 1798 where his great-grandfather founded a school in Mysore with the local Maharaja, and Benjamin was serving in the British Army. Wilhemina had to cope with running a household as the ‘memsahib’ at the age of 16 and started writing English recipes in a notebook for the Indian cook to prepare for the family, adapting and experimenting with the local ingredients.
Jenny illustrated her talk with many family photographs and pictures of some her grandmothers’ recipes, which were added to and adapted over the generations. Wilhemina’s daughter Ophelia was born in 1855 in India, and she lived to the age of 89. She created a recipe for Telegram Cake, to celebrate the telegram service arriving in India. Ophelia’s daughter Maud developed a recipe called Fair Rosamund Pudding, a sponge pudding with a layer of fruit named after Rosamund de Clifford who was the royal mistress of King Henry II.
Jenny’s grandmother Irene was born in India in 1900, and Jenny’s own mother, Cynthia Donnelly was born there in 1927. British rule in India ended in 1947 with the birth of Indian Independence, and the family’s loyalty to England saw the end of their long connection with that country when they settled back in England in 1953. Jenny’s mother was not used to shopping for herself having had servants to do everything in India, but she used her grandmothers’ recipe book to feed her family, sometimes struggling to find the ingredients she needed in English shops and again having to adapt recipes to new tastes.
In November 2010 Jenny’s father died unexpectedly and Jenny realised that the recipe book was a fragile hierloom in her family and felt she had to capture the lives of her grandmothers in India as well as the recipes and thousands of photographs in a book. The handwriting of the recipes helped Jenny identify which of her grandmothers were responsible for the recipes and the many adaptations. Some of them included additions made by Hindu cooks which hinted at the respect they had for the family.
Jenny decided to travel to India to do research for her book ‘A Grandmother’s Legacy’ and through many serendipitous encounters, but also many rejections by publishers, she decided to self-publish. Through Facebook she made contact with two influential people, one in Delhi and one in London, who had just the right connections to help her publish and then promote her book. She flew to India once the book was launched and spoke to many organisations there, giving Anglo-Indian food demonstrations in six cities and talking to audiences of hundreds, becoming something of a celebrity in that country. She has gone on to win the Gourmand Cook Book Award and is now planning to tutor on Indian foods in cookery schools, as well as continuing to give talks about her grandmothers and their legacy handed down from mother to daughter through the generations.[/elitetoggle][/eliteaccordion][eliteaccordion][elitetoggle title=”7th January 2021 The Life and Pictures of Sussex Photographer, Ellis Kelsey (1866-1939″]
Family Roots held its first meeting via Zoom since the start of lockdowns for the coronavirus pandemic back in March 2020, and were very pleased to welcome Kevin Gordon, one of our own members and a well known local historian, who gave us a fascinating talk on the photographs of Ellis Kelsey, illustrated by many of his local scenes of Eastbourne and towns nearby. All the images were taken from digital copies of glass plate slides held by the Seaford Museum, and Kevin acknowledged the help of Ben Franks from Seaford Museum for his work in digitising the slides, and Nat Gonella from Eastbourne Local History Society for collating and organising the photographs for his talk.
Seaford Museum holds over 2,300 glass plate slides taken by Ellis Kelsey, and Kevin included a wide selection of digital copies from the collection, including early photographs of Richmond, Surrey, the family’s home village in the Isle of Axholme, Lincolnshire, from his travels in England and Europe, as well as many views of Eastbourne. Ellis Kelsey’s parents were Joseph and Martha. Joseph was a tailor and owned a haberdashery business in Richmond, supplying linens to wealthy customers including Queen Victoria and Buckingham Palace. Ellis was born in 1866 and his sister Edith was born in 1870, and the family lived in Richmond until 1891, when they moved back to Westwoodside in Lincolnshire. Ellis’s earliest photographs were taken about 1890 in Richmond. His family were well off and could afford to support his expensive photographic hobby.
In 1893 Joseph retired and the family moved to ‘Melwood’, 22 Upper Avenue, Eastbourne, a large house with good views over Whitley and Cavendish Bridges. Ellis had studied music and the 1911 census gives his occupation as Professor of Music. He was an Associate of the Royal College of Music. He took several photographs inside his home, which was typical of the ornate interiors popular at the time, with walls covered in paintings and ornaments, and including the music room with its large pipe organ. Ellis was obviously proud of his photographs as several were shown framed and hanging on the walls.
The Kelsey family liked to travel around England, especially to the West Country, Isle of Wight and London, and Ellis took his camera everywhere he went. He also took many photos on the Continent, through Switzerland, Austria and Italy, travelling with his sister Edith. Ellis and his sister lived with their parents until Martha died in 1914 and Joseph in 1919. Both are buried in Ocklynge Cemetery. Ellis and his sister then moved to King’s Drive, Eastbourne in 1920.
Ellis Kelsey took thousands of photographs during his lifetime. As well as Seaford Museum, The Keep in Brighton has several albums, there are collections in Doncaster Central Library and the National Railway Museum, as well as several in private hands. Ellis had a fascination with railways and took many photographs of steam trains. He liked to experiment with all different techniques and lighting and many of his views are very atmospheric. The collection in Seaford Museum includes half-plate and quarter-plate negatives, glass plates, lantern slides and stereographs. He mastered the technique of photographing views at night and in fog using long exposures, and was not afraid of drawing in (or early Photoshopping!) details, for example by enhancing light beams from the lighthouse.
Ellis went out in all weathers and captured scenes of everyday life around the town and in Lewes, Newhaven harbour, Seaford, Pevensey and Westham, Hastings, Rye, Polegate, Willingdon and along the clifftop at Beachy Head. He was skilled in composing detailed images, capturing reflections off rain soaked pavements, and sunshine and shadows. He was a very brave photographer bearing in mind he was not able to see the finished view until he had developed the photograph at home, unlike today’s instant digital photography.
Many of his photographs of Eastbourne give a good insight into the development of the town, and Kevin’s knowledge of local history enabled him to add interest to his talk by adding extra historical details. Ellis liked to photograph people in their natural environments, giving a great image of social history, but he also took many posed portraits, as well as pets and still life photography. Between 1899 and 1914 he submitted photographs to the London Photographic Society, winning many prizes. He experimented with early colour photography and one of his first ones was a view of the Old School House in Meads Road, Eastbourne taken in 1913. Ellis also exhibited his photographs in Eastbourne, and published articles in photographic and scientific magazines.
Ellis Kelsey married Elizabeth Woods on 15 October 1931, and moved to Heathfield Road, Seaford with his wife and sister Edith. He died on 13 October 1939 and is buried in Seaford Cemetery.
“5th December 2019 A Victorian Christmas”
At our December meeting we were entertained to a Victorian Christmas with Tony and Lizzie Gilks, in full Victorian costume with assorted props and suitable readings and poetry from the period.
At the start of the evening Lizzie told us about the origins of wassail, a hot mulled punch, and an earlier version of the drink called ‘lambswool’ made from mead and roasted crab apples, and how to make them. She also told us of the history of St Nicholas, his association with Christmas and the many myths that surround him.
The modern impression of a Victorian Christmas would only have been experienced by the wealthy 5% of Victorians, all the rest would have been too poor. She read the poem ‘A Visit from St Nicholas’ written by the American author Clement Clarke Moore in the early 19th century, and better know as “Twas the Night before Christmas”, which gave the inspiration for modern versions of Christmas. It mentions St Nick and his sleigh and names the eight reindeer, but no Rudolph with his red nose. He only came on the scene in 1939 when an American publishing company commissioned an artist to create an impression of St Nicholas for their childrens’ colouring books, and he gave St Nicholas a red outfit and Rudolph his red nose.
Victorians celebrated the twelve days of Christmas, ending with a big party on Twelfth Night, when the chief guest of honour was presented with a special dish at the end of the meal, such as a big cake containing birds – ‘Sing a Song of Christmas’. It was a night for practical jokes and party games. Queen Victoria did not approve!
We also learned about other songs and customs. ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ originated in Elizabethean times and has a religious background: ‘a partridge in a pear tree’ represents Christ, ‘two turtle doves’ are the Old and New Testaments, ‘three French hens’ represent the Trinity, and so on. Going from house to house singing carols goes back to the days when groups of singers would visits neighbours singing about the birth of Christ and showing scenes of the nativity.
The custom of electing a Boy Bishop goes back to the Middle Ages, when many cathedrals would elect a boy, typically a chorister, on 6th December (the feast of St Nicholas) to take on the role of the bishop. He would perform all the ceremonies of the bishop, except celebrating mass, until Holy Innocents Day (28th December). The custom was finally abolished by Elizabeth 1, but was revived in 1973 when the Dean of Hereford wrote to the Queen requesting to elect a Boy Bishop with permission to perform full traditional ceremonies.
The tradition of sending Christmas cards to friends and relatives did not come in until 1843. Sir Henry Cole, who was a senior civil servant with the Public Record Office, had helped to introduce the Penny Post in 1840 and wanted a way to encourage poor people to make use of it. Up until then people would write letters at Christmas, which was time-consuming, so Cole asked his friend John Calcott Horsley to design a simple card that could be mass-produced to send as a greeting to friends.
The Christmas tree originated in the 8th century when St Boniface wanted to bring Christianity to the pagans, who used branches of spruce and fir to decorate their homes to celebrate the winter solstice, looking forward to the coming spring. Christians used spruce as a symbol of God’s eternal love. It was the 16th century German preacher Martin Luther who first introduced candles on a Christmas tree in his house, as it reminded him of seeing stars through the branches of trees in the forest.
Food was always a highlight of Christmas. In Tudor times the wealthy would dine with the monarch for the twelve days of Christmas, consuming great quantities of meat which were then compensated for with sugary sweet dishes. The banquetting halls would be decorated with holly and ivy, which were symbolic of good health.
After an hour of delightful Victorian entertainment we finished the evening with some Christmas fare for our members in the form of snacks and mince pies and soft drinks.[/elitetoggle][/eliteaccordion][eliteaccordion][eliteaccordion][elitetoggle title=”7th November 2019 The Terminus Road Story”]
Alan Wenham, well known local historian, gave us an interesting talk on the development of Terminus Road, the main shopping street through the centre of Eastbourne.
Terminus Road stretched from Seahouses on the seafront to the old town (where the central library is), just north of the Bourne Stream. It was a very muddy track and there were just two buildings on the lane until the railway came to Eastbourne in 1849. The principal landowners in the town were William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire and the Davies-Gilbert family.
The project to develop the road was a risky business and the first terrace of houses took nine years to sell. The original buildings along the road were residential properties, started in the 1850s, but as the population of Eastbourne grew after the arrival of the railway the idea of turning the front gardens of the houses into shops became a reality. They gradually developed over the next fifty years, and the section from the present HSBC bank to the railway station was the first to be built.
The first railway station was on the opposite side of the road to its present location and it was just a small shuttle station linking to the main line at Polegate. A second station was built in 1866, but it was not fit for purpose. By 1870 Eastbourne had a direct line to London and a third station was started on the site of the current building. The railway station as we know it today was built in 1886.
Freight traffic was very important to the town, especially for the transportation of coal. The original coal kiosks next to the railway station were replaced by a parade of shops in 1912 housing rival coal merchants Ricketts and Bradfords. It also accommodated Proctors Chemists, who have been on the site for 100 years; and Louis G Ford, builders merchants. The General Post Office building on the opposite side from the station was also built in 1912, with Pickfords Removals in the property on the corner.
The Terminus Hotel, better known as the Squirrel Pub, was on the corner of Grove Road. The Police Station and the Vestry Hall were opposite, next to the sheepwash pond (where the library now stands), which was replaced by the fire station in 1890. They were all redeveloped in 1904/05 to become The Technical Institute and Free Library, which was funded by Carnegie.
A fourth platform was added to the railway station when trains were electrified, and Henry Sutton bought a plot of land next to it and built the Gildredge Hotel.
In 1894/95 the building known as The Grotto and a small church next door were knocked down to make way for Barclays Bank, a very impressive building. On the opposite corner, at the top of Junction Road, was the Brighton Arms pub. Facing Barclays Bank was a branch of London & Provincial Bank. Barclays Bank, along with eleven other sites in Terminus Road, was badly damaged by bombing during World War II.
Sussex Gardens was a terrace of houses next to Barclays Bank with its own service road, and facing them on the other side of Terminus Road were several large private villas. The Council acquired the land at the front of Sussex Gardens to build a parade of shops. F.W. Woolworth was one of the largest shops and they moved into their plot in 1926. Across the road was Caffyns car showroom, where W.H.Smith is today, and just along from there was Hermitage Pianos, with its distinctive glass fan-shaped window. Debussy, when staying at the Grand Hotel, rented a piano from them. It later became Victor Value Supermarket, then Tescos, and is now Super Drug. Further along Terminus Road towards the seafront is Marks & Spencer store, which suffered terrible bombing in 1942 during a daytime raid, killing many pedestrians.
In the next section of Terminus Road Caleb Diplock built assembly rooms and hotel on the corner with Pevensey Road. This was supplied from his distillery and brewery a little further along Pevensey Road, which later became the Southdown Bus Depot. On the corner opposite the assembly rooms, in Lismore Road, was Atkinson Haberdashers. This was taken over by F.J. Bobby, a very successful businessman, who acquired several small properties and turned them into Bobbys, a popular department store in the 1950s and 60s, now Debenhams.
The other two principal stores along the route to the seafront were Dale & Kerley, started in 1860, on the corner with Seaside Road, which became Barkers, then Army & Navy Stores, and latterly T.J. Hughes; and diagonally opposite on the corner with Trinity Trees was the Co-operative Store.
Terminus Road, the main route from the railway station to the sea, took seventy-five years to develop from residential to shopping street.
“3rd October 2019 The History of Wannock Tea Gardens”
speaker: Jenny Wootton
Jenny, a member of the Family Roots committee, gave a talk about the history of Wannock Tea Gardens, a popular tourist attraction for visitors to Eastbourne in the 1950s and 60s, situated between Polegate and Jevington, which had belonged to her family since 1926.
The history of the gardens went back into the Victorian period and Jenny started her talk in 1826, when the area of Wannock consisted of a watermill, farmland and a small cottage surrounded by orchards and fruit growing. The miller at that time was Joseph Seymour and he took as his young apprentice Henry Thomas, the only son of a milling family from Bexhill. Henry got on well with his employer, so much so that he married the boss’s daughter Phyllis, and they had three children.
By 1841 Henry’s parents, James and Ann Thomas, had moved into the cottage on the fruit gardens opposite the watermill and George, the eldest of Henry and Phyllis’s children, was living with them. When Henry retired from running the mill George took it over and settled there with his wife Elizabeth and their six children. George introduced many innovations to help the mill workings and he also started a bakery on the site, employing several millers and bakers and supplying bread and cakes to the local area.
The cottage and fruit growing area opposite the mill was still owned by the Thomas family and was leased to William Ashwell in the 1870s, and by then had become known as the Wannock Strawberry Gardens, mentioned in several guide books on the area for the delicious fruits that could be picked there.
George Thomas’s two sons, Frederick William and Charles, were trained in horticulture and fruit growing and by the 1890s Frederick had taken over the fruit growing business from William Ashwell. The two brothers started serving teas on the lawn behind the cottage and as well as the strawberries and fresh fruits grown on their own grounds they were obviously supplied with bread and cakes from their father’s bakery and no doubt bought milk and cream from the local farms.
By 1906 George Thomas was thinking of retiring from milling and wanted his two sons to carry on the business, so they sold the strawberry gardens to James Morgan Gregg. Mr Gregg further expanded the fruit growing at the gardens, adding glass houses for growing melons, tomatoes and potted plants, as well as a large vinery and outdoor nursery. He placed regular advertisements in the local paper offering fruit, vegetables and fruit trees for sale.
Meanwhile Frederick and Charles Thomas were not really interested in taking over their father’s milling business and very soon persuaded him to allow them to start offering teas on the lawn in front of the mill house. They pulled down several of the outbuildings and erected glass houses and arbours to expand the tea serving area. George died in 1915 and by then the milling had virtually ceased, mainly because of lack of water flowing into the mill pond from the Glen Stream, which had dwindled since the Eastbourne Waterworks Compamy started harvesting water from the surrounding downland to supply the growing town of Eastbourne. Frederick also passed away two years later.
In 1912 Charles Thomas had married Ethel Gladding, and he got on very well with his father-in-law Walter Gladding. Walter was keen on birds and as well as helping his son-in-law to develop the grounds around the mill house into an attractive ornamental garden he also introduced aviaries of caged birds – parrots, cockatoos, toucans, finches – as well as ducks and swans onto the mill pond, and added a small zoo.
Over the road at the Wannock Strawberry Gardens business was brisk. Mr Gregg had extended the area for serving teas and paved the outside courts, and had also built a large inside tea room to provide shelter for his customers. It was a very popular venue for charabanc parties and after the First World War hosted fund-raising events for the British Legion.
In 1926 Mr Gregg decided to sell the tea gardens business and advertised it for sale in Brighton. Walter Wootton saw the advert on one of his holiday trips to the south coast and wrote to Mr Gregg asking for particulars, and very quickly the deal was done.
Walter John Wootton was born in Norwood, Surrey in 1873 and married Harriet Parsons in 1897. He owned a provisions store, Wootton’s Markets, in Sangley Road, Catford, where he also provided a full catering service for weddings, funerals and formal dinners.
Mr Wootton quickly set about making changes to the gardens at Wannock, building a large hall and tea room over the top of Mr Gregg’s kitchens, which was opened by the deputy mayor of Eastbourne in May 1927. He had to employ some of his waiters from Catford for the first few years as the local residents were suspicious of this Londoner with his big ideas making changes to the gardens, but Walter knew the power of advertising. He put out adverts for the ‘Wonder Gardens at Wannock’ in local hotels, bus and train stations, in the local papers, and very soon the public were flocking to see them.
Walter Wootton had a quirky sense of humour and had collected anecdotes, limericks and funny stories all his life and many of these began to appear on painted signs around the gardens. A typical one read “An apple a day may keep the doctor away but it was an apple in the Garden of Eden that first started dressmakers in business”.
The Woottons had two sons, Ronald and Harold. Harold, the younger one, was only 17 when they moved to Wannock but he went off to Reading University to study horticulture and landscape gardening. His designs for the gardens were used to transform the ground into an ornamental gardens in the 1930s in place of the rows of fruit trees and soft fruits that greeted the visitors in Mr Gregg’s time.
Meanwhile, the Old Mill Gardens across the road had changed hands in 1930 when Charles Thomas sold the house and grounds to Alfred John Frazer. Mr Frazer converted the house into a small guest house for discerning guests by adding extra bedrooms and a larger dining room. He also employed a firm of Japanese gardeners to create a wonderful miniature Japanese garden in one of the large glass houses, complete with pagodas, bonsais and oriental statues.
By 1932 the Old Mill Gardens and Guesthouse was on the market again and Walter Wootton snapped it up into his expanding empire, running both gardens and the guest house until the start of the Second World War, with the help of his wife and two sons.
When the war started most of the male staff went off to fight and the grounds and greenhouses at Wannock were turned over to growing food crops for the home market. Harold Wootton stayed behind to organise the food production on both sites and joined the Home Guard. As more of the grounds were turned over to cultivation he applied to Lewes for a team of Land Army girls to come and help, and throughout the war hundreds of tons of tomatoes, potatoes and fruit were harvested and sent off to Covent Gardens to feed the home market.
Wannock Gardens re-opened in June 1946, but visitors would have been greeted by the sight of beds of lettuce and greenhouses full of tomatoes as Harold Wootton pledged to keep growing essential food supplies all the time there was rationing.
Gradually over the next few years Wannock Gardens was again transformed into the pleasure gardens it had been before the war and new features were added. In 1953 Frederick Slaymaker, a retired postman and dedicated model maker, approached Mr Wootton to see if he could re-home his model village in the gardens, which was suffering in the salty air of Selsey where he lived in West Sussex. He was given a spot at the top of the grounds and over the years the village grew to include a castle, windmill, three churches, five pubs and a funfair. It was a great attraction for visitors.
Another innovation, much loved by visitors, was the famous ‘water otter’ which was housed in one of the disused animal cages. It contained a large galvanised tank filled with water and covered with pond weed, with a chain hanging from the ceiling into the tank. Visitors were invited to gently lift the chain to see the water otter, only to find an old kettle on the end of the chain – a water hotter.
The popularity of Wannock Gardens grew steadily throughout the 1950s and 60s. Harold Wootton started a limited company with Patrick Finlan, who had come to Wannock originally as a photographer. Patrick took over the catering side of the business, leaving Harold to oversee the greenhouses and gardens. The displays and variety of plants in the greenhouses were spectacular and by the 1950s housed the largest private collection of plants outside Kew Gardens.
Also during that period the number of visitors grew from 250,000 to 500,000, attracting many parties and group outings. Then in 1967 Patrick Finlan retired from the business on health grounds, and although Harold carried on for two more years by 1969 he decided it was too much for one man. The gardens, with the exception of the family home, were put up for sale for development. The family continued living in the house and had to listen to the buildings and greenhouses being broken up. By 1971 roadways and houses began to appear. Today the area is a neat housing estate under the Downs, but still carries the name ‘Wannock Gardens’. [/elitetoggle][/eliteaccordion][eliteaccordion][elitetoggle title=”1st August, 2019 How to use your DNA results– Donna Rutherford”]Our meeting was very well attended to hear Donna talk about DNA and using the result. I’m slightly biased writing this article as I had my DNA taken via Ancestry 18 months ago and have had a very positive experience which has expanded my family tree!
The main reason most people choose to take a DNA test is that they wish to know more about their ancestors but they are other reasons too. For example Donna works on cases of foundlings such as the man who was found in the toilets in Gatwick Airport back in the 1980s and via DNA has found their birth families. Donna has also helped the police on working on on cold case and other law enforcement cases.
DNA is our genetic code that gives us our hair & eye colour and how tall we are but also can be used to see if congenital diseases passed from one generation to the next. We all have 46 chromosomes and inherit 23 pairs from each parent so we have 50% of each parents DNA. We inherit Y DNA (Y chromosome) from our father and Mitochondrial DNA (Mdna) from other mother. The father’s Y DNA determines the sex of a baby. Autosomal (atDNA) DNA on the chromosomes 1-22 is the most useful for general genealogy purposes as it tests on both maternal and paternal for about 5-6 generations. An example of using DNA in research is in the case of proving it was Richard III when remains were found under a car-park in Leicester. The mitochondrial DNA found provided evidence of a link to his mother’s line.
You can have your DNA tested through a saliva sample or cells can be scraped from inside of your cheek. For my test via Ancestry I gave a saliva sample and this is being used to trace both paternal and maternal lines but the test I took a few years back at ‘Who Do You Think You Are Live’ in London I had cells from inside my cheek taken to trace my mother’s line.
Donna explained how you then interpret your results once they start coming through as all of a sudden you will be inundated with ‘shared matches’ and will be trying to discover how these people fit into your own family tree. (I’m up to 358 now!). She builds what she has termed a ‘quick and dirty tree’ and puts all her shared matches into this tree and then finds any common ancestors between them. She then puts these shared matches into her own tree once properly sourced and the link found.
An example Donna gave us of having an apparently unlinked shared match was that due to diligent research she traced the ancestors of this match on a census and discovered they had lived in the same street as her Great-grandfather and his family. She worked out that the ancestor of this shared match must have had a child by her Great-grandfather hence the shared DNA! You must be prepared for long hidden secrets to be exposed!
There are various companies now who offer DNA testing – Ancestry; Family Tree; My Heritage; 23 & Me; Living DNA so it is worth taking the time to look at what each offers before sending off that sample. 23 & Me, for example, will also test the sample for health related issues and to see if you are carrying certain diseases. There is also the People of the British Isles Project which can break down their matches into different counties. Ancestry now has the largest database with 15 million people but be advised that not all of your matches will have loaded a family tree which can be frustrating! Also Donna advised a note of caution in giving out DNA kits as presents as family & friends as they may not be happy with what it uncovers! For example, two sisters may discover they have different fathers.
Donna advised that all these databases will grow as more people join but DNA matches can help fill in those gaps in your tree as they may have family bibles; letters; etc. which hold valuable information and may break down some of those brick walls but may also create more mysteries!
It was a very interesting and thought provoking talk and for those that have been unsure about taking a DNA test I am sure Donna answered some of your queries as to whether it helps in your own family tree research. Personally I can say yes it does!
Link to Donna’s talk with more information:- https://donnarutherford.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/DNA-Presentation-Eastbourne-1.pdf [/elitetoggle][/eliteaccordion][eliteaccordion][elitetoggle title=” 7th March 2019
A Man May Have Constant Employ
”]Geoffrey Mead is a lecturer in Geography at the University of Sussex, and has a passion for local and regional history. His knowledge of rural and urban industrial history gave us an interesting talk on the development of man’s employment and how it had evolved through the ages. He took us from the earliest flint mining in the Stone Age 5,000 years ago, when antlers were used to dig out the flint from inside the chalk and willow baskets were used to haul up the flints, rope was needed to lift the baskets and skilled workers then fashioned the flint into harpoons and arrow heads.
In the Iron Age iron ore was found in the Weald in Wadhurst clay. The woodlands of the Weald provided the wood that was made into charcoal, to fire the forges needed to work the iron ore. With the arrival of the Romans man learned to make bricks and tiles from clay, and in the Saxon period masonry and quarrying began.
Dr Mead demonstrated how different manufacturing processes developed from the local materials in different areas, such as Sussex pottery in the Hartfield area which was exported to the Midlands, and glass-making around Petworth on the West Sussex/Surrey border. In the late 14th century there was a change to iron-making with the introduction of the blast furnace and water driven hammers.
Glass production in Sussex ended in 1600 and the ironworks finished in the 1700s, and the population began to move from the Weald to towns on the coast, which lead to a surge in the need for housing. Industries to produce building materials grew, with the mining of chalk for cement and lime and the production of bricks at Plumpton.
The development of the railways in the mid-1800s brought more industry to Sussex, with railway yards and carriage works at Brighton. The railway enabled the transporting of manufactured goods into and out of the area. It also allowed for the easy transport of population to the coastal towns and saw the development of the leisure industry. This was further increased by the arrival of the motor car, which in turn lead for the need for petrol stations and mechanic repair shops. The development of the motorway changed where people lived and worked, and expanded the distribution of goods around the country. In 1910 Shoreham Airport opened, the first in England, which opened up the possibility of air travel abroad, followed by Gatwick Airport, the biggest employer in Sussex today.
Dr Mead’s talk gave us an interesting insight into how man’s occupations have developed over the centuries, dependent on what he could produce from materials from his local surroundings, and gradually expanding as he became more mobile with the development of transport links and the ability to move materials from one area to another.
” 4th April 2019 The Commonwealth War Grave Commission
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We were pleased to welcome Ian Everest back again for another talk, and one which he should have given in March last year when we had to cancel the meeting because of snow.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission was started by Fabian Ware (1869-1949), a teacher. He was 45 years old when World War I started, too old to fight, but when the RAC advertised for drivers to help the Red Cross he signed up to drive ambulances to collect the wounded. As he drove across the battlefields of northern France he began to notice isolated graves dotting the countryside, so he started recording their locations. He found it disturbing that families who came looking for the graves of loved ones should see only a solitary wooden cross and he felt driven to find a way of recording the graves so their location was not lost forever. Graves were often disturbed by later fighting, and no records were kept.
Fabian Ware realised something had to be done. He formed a unit that began recording and caring for all the graves they could find. By 1915 their work gained official recognition by the War Office and was incorporated into the British Army as the Graves Registration Commission under the leadership of Ware, who was given the rank of Major. Ware took photographs of the wooden crosses to send to families who enquired about the final resting place of loved ones.
On 21 May 1917 the Imperial War Graves Commission was established by Royal Charter. Ware realised it would be impossible to repatriate all the bodies of the fallen, so he approached the governments of France and Belgium for plots of land for cemeteries. Once the acquisition of land had been guaranteed the enormous task of recording the details of the dead could begin. The largest of these cemeteries is at Tyne Cot, originally a first aid post, which is the final resting place of 11,900 of servicemen of the British Empire killed in WW1. By 1918 some 587,000 graves had been identified and a further 559,000 casualties were registered as having no known grave. Their names are recorded on memorial walls within the cemeteries and prominent public monuments such as the Menin Gate.
By 1920 the famous Portland stone headstones began to replace the old wooden crosses. The headstones had to be uniform in size and each identified serviceman was remembered by name, rank, date of death and regimental badge, and the family could added a personal memorial if they wished. Battlefield clearance units were formed to find the bodies, but it is estimated that there are as many as 200,000 bodies still to be found in the battlefields.
There are over 2,000 war grave cemeteries across France and Belgium, and the Commission sets the highest standards for all its work. Sir Edward Lutyens, Sir Herbert Baker and Sir Reginald Blomfield, three eminent architects at the time, were chosen to begin the work of designing and constructing the cemeteries and memorials, and Rudyard Kipling was tasked with recommending the inscriptions. Each cemetery has a Cross of Sacrifice, and the larger ones also have the Stone of Remembrance carrying the inscription ‘Their name liveth for evermore’, which was suggested by Kipling as an appropriate inscription for memorials. He also suggested the memorial ‘Known unto God’ for gravestones of unidentified soldiers.
Fabian Ware received a Knighthood in 1922 for his work with the Commission. The work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is ongoing. Not only are they responsible for the care and maintenance of all the war grave cemeteries worldwide, but also for the re-burial of casualties’ remains that are still being found in land that was part of the battlefields of WW1 and WW2.
A very interesting talk that may have inspired Family Roots members to look for ancestors who died in the First or Second World Wars who will be recorded on the CWGC websitewww.cwgc.org.uk
“3rd January 2019 The Beachy Head Lighthouse and Belle Tout “]
Christopher Whittick, County Archivist for East Sussex Record Office from The Keep at Falmer, entertained us with a presentation of the 71 glass lantern slides that had recently been acquired for the record office, showing the building of Beachy Head lighthouse between 1900 and 1902.
Christopher explained the origin of the name Beachy Head, from the French Beau Chef (beautiful headland) and the fact that there are two lighthouses there, the one featured in the slides and the earlier one named Belle Tout up on the clifftop a mile away. The earliest mention of the name Beachy is in 1274, when the lord of Bramber claimed fishing rights from Beachy to the Isle of Wight. The name Belle Tout was first recorded on a map by Richard Budgen in 1724.
In 1688 Thomas Offley, lord of the manor of Birling, petitioned the Crown for authority to build a lighthouse on the clifftop, because of the many shipwrecks on the rocks below. The idea was referred to Trinity House, but nothing happened. Several more attempts were made to get permission to build a lighthouse, but nothing came of them and the shipwrecks continued. The most famous shipwreck was of the ‘Nympha Americana’ on 29 November 1747. She was loaded with a high valued cargo of mercury and fine cloths. Much of the cargo was washed up on the shore and carried away by the local population.
The shipwrecks continued and in the absence of a lighthouse other efforts were made to save the lives of shipwrecked sailors. In the early 1800s Jonathan Darby, rector of East Dean, had excavated a cave in the cliff face, which became known as Darby’s Hole, where he would stand with a lantern on stormy nights to try and ward ships away from the rocks. A Mr Thunder, from Brighton, invented a contraption by which sailors and goods could be winched up the clifftop to safety.
It was a wreck in November 1822 of the East India Company ‘Thames’ that brought about the building of the first lighthouse, a wooden structure built on top of the cliffs at Belle Tout, which came into service on 1 October 1828. This was replaced by a permanent granite lighthouse in 1829 by Trinity House, which became fully operational on 11 October 1834 and produced a light visible for 22 nautical miles. Belle Tout lighthouse was a failure because the cliffs were often shrouded in fog and the distance that the beam would reach was severely reduced and ships would still sail too close to the rocks.
In 1897 Trinity House commissioned its chief engineer Thomas Matthews to produce detailed plans for a new structure that would stand at sea level, about a mile and a quarter from Belle Tout, which would give a clear arc of light across the open sea.
In March 1899 the contract for the granite had been won by The Bath Hard Stone Firms Limited, to be supplied from their quarry at Bodmin, Cornwall, for the sum of £24,888 17s 4d. To get to the foreshore from their depot on the cliffs a pathway consisting of 370 feet of ladders and about 375 feet of zig-zagged stepped path was constructed on the face of the cliff. A temporary staging was constructed close to the site of the lighthouse, which was connected to the workyard at the top of the cliff by a wire cableway. In the beginning this was the only way of getting goods, machinery and men down to the shore quickly. They were lowered to the shore in a cage, which at first seemed safe, but following a disasterous accident when a sudden snow blizzard caused the brakeman to set the brake, thus leaving the cage swinging in midair, some of the workmen refused to use the cage again. The men were housed in barrack-type buildings on top of the cliff, and on the night of the 1901 census 21 men were in residence, most of whom were born in Cornwall.
The first stage of the work was to build a coffer-dam 10 below low water in order that work could carry on for a considerable time after the tide began to rise, and as soon as the tide had receded from the surrounding shore the water was pumped out so that work could resume. It was hard back braking work with pick and shovel as they could not use explosives for fear of splitting the cliff.
The first stone was laid in the foundation on 23 November 1900, and they were laid in the circular trench 10 feet below low-water mark. The top of the dam was reached in May 1901, and as the tower continued to grow a portable and adjustable handrail was provided to secure the safety of the men working at higher levels. The last stone of the gallery course was set on 25 February 1902. On the top is the standard Trinity House type lantern, standing 27 feet tall. This housed a paraffin burner to produce about 1,100 candlepower of initial intensity, which, when transmitted through the optical apparatus, was augmented to the enormous intensity of over 240,000 candles. The light first shone on 2 October 1902.
The building of the lighthouse became a great tourist attraction and the development was photographed and sketched by many people. The two main photographers at the time were Ellis Kelsey, an amateur photograher, and Frederick Bourne, who had his own photographic studio in Langney Road, Eastbourne.
Archived meeting reports are here.