Newsletter – 31st
May 2022
Prime Minister at
illegal gathering
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Save 25% at British Newspaper Archive EXCLUSIVE
Findmypast add York directories
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Prime Minister at illegal gathering
Not
only was the Prime Minister there, so were the Prince of Wales and the Duke of
Cambridge – yes, the wedding of Archibald Primrose and Hannah, his bride, was
the talk of the town. But it shouldn’t have taken place when it did, and they most
certainly shouldn’t have allowed it to be officially recorded!
©
City of Westminster Archives Centre, Ancestry.com – used by kind permission of
Ancestry
The
groom was the Earl of Rosebery, the bride was the sole heir of Meyer (or Mayer)
de Rothschild, a member of the banking family. Though a hereditary peer, and a
member of the House of Lords, Rosebery was to serve as Prime Minister from
March 1894 to June 1895, whilst the witnesses at the wedding included the then Prime
Minister (Lord Beaconsfield, better known as Benjamin Disraeli), who escorted
the bride to the altar, the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), and Queen Victoria's
cousin George, the Duke of Cambridge.
Why
was the marriage illegal? Because they were both already married. However, whilst
they were committing perjury, they weren’t committing bigamy!
The
wedding at Christ Church, in London’s fashionable Mayfair district, had been preceded
by a civil ceremony at the register office in Mount Street, Grosvenor Square.
Whilst it would have been perfectly legal to have a religious ceremony after
the civil proceedings, it ought not to have been a marriage ceremony and it certainly
shouldn’t have been registered. However it was, and as a result there are two entries
in the GRO marriage index for the quarter, and two entries in the GRO’s copy
registers:
According
to a report in the Manchester Times of 6th April 1878, the
Registrar General contended that because the church wedding was ‘by licence’
and the licence stated that they were bachelor and spinster, no offence had
been committed. However there were many who disagreed, though they came from a
range of different viewpoints – as you will see when you read Chapter 5 of Professor
Rebecca Probert’s excellent Tying the Knot.
Free newspapers at Findmypast for the Jubilee
If
you don’t have access to Tying the Knot through your local library or family
history society, you can always look through the newspapers of the period for
articles about this controversial ‘wedding’ – and until 6th June you
can search them free at Findmypast:
Alternatively,
take advantage of the EXCLUSIVE opportunity that I’ve arranged at the dedicated
British Newspaper Archive website, which offers a much more powerful search…..
Save 25% at British Newspaper Archive EXCLUSIVE
British
Newspaper Archive are offering a 25% discount on 12 month subscriptions, but only
on 1st June (the offer ends at midnight, London
time). However as a reader of the LostCousins newsletter you have exclusive
early access to the offer – for you it starts RIGHT NOW!
You
don’t need an offer code, just use the link below and it’ll be added
automatically:
BRITISH
NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE – SAVE 25% ON 12 MONTH SUBSCRIPTIONS (ends 1st
June)
What
makes British Newspaper Archive special – apart from more than 53 million pages
from historic newspapers (the biggest online collection of British newspapers
in the world)? In a word, it’s the search. For a start, you can not only search
for articles that include specific words or phrases, you also specify
words that you want to exclude.
Suppose
I wanted to search for articles in which I’m mentioned – the results would be
dominated by mentions of my name-sake and near contemporary who was a racehorse
trainer. So here’s what I would search for:
+"peter
calver" -horse -trainer -race -furlong -handicap
This
search returns just 12 results from the 1990s, rather than the 67 I’d get at
Findmypast – so it’s much easier to look through for the 4 results that
actually relate to me, rather than someone else with same name. 67 results
might not seem very daunting, but bear in mind that mine’s a pretty rare name,
and that there are far more pages in the archive from the 19th
century than the 20th – if I had been looking for my great-grandfathers John
Wells and John Bright at Findmypast I’d have been deluged with results (over 50,000
and over 250,000 respectively).
The
other brilliant feature is being able to search only pages added to the
archive after a particular date (or between a range of dates) – it means you
don’t have to keep ploughing through the same unwanted results in order to find
the few relevant results that might have been added. Indeed, it’s such a useful
feature I wish that all sites offered it (there’s only one other site I can
think of that makes repeated searches so simple, and that’s LostCousins!).
Tip:
the newspaper collection is continually expanding – millions of new pages are
added each year, so being able to restrict your search to the new additions is
incredibly useful.
If
you search the British
Newspaper Archive for references to rock musician Aynsley Dunbar you won’t
find any articles from 1966 (nor are there any at Newspapers.com). Dunbar
was a drummer who played with the Mojos, John Mayall, Frank Zappa, John Lennon,
Jefferson Starship, Jeff Beck, and David Bowie to name but a few – but you
might be forgiven for thinking that in 1966 he’d disappeared off the face of
the earth. Of course, they do say that if you remember the ‘60s you weren’t
there…..
During
the summer of 1966 a couple of new faces appeared amongst the congregation at the
church I attended (and where I had been baptised a few years earlier). Most of
the attendees were regulars, so anyone new would have been noticeable, but this
young man with his long dark hair, velvet suit, and blonde girlfriend really
stood out from the assembled throng. Whispers went round that he was a famous
rock star, and though the name Aynsley Dunbar didn’t mean much to me, I’d certainly
heard of the Mojos. I’d have been even more impressed if I’d known that he was
going to join John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, as they were the most
popular band amongst my schoolfriends (so it would have done a lot for my ‘street
cred’).
In
those days couples who wanted to get married in church were expected to demonstrate
that they understood the commitment they were entering into, and at our church
this meant turning up for Sunday service and attending a series of private sessions
with the minister. So for 6 Sundays during that summer I was sat a few rows
behind Aynsley Dunbar from Liverpool, and his fiancée Wendy Walters, who I now know
from the GRO birth indexes was born just a few miles away from me in Romford.
Sadly,
like so many rock marriages, it didn’t last – though I didn’t discover that until
this week, when the name ‘Aynsley Dunbar’ suddenly popped into my head, inspiring
me to take what little I could remember and see what I could find out using family
history resources and other Internet searches.
It
turned out that by 1972 Wendy was married to guitarist Ricardo Gaxiola, and
also acted as his manager; unfortunately that marriage didn’t last either, and
in 1978 she married heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio (né Padavona). The following
year Dio took over as lead singer of Black Sabbath from Ozzy Osbourne, probably
best known to readers of this newsletter as the husband of Sharon Osborne. Wendy’s
third marriage lasted until Dio’s death in 2010.
It’s
usually easier to trace people who are ‘personalities’ of one kind or another,
but I still find it intriguing how much I was able to discover starting from
just a name and a vague memory. The reason I haven’t said much about Aynsley Dunbar
himself is because he has his own website and – in any case – tracing
men is easier because they don’t usually change their surname when they marry.
But
one thing on his website was rather unexpected – it turns out that if I wanted
to book Aynsley Dunbar for a gig or an interview I’d have to speak to his agent……
Wendy Dio! I obviously don’t know the circumstances, but I do find it touching
that, half a century after their divorce, they’ve still got a connection of
some kind. Till death us do part?
Findmypast add York directories
I wouldn’t normally
mention trade directories, as many of them have been available online or on CD
ROM for donkey’s years, so it’s hardly news. However, I was struck by the coincidence
that just two weeks after my review
of Rowntrees – the Early History appeared, Findmypast added an extensive
collection of directories for the City of York, ancestral home of the sweet
manufacturer, and inspiration for the infamous Yorkie Bar. As you can imagine,
the first thing I did was look up the Rowntree family, and if you follow this link
you can look them up too!
[Image
courtesy of Explore York Libraries and Archives; used by permission of
Findmypast]
Note:
the Rowntree family also popped up when I was reading Tying the Knot – John Stephenson Rowntree’s ‘Quakerism Past and
Present’, written when he was just 24, identified the rules against ‘marrying
out’ as being primarily responsible for the decline in membership of the Quaker
movement, and directly led to the Marriage (Society of Friends) Act 1860.
These
days most households in the developed world can get water just by turning on a
tap – but it hasn’t always been so easy. My wife spotted an excellent article
from the Spring 2011 issue of the Saffron Walden Historical Journal which
has been reproduced as a PDF that you can download free when you follow this link.
Water Wells and Handpumps of Uttlesford by Sybil Thomas covers the
history of wells from prehistoric times up to the 20th century, with
examples from the Uttlesford area, though I suspect it would be equally
applicable to other areas of the country.
I’m
delighted that I’ve been able to persuade my wife to write about her latest
horticultural exploits…..
On
Friday I arranged to meet a fellow gardening friend at RHS Hyde Hall gardens near
Chelmsford, Essex directly after visiting my elderly mother in her care home.
Arriving 30 minutes late and with rumbling bellies, we found the main entrance
closed for resurfacing without any warning, and with no RHS staff present to
deal with a steady stream of angry visitors (this unenviable task was left to
an unhappy man working for the contractor). The diversion took 25 scenic
minutes, and the last turning wasn’t even signposted – thankfully I saw a newly
gravelled farm track next to a BP garage and went for it.
It
wasn’t if I hadn’t prepared for the journey – I had visited the website the
previous evening and checked the “plan your journey” page, but there was no
warning despite the presumably long-planned work to resurface all the major
roadways a week before the Jubilee bank holiday. I’m glad now that I decided
not to renew my RHS subscription when it fell due! The £18.10 bill for two soup
de jour, bread, and filter coffee was also expensive enough for my friend
and I to regret not trying one of the many picturesque pubs we passed en route
(but then we might have abandoned the garden idea altogether, which would
have been a pity).
There is nothing like
a walk around beautiful parkland and gardens to compensate for a long, hot and
hungry drive. I carried my mother’s Steiff bear on my hip, Brideshead style (she
had insisted that the bear was annoying
her, so she didn’t want him to live in the care home with her any longer). It
seemed churlish to leave him in the car on such a lovely day.
Last
time I visited these gardens it was late October and before the pre-winter tidy
up, so there was little of interest. But in sunny late May, the gardens were
alive with colour and texture. Large crescents of vibrant blue irises
surrounded by low growing evergreens looked outstanding. There was a massive grevillea
juniperena bordering the Australian garden, not especially hardy in the UK
but happy facing directly south; it has shaggy Christmas tree foliage tipped
with bright red flowers like bergamot heads (I have since discovered that grevillea
rosmarinus is hardier, and am tempted to try it as an undemanding evergreen
which flowers throughout the warmer months).
I
also enjoyed the combination of smart topiary evergreens and dozens of six-foot
tall allium “Forelock” dancing in a light breeze. Other very tall varieties
include the dramatically burgundy “Red Mohican” and “Summer Drummer”, although
investing in sufficient plants to make a similar impact could be expensive. In
the same formal cottage garden stood a stunning pair of pyrus salicifolia
pendula - weeping silver leaved pear trees, shaped into tight standard
drumheads which although attractive seemed not to suit their usual shaggy,
pendulous nature. I initially mistook them for clipped olive or Swiss Willow,
the latter being arguably better suited to silver-leaved topiary creations.
From a gardener’s perspective, the number of missing or broken labels was
irritating; I had to look up many of the plants online, and decided not to make
any plant purchases at the shop if they had not been clearly labelled in the
gardens.
As
with the cafe, the plant and gift shops are on the expensive side, though
spacious and well-stocked. On a rainy day it would be difficult not to splash
out. And the combination of vast open areas to walk, combined with several
different types of gardens, does make for a healthy and interesting day out. I
left feeling less grumpy and much more uplifted - and George the bear had a
grrreat time too. Not sure we will visit again for a while, though.
On
Saturday morning, an article
on the BBC News site about the horticulturist Ellen Wilmott caught my attention
because I had slipped uninvited into an overgrown corner of her gardens many
years ago while living in Brentwood, Essex. At that time, the Warley estate was
undergoing a second transformation from a large mental hospital campus to a
luxury apartment estate. Walking near the quietest end, I noticed the most
beautiful daffodils that I’d ever seen – and stepped inside a magical abandoned
garden of ruins, spring plants and overgrown shrubs. The memory receded until
reading the article some 30 years later – back then I had no time or affinity
for gardening, so it is interesting to reflect on the hidden clues of that
experience. The gardens are now open to the public, if somewhat tidied up.
Back
in my own garden I have enjoyed potting up blueberries, three beautiful tree
peonies and half a dozen bare root shrub roses – all bought very cheaply – so
that I can grow them on and monitor their health before finding them permanent
homes. Sometimes, buying younger shrubs can save a lot of money and they often
settle better than planting out much larger specimens. However, I have learned
to resist most bargains that are sold “bare root” in late spring because they
may fail. Eastern England is comparatively dry, making summer gardening taxing
enough without having to nurture plants with underdeveloped root systems. There
have been too many years when “I have tried and they have died”. It is enough
effort to keep potted plants comfortable because their roots are too shallow to
reach the cool, damp earth lower down; bare root plants need overnight soaking
before planting, and then regular watering even to encourage basic leaf
production. So do check carefully before whether a summer bargain plant is
potted or bare root!
As Monty Don often reminds us, given all the
effort invested, we should make time to properly enjoy our gardens. This is when
I notice the interesting things that are missed when hard at work (as with family history research). For example, we
have wild purple foxgloves in the garden. But last night I spotted a white
foxglove emerging from a young philadelphus in pure white bloom, and a pale
salmon foxglove emerging from the centre of a wayward shrub rose with blush
salmon blooms. A professional landscaper friend thought I should claim all the
credit, but nature’s design is way ahead of my capabilities.
Most
gardens need the grass to be short enough to walk on. Last year we experimented
with fashionably longer “wildlife friendly” grass, but it became a soggy
breeding ground for slugs and snails. Wave after wave of enormous gastropods
(the clue is clearly in the name) emerged every evening from the long grass to
devour anything and everything palatable to them – including our cat’s dinner.
Ahead of Peter’s cataract surgery on Tuesday, he has been mowing the grass to
minimise the chance of another infestation – and also so that we can walk on
the grass and admire the beauty of the shrubs providing food for insects and
birds. There is a balance to be struck between ecology, beauty and practicality,
but it’s worth remembering that the birds can pick off slugs and snails more easily
when they can reach them.
My
gardening efforts will be more limited while Peter recuperates. However, an
hour or two outdoors each day is a balm for the soul – and it is the only way
to keep the supplies of home-grown fruit and veg coming. Wishing everyone an
enjoyable Platinum Jubilee weekend, wherever you happen to live – but before I
go, here are links to some of the bargains I’ve picked up recently:
Other offers at Gardening Express
After
watching 26 episodes of The Pallisers my wife and I were left wishing
that there could have been more – and perhaps if Trollope hadn’t died in 1882, just
3 years after the initial publication of The Duke’s Children (it was
published in book form in 1880), there might have been more books in the
series. Maybe his distant relative, the novelist Joanna Trollope, could be
persuaded to oblige? And who knows, perhaps Susan Hampshire, Jeremy Irons, and
Anthony Andrews could all be persuaded to appear in a television adaptation?
As I mentioned recently
we do have 7 series of The Brothers to watch – but I suspect that first
we’ll have some light relief in the form of Marriage
Lines, the TV series from the early 1960s that introduced me to
Prunella Scales, and confirmed Richard Briers as one of my favourite actors (Brothers
in Law was another favourite of mine, but sadly only one episode survives
in the BBC archives, though there is a later radio
adaptation).
Staying
with TV series, I was interested to read an article
on the BBC News site about the real-life vicar who has played numerous roles in
the ITV series Midsomer Murders (and it always does seem to be midsummer
– I’m sure at least half the episodes feature a village fete or similar event).
But personally I’m more interested in the real-life vicars who are researching
their family history, because they’re frequently sources of useful information
for this newsletter.
Going
back to The Pallisers, one of themes running through the books is Plantagenet
Palliser’s desire to simplify the currency by having 10 pence in a shilling rather
than 12 – something that he couldn’t achieve despite serving as Chancellor of
the Exchequer, and later as Prime Minister. I was reminded of this when I read of the British government’s
plans to review the possible reintroduction of imperial measures such as pounds
and ounces, a step which would be more symbolic than retrograde. At least we’ve
always been to buy a pint of beer in a pub, though whether one can afford it these
days is a different matter entirely!
I'm glad to say that my cataract operation seems to have gone well, and
as using my computer is one of the few things the consultant will allow me to do, I
will aim to reply to emails received, though perhaps not as promptly as usual.
Ancestry have just launched a DNA offer for Father's Day in the UK
you can save £20 per test when you follow the link below (if it doesn't take you straight
to the offer page, log-out from your Ancestry account and click the link again).
That’s all for now – and it’s quite possible that by the time you
read this I’ll be doing an imitation of Pudsey! I
hope that I’ll be able to respond to
some emails over the next few days, but please forgive me if I circumstances
prevent this.
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2022 Peter Calver
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