52 Ancestors Challenge - Week 21 - Yearbook

 

In the UK we don’t have such a thing as a Yearbook like they do in the USA. 

The nearest sort of comparable reference source that we would have would be a school register.

Public Schools, such as Eton and Harrow, in England and Wales are fee charging endowed schools, originally for older boys that were ‘public’ in the sense of being open to pupils irrespective of locality, denomination or paternal trade or professions and were to a certain extent schools for the privileged, although there have always been scholarships for gifted scholars from ordinary schools’ preparatory schools.  The other sorts of schooling were Grammar Schools and Private Schools.

Although the term Public School has been used since at least the eighteenth century, its usage was only formalised by the Public Schools Act 1868 which put into Law recommendations made by the Clarendon Report of 1864.   Nine prestigious boarding schools were investigated by Clarendon, seven of which were reformed by the Act, these being Eton, Shrewsbury, Harrow, Winchester, Rugby, Westminster, and Charterhouse.  Merchant Taylor’s and St Paul’s School (Day Schools) although investigated were not reformed.

Historically the sons of Officers and senior administrators on the British Empire were educated in English public schools whilst their fathers were posted to the Colonies.

These Registers can provide valuable information regarding parentage, subsequent University colleges, professions and addresses and genealogical information.  In some cases, these Registers continue today, in printed form, or increasingly online.

For example, over many years, we have collected School and University registers when we find them in second hand bookshops or car boot sales.  Some Registers are from Public Schools, but others are independent fee paying schools.  The school Registers we have are:

Aldenham School Register 1885-1968, Clifton College Register 1862-1947, Glenalmond Register 1847-1929, Gresham’s School 1555-1955, Haileybury Register 1862-1946, Highgate School Register 1838-1938 and various University College Registers, such as the very interesting Girton College Register 1869-1946 as this was a purely female university college.

These can be so useful for genealogical research.  Libraries with a strong genealogical collection may have copies of School and University Registers. 

For example, the Haileybury Register 1862 – 1946 (7^th edition) was privately published and was only available from the school. At a price of 30 shillings, it was an expensive item in 1946 – the equivalent of about £66 today.

The book not only gives the Register of Pupils but also Headmasters, House Masters, Masters, and Assistant Masters (Teachers) and other staff at the time of publication. Sometimes there are also photographs.  There is also an index.

Amongst the students who started at the school in the first term of 1885 it can be noted that dates of birth, parentage, marriage, and who to, how long at the school, subsequent education i.e., University, professional qualifications and jobs, medals and decorations awarded, current address or date of death can be included.  Many the men on the featured page saw War Service in the Boer War and the First World War.

For the genealogist, a treasure trove of information and further leads.

Similarly, serial publications, such as Who’s Who, Kelly’s Handbook of the Landed and Titled Classes and Debrett’s People of Today can be useful for biographical and genealogical research.   

Other sources which could be judged as ‘yearbooks’ which would have been published either yearly or regularly are such hefty tomes as Burkes’s Peerage, Debrett’s Peerage, Walford’s County Families and Armorial Families.  Similarly, the Trades Directory, (Kelly’s, Pigot’s etc) were published since the 1600s.  Principal residents and tradespeople are listed by place, road, and occupation in a particular year.  Especially useful in the UK if published in or near a census year.  Directories, such as City of London Directory & Livery Companies Guide, and more recently the City of London White Book gives a listing of members and officers of the Livery Companies or Trade Guilds of the City of London.  Trades and professions also have directories.  Crockford’s for the Clergy, The Medical Register for Doctors and the Army List, Navy List and Air Force List for the Forces which have been published annually for centuries.  Other professional bodies, such as Dentists, Veterinarians, and various sorts of Engineers, also have Directories of members. These could also be classed as a ‘yearbook’.

It is always worth looking in these largely printed sources to add colour to any family member that may appear.  Not everyone will have a relative who is included, but you never know!    

52 Ancestors Challenge - Week 20 - Textile

 

Amongst my family ephemera I have some items of textile which have been passed down to me from my Mum’s family.   

I have four baby smocks which belonged to my grandmother, Sarah Morgan, nee Taylor, and were probably also used by her brother Arthur.  They are hand-made and constructed from pieces of cotton and lace, with tiny stitches, and cloth buttons.    

My family were not very well off so hand made  and hand me down clothes were the norm right up to my generation.  Nana Morgan made clothes for her own children, all six of them, and whilst bedridden following a stroke a beautiful crochet Christening blanket for me, which we also still have.

There are three designs for the smocks, with two of the smocks being identical.  They are humble everyday items of clothing which show signs of being worn.  

The details are exquisite and show real skill with the needle.

The little smocks are a treasured heirloom and a tangible connection with my Nana who I really can’t remember as she died when I was two years old.  All I remember is a lady in a bed.

The other textile items that my Mum kept and which have also passed down to me have a story attached to them.

I was a very small baby, only 3lb 5oz at birth.  So small that I was kept in hospital for the first few weeks. Not in an incubator, just monitored. So tiny that the baby clothes made in readiness for my arrival swamped me.  My Mum and my Auntie Jean got their heads together and made some really small cardigans for me from dolls clothes knitting patterns.  One is really tiny, with the other slightly larger.

There is also a tiny cotton nightie, also dolly sized, that I wore.

I do not have any other textiles from earlier generations in my family collection - most clothes were passed down amongst siblings until no longer wearable, shoes and boots included.  My Dad vividly remembered the indignity and embarrassment of having to wear his elder sister Nellie's high leg boots to school.  

52 Ancestors Challenge - Week 19 - Food and Drink

 

This week I share with you our family recipe for Christmas Cake, taken from a handwritten folder of recipes handed down to me by my Mum.  It is in Imperial measurements, so you will need to convert to metric.  

The Auntie Jean of the title was my Mum’s younger sister, Jean.  Auntie was a great cook and taught me the basics of cooking.  

Auntie Jean’s Christmas Cake

Ingredients

8 oz Plain Flour

3 oz Demerara Sugar

4 oz Margerine 

3 level tablespoons of warmed treacle or golden syrup

½ level teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

Pinch of salt

1 level teaspoon of cinnamon

1 level teaspoon of mixed spice

2 eggs

1 lb mixed fruit

3 tablespoons of cold tea

 

Method

Cream sugar and margarine

Beat in treacle or syrup

Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and spices together

Add alternately with the beaten eggs to the creamed mixture and beat well

Add the fruit and mix in the tea

Bake in a 7” wide tin surrounded by a layer of brown paper

Moderate oven 325F / 180°for 2½ hours

Leave to cool in the oven and then cool on a wire tray

Store wrapped in foil in an airtight tin

Twice before Christmas open foil and drip a tablespoon of brandy over the cake

Seal in the tin until Christmas.

52 Ancestors Challenge - Week 18 - Social

 

Socialising seems to have been important to my family. 

In my grandparents and great grandparents’ times the main social events would have revolved around Church activities.    I often wonder what my ancestors further back in time did socially.  On both sides of my family, I have Publicans, so I presume that these ancestors were sociable by nature with the ‘pub often being at the centre of village and town life.  In rural areas the seasons and the church would have dictated social gatherings, from Harvest Supper to Christmas festivities. 

My maternal granddad always used to pop in The Radcliffe Arms in Hitchin on his way home from his job as a plate layer on the railway.  The pub was about half-way home and he enjoyed a regular ‘half’ and a ‘jaw’ with his friends.   

My paternal grandfather, from the stories I have heard, enjoyed a pint as much as the next man, and seems to have been a sociable person.  The family enjoyed music and singing, Granddad’s favourite song and ‘party piece’ was evidently Lady of Spain.  My Uncle Basil’s party piece was Sylveste, of which I have a treasured video of him performing.   My Dad’s mother’s family were especially musical, great granddad was a music hall artiste and accompanist to many of the stars of the music hall.  This musical gene seems to have passed down to me as I sing with our local amateur operatic society, as I have highlighted in an earlier blog post. 

Sunday School Treats, usually a visit to Southend on Sea, were eagerly awaited by my mum and her siblings, and were usually run by their Church.  My Dad on the other hand, so he told me, only attended a Sunday School a few weeks before a ‘Treat’ was due – he and his siblings were not churchgoers and picked the best ‘treat’ to attend by talking to their mates.

When my parents, aunts and uncles were young adults the main events in the social calendar were the weekly dances at local venues in North Hertfordshire, such as The Hermitage in Hitchin and The Wilbury in Letchworth with other ‘do’s’ at church halls, community centres and the odd farm barn. 

In the 1950s my Dad purchased a Radiogram, which was used regularly by the family and friends.  Put on full blast the rest of the street could also enjoy the music from the radio and the 78 records.  We still have it, and the 78 records, and it is still in working order.   A substantial lump of mahogany, it has the radio and the record deck which can accommodate several records and play these one after the other.  It has a particular smell, very reminiscent of my childhood.  Plug in, turn on and wait a little while for the valves to warm up and glow green and off you go.   Many times, we have thought of selling it, but I just can’t bring myself to do so – it is a family heirloom.

Into the 1950’s my dad was a regular attender at the Letchworth Television Society dances at the Icknield Halls, where a celebrity from the TV would be the guest of honour and the locals would enjoy the dance.  These seem to have been popular.   Music was usually from a live band too.

I have in my possession an Autograph Book which belonged to my dad in which these TV stars have left their signatures, some are well known, such as Shirley Bassey, Sean Connery, Petula Clark and Harry Corbett and Sooty, whilst others were the newsreaders of the day.  The book is a window into the celebrities of the 1950s. 

There is a story associated with the autograph book which has been passed down in the family.  When the actor Bob Hope, who had family in Hitchin, was on a visit to the UK, he had signed his name in the said autograph book, and it was a prize in the raffle at a dance which my dad attended.  Dad won the book in the raffle but when he went to collect it, he found that someone had torn Bob Hope’s autograph and the back page out of the book.  Dad was not amused! 

My parents enjoyed the social whirl of dances and dinner dances in Letchworth and surrounding areas well into the 1970s.  The dances were run by clubs and societies and also the Letchworth Town Football Club of which my dad was a Committee Member and later Chairman, after being a player from the 1930s – but that is another story.

The Football Club had an annual dinner which was regularly reported upon in the local newspaper.  My dad is in the photo on the top left presenting a shield to a player.

One of the most memorable was this is one 1963 when the waitresses donned the Club’s shirts and the piece de resistance of a dessert was ice-cream footballs with the club emblem, a Bluebird on the Wing, stuck in the top.

They sometimes also travelled by train into London to more ‘up market’ venues such as the Park Lane Hotel for dinners and cabaret performances.  It was a standing ‘dare’ that Dad and his friends would try to ‘liberate’ the odd ashtray, spoon, tray, or jug from such venues.  From the stories I heard these visits were much enjoyed, a night out with your friends and a chance to dress up for the night.

My parents always had a party on New Year’s Eve for family and friends, with regularly 40+ people crammed into our lounge, dining room, hall and kitchen, eating, drinking and being merry, especially when they had a glass or two of my dad’s homemade punch which would literally knock your socks off.  Goodness knows how these people drove home safely afterwards.

My Dad was also a Mason, so he attended dinners and lunches, and my Mum (and me when I was older) attended many masonic Ladies Night's.  Dad was a member of Dacre Lodge in Letchworth.  Being a Mason was a useful networking as well as a social activity for a local businessman, like my Dad. 

Neither my husband or I go to the Pub, apart from enjoying a Sunday Roast now and again.  We do not really drink, just a social glass of wine or a beer, so a ‘pub visit is not really something we would do.  We belong to several societies aligned to our interests where we attend talks (online and physical) and social events related to these interests.  We share many interests, but also have independent interests which can lead to different types of socialising.  These can be anything from a formal City of London Livery Dinner to a meeting of our Local History Society in the Community Centre in Baldock.  Different types of socialising from the formal, best bib and tucker, decorations, and medals (if you have any) to local events which are more informal.   Wherever you socialise, however you socialise, it is still important to interact with people with similar interests or strike up a conversation with your neighbour at a dinner.

Nowadays, we are perhaps not so social in the physical sense, with the advent of the internet, email, and social media, we often interact with friends via electronic means rather than in person.   It really depends on what your interests are.