Wedding Wednesday - A Good Catch!

Louisa Beardsall Baillon (centre) in the 1920s

Louisa Baillon cuts a grand - if slightly incongruous - figure in this picture from the 1920s, in which everyone else is dressed for the sun.

By all reports, Louisa was rather grand!

She had made a "good" marriage - a very good marriage - for in 1878 aged 21, she wed Andrew Edward Louis Baillon, the eldest son of a successful Nottingham lace manufacturer.

Mystery Monday - Thompsons Thompsons Everywhere!

There really are Thompsons everywhere, which does make reliably tracking them down hard work.  And if they're called John Thompson like my great-grandfather and his father it becomes even easier to make mistakes.

I spent several years following a completely erroneous branch of the Thompson family after confusing two John Thompsons born in the same month, in the same parish.  It was very interesting researching Norfolk local history - it's just that no one in our family has ever lived there!

And now I am following the right branch - I hope! - my great-grandfather has got me stumped again.  His 1907 marriage certificate shows that John was already, at just 27, a widow.

But I have not been able to find a record for this other marriage or indeed any census record for John in 1901 which might give a clue as to where he was.

Church Record Sunday - A Parish Magazine

Esh Winning & Waterhouses Parish Magazine 1932

Parish Magazines might not be what is usually thought of as a "church record" but they provide a fascinating snapshot into parish life.  I was lucky enough to find this 1932 magazine from the parishes of Waterhouses with Esh Winning in County Durham amongst my great-aunt belongings.

The little two sided magazine contains the normal list of officers, (my great aunt Lillian Thompson was at just 19 the organist), religious reflections and parish news: communion times, the Mother's Union service, a whist drive by the choir to raise money for the church and a planned bazaar later in the year because both the church and the church hall are in need of repair.

I loved the announcement of a "Magic Lantern Service" for Lent, which would include slides of stories from the old testament.  More prosaically it was just a "slide show" but magic lantern is a delightful connection to an older world.

Shopping Saturday - Go east my son!

A bundle of 1950s hire purchase statements for a spin drier, a washing machine and a fridge might not seem the most promising starting point for an interesting bit of family and social history.  But bear with me ...

I found the carefully preserved statements amongst the belongings of my great aunts - "Nancy" Thompson and Lillian Barton.  The first thing that struck me was how expensive everything was!

The spin drier bought in 1959 was £32 - £600 today.  And they paid £68 and £71 for the washing machine bought in 1961 and the fridge bought in 1963 - that's over £1,000, ($1,500), each today.

My aunts were comfortably off but certainly not rich.   Nancy, was a nursing supervisor and Lillian, who was separated from her husband, didn't work.  These precious - to any housewife! - items represented a major outlay of money.  The statements from Roomes of Upminster, suggest the hire purchase was very quickly paid off, so there must have been some serious saving to  afford them.

Friday Funny - Well Something's Obviously Funny!

Something has obviously amused my great-grandmother - Annie Newnham Thompson - in this photograph, but quite what she's laughing at and who she is with is a bit of a mystery.

I don't think it's my great-grandfather, (John William Thompson), it looks too old.  So it's possible it's her father, William Essex Newnham, or her father in law, another John Thompson.

As to what the mystery man is wearing and what he's got in his arms, I haven't a clue!

Any suggestions?

Thrifty Thursday - Post Office Savings

I remember Post Office savings books from my childhood in the 1970s.  They were still a big part of everyday life then, providing an easily accessible and "safe" way to save money.

And right from it's creation in 1861, "safety" was the watch word of the The Post Office's Savings Bank (POSB).  Understandably so as the previous decades had seen a number of high profile bank failures in Britain, in which people had lost their savings.

The PSOB allowed even those without sufficient money to open a standard bank account to save and to have their savings guaranteed by the government.

These savings books belonging to my great aunt - Lillian Barton (nee Thompson) -  show how actively the savings accounts were used.

The account was originally opened in Richmond, Yorkshire in 1935 after Lillian's marriage and show deposits between 3 and 6 deposits a year of never more than £7 (£200 today) at a time and sometimes less than £1 (£18).  There were withdrawals, but through small savings she had by the beginning of 1951 saved £173, the equivalent of £4,670 in today's money.

In 1951 this pattern of use completely changed and the equivalent of almost £4,000 was withdrawn from the account at branches near to the house of Lillian's sister Nancy in Upminster, Essex.  I am merely guessing here - but it appears that Lillian may have used the nest egg provided by her earlier thrift to walk away from an unhappy marriage.

If you're interested in finding out more about British postal history check out the British Postal Museum and Archive and if you enjoyed this post do come and talk history and genealogy on Twitter.

Wedding Wednesday - Till Death Us Do Part?

The 1935 wedding notice for Lillian Margaret Thompson and Ernest "Billy" Barton notes in detail the outfits of the bride and her bridesmaid.  Unfortunately, there is no photo to support the description either in the local Durham newspaper or in the hundreds and hundreds of family photographs, dating back to the early 1900s, that Lillian carefully stored.

I can only assume that Lillian destroyed any photographic record of her wedding that did exist, for this was not a marriage that stood the test of time.  Quite why I don't know, although they do seem a curious coupling.