Edward Steele notes a thing most important regarding my researches, in his journal. He relates the departure in 1858 of George Smith, brother of R.S.Smythe, for Australia. Having recently married in 1857 he was easier to find than I had thought. Married in North Surrey/Wandsworth/Lambeth-ish area with the father's name Edward Smith, and he himself by occupation, a saddler. So far all details correct (father's occupation given as draper). He married a Mary Victoria Crump and sure enough on the shipping list in early 1858 arriving at Melbourne, there he his, the only one of correct age, with a wife, M. V. Smith (daughter of John Sleath Crump). Evidently the plan was for Robert to fund the emigration of the entire family. Eliza and Frederic stayed behind.
Bingo.
There is a small shadow on this revelation; a family on ancestry has already claimed Mary Victoria Crump/Smith as never having left England. We have both made claims upon the same marriage certificate. Having said that I can find no M. V. Smith dying here anywhere, and R.S.Smythe makes no mention of George in his will, nor any offspring of same.
What happened?
Edward Smith Jnr, George's brother was already potted deep in the soil of South Australia and Robert was in the Riverina, I think, but most definitely in Victoria. I hope George settled here in Victoria, for if he settled in South Australia it's as good as throwing him onto the deck of the Flying Dutchman.
So, George - show yourself!
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Sparrows, more confused than ever
Edward Steele, the brother in law of robert Sparrow Smythe states quite plainly in his journal that the real father of the family was Edward Sparrow and that the family (the mother) had simply adopted the name Smith, and that in knowledge of this Robert Smith played with the spelling of his name, sometimes changing Smith to Smythe but always taking the name Sparrow as his middle name.
Edward 'Smith' Sparrow was supposed to have died in a carriage accident leaving the mother a 'widow' and indeed in 1851 she enumerates herself as a widow. ten years earlier the father had been alive. So Mr. Sparrow died between 1841 and 1851 and left a real widow and children. So who was he?
His illegitimate eldest son, Edward was born in 1826, seven full years before Robert Sparrow Smith. Why the gap of seven years? What on earth was going on? A syphilitic period? Absence? Legal threats? No other children are mentioned by Edward Steele in his diary.
The man, who ever his was, was meant to be somewhat wealthy as goes the family law. "Of Ludgate Hill" is another piece of lore. F and R. Sparrow were indeed wine merchants and tea-dealer, but there is no Edward at all. The number of Edward Sparrows that died in the 1841-1851 decade are two in number, neither of which match or fit. He is described variously as printer, drapers clerk/merchant or commercial traveller.
So where is the truth of this?
Oh, and George Smith, the remaining brother of Smythe emigrated with Mary Victoria, his wife, to Australia in 1858. Their marriage certificate lists Edward as a draper. Just what the heck is going on?
I'd love to know.
Edward 'Smith' Sparrow was supposed to have died in a carriage accident leaving the mother a 'widow' and indeed in 1851 she enumerates herself as a widow. ten years earlier the father had been alive. So Mr. Sparrow died between 1841 and 1851 and left a real widow and children. So who was he?
His illegitimate eldest son, Edward was born in 1826, seven full years before Robert Sparrow Smith. Why the gap of seven years? What on earth was going on? A syphilitic period? Absence? Legal threats? No other children are mentioned by Edward Steele in his diary.
The man, who ever his was, was meant to be somewhat wealthy as goes the family law. "Of Ludgate Hill" is another piece of lore. F and R. Sparrow were indeed wine merchants and tea-dealer, but there is no Edward at all. The number of Edward Sparrows that died in the 1841-1851 decade are two in number, neither of which match or fit. He is described variously as printer, drapers clerk/merchant or commercial traveller.
So where is the truth of this?
Oh, and George Smith, the remaining brother of Smythe emigrated with Mary Victoria, his wife, to Australia in 1858. Their marriage certificate lists Edward as a draper. Just what the heck is going on?
I'd love to know.
Saturday, April 27, 2013
A Painter's Companion
With my novel, the erotic part of it concerns me - not that it's there or that the language is explicit - it's that people expect the novel to be either 'romantic' (I hate that word) or erotic (not fond of that word either) but for a whole sense of narrative to develop it has to be part of the landscape. My concern is that it's presence jars.
I think it flows. Maybe I have been a little too restrained. I just don't know and the editor I was working with is beyond questioning on the subject now as I can't afford the funds to pay for her continued and invaluable input.
I'm going to have to read the book, yet again, and, as fond as I am of it, that is difficult. Editing is such hard emotional drudgery.
And there are other books piling up in my head - the sequel, Shakespearian like verse homoerotic performance material, poetry, and a large book on Karma and its mechanics.
Oh, and there is yet another biography, this time of the famous french immortal mystic and traveller Mdme. Adèle Dorothée Sainguery (born in the 1770's in Saint-Bouxères, France) of whom no-one has ever heard. Quite an amazing woman.
I think it flows. Maybe I have been a little too restrained. I just don't know and the editor I was working with is beyond questioning on the subject now as I can't afford the funds to pay for her continued and invaluable input.
I'm going to have to read the book, yet again, and, as fond as I am of it, that is difficult. Editing is such hard emotional drudgery.
And there are other books piling up in my head - the sequel, Shakespearian like verse homoerotic performance material, poetry, and a large book on Karma and its mechanics.
Oh, and there is yet another biography, this time of the famous french immortal mystic and traveller Mdme. Adèle Dorothée Sainguery (born in the 1770's in Saint-Bouxères, France) of whom no-one has ever heard. Quite an amazing woman.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Octavia Hamilton, again
In my ever obsessive need to find Frances Eliza Scrivenor, aka 'Octavia Hamilton' (1935-1913) - wicked soprano, or was it contralto (moon in Taurus, must have a had a good voice) I regularly search for her daughter, Beatrice Connaught Davis, the last of her children by Thomas Holme Davis (1827-). Beatrice (1879-1869) had married first to Walter Slater whose descendants lost track of her, because, she had moved country and remarried to Henry John Pinnock (1867-1942). She died in Hove in the 1969, but the tree of the Pinnocks has been put up on ancestry's Mundia, by the mononym of alannahfencker, possibly the NSW based Australian artist Alannah Fencker. I wonder if she knows about Octavia, and more importantly, did Beatrice leave her mother's photographs or stories with the family?
Alannah Fencker! Where are you? Where is Octavia?
I have not yet given up hope. Octavia certainly deserves a short story if nothing else, and on that, I have already started.
I will get your one day Octavia, I already know there is an un-labelled picture of you in the State Library of Victoria. Can't say how I know but I need verification.
Alannah Fencker! Where are you? Where is Octavia?
I have not yet given up hope. Octavia certainly deserves a short story if nothing else, and on that, I have already started.
I will get your one day Octavia, I already know there is an un-labelled picture of you in the State Library of Victoria. Can't say how I know but I need verification.
Tea and Sparrows
The Sparrows were a Tea family, part of the regency and Victorian shopping landscape. The enterprise was started by three brothers; Robert, Frederick and Henry. A consanguineous branch also started in tea and turned into small coffee merchants.
Robert Sparrow was born in about 1782 and was the "R" in "F & R. Sparrow" and retired or died fairly early on as he disappears early on in the tea dynasty story, as did his brother Henry (1794-1820) who did die at age twenty at the shop premises in Ludgate Hill. The man engine seems to have been Frederick (1778-?) who sired several children, one of whom was a Frederick II, another tea merchant, and a grandson, Frederick Hartley Sparrow, also in Tea, taking the house of Sparrow all the way to the end of the Victorian age.
The three brothers had another brother, Francis, of whom I know little, but his daughter Beatrice married Thomas Phythian (born 1804), a Welsh based wine merchant who started Phythian's, another well known Grand Store in London. Francis also had a son Owen, whose own son, another Owen II tried the wine and tea business but died early and hadn't done as well, but Owen II's children, Thomas, George, Henry and even a Fanny Sparrow, all went into small businesses in Wine, Tea, and Henry was particularly well known for Sparrows Continental coffee.
How this family came to start in the business or raise the capital is not known but they came from a Cheshire family, sired from a family of Sparrows in whom the name Ambrose occurs several times over the course of the Jacobean period through to the Restoration. I am assuming this is an indication of some achievement that left a long legacy. The three big Sparrow brothers had an Uncle Thomas who was the lawyer for the Wedgewood Company.
Ludgate Hill was the epicenter of the Tea Warehouse 'franchise' for the Sparrow brothers, being at 6 and 8 Ludgate Hill, separated by George Smith, Haberdasher at 8 Ludgate Hill. Soon after this George Smith, haberdasher disappears but at No. 10 there was Everington and Graham's Indian Shawl Warehouse for which he became a buyer, often going to the continent for business and buying trips. In 1846 George opens his own Shawl Warehouse at 32 Ludgate Hill, just across the road from No's 8, 9 and 10. But George's success was short lived and he ended up back in the victualler business, ending his days as a grocer.
Robert Sparrow was born in about 1782 and was the "R" in "F & R. Sparrow" and retired or died fairly early on as he disappears early on in the tea dynasty story, as did his brother Henry (1794-1820) who did die at age twenty at the shop premises in Ludgate Hill. The man engine seems to have been Frederick (1778-?) who sired several children, one of whom was a Frederick II, another tea merchant, and a grandson, Frederick Hartley Sparrow, also in Tea, taking the house of Sparrow all the way to the end of the Victorian age.
The three brothers had another brother, Francis, of whom I know little, but his daughter Beatrice married Thomas Phythian (born 1804), a Welsh based wine merchant who started Phythian's, another well known Grand Store in London. Francis also had a son Owen, whose own son, another Owen II tried the wine and tea business but died early and hadn't done as well, but Owen II's children, Thomas, George, Henry and even a Fanny Sparrow, all went into small businesses in Wine, Tea, and Henry was particularly well known for Sparrows Continental coffee.
How this family came to start in the business or raise the capital is not known but they came from a Cheshire family, sired from a family of Sparrows in whom the name Ambrose occurs several times over the course of the Jacobean period through to the Restoration. I am assuming this is an indication of some achievement that left a long legacy. The three big Sparrow brothers had an Uncle Thomas who was the lawyer for the Wedgewood Company.
Ludgate Hill was the epicenter of the Tea Warehouse 'franchise' for the Sparrow brothers, being at 6 and 8 Ludgate Hill, separated by George Smith, Haberdasher at 8 Ludgate Hill. Soon after this George Smith, haberdasher disappears but at No. 10 there was Everington and Graham's Indian Shawl Warehouse for which he became a buyer, often going to the continent for business and buying trips. In 1846 George opens his own Shawl Warehouse at 32 Ludgate Hill, just across the road from No's 8, 9 and 10. But George's success was short lived and he ended up back in the victualler business, ending his days as a grocer.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Octavia, the lost bottle...and Alice Zavistowski
Octavia Hamilton's daughter Beatrice Connaught Davis married a Mr. Pinnock and a local Australian woman has noted this on ancestry. She has an account on flickr and I have contacted her. Nothing my come of it but I am nothing if not hope.
A photo of Alice Zavistowski in her married incarnation as Mrs. Marshall Webb has appeared on the net, sans her grand and wild locks but with that restrained and curtly respectable short 1880s haircut and looking a million miles from burlesque. The album holder notes nothing of the Shailers or of the mysterious Aunt Marie Ludlam who came over as part of the ballet company. Lord knows where they ended up - Emmeline's family split into three tragedies with one branch finally hauling it to California where I loose track. Robert Anton Shailer entered the War but no more is known.
The webmaster has been most helpful.
A photo of Alice Zavistowski in her married incarnation as Mrs. Marshall Webb has appeared on the net, sans her grand and wild locks but with that restrained and curtly respectable short 1880s haircut and looking a million miles from burlesque. The album holder notes nothing of the Shailers or of the mysterious Aunt Marie Ludlam who came over as part of the ballet company. Lord knows where they ended up - Emmeline's family split into three tragedies with one branch finally hauling it to California where I loose track. Robert Anton Shailer entered the War but no more is known.
The webmaster has been most helpful.
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