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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Gadget on Tuesday 21 October 08 20:11 BST (UK)
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Hi all :)
While doing a bit of web searching, I found an interesting site listing comments made by James Boswell about people he met on his Scottish journeys:
http://www.jamesboswell.info/People/biography-173.php
This is what he had to say about my possible 5 or 6 x great grandfather:
"Samuel Spalding of Dullarg. "A drunken laird" "
I've still got to do more investigations on this link in Dumfries but :o
Have any of you got any odd comments about your ancestors made by others.
Gadget
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The local landlord sent a deputation from London in 1863 (also in other years but I have the 1863 notes) and viewed all the properties with their local agent and some of their comments make great reading. My family got "tidy people and place", "tidy house", and "tidy but poor asks for help to rebuild his house" but one of the local ministers had "Most untidy house. Wet coming through the ceiling. A musty and damp smell pervaded the sitting room. The cultivation of the land about the worst we saw."
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Comment on a first cousin twice removed made by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1951:
"Up until the time I entered high school, I had no exposure to science and, therefore, little knowledge of its possibilities. I chose literature as my major subject, and I took no science until my junior year when, in order to meet the college requirement, I took a chemistry course. Largely due to the enthusiasm and obvious love of the subject displayed by my teacher, Dwight Logan Reid of Jordan High School in Los Angeles, chemistry captured my imagination almost immediately. I had the feeling, 'Why hasn't someone told me about this before?' Dwight Logan Reid didn't just teach chemistry. He preached chemistry."
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1887 comments in the poor law register about my then 73 year old 3 x gt grandfather;
"Earns what he can, which is very little. He has been a great drunk-and all his life- had it not been for this would have been able to maintain himself in his old age."
He refused the poorhouse help; they probably wanted sobriety from him! Lived on till 85, probably well preserved from alcohol.
Grothenwell
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A man after my own heart! (apart from the earning very little bit) ;D ;D ;D
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My OH's 4x gt great aunt Mary Child nearly appears in Beryl Bainbridge's novel "According to Queeney" The famous Dr Johnson and the his friends the Thrales go on a journey and "drove to St Albans, where they halted to enjoy an excellent dinner with Ralph Smith a first cousin of Thrale" Mary Child was Mrs Ralph Smith, so I assume she was responsible for organising the meal ..... does that count? ;D
Carole
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not quite an ancestor my younger brother has had afew comments
at one parents evening the teacher asked my mother if she had a lot of australian blood in her
when she replyed no none
the teacher said he was really surprised as her son keeps going walkabout in class
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My great aunt had a back street pub in Ardwick, Manchester and was up in court for serving after hours. The judge said he "deplored the disappearance of the little public house in the side street around the corner". "Often they are better than the brilliantly neon lit chromium plated big houses. The little houses are all disapperaring. I am sorry, I am frightfully old fashioned". ...and that "Some of the little public houses around the corner where the woman licensee rules with a rod of iron, her patrons who assemble there for a chat over a pint of beer, perform an extraordinarily useful social service"
Of course that didn't stop him fining her 5 shillings on each of the 8 counts...and the eight customers were fined a total of 47s 6d
;D ;D
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A Great Uncle of mine is described thus in his obit.;
"He was a man of commanding presence and fine gifts. He had the voice and utterance of the orator, touched with Celtic fire".
I know obits. are usually overdone, but I especially like the "touched with Celtic fire" bit.
:)
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This could be about my first cousin 7x removed, but because there's no place mentioned I'm not totally sure. It's from a book detailing which watermen were exempt from impressment into the Navy, and it's a description of him presumably that he would show to anyone who tried to press gang him (no photo ID in those days!). It's dated 1808.
"The Bearer John East is thirty two years of age, a dark complexion and wears his own dark hair, in height five feet four inches and has three [scars] on the inside of his left leg."
I love it, just because there's no other way I'd ever be able to tell what a family member from all that time ago would have looked like. Even though I don't know it's my John East for sure, I like to think that it is!
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An American publication of 1901, refers to one of my great grand uncles, (who emigrated there from Britain in 1853) thus ...
' .. and he had a decidedly interesting and somewhat varied career in many respects, which showed him to be a man of convictions of his own and of character sufficiently strong and decisive to assert those convictions ... '
Newspaper 'speak' for ... 'youthful troublemaker who turned into decent citizen' perhaps? :-\
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Oh boy: this is the Bethlem hospital log for my 3 x great uncle Josiah for whom they built Broadmoor....
"June 11th 1857
A man with a repulsive expression of countenance rendered more unpleasant when he speaks. "
However he was
" quite well behaved and contented as long as he can get a profuse supply of snuff."
I like to think that I didn't inherit either of these traits!!! I get the impression that Josiah wouldn't have done too well at a modelling agency.
Phil
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Hi,
I did a search in google books for my 3x gt grandfather, Ranald Macdonald, who was a Ground Officer in Skye. Lo and behold, under some Parliamentary Papers, dated 1847, carried out by the Church of Scotland, his name appears during an cross-examination of Mr Alexander MacKinnon, a Factor of Lord Macdonald's estates in Kilmuir, Skye;
Q. Do you remember Ronald Macdonald, who was ground officer for the parish of Kilmuir? - Yes.
Q: Has he been deprived of his office? - Yes
Q: Why was he so deprived? - Because I did not consider him a fit man for his office.
Q: In what respect did you not consider this man fit for his office? - Those ground officers are people to whom we are obliged to trust a good deal for information , we being resident at some distance from the scene of operation in many cases, and I found this man's information, in cases of disputes among the people, could never be depended upon. He always took on one side or the other and did not give me fair information...
Q: In fact, then, the Committee is to understand that Ronald Macdonald was dismissed from his place as ground officer, because you found that he had favourites in his district? - Yes; in fact, I considered the man unfit for the situation.
It goes on a wee bit more, but I was stunned to be reading about my own kin, and the treatment he received for just being loyal to his own kin/friends. He died in 1856, probably somewhat broken hearted having lost such a cherished position of authority.
Cheers
Mcvitie
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Hi Was just looking at your pages. I wondered if you had relatives William MacDonald of Kilmuir. He married Anne Macpherson in 1877.
Suzic
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My 2xgt. grandmother's brother appears in Mayhew's "London Labour & the London Poor".
George Gandy (Gander "captain" of the boy crossing sweepers)....a big lad of sixteen, with a face devoid of all expression......hair was cut short and stood up in all directions......he spoke with a lisp, occasioned by the loss of two of his large front teeth.....
The description did not improve.. :'(
Nanny Jan
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I was extremely lucky to find an 1890 lengthy obituary for my Scottish gt.grandmother's brother Kenneth Mackenzie b1817, which not only described the man but how someone of modest beginnings can attain so much more. It also explains why my grandfather moved outside the naming pattern and had a son called Ken:
<Mr. Mackenzie was born seventy-three years ago at the Clyde Iron works, where, under the eye of Messrs. Dunlop, he received that excellent business training which stood so well to him in after years. He was a man, too, who built his own fortune, who owed his success in life to his native ability, to his straightforwardness of purpose, to his unbending integrity, and to his resolute perseverance, because he began life empty-handed, and at the bottom of the ladder with nothing to help him onward and upward but the characteristics we have just mentioned. But to a man like Mr. Mackenzie this was all that was necessary, for to such good purpose did he apply them, and so absolutely trustworthy was he, that while quite a young man, he was promoted to the managership of the very iron works he entered as a boy. ...........
Always plain and unostentatious, he had ever a smile for, and was always accessible to, his humblest employee, while at the same time he was capable of exacting the respect of the proudest in the land.
The welfare of his people bulked largely in his mind, and his many services to them will not soon be forgotten. By his demise the poor and needy have lost one whose ear was never closed to their cry of distress, and whose purse-strings were never drawn tight in the face of want. Throughout his whole life he believed in the doctrine (and what was better, he constantly practiced it) that it is better to help to build a man up than to knock him down.
Mr. Mackenzie was one of Nature’s musicians ...>
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In 1831, in my village, the curate compiled a list of the parishioners for the new incoming Rector - with notes! This document has survived, and amounts pretty much to a census. It is being transcribed and edited by the local history society. Some of the comments are, shall we say, candid. He didn't hold back on his opinions!
A few examples
Inclined to Drink, lost his leg, weak character
Not very industrious, father a pilferer, sometimes at Church
Respectable, wife quiet but odd
Sometimes at Church - wife indifferent character before marriage - artful
Hardworking man, wife violent
A drunken worthless creature
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Following on from Sloegin :)
My paternal side were all from Church Broughton in Derbyshire. Quite a few of them were living there 1820's - 1880's. I found the following:
"In the 19th Century Church Broughton village was one of the largest in the area with a population of 661 in 1861. The inhabitants were so unruly that the Duke (of Devonshire) had one of the first police houses in the county built here in 1855. It is now called Peel House and can be found in Church Street. Seperate cells were opened for men and women, though usually, the only offences were of drunkedness
Now I know who I can blame says my son! :)
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not an ancestor but my son, but i shall pass it on to his children if he has any ;D
from his school report aged 14
A***** is the most interesting student in the whole of year 8, A***** is clearly very intelligent, at times genius,
However at other times A***** reaches the lowest depths of stupidity.
::)
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Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 1825:-
"On Tuesday the 12th inst. died in her 67th year, after one day's illness, Mrs. Jane Trowbridge, wife of Mr. John Trowbridge, of Donhead St.Mary, in this county; she lived respected and died regretted."
What a lovely comment !
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From my gt gt gt gt grandfather's obituary in 1835:-
".. a lineal descendant of one of the most ancient and respectable families of the county, highly esteemed while living, an exemplary religious character, and now greatly regretted."
I wonder where those genes disappeared to? ;D
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Taken from The Diary of a Country Parson, 1758-1802 by James Woodforde about my great-great-great-great aunt in 1791:
Feb. 22, TUESDAY … A Mary Noller of Felthorpe about 25. Years of Age and who lived with Major Lloyd one Year at Michaelmas last, came to offer here. She has a Mother and 7. or 8. Brothers and Sisters. I did not agree with her, but if I did take her I would let her know in a Week, if she did hear from me, then I should not take her – I did not like her Appearance being of a bold Masculine Cast – Neither her home or Family. …
The poor dear. She was the oldest of eight children when her father died and she was helping to support the family.
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The clergy don't always come across as very Christian, do they. :-\
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My 3xgreat grandfathers brother died after being whacked on the head by a poacher and was described thus " The deceased bore an excellent character and was, generally speaking, a quiet inoffensive man"
It's the "generally speaking" that intrigues me, I really would like to know what he was like un-generally ;D