Shields Gazette Published on Mon Jan 05 01:56:52 GMT 2009
IT was an endearing image while it lasted – that Israel Venus ended his days as an old man of the sea, surrounded by a large and loving family.
The truth? Israel Venus hanged himself in his own tripe preparer's shop near the Market Place in Shields. He was only 37.
"I always knew that he died young, but I would have been less surprised to discover that it had been from cholera or something like that, than that he had taken his own life. It was quite sad," said Diane Peacock.
Diane, of Fitzpatrick Place in South Shields, was left aghast and excited when she opened her Gazette to Cookson Country just before Christmas, to see names and places straight out of her family history.
There, in letters, birth certificates and other documents, some more than 150 years old, were whole missing chapters in the story of Israel, her great-great-great grandfather, and his offspring.
Twenty years after she first started researching her family tree, it was a genealogical bounty the mum-of-two never expected to see.
"It's a dream come true. They'll be treasured forever," said Diane, 44, a clerical worker at South Tyneside College.
Gazette reader Kerry Bailey had brought the items to Cookson Country, having hung on to them since they were saved in a house clearance some years ago.
They include a wedding ring and a lock of hair, plus numerous letters, some sent from the Western Front during the First World War.
Most date from between the turn of last century and the 1930s and were sent to family members living in and around the Mile End Road area.
Several documents are particularly enthralling, among them the indentures Israel Venus signed as a seagoing apprentice in 1839, his employer being a South Shields ship owner called Elizabeth Gare.
Israel Venus belongs to Diane's mother's side of the family, which she has researched back to as early as 1500.
"The name Venus originally came from Normandy," she said.
Israel was born in September, 1824, in a small parish called St Mary's Cray in Kent, to a family of agricultural labourers. He was one of 13 children.
"I think their father must have been a Baptist as all the children had biblical names such as Moses, Aaron, Daniel, Esther and the like," said Diane.
Most of the children stayed in Kent, and Diane, who has visited Israel's birthplace and still has family in the area, believes that it was as a young man, when field work became harder to make a living, that Israel must have signed up as a seaman.
It was how he met his wife, Dorothy Ann Miller, who was the daughter of a master mariner. They married in 1848 at St Hilda's Church in Shields and went on to have six children.
"Their eldest child was called Mary Miller Venus, born 1848, who became my great-great grandmother," said Diane."Mary married Robert Forster, a ballast trimmer, in 1873 at St Stephen's church."
The discovery of the documents prompted Diane to try to discover how Israel died.
Her search led her to the pages of the Gazette in the summer of 1861, and a report of an inquest held at the Crown and Anchor Inn in Thrift Street, on the riverside.
This revealed that Israel had been found hanging in his tripe preparer's premises in Saltwell Lane, which used to be between Ferry Street and the Market Place.
It was reported that he had been drinking in the days beforehand and had been in a "low state of mind".
Israel's daughters, Charlotte and Dorothy, along with their mother, kept the tripe business going after Israel's death.
Alexander Chappel, who was Scottish and who married Charlotte, also went into the business and took an active part in it when he left the sea.
"Israel's wife, Dorothy Ann, is buried in Westoe Cemetery, and her headstone, which is a considerable size, still stands today along the back of the cemetery near Erskine Road.
Israel was buried in St Stephen's churchyard," said Diane.
"I like to think that the red hair and the wedding ring belonged to Israel, and was lovingly kept by his wife as a keepsake."
