Doctor BENSON or Quack?

[SimoneAllaston]

Barkrels you are officially blowing my mind.. just when I think the story can't get any better it so does....

My earlier comments about Barker & Hannah's early movement Isle of Pines etc is me trying to create a mental time line of his movements. I got the Isle of Pine dates from klynch2 possibly vis Bruce Beresford so It bugs me not to be able to talk with them now to check their facts. However google has shown Mr & Mrs Benson aboard the "whitby" as passengers on a colliery trip. Which fits seeing that Barker's trip to Bombay was on a colliery vessel and the family and their associates were in coal..... every answer seems to wield 10 more questions LOL...

Barkrels where did you find all the amazing info on Thomas Benson and his donations? online I hope...

I am obsessed if you noticed hehhe at the moment with Barker.

Our line descended from Barker's son are all interesting strong women who are free thinkers, artists, photographers, entrepreneurs and travellers. We still have ship captains among us and an Aunt and my mother that spends their life on the high seas so we feel very close to our relies. We've done our share I think of keeping up the family legacy ....

I propose a family meetup Jm included as an honorary Benson... I am in Kellyville (Castle Hill) and will travel pretty much anywhere in NSW in the pursuit of a good story. My email is (*)

PS I have left a phone message for Klynch2 who I can only assume by her previous helpfulness is on holidays. Lester Benson I will call in on tomorrow (JM he is the Carcoar descendant) as he used to be only 5 mins from me. Fingers cross he's still there....

(*) Moderator Comment: e-mail removed in accordance with RootsChat policy,
to avoid spamming and other abuses.
Please use the Personal Message (PM) system for exchanging personal data.

New members must make at least three postings before being allowed to use the PM facility.
See Help-Page:  http://www.rootschat.com/help/pms.php

[Barkrelsatthepoint]

Hi Simone and all,

Looking after grandkids so not much free time at the moment. Would love the 'get-together' to happen we're over the south side of Sydney but in true 'Benson Tradition' we'll  travel anywhere. May be the answer is to meet at Henry Kendall Cottage Museum grounds on a weekend and then we'll feel family connected - Carna is in Gosford not sure about the others. Timing for everyone will be the issue and we should (I feel) ensure we get all the attendance we can.

In regard to the Whitby Museum stuff, I unlike those who have family history at hand in the form of journals had nothing else but the names of Barker and his parents Thomas and Sarah on his birth certificate. So I spent eighteen months researching the net to get any clues I could.  I searched 14, 000 Benson names alone on the British Newspaper site and when I had found 90 references that looked promising I paid to open them all up. I found over 50 references to Thomas Benson that proved he was no slouch. I searched 10,000 on the London Gazette site. Every bit of other info basically came from wills, birth and death certificates and finding documents on-line like the donations to the Whitby Museum document which I had to trawl through and work out if anything was pertinent to us. Thomas and his brother William (Benson/Willis) were made honarary patrons of the museum and I only recorded what Thomas donated - I'm sure William has just as much!!!

I have no idea how I found it and the gate may be closed so to speak now but its worth a search by starting with their site and seeing if you can find it. I did not download it to my computer.

It never really meant much to us before because it just seemed logical (quantitative) that as they were involved in shipping that they would travel!!!
But in looking for qualitative info on Barker it seems to shed a new light on why he had the travel bug. The newspaper articles show that his brothers Thomas, William Chapman and Willis were all involved in the ship industry. Barker's name never came up in the same regard. Robson is plastered through newpapers, and through the Asiatic journals so it was not hard to suss out that he could have been a 'favorite son' so to speak. Thomas is the most successful businessman (also William who was involved in establishing the train line through Yorkshire) in the history of the Bensons and it's interesting that his childrens line fits the sociological phenomenon of living a lot longer than their forbears. Robson lived to a ripe old age. Don't quote me but they all lived to over 50 at a time when the expected time to die was 44.

I guess the awesome thing is that there is information out there. Rick's uncle did our other family lines the old-fashioned way and what with trips overseas I heard him quote a figure of $30,000!!! It's been far easier for us and the net is an awesome tool.

All for now - have to change a nappy. Such is life.

Cheers barkrels

 

 

 

[Barkrelsatthepoint]

My mind is running on overtime and whilst it sheds no new light on things - we already new the Benson's were ships chandlers, coal merchants and in business with Old as Old and Benson, this document is awesome!!!

Thanks to your info Simone, on Goswell st, I put a Google map together of Upper Woburn Pl, Spencer St, Goswell St and Crane Court-fleet St and they are all in walking distance of each other. The Crane Court reference comes from the London Exeter working papers and there is a firm of Barker and Benson operating there over a period of years from 1826 to 1838. I can't prove anything, but it's interesting that later references to this place show it as a medical suppliers!!!

Anyway the document I found as a result of putting Goswell St into Google is the Robson's directory of London 1842 - don't consider down-loading it it will take hours but it comes up for viewing on-line easy enough. Their search engine is amazing and all the references to Benson showed up the places we knew  the Benson's business' were situated. Regardless it is an awesome picture of London business and worth a look. Follow the link:

http://archive.org/stream/robsonslondondir00robsrich#page/32/mode/2up     

Love looking through the London references we had an awesome time there in 2010 walking as much as we could in the Benson footsteps.

Cheers barkrels

[Barkrelsatthepoint]

Here's the link for the Whitby Museum

http://www.archive.org/stream/reportofwhitbyli25whit/reportofwhitbyli25whit_djvu.txt

Cheers barkrels

PS: Isles of Pines....Hmmm what were Barker and Hannah thinking - Sandalwood Massacre and many more before April 1842 - were they related to Captain Nichols or something - 30 Sydney business men involved in a venture regarding sandalwood - Missionaries eaten by cannibals - The mind boggles.

[lou4lou]

Just an aside - with this focus on Barker, has anyone considered that, with her family background, Hannah may actually have played a major role in these travels & adventuring?  She must have seen exotic and unusual imports, etc, being from a well-known family of hoymen in th Thames estuary whose background, including travelling from the Netherlands, sets them up also as the pioneering type.  An early suffragette? 

[Barkrelsatthepoint]

Hi Lou4Lou,

Totally agree, guess her references have got to come from the Vandervords though - as with all the women including me (I'm married into the Bensons my favorite family at the moment) we're background to the men but as the saying goes "Behind every good man there's a good woman" or perhaps as you've suggested it should be "In front of every good man is a good woman leading the way" (He-He). I guess that's why I like the Whitby Museum document - it personally thanks Sarah for her contribution as a woman in her own right not as Thomas' wife if you see what I mean.

Enjoying the chatter which is what the site is about - have a good weekend

Cheers barkrels     

[lou4lou]

At the risk of sounding pompous (I don't mean to), each of us who is a direct descendant of Barker and Emily is as much a Vandervord as a Benson.  I think it's important that we look also at her family and background when trying to understand our heritage.  She must have been an amazing woman, or an extremely subservient one, to accompany Barker into unknown areas at such a young age.

[Barkrelsatthepoint]

Maybe the answer is hidden in this notice on Trove

The problem with trying to treat Hannah as an individual in her own right  lies in the fact that in her day and age when she married she became Mrs. Barker Benson. Back in the deep recesses of my mind I knew I had seen this notice before on Trove and it at least establishes a relative connection.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/12964107?searchTerm=Vandervord,%20&searchLimits=sortby=dateAsc

Cheers barkrels

[Barkrelsatthepoint]

PS

If it won't open it's dated the 9 Jan 1855