Home  Tales Notepad  September 18th 2011. Three news items: I have discovered the final resting places of Annie Eliza and John Pearl Bradley - and not so far from home! Read more ... Great-uncle George William Smart was an Essex boy who made good across the pond, and I’ve written what I’ve found out about him and the Smarts in general here. And, would you believe it, there’s yet another case of bigamy in the Hopkins side and this one made it to the Old Bailey. But writing it up is still a work in progress. June 7th 2011. Great-uncle Thomas Coyne was born in Chester on 15th December 1877 and baptised as Thomas Patritius Coyne in St Werburgh's in that city on the 6th January 1878. He was the first child to be born to John Coyne, a water bailiff, and his wife Bridgid Kenny who had married also at St Werburgh's on 20th May 1876, when John Coyne's occupation was Tobacco pipe maker. The family appear on the 1881 census living at 26 Love Street, Chester St John's, and Thomas has been joined by a sister Ann born in 1879. In 1891 Thomas and his sister are living with their widowed maternal grandmother Margaret Kenny at 88 New Chester Road, Lower Bebington. Their father John Coyne is lodging in Chester, working as a railway porter; and he describes himself as married. On the 7th August 1899 Ann Coyne married John Charles Hopkins in Birkenhead and they are living at 29 Bold Street in 1901. So far there is no trace of Thomas Coyne in 1901, but on the 1st November 1906 he sailed from Liverpool for a new life in Canada on board the Kensington and he appears in the 1911 census living at 346 George Street, Toronto along with his wife and in-laws. Thomas Coyne married Mary Alice Staniforth in Toronto on 28th February 1908; she had arrived in Canada with her mother Sarah, and sisters Sarah and Dorothy on board the Bavarian which sailed from Liverpool on 17th November 1904. Their father, William Thomas Staniforth had crossed the Atlantic the previous year on the Corinthian leaving Liverpool on the 16th April 1903, presumably to set up a business and arrange accommodation for the rest of the family. William Thomas Staniforth and his family came from Sheffield, and from a long line of cutlery manufacturers. His father, also called William Thomas specialised in edge tools and cutlery with his own "Ascend" trade mark. He founded his business in 1849, died in 1890, and by 1914 his company had ceased trading. William Thomas junior appears to have been his only son. I assume he took his cutlery expertise to Canada with him. Unfortunately his occupation on the 1911 census for Toronto is unclear - it could optimistically read "Knive Man", and he is working on his own account. Thomas Coyne's occupation is given as Shipper in a Packing House. Thomas and Mary Coyne have no children listed with them in 1911 though they had had two sons' births registered: James in 1908 and Alfred in 1910, on both occasions Thomas's occupation is given as Packer, and the address is 346 George Street. Another son Walter Raymond Coyne was born in August 1911; with the same home address, Thomas's occupation is recorded as an employee of Davies Co. According to Wikipedia "William Davies Company was a pork processing and packing company in Toronto, Canada. At one time, it was the largest pork packer both in Canada and the British Empire, and it operated Canada's first major chain of food stores". It was finding Thomas Coyne's attestation papers of August 1916 when he signed up to the 238th Battalion Canadian Expeditionary Force that was the original clue to his new Canadian life. Here he gives his birthdate as 15th December 1877 and place of birth as Chester, Cheshire, England. He also gives his Canadian address as 346 George Street, Toronto and his wife's name as Mary. He is 38 years and 8 months old, 5 foot 7 and a half inches tall, and has a fully expanded girth of 38 inches. He has a dark complexion, brown eyes and dark brown hair and no distinctive marks. Surprisingly he gives his religion as Church of England; he was born, baptised and brought up a Catholic, and even declared himself to be Roman Catholic on his marriage and in the 1911 census. The 238th was a Forestry Battalion and it sailed for Europe in September 1916. Working behind the lines away from enemy fire, the men - many of whom would otherwise have been ineligible for military duty, owing to age or physical problems - kept the British armies in France self-sufficient in timber. They also cleared more than 100 airfield sites, and some even built airbases. The alternative would have been to import timber from Canada: importing the labour freed trans-Atlantic shipping space for other purposes - food, shells and reinforcements. Thomas Coyne returned to Toronto after the war, for a daughter, Ruth, was born to Thomas and Mary in 1923. I only discovered her from the registration of her death from diptheria on 5th September 1927, so it is possible there were other children whose birth registrations remain to be found. So far I have not found the death of Walter Raymond Coyne born in 1911, so perhaps there are still some Coyne "cousins" to be found in Canada. March 22nd 2011. The life of William Louis de Normanville (1843-1928) and his role in creating Royal Leamington Spa has already been documented by Janet Storrie in her booklet published in 1989. However using the internet it is now possible to fill in some more detail, particularly on the years he spent in South Australia. William Louis was the son of the aforementioned absconding William John, and hence the nephew of William Murray and his wife Elizabeth de Normanville, and thus of course cousin to their children. As William Murray took his family out to Adelaide in 1852 to take advantage of the presence of his older brother Andrew John Murray as a government officer, it seems likely that William Louis de Normanville thought he would further his career and broaden his experience by making use of his uncle's connections in the province. William Louis probably arrived in Adelaide in 1867, for that is the year his name first gets mentioned in the local press as an active member of the Catholic community. He regularly performs as a singer at church fundraising events between 1867 and 1871. He sings in the choir at the funeral of Sir Dominic Daly (Governor in Chief of the Province of South Australia) in St Francis Xavier's Cathedral in Adelaide on the 22nd February 1868, and is a member of the Committee set up to establish his memorial. In October 1869 he is a member of a committee set up to organise a collection around the Adelaide churches to present to Bishop Shiel before his departure by the October mail for Rome to attend the General Council. Along with five other members of Adelaide's Catholic laity he addresses a petition to Cardinal Barnabò in December 1871: "The undersigned [...] humbly beg the consideration of your Eminence [...] to the present condition of this unhappy see." This letter is strongly critical of Bishop Shiel's excommunication of Mary MacKillop (now Australia's first saint Mary of the Cross) the management of diocesan finances and impropriety within the clergy. Professionally he left lasting reminders of his presence. Working as an architect from offices at 18 Hindley-street, which possibly doubled as the Catholic Book Depot, he requests tenders in 1869/1870 for the erection of the Church of St Ignatius, Norwood. "This is a beautiful building in the Italian style, with two prominent towers. [...] The cost of the building has been about £3000. Mr W. De Normanville was the architect; Mr M. McMullen, the builder" - so wrote the South Australian Register in its report on notable buildings completed in 1870 (it was opened for Divine worship on 7 August 1870). I can't find any copyright-free pictures so here are a couple of links: Church of St Ignatius, Norwood - flickr Church of St Ignatius, Norwood - ohta In August 1870 he is requesting tenders "for building an Oratory and other additions to the Convent of St Joseph, Franklin-street, Adelaide." Mary MacKillop was the first sister and mother superior of the order of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart in Adelaide, but by 1870 she had moved on to Brisbane. The book "Australian Gothic: the Gothic revival in Australian architecture" by Brian Andrews, credits William de Normanville as the architect of St Mary's Convent Chapel, Adelaide, 1870, I wonder if these are just two different names for the same building? On the 2nd April 1873 William Louis de Normanville left Port Adelaide to return to England on board the Loch Katrine. Did he take a more than merely curious interest in how the ship was run? In 1876 he lodged a patent no 2589: And William de Normanville, of No. 79, Bridge-road, Hammersmith, has given the like notice in respect of the invention of "improvements in ships' logs or speed indicators." Settling down to married and professional life in England, Janet Storrie details his next few years. She doesn't mention however one strange patent that he registers in 1891: 15684, Improvements in Waist-Belts. "According to this invention, waist belts, are so constructed that when applied they control the form of the figure or waist, causing an alteration in the form thereof, and reducing it at the sides, while allowing its expansion at those points where the extra size is not of so much moment [...] and thus a figure or waist that is not round is changed into one that approximately is so." To a modern eye all the metal banding and springs involved appear to be an instrument of torture, especially when he refers to the unwanted oval shaped waist as "natural"! See the full description with detailed drawings, plus his signature at Google Patents. February 25th 2011. Strange how unrelated families sometimes produce new leads. While looking into the Dockyard Ancells I came across a William Courtney (Cortney) who was building ships for the Royal Navy and others in Chester in the early 1800s. Between 1814 and 1826 as many as 133 vessels were built and registered at Chester, with an average size of 126 tons. Only one shipyard was in operation by 1831, and although it built some large vessels the staple product from 1820 to 1850 was Mersey flats. It was the combination of the name Courtney and Mersey flat that reminded me of my Courtneys in Tranmere, all closely associated with Mersey shipping, indeed at one time owning a flat - could this William be a relation of my John and Samuel born c1800 in Tranmere and watermen in 1841? Read more on William Cortney here. December 28th 2010. Doing a spot of research around the Haywards and Paynes in Albany Road, Camberwell, during the mid-1800s, I noticed the inter-linked families of Piety and Ancell living in - probably renting - some of the family properties. A quick look turned into a mini-research project and although there is no family connection (so far) some interesting stories surfaced. Richard Piety's family can be traced back to another Richard Piety who married Elizabeth Austen in St Alphege, Canterbury on the 21st September 1699. Henry Ancell's line doesn't go back that far (yet) but there is a strong Royal Navy tradition in the family: his father Robert Ancell was a Lieutenant and his grandfather John Ancell was a shipwright in Portsmouth and Plymouth Dockyards. August 30th 2010. Oh dear. William John Normanville did go to New York, but in the company of a certain Mrs George Winter. They sailed across the Atlantic, departing from Portsmouth on board the Northumberland in December 1854, travelling as Mr and Mrs Sinclair. They left behind two spouses and thirteen children all together. Sadly, from a letter she writes in 1856 she appears to have been abandoned by him in New York. Her husband filed for divorce in 1858/1859, with all of his contacts on both sides of the Atlantic he had been unable to track them down. Mrs George Winter had been born Emily Keale Heseltine in about 1824, and had married George Winter in 1843. [National Archives J77/58 C421799 Winter v Winter & Normanville] Names & Places Bradley (Griesel, Holbrook, Pearl, Perrior, Skinner, Smart) - Suffolk, Essex, West Ham. Hopkins (Bustin, Coyne, Courtney, Rankin) - Birkenhead, Oxford, Glasgow, Chester. Murray (Catt / Cattley, De Normanville, Divall, Grubb, Ingersoll, Jeffery, Milleman, Molnar, Paver, Robson) - London, Surrey, Kent, Yorkshire, Kincardine. Return to top of page