Those Places Thursday - 'Old' Brompton and Fort Amherst

Many thanks to my friend and blogmeister Chris Paton of British GENES for alerting me to an excellent new website Brompton - civilian life in a military village. Brompton is the area immediately outside the gates of Chatham Dockyard, and only became 'Old' Brompton with the growth of 'New' Brompton, which in turn became the town of Gillingham, so that 'Old' Brompton could become Brompton again.

If your ancestors had any connection with Chatham Dockyard, or any of the numerous military establishments in the area, this site could be of use to you - it's of more tha.assed through this area. The army, in particular the Royal Engineers, the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines all have long associations with Brompton. I have no ancestral connections, but I have a long-standing interest in both Gillingham and Chatham (grew up in the former, went to school in the latter) and the history of the Medway Towns in general.

There is a lot of good content on the Brompton website, including details of local pubs, schools and significant buildings. You can also comment on articles and add your own memories. There is a well-chosen page of links, one of which is to nearby Fort Amherst a series of tunnels in the chalk cliffs overlooking the dockyard. I used to pass this on the bus between Gillingham and Chatham hundreds of times without even realising it was there, but it has now been open to the public for a number of years. The website used to be rather cheesy and amateurish, but I'm pleased to say that it has been completely re-vamped and is greatly improved. As a tourist attraction it is overshadowed by Chatham's world-famous Historic Dockyard which is almost next door.

 

Happy birthday, Civil Registration in England and Wales

Somerset House in 1834

The 175th anniversary of Civil Registration in England and Wales was actually Sunday 1 July, so this a bit late. On Sunday I managed to achieve the remarkable feat of staying in a Melbourne hotel with no wi-fi! Well, the way I see it, you had six weeks to register a birth, so a couple of days' delay in marking this birth shouldn't incur a fine either.

I thought this would be as good a time as any to say something about the early days, and throw in a few lesser-known facts. for one thing, the familiar certificate layout and information could have been very different; for example, the cause of death on death certificates was only added at a very late stage of the passage of the registration bill though parliament. It is also interesting to note that the statistical side of the GRO, which became so dominant, was not part of the original plan at all. Thomas Lister, the first Registrar General, planned three divisions for his new department, records, accounts and correspondence. It was not until 1838 that he asked for someone to abstract the causes of death. Another proposed amendment in 1836 was that the details collected on birth registrations should not include the child's name! We can count ourselves lucky that this one was defeated, I think.

I have collected a lot of information about the staff of the GRO, including all kinds of personal anecdotes, as well as the official record of their service. One of the earliest employees engaged was James Rose, the office keeper. He resigned abruptly in 1843 when the new Registrar General, George Graham, discovered that he had been claiming large sums of money for postage expenses, but only a fraction of the amount was actually being used for postage purposes. He was not prosecuted, to Graham's annoyance, as the ever cautious Treasury Solicitor was not confident that there was enough solid evidence. Mr Rose is believed to have fled to Australia. An odd little footnote to this tale is that one of the witnesses to the will of the first Registrar General, Thomas Lister, who died in 1842, was James Rose. The same man?

If, like me, you are interested in the background to registration (there may be one of you out there, for all I know) there are some essays on the subject on the wonderful HISTPOP site, along with all kinds of other wonderful resources. Happy reading

 

If it's Friday, it must be Sydney

View from my balcony

I started writing this on Friday in the Paramatta RSL, coming towards the end of the first day seminar of the Unlock the Past tour. I wouldn't say that I'm jet-lagged, I'm not actually doing to badly, but I have absolutely no sense of what day or time it is. Suffice to say that I have managed to be awake when I need to be awake.

I touched down at Sydney's Kingsford-Smith airport early last Monday morning, then had a connecting flight to Brisbane, arriving at 10.30am. I gave my first talk at the Queensland Expo that afternoon, and another in the evening. The first talk was one that I know so well that I could do it in my sleep, and it did cross my mind that I might wake up to find my self doing exactly that, but it was fine! The weather in Brisbane was dull and drizzly on the first day, but for the other two days of the Expo the rain was hammering down! I felt right at home. It was a nice change, I suppose, to have the locals apologising for the weather, because that's what we Brits usually do.

Still, the company was good, people seemed to enjoy the talks, and approached me with lots of questions afterwards. I particularly enjoyed 'The Will Forgeries', a talk I gave for the first time on Wednesday. It was especially appropriate for an Australian audience. It was also the final talk of my tour, and I was very excited to find someone in the audience who had been researching the same story, though from a different angle. We have exchanged email addresses so I see a fruitful correspondence coming on!

Now that's what I call a meat pie!

Now it's Tuesday morning, and I am back in Sydney, after giving my 15th and final talk yesterday in Melbourne. It's been great fun travelling round and meeting some great people in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne, but I'm looking forward to having a whole day and a bit to myself in Sydney before I fly home tomorrow afternoon. Everyone has been very welcoming, and I've been driven all over the place by an assortment of generous Australians, most of whom I had never met before. My good Geni-mate Jill Ball aka @geniaus and her lovely husband Robert were the most wonderful hosts for my time in Sydney last week: they not only put me up in their lovely home, but laid on the full tourist guide experience, culminating in dinner at the famous Doyle's restaurant. I just can't thank them enough.

Last night I arrived here at the Radisson in chauffeur-driven splendour, courtesy of Carole Riley and her husband, Keith. Fellow-blogger Carole has been my travelling companion for the last few days two, and she is great company, we found that we giggle at the same things; she and Jill have also patiently accompanied me to assorted gift shops in search of my essential travel trophies (a fridge magnet from every state I visit).  The lovely Radisson has upgraded me to a deluxe room, which is a lovely finale to my trip. I treated myself to a room service meal, and had a lovely long soak in the bathtub - there's even a shuttered window between the bathroom and the room so that you could lie in the tub and watch TV if you wanted to! Chateau Collins back in Chesham is going to be such an anti-climax when I get back, I'd better make the most of this decadence while I can.

 

Olympic torch route - Day 34 Carlisle

Carlisle Town Hall

There are some very good lands on the banks of the river Line. On coming near Carlisle the soil is excellent. The banks of the river Eden are the richest grounds in the north of England. It is allowed there is grass here that will feed five heavy sheep per acre. The town is pretty regular, and there are good inns; facing the north there are eighteen stables of different kinds. Most of these depend on drovers; they have a market for live cattle nine months in the year, a new flesh market that has a street and a row on both sides.

From A Scottish Farmer's Ride Through England 100 Years Ago (1904)

Carlisle has two ancient parishes, St Cuthbert and St Mary, on which the Poor Law Union and registration district were based. Original records for Carlisle are held at Carlisle Archives Centre. There is a chapter on the City of Carlisle in Volume 4 of  Magna Britannica by Daniel and Samuel Lysons (1814) at British History Online. There is more information about Carlisle online at A Vision of Britain Through Time

 

Catching up

brightsolid offices

I've had (an am still having) an unusual and pleasantly busy week, so I am a bit behind with my blog posts. However, having started the Olympic torch route series I am going to keep it up, although the illustrations might be a bit restricted for the next few days.

I'm in the USA at the moment, waiting for a plane to take me on the next stage of my travels - to Buffalo, since you ask. The first part of my week involved two interesting events in London; a conference, which they call an 'executive briefing' for some reason at CILIP, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, and the following day a reception at the smart new offices of brightsolid, a converted nonconformist chapel. So I was out way past my bedtime that night, which didn't leave much time for packing for this trip.

The 'executive briefing' was called 'The Social Media Revolution - how user-generated content is changing the way we work'. It was a very interesting day with good speakers, and if you are among the Twitterati you can find some comments on the day using the hashtag #socialmediaeb. We still had handouts in the form of printed PowerPoint slides, which seemed like an awful lot of dead tree for an event that was all about online media.

The brightsolid event was much more of a social event, and I was lucky enough to be shown round their lovely new offices, in a converted nonconformist church near Old Street. I met lots of nice people, some that I already knew and some that I had not previously met. It was a lovely evening. Someone had a lot of fun choosing the decor inside, all very tasteful in the various brightsolid brand colours.

Right now I'm in upstate NY, heading back to Boston tomorrow. I shall return.

Meanwhile, happy Jubilee weekend for anyone whois celebrating it