Shopping Saturday - Arthur Lasenby Liberty

Arthur Lasenby Liberty was born in Chesham in 1843, the son of Arthur Liberty, draper and lace manufacturer. When he was young the family moved to Nottingham, a major centre of the lace industry, but after leaving school he worked for a while in Nottingham, then moved to London to work at Farmer and Rogers Oriental Warehouse. This was the premier outlet for the goods from the far east, which were becoming very fashionable in the later 19th century. He rose to the position of joint manager there, and remained with Farmer and Rogers until 1874.

London Gazette 14 February 1913

He founded his own small business in Regent Street in the following year, called East India House, which eventually became the famous Liberty's department store on the same site. The store is still there today, with its distinctive black-and-white building displaying the Royal Arms. The business is entitled to do this as the holder of a Royal Warrant to supply goods and services to Her Majesty the Queen. True to its origins, the name Liberty remains associated with a particular decorative style, the 'Liberty print' and the designs of William Morris.

Arthur Liberty continued to be very successful in business and counted among his friends a number of artists and designers including William Morris. He also held a number of public offices including deputy lieutenent and high sheriff of his home county of Buckinghamshire. He was knighted in 1913 and retired from business the following year to his home at Lee Manor, near Chesham.

Printed sources, including his entries in Who's Who and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, state that in 1875 he married Emma Louise Blackmore, daughter of Henry Blackmore of Exmouth in Devon. The couple had no children, but the department store business remained in the family, passing to his nephew and great-nephews after his death in 1917.

Divorce file TNA Ref: J 77/87

What is much less well-known is that his marriage to Emma Blackmore was not his first; on 8 June 1865 he married Martha Cottam at St Pancras parish church, but this marriage ended in divorce in 1869, on the grounds of Martha's adultery with one Augustus Glover. When he married Emma Blackmore he is described on the marriage certificate as 'bachelor' but he had made no attempt to conceal the existence of his first marriage from the church authorities. On the contrary, the record of the marriage licence he obtained from the Bishop of London two days before the marriage gives full details of his marriage to Martha Cottam and their subsequent divorce.

Happy birthday Charles John Huffam Dickens

I'm not actually late with this blog post, it's still 7 February in my current time zone. There are some excellent Dickens features and links in today's issue of the Guardian, my newspaper of choice, and the occasion has also been marked with an impressive Google Doodle.

I can't match any of that, but I can offer an observation on why reading Dickens might be useful to the genealogist. There are wonderful descriptive passages in some of his books that shed light on everyday life in early Victorian England, and one of my favourite passages is in my favourite Dickens novel, Bleak House.

Signatures, or the lack of them, in parish registers and on certificates are often used as a measure of literacy. It is a fairly good way of measuring literacy rates overall, but may not be an accurate indicator in each individual case. For example, the fact that a person signed their name does not always mean that they could read and write; it could be that their signature was the only thing they could write. Or the opposite could apply, where a literate person made a mark instead of signing, as illustrated by this passage:

There were many little occurrences which suggested to me, with great consolation, how natural it is to gentle hearts to be considerate and delicate towards any inferiority. One of these particularly touched me.  I happened to stroll into the little church when a marriage was just concluded, and the young couple had to sign the register. The bridegroom, to whom the pen was handed first, made a rude cross for his mark: the bride, who came next, did the same. Now I had known the bride when I was last there, not only as the prettiest girl in the place, but as having quite distinguished herself in the school; and I could not help looking at her with some surprise. she came aside and whispered to me, while tears of honest love and admiration stood in her bright eyes "He's a dear good fellow, miss; but he can't write yet - he's going to learn of me - and I wouldn't shame him for the world!" Why, what had I to fear, I thought, when there was this nobility in the soul of a labouring man's daughter!

It may be fiction, but it has a ring of truth, and I think it is very likely that there were indeed some young women who made their mark instead of signing the marriage register. One of them might have been your ancestor...

 

Mappy Monday - Registered for marriages

Here are a couple of maps that form part of my favourite document. Yes, I really do have a favourite item in The National Archives' collection, which came in handy when I was asked that very question in a job interview; well, I got the job anyway, so it can't have done any harm. The document in question is a book, mostly handwritten but with some pasted-in printed material. According to its Catalogue description it is a 'Record Book' in the extensive collection of General Register Office papers. It is not dated, but from the contents it seems to have been compiled during the 1880s. It is a compendium of useful reference information relating to the work of the office since its beginnings in 1837.

There are several hand-drawn maps, and I find this pair particularly interesting because they illustrate something that I don't think I've seen in map form anywhere else. Using information in the printed Official List of 1881,each  maps illustrates 100 registration districts. The first shows 100 districts where there were more churches (of the Church of England) licensed for marriages than there were Dissenting Chapels registered for marriages. The second map illustrates the opposite; 100 districts where there were more Dissenting Chapels registered for marriages than Church of England churches licensed for marriages. In both cases each church is represented by a black dot and each chapel by a red dot. The red ink was probably much brighter in the 1880s, but now it has faded to a shade of brown, so it does not stand out so well against the black dots. Despite this, the maps still provide a good visual rendition of the relative popularity of nonconformity throughout England and Wales.

The dots represent only churches or chapels, however, and give no indication of the size of their congregations, or of the actual number of marriages performed. The first map seems to show that East Anglia was a great stronghold of the Established Church, but the explanation of this cluster probably has more to do with the area's history than its 19th Century present. Norfolk and Suffolk were much more populous and prosperous in the Middle Ages than in the 1880s, relatively speaking. The population had actually decreased during the 19th century, as people moved to the industrial areas of the Midlands and the northern counties, and of course to London. But the churches didn't move with them. Today East Anglia is still full of small towns and villages with magnificent medieval churches, built for the much larger congregations of an earlier age.

Details like this might be interesting to explore further, and all the required statistics are in the Annual Reports of the Registrar General. Some other time, maybe.

100 districts with more churches of the Established Church licensed for marriages than Dissenting Chapels registered for marriages in 1881  

100 districts with more Dissenting Chapels registered for marriages than churches of the Established Church licensed for marriages  in 1881