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April 24 THE SONS OF BREDON (work-in-progress)A BREDON FAMILY EMIGRATES - 1853
Charles Higgins, aged 38, of Bredon, Worcestershire, an Agricultural Labourer like his father Richard Higgins(born, bred and buried in Bredon 1782 - 1865), said goodbye to his father, ready to set sail with his young family across the Atlantic Ocean for a new life of much better prospects and prosperity.
Angeline Higgins(nee Stratford)aged 34, also of Bredon, two young children to mind embarks on an adventure of a life-time. The couple had married in their thirties, and compared to most in the tiny hamlet were quite ambitious. They lived with Charles father, Richard, a widower, who lived(according to the 1851 Census), at Waterloo Cottage, Tewkesbury Rd. Bredon. Their first child was Samuel Charles Higgins, born in Bredon on 15 March 1848 and christened at Bredon Church on 21 January, 1849. His younger sister, Catharine Ann Higgins was born on 20 April 1850. Why would this young family say goodbye, to move so far away. “For good” is the only answer, and why to Iowa in the United States of America? Richards second son, Frederick Higgins, born in Bredon 1820 had moved up to Belbroughton, ready for anything and met a woman called Betty Davenport, maybe in the Nailers Arms, over a few ales. She led him a merry dance to a cottage in The Gutter -(a traditional name for an old track in the valley), where he ended up making Nails at her fathers forge out back of the cottage. It was a Marriage solemnized by Banns, on Christmas Day 1852. This was a legal requirement where a notice had to be read out to the congregation for three Sundays in a row to make sure there was no legal impediment to the marriage. It was also an alternative to getting a more expensive wedding licence. Couples who wanted a quickie wedding had to go to Gretna Green, over the border in Scotland, although travelling from Worcestershire would have taken as long! Richard had a third son, James born in 1826 at Bredon, but something had happened, he can't remember now, but he moved himself to the The Royal Oak Hotel in Front St. Bredon at 15yrs. Probably, by someone he met in the bar, he heard about how there was lots of gardening work around the fancy houses around Droitwich Spa. Anne had gone home to Bellbroughton, Bromsgrove for the birth, as she was worried about having her first child so late and wanted to be with her mother and female folk. After her lie-in, and the baby was Churched, she returned to Claines where her and James were in service. How proud his parents would have felt to get a little note in 1881 that he, Charles John Higgins had become Head Gardener for the Earl of Derby's Lancashire Estate, and had a son, who they had called after the father and grandfather, Charles James Higgins born St. Michaels on Wyre 1878. (copyright JM 2007-all rights reserved)
February 05 GENERATION GAPTHE GENERATION GAP Nan, I'm calling. Recalling to you, Watching me being born at the QE2 Where you cleaned, when word passed Down that Kath was in the labour ward.
You were the first to see me emerge, And mum said I had a big head ("Nothing much has changed" she said).
You had me in the kitchen sink at five; Washing me, scrubbing at the dirt on me When mum was away Convalescing from a hysterectomy.
You fed me with Sunday dinners, leaving them At the back door to cool, filled me with Hearty nourishment on school days, then Alex's fish, chips and mushy peas on Fridays.
In the ambulance, you came with mum because You heard I was hurt at the park and no-one Knew where Dad was.
In the dark I ran up to your house And cried I was afraid because Dad Was on our phone talking to a woman That didn't sound right.
You took me with you on holidays with Auntie Nellie, To Broadstairs and Margate bed & breakfast, And it never rained.
On the eve of your birthday in 1978 You wept, hating to think Fate had swept us up, So that under Australian skies your great - Grandchildren would be born without you being around.
(c)copyright, Julie McNeill Feb 2006 all rights reserved
December 27 Talking about Coalminers daughters
Quote Coalminers daughters December 26 WANDERING BACK TO WOLVERHAMPTONWANDERING BACK TO WOLVERHAMPTON - or the Churm ghosts of Christmas past- RICHARD CHURM and his wife ANN NOCK crossed the border into Staffordshire, so that their son THOMAS CHURM was born in 1789 where he would work, marry and be buried, along with his wife ANN BAKER to the ripe old age of 82years. It must have been the rural setting; Bushbury and Essington townships two miles North of Wolverhampton was a district of "scattered houses, partly occupied by colliers" but by 1851 the coal mines were exhausted. Going to where the next working coal mine is may not have been far to us, but in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a family was wealthy if they had a horse and cart. Their son, SAMUEL CHURM, Roy's , great grandfather was born in 1817 closer in to the Cannock seam, at Cheslyn Hay. MARY ANN POOLE was born in the next suburb of Willenhall in 1818 and they met and married on 31 March 1841. The children they produced were JAMES(1842), WILLIAM(1843), SAMUEL(1845), PHOEBE(1846), EMMA(1848), JOSEPH(1850), SARAH ANN(1852) and LUCY(1856). It is with the birth of JOSEPH CHURM we are to follow, as this man marries another Wolverhampton worker called BETSY COOPER and in 1873 she gives birth to Roy's grandad, JAMES at Bilston, Wolverhampton. My mother-in-law Nancy and her sister Joyce who emigrated to Melbourne, Australia in 1964 from Leeds, Yorkshire, didn't know much of their father's background or family, although when I first visited Roys folks house in Highett and Nancy asked where I was originally from she gasped: Birmingham, she said, was where she thought the fairies were from, as they were the stories her dad would tell when she was a little girl! Most likely those tales from the West Midlands were passed on to JAMES from his father JOSEPH, and mother BETSY who decided to leave Wolverhampton in 1875 to a Yorkshire coal mine when James was two years old. Ten years later at the next Census of 1891, the mother-in-law must have passed on, but the family has grown and moved up to more suitable premises at 56 Terry's Lane.....JOSEPH AND BETSY CHURM have turned 40years. They have seven sons and four daughters: Joseph age 20, JAMES 18, William, 16, and Samuel 14. They are working with their father at the coal mine, the younger ones as drivers of the coal carts to the coal hewers; "Coal miners Pony Driver Underground". As they lived in four rooms there would have had to be a lot of negotiation, compromise and planning.....and electricity a distant dream. To accommodate the changes in the family, by 1901 they have moved to 12 back of Lumley St. JAMES CHURM is 29years and still living at home. His younger brother William has married and moved next door with his wife HELEN ELIZABETH and their daughter LUCY who is three and new baby WILLIAM MARTIN CHURM. Bringing the coal up from underground fed our families and the Industrial Revolution for 200 years. For JAMES, an enforced job change would come when the son of the mine-owner took charge and looking round for men to sack, saw fortysomething JAMES with a bald head and said he was obviously too old to go down pit anymore. Maybe the Union wasn't too strong there, but either way it made the ex-coalminer go to the big smoke of LEEDS, marry SARAH ELIZABETH ROBSON and bear him three hard-working lassies, BESSIE, NANCY & JOYCE CHURM. He was unemployed for a long time says Auntie Joyce, but by the start of WW11 he had found a job as a Nightwatchman, and was present at his daughter Nancy's wedding to Archibald McNeill in 1943, but not to Joyces in 1948.
by Julie McNeill(nee Higgins) Christmas Eve 2006 Summary to date JAMES CHURM, born Bilston, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire 1873. Died Leeds, Yorkshire c.1944 Occupation: Coal Miner/Nightwatchman - married to Sarah Elizabeth Robson born June 1884 Yorkshire. JOSEPH CHURM, born Bilston, Wolverhampton, Staff. 1850. Died Castleford, Whitwood, Yorkshire Occupation: Coal Miner - married to Bestsy Cooper born 1851 Willenhall, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire SAMUEL CHURM, born Cheslyn Hay, Cannock, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire 1817. Died 1855 Willenhall, Staff. Occupation: Coal Miner - married to Mary Ann Poole born 1818 Willenhall, Wolverhampton, Staff. THOMAS CHURM, born 1789 Essington, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire. Died 1871 Bushbury, Wolverhampton, Staff. Occupation: Labourer - married to Ann Baker born 1787 Highworks, Berkshire. RICHARD CHURM born 1753 Childs Ercall, Shropshire. Died 1836 Essingtonwood, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire - Occupation - Labourer - married to Ann Nock.
November 28 SKELETONSSKELETONS I DON'T TALK ABOUT RELIGION OR POLITICS said NAN, WHEN I TRIED TO MAKE CONVERSATION ABOUT HOW GREAT IT WAS NELSON MANDELA WAS FREE. EYES DOWN! OR YOU'LL MISS A NUMBER TO CALL OUT BINGO! DAD said BABBY! DO YOU HAVE TO DRAG THE SKELETONS OUT OF THE WARDROBE? WISHING HE COULD STEP INTO A STATELY HOME THAT WAS HIS OWN, AS A GENTLEMAN THEY ALL SPOKE POLITELY, NO SHOUTING AND SWEARING, AND DIDN'T DISCUSS ILLIGITIMACY WITH THEIR DAUGHTERS, HE STATED WHILE DRIVING MY SISTER AND I TO A SHAKESPEARE PLAY, WHERE KIND WORDS OFT' SPOKE BETRAYAL AND TRAJEDY. WE LAUGHED AT DEAR DELUSIONAL ROMANTIC DAD AND YELLED - YEAH! AS LONG AS YOU WEREN'T A WOMAN, BLACK OR POOR ! AND HE TOLD US WE WATCHED TOO MUCH 'CHANNEL 4!' THEY'VE A LOT TO ANSWER FOR, SAID OUR FATHER,BEING PART TO BLAME FOR WHY BRITAIN WASN'T GREAT NO MORE! I AM SPEECHLESS IN THE CUSHY BACK SEAT OF HIS LATEST CAR, BUT WRITE A POEM LATER CALLED, NAN IS A SKELETON NOW HER BONES ARE ASH, HER NUMBER IS UP AND POLITICS AND RELIGION COUNT FOR NO WOMAN WHO HAD TO RUN FROM THE BLACK COUNTRY WITH A BABY INSIDE. NANS PARENTS STOOD BY AND COVERED HER SHAME IN BRUM, 1931, SO NO FOLK KNEW THE CHILD WAS CURSED BY DEUTERONOMY. I MUST TAKE AFTER MUM WHO THREW HER BIRTH DEED IN THE AIR FOR EVERYONE TO STARE AT THE EMPTY SPACE OF HER FATHERS NAME PRONOUNCING HE MUST HAVE BEEN A RED HAIRED CHINA MAN! NO SHAME, BUT HER FACE TURNED RED WHEN THE LOCAL PRIEST EASILY GUESSED HER CATHOLIC ROOTS AND PURSUED HER UP HEELEY RD ASKING WHY, FOR THE LOVE OF MARY SHE HADN'T BEEN SEEN IN CHURCH? SO THE REBELLIOUS BLOOD OF A CELTISH LASS BOILED, REPLIED THAT SHE'D MARRIED A PRODDY, MADE HER ESCAPE INTO THE BINGO HALL. LEFT WITH THE LEGACY OF BASTARD SECRETS SIBLINGS GET ON WITH THEIR OWN LIVES, KEEPING MUM, AND OCCUPY SPANISH LANDSCAPES, WHILE THIS GRAND-DAUGHTER KEEPS DIGGING TILL ANOTHER BONE STICKS OUT OF THE EARTH WITH THE ENERGY IT TOOK HER FOREFATHERS TO REACH FOR COAL. WITH DADS PROUD PROTESTANT WORK ETHIC I CONNECT HIM TO THE IRISH BRANCH SO CLOSE TO THE BONE; PAY - BACK FOR SNIPING AT MY SYMPATHY OF THE BIRMINGHAM SIX - ITS CHILDISH, I KNOW, THIS SPITTLE OF WORDS I DARE TO CONJURE FROM A RICH DEPOSIT, BUT LET US BE TRUE AND NOT DENY; REALLY FATHER, YOU DON'T HAVE TO WINCE EACH TIME I SEND ANOTHER POEM - I SAY, GET THEM SKELETONS LOOSE AND DANCE THE DIRT AND MUCKY SOD OFF SO WE CAN SIT AROUND THE HEARTH AND RELATE A GOOD STORY WE CAN ALL REFLECT ON, AND DRINK TO THAT, ME OLD DAD, THE LOVE THAT MAKES ME BURST THE BUBBLE AND SING FOR ME SUPPER AND WATCH YOUR EYES ROLL OVER!
Julie McNeill (c)copyright Sept.2006 Fernvale, Qld
November 18 PROLOGUE: OF BASTARDS AND COAL MINERSJANUARY 13th 1999
Waking to the sounds of crow, magpie and honeyeater, the realisation rose in me as I opened the curtains onto the majestic palm planted to dignify our Queenslander home, that twenty-one years ago today I arrived in Melbourne, Australia, after a long, but relaxed 'assisted passage', on Qantas flight 1. As a fourteen year old looking out of the incubator plane window, the metal wing shimmering and bouncing off jets of light, it felt like I was riding on the wings of angels. They were taking me to the country I had wished for as a small girl: to go to the country my mother dreamed of returning to, especially when she hung out the heavy sheets, or piles of clothes that she'd washed in the bathtub. She'd give them an extra squeeze with her cold ruddy hands and I would sit on my tricycle watching the water gush out, onto the concrete path my father had made up the middle of the garden. My mother talked about Australia, and I absorbed that vision of a sky so big, blue, light and clear with wide open spaces filled with sunshine to run in. Anything was better than being hemmed in by ceasless house chores on endlessly stagnant grey days. She said, time and time again, "At least you could hang the washing on the line and within five minutes it would all be dry! You didn't need to iron a thing, because the hot wind blew all the creases out for you," she said, pushing up the tall wooden prop. It wasn't a life of ease though. Like the fortnightly bed-sheet wash, my mothers life unfolded and folded away into the airing cupboard of my psyche. The hot windy Aussie sun may have made life easier, but the nuns insisted my mum and the other orphan charges from the "Mothercountry" had every "bleeding sheet ironed to perfection, including the hundreds of pleats on the big black skirts of the nuns habits...and there was hell to pay if you didn't," she said. Yes, my mum had survived a hard, merciless life. Her voice was never without pain, hurt, anger and torment, even when she threw back her auburn hair and laughed out loud with a mixture of defiance and delight. Even after all these years of chimerical communication between us, it becomes hard to distinquish between what is her and what is me, so possessed I am by her undead ghost. When I left home at sixteen her voice would re-surface through my pen. "Write my story," she whispered and wished. "No," said my step-father trying to push her out of the way, "she's going to write mine first!" "Bullshit, she is" answers mum, and my first poems and prose written on the peaceful but lonely bed of a school friends spare room, became a never-ending dance between us. November 11 ALL I KNOW
A poem for Nans funeral All I know about you Nan Is you were born Elsie Brothwood So long ago in a different era Where Pride & Prejudice took place And human folly was a disgrace. In your case, there was a secret and Travelling to Birmingham for a new life You met your match in our Grand-dad - Albert, Champion games player who even Disabled with Parkinson cheered us kids with Cribbage And Draughts, whilst donned with apron You cooked a wholesome dinner. All I know is Elsie Higgins was married to Albert For the best, the worst and the ordinary. I looked up to you as a solid, secure woman who role-modelled Nurturing values; keeping the hearth warm, clean And tea-pot cosie and freshly brewed, Someone I could turn to always. You knew what was needed to fix childhood traumas, Took me along to respite to Broadstairs and Margate with Auntie Nellie, Beer and Bingo with jovial company Filled your Midland soul , With rejuvenating bonhomie. All I know Nan, was you survived a short Death To see your grandchildren grow up, have babes Of their own, and you coped with separations And reckless behaviours as best as Any Matriarch knew how, considering, Naturally the mistakes of your own. But all I know is, I could make you laugh With a bit of tomfoolery and a silly grin, A touch of the outlandish spirit within, like Singing 'I've got a loverly bunch of coconuts' To a cherubic hymn! I tell my own children who are designing their way In life now, that Great Nanny Higgins was a young girls Hero; She struggled with all the issues and dilemmas, Was a working mother, bringing up healthy and strong Kids for the future of Nations. Here in Australia we held great respect For our grandmother; She was wise, she was good, Even though we were aware of her faults. Nan, all I know was you were there when I needed you most. That is all that mattered to me Now you have given up the ghost. I've missed you, I've loved you, I thank you for your blessings And pray that the sorrows you left behind Are swept away with forgiveness in mind.
love Julie McNeill(nee Higgins) Queensland, Australia April 5th, 2005 for Elsie Higgins(nee Brothwood) 1910-2005
October 16 Coalminers daughtersOutside my door the cockatoos shriek, the lizards chase around the verandah and I sit and sweat at my laptop in a virtual reality of eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century Black country, coal digging lives of my ancestors.
I've come back from the Australian Labor Party Queensland Branch Members Conference urging policy makers to keep the Coal and Uranium in the ground and invest in renewable energy.
Global Warming is an "inconvenient truth" as Al Gore says, especially for the Queensland Coal Mine stakeholders, and our Labor Premier, Peter Beattie with his hard hat on. Before long I am settled in my old Colonial Queenslander and digging through the archives on-line, a couple of branches of my Nan's family - the Brothwoods and Gardners of Staffordshire who laboured long and hard, supporting their children from the beginning to the end of Britains Industrial Revolution.
I started my family research with Nan as she recenlty died. On my return to the 'Mother Country' to see her before she died she was glad to pass on family names, knowing how interested I was in geneology. In English history all students learned was the Monarchial family trees and battles to retain them.
With Australian Republican principles, I wasn't looking for aristocratic genes as though that would make one a superior being, but I did want want to place our clan stories in the context of human history. What was the part we played? I found it was not insignificant. Each day on the internet I'd discover a new link to the Brothwood time line, with immense gratitude to the people who have worked to put all this information on the web, to make it accessible. It was easier too, as I found that on the surname place project, Brothwoods had their origin in Shropshire but spent the next 150 years in Staffordshire a hop, skip and jump over the border from The Wrekin.
Having recently worked as an Australian Census collector it was wonderful to see the work of those before me, ennabling me to follow a family story: putting the dates and names together like a jigsaw.
In the process I also linked up with two cousins I didn't know existed by the geneology sites that link common names from members trees. They both live in the Midlands and I have said we will have to have a drink in Cannock, Staffordshire where we spring from - as my husbands long service leave makes the trip viable, (and before P.M. Howard slashes those rights for workers fought for over a hundred years).
New cousin Dave on my matrilineal line confirmed the census material with a marriage certificate of my Nan's parents, William and Sarah Jane Brothwood(nee Gardner). They obviously met in Derbyshire, because their fathers were working at the Colliery there at the time of the 1901 Census.
I first met my great great grandfather when he was one year old in the 1881 Cenus, born in Nuneaton Warwickshire, specifically in Pit Row 71 Colliery School Rd of Denaby, Yorkshire.
His mum was called Sarah too, age 23 and it occurred to me what life was like for a woman, bearing children right through to menopause, travelling around from mine to mine -and why was her husband, Edward moving from job to job?
My great great grandfather Edward drew my admiration when I ordered his birth certificate with the touch of a button and a seven pound credit card transaction, finding that in 1847 he was born in the Wolverhampton Union Poor House to his unwed mum, Ann Brothwood.
The reason why I felt this for Mother and child was when I researched all about Wolverhampton and the history of the Poor Laws. Was Ann kicked out by her Dad and have to wear a yellow badge for being an unmarried,pregnant women?
Not only did they manage to survive the Cholera Outbreak, but they got work and thrived, so by the 1871 Census, Ann Brothwood was Head of a household in Wolverhampton.
Ann's parents meanwhile show up with an empty nest in the 1851 Census in Wolverhampton, so is likely her dad kicked her out to go in the poor house when she was pregnant.
I cheer her on from my time-travelling chair. What a strong woman she must have been, and I can see her at age 42yrs in 1871, with Edward at home age 22 and other children called Brothwood too - but question is, who do they belong to, as she wears her single status to the Census collector and theres a man her age who could be her partner, though it says he's her lodger!
I haven't watched television for weeks...Who needs to watch 'Neighbours' when my imagination thrives on knowledge shared and passed on from previous generations. All those BBC dramas I grew up with from the stories of Charles Dickens and George Eliot, and tales of monarchial power plays - yet whilst Bonnie Prince Charlie's faithful Scots men were marching down to London, my ancestors were down pit, keeping their heads down, making money for their Coalmasters, and providing for their families.
Many family historians go looking for traces of Royal blood in their pedigree, but it seems I'll have to go to a clairvoyant to tell me that I was the 'Queen of Sheba' in one of my past lives! All I know is the more I research, the more I discover and it is a joy to learn.
The Brothwoods, the Gardners and the Duces may not have been famous or infamous, but they were solid hard working people who were the heart and soul of Britains economic fortune and progress.
Their time is over now and I use my technological tool to search and muse and meet cousins from across the globe in cyberspace. Its on my agenda to have a gathering of the clan in a Cannock hotel sometime in the near future.
That's one branch of the story anyway! Then there's the Irish. What will I find there? Now I know why I felt at home in Ipswich so much, old coal mining heritage and lots of short, working class people who say hello and smile in lifts and appreciate the industry that got them to the present, no matter how hard the task was. They know what it is like at the coal face because their grandparents told them, but now its time to keep that fuel in the ground and petition parliament for a tax on carbon and invest in solar, and bring the current government down for taking us back to low wages and 12 hour days.
Julie McNeill
Puppeteer/Writer
Queensland, Australia
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