Tag: Special Operations Executive

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Dear Reader

Dear Reader #145

Dear Reader,

My latest translation, the Portuguese version of Operation Cameo, Eve’s War Heroines of SOE, book six.

The Howes in America 

Jane Jenkins was born on 24 August 1806 in Marcoss, Glamorgan. A seamstress, she married William Howe, brother of my 4 x great grandfather John Howe, on 7 May 1833 in St Brides, Glamorgan. The couple produced five children. William, a shopkeeper, died on 1 August 1848, and Jane’s life took a dramatic turn.

On 15 December 1851 Jane married William Williams. In February 1866 Jane’s mother, Ann David, died and this appears to have been the catalyst for the dramatic change because, aged sixty, Jane set off for a new life in America.

On 6 July 1866 on the ship Arkwright, Jane set sail for New York. She travelled with her husband, William Williams, William’s grandson, William (Billo) Johns, Eliza Davis, Mary Gibbs, Hugh Morris, John Tardy, William Lewis and his wife Rachel.

From New York, the company travelled in cattle cars to Canada and by boat to Niagara Falls, Chicago, then on to Wyoming and Utah. They departed New York on 25 July 1866 on ‘Daniel Thompson’s Church Train’ and followed the pioneer trail before arriving at Salt Lake City on 27 October 1866. 

Jane’s husband, William Williams, died on the journey, on the plains near Old Fort Kearney. A widow for the second time, she married David Evan Davies on 22 June 1867 in Salt Lake City. Jane lived a further twenty-two years in Utah before her death on 22 December 1889.

My ancestor Cecilia Howe was born on 13 September 1840 in Wick, Glamorgan. Cecilia was a very popular Howe name that featured over many generations. She married Lewis Griffiths on 14 November 1863 in Bridgend, Glamorgan and on 6 April 1867 she gave birth to twins, Lewis and William. Sadly, Lewis died a day later and William died a day after that. 

Cecilia’s husband, Lewis, died on 16 August 1867 when she was two months pregnant. She gave birth to the exotically named Lorenzo Louis Griffiths on 19 March 1868. Thankfully, he survived. A widow with a baby, Cecilia didn’t allow the grass to grow under her feet. She decided to join her mother, Jane Jenkins, in America, arriving in New York on 28 July 1868 before travelling to Salt Lake City.

Cecilia married John Davis Reese on 20 December 1869 in Salt Lake City and in eleven years the couple produced six children. A Welshman from Merthyr Tydfil, John was twenty-five years older than Cecilia.

John Davis Reese

John Davis Reese was a blacksmith and a Mormon. His first wife Mary Morgan had a stillborn child when changing steamers from the Constitution to the Highland Mary. He also married Jane Morgan in 1852, Zillah Mathias in 1857 and Cecilia Howe in 1869. Between his four wives he fathered twenty-seven children.

John returned to Wales as a missionary in 1868. He died on 19 March 1880 in Malad City, Oneida County, Idaho making Cecilia a widow again.

Cecilia didn’t remarry. She died on 7 August 1932 in Benson, Utah aged ninety-one.

Idaho 1918, Cecilia Howe with her son, grandson and great grandson.

My ancestor Anne Howe, sister of Cecilia, was born on 6 February 1843 in Wick, Glamorgan and baptised in Wick on 5 March 1843. Her father, William, died when she was five. At sixteen, she worked as a servant for a solicitor, Thomas Stockwood. Many solicitors moved to Glamorgan in the 1840s to deal with coal mining and railway contracts.

1864, probably taken to commemorate Anne’s twenty-first birthday.

In the 1860s Anne Howe found herself in London. What was she doing there? I believe she was working as a governess for George Crane, a schoolteacher, painter and glazer. George was a widower with four children.

Anne married George Crane on 1 February 1868 in Chelsea, London. Exactly nine months later she gave birth to her first daughter, Mary Ella, in Salt Lake City. Anne was five months pregnant when she set sail with George and his children on 30 June 1868. The family sailed from Liverpool on the SS Minnesota and arrived in New York on 13 July 1868.

George, at a young age, was left alone in England when his parents emigrated to Galt, Canada. They decided that their son should remain in England and complete his apprenticeship as a painter and glazer. 

In 1854 George married Emily. The couple lived in London where George worked. Emily died when her youngest child was six weeks old. Grandparents looked after George’s children until he established his relationship with Anne Howe.

In 1868 upon their arrival in America, Anne Howe, her husband George Crane and his children were given berths in cattle cars for their trip west. Each family was allotted beds and a space to prepare their meals. They travelled with the John R. Murdock Company and completed their 430 mile journey from Laramie, Wyoming to Salt Lake City in covered wagons and on mules and foot. Anne was seven months pregnant at the time.

Anne Howe and George Crane

On 28 October 1868 Anne gave birth to a daughter, Mary Ella, the first of six children. Sadly, only Mary Ella and her sister, Maud Estella, survived into adulthood.

The family stayed in Salt Lake City that winter. George worked on the Utah Central Railroad and the Union Pacific until Leland Stanford drove the Golden Spike on 10 May 1869. Then George moved his family to Kanosh, Utah, where he resumed his career as a schoolteacher.

George was a member of the Church of the Latter Day Saints. In 1879 he was called on a mission to England. He returned home to Anne in November 1880. 

George held many offices in Millard County including county commissioner, and president and director of the Kanosh Store. Active in the church, he also acted in plays and organised a dramatic society in Kanosh.

Chief Kanosh

As pioneers, one wonders what Anne and George’s relationship was like with the indigenous population. Apparently, it was good because George befriended Chief Kanosh and spoke at his funeral. 

Anne and George were prominent members of their community and a newspaper report carried news of Anne’s ill health. Sadly, the newspaper’s good wishes were in vain and she died on 2 July 1895 aged fifty-two.

*****

From next week a new look for my weekly newsletter. To celebrate Wales qualifying for the football World Cup in Qatar, after a sixty-four year wait, over the summer months I will be profiling players from the past. I will also be featuring insights into the iconic TV series The Rockford Files, along with highlights from my family history research and news of my books.

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

For Authors

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Dear Reader

Dear Reader #144

Dear Reader,

My latest translation, the Dutch version of Operation Zigzag, Eve’s War Heroines of SOE, book one.

My latest article for the Seaside News.

John Howe, my 5 x great grandfather, was baptised on 28 April 1761 in St Hilary, Glamorgan. He was one of only ten children baptised in the village that year, including a set of twins. John’s parents were farmers so he spent his formative years learning the business of farm management.

John Howe married Cecily Lewis on 1 January 1785 in Cowbridge, Glamorgan. Cowbridge was the nearest market town to John’s home in St Hilary and it’s likely that he met Cecily there during a social event connected to the market.  

Cecily was born in Cowbridge in 1764 and it was the custom that marriages took place in the bride’s parish.

The interior of Holy Cross Church, Cowbridge (People’s Collection Wales).

Like his father before him, my 5 x great grandfather John Howe was an Overseer of the Poor. In 1797 he paid 2s 6d to ‘Ten men in distress coming from the sea.’ The Vale of Glamorgan coast is beautiful, but dangerous due to hidden rocks.

Le Vainqueur, which sank off Sker Rocks on 17th December 1753.

Taxes greatly affected the direction of the Howe family. In 1798, my 5 x great grandfather John Howe featured in the Land Tax Redemption register for St Hilary ten times (out of twenty-seven entries). Most people featured once while John’s brother, William, featured twice. 

John wasn’t ‘Lord of the Manor’, that title fell to the Bassets (although their influence was on the wane), but he was certainly ‘Mr St Hilary’.

The Land Tax became a permanent charge on the land in 1798 and was fixed at 4/- in the pound (20%). However proprietors were given the option to pay a (considerable) lump sum or purchase government stock to free themselves from future liability.

By 1799, the Napoleonic wars had taken their toll on Britain. The British royal treasury was running out of money to maintain the royal army and navy. Soldiers were starving and His Majesty’s navy had already mutinied. For Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, the solution was simple: impose an income tax.

Under the Act of 1799, all citizens who earned above £60 were to pay a graduated tax of at least one percent. Those with an income of over £200 were taxed ten percent. Some people regarded the tax as a patriotic duty while others complained. 

I don’t know what John Howe thought of the taxes, but it seems they were the reason why he moved his family ten miles west to Coity breaking the Howe connection with St Hilary, which had lasted over 200 years.

After 49 years of marriage, Cecily died  on 7 May 1834, aged 70 while John died on 4 February 1835, aged 73. The couple are buried together in Coity.

John and Cecily’s grave in Coity.

On Wednesday 4 April 1787 Cornelius Gordon and his wife Mary Bevan were gardening, and arguing, at their house in Crichton, Llanrhidian when Mary collapsed. A servant, Thomas Westley, and a neighbour, Elizabeth Long, helped Mary to bed. She slept while Cornelius continued his gardening.

The following morning, Cornelius told his servant Thomas to get Mr Thomas Williams, surgeon and apothecary, from Swansea. Surgeon Williams arrived at Crichton to find Mary dead. Relatives arrived. Accusations were made.

On Friday 6 April 1787, Gabriel Powell, Coroner, summoned twenty-four ‘honest and lawful men’ and held an inquest into Mary’s death. Evidence was taken. The servant, Thomas, “didn’t see anything” while Surgeon Williams stated that “the deceased did not die from a violent blow.”

A second surgeon, Thomas Sylvester, supported Surgeon Williams. The coroner’s inquest concluded that Mary died ‘by the visitation of God’, and she was buried the following day. However, Mary’s family were not happy and they intervened.

On Tuesday 10 April 1787, Rowland Pritchard, a Justice of the Peace, ordered Charles Collins, a surgeon from Swansea, to exhume and examine Mary’s body. He discovered a fractured skull, consistent with a violent blow, possibly caused by a spade. 

Surgeon Sylvester changed his tune and supported Surgeon Collins. Servant Thomas was questioned. His statement revealed that Cornelius had struck his wife about the head, and that during their marriage they had ‘frequently had words’.

Cornelius Gordon was tried four days later, found guilty, and sentenced to death. He was hanged on Stalling Down, Cowbridge, on 20 April 1787, a fortnight after the murder. This was the last hanging to take place at Stalling Down.

In the mid-1800s a Mrs Howe (first name sadly not recorded) spoke to David Jones an antiquarian. She said that as a young child she was taken up to Stalling Down to witness the execution of Cornelius Gordon.

Mrs Howe recalled the scene as Gordon’s family stood by with a coffin ready to transport his body back to Crichton. Mrs Howe stated that at the moment of the execution “the whole ground trembled, as with an earthquake.”

Next week, the Howes in America.

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

For Authors

#1 for value with 565,000 readers, The Fussy Librarian has helped my books to reach #1 on 32 occasions.

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Don’t forget to use the code goylake20 to claim your discount 🙂

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Dear Reader

Dear Reader #142

Dear Reader,

Operation Zigzag, book one in my Eve’s War Heroines of SOE series, is #1 on the Amazon charts again this weekend. Many thanks to all my readers for making this possible.

Married life for my 4 x great grandparents John Glissan, a surgeon/dentist/chemist, and Sarah Foreman, a nurse/dentist/chemist got off to a dramatic start when John featured as a witness in an assault case in which the victim was not expected to recover. This report appeared in the Morning Post on 25 July 1835.

During the second half of the 1830s John and Sarah traded as chemists/druggists from 147 Blackfriars Road, London, a desirable residence. However, the rent was high and with children on the way they had to consider their future. A move, slightly down market, seemed inevitable.

John Glissan began his apothecary career in Dublin near the docks. He knew that environment well, so in the 1840s he relocated his wife and three daughters from Blackfriars Road in London to 28 Church Road in St George in the East. There he operated as a surgeon/dentist.

John died on 16 March 1854. Alone, Sarah faced an uncertain future. However, twenty years earlier she had risen to the challenge when she moved from her family home in Tetford, Lincolnshire to London. Once again, she met the challenge: she established herself as a dentist.

A brief history of dentistry. In 1855 Emeline Roberts Jones became the first woman to practice dentistry in the United States. She married the dentist Daniel Jones when she was a teenager, and became his assistant in 1855. Lilian Lindsay, 1895, is regarded as the first female dentist in Britain, yet my 4 x great grandmother Sarah Foreman was practicing dentistry with her husband, John Glissan, from 1834 and in her own right from 1854. A remarkable achievement by Sarah.

In the 1860s, when she was sixty, my 4 x great grandmother Sarah Foreman returned to nursing. She became a monthly nurse, a woman who looked after a mother and her baby during the postpartum or postnatal period. Historically, women were expected to rest in bed for an extended period of time after giving birth. Care was provided either by her female relatives (mother or mother-in-law) or, if you could afford it, by a monthly nurse. 

The term “monthly nurse” was most commonly used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, because such a nurse usually remained with the mother and child for four weeks. The term “monthly” is something of a misnomer because the length of time a nurse remained with a family depended on the family’s financial circumstances and needs.

“The Monthly Nurse”. Wellcome Trust.

Born in a small village in Lincolnshire, Sarah moved to London where she became a nurse, a chemist and a dentist. She gave birth to three daughters and guided them through the health hazards of the Victorian era. She died on 4 June 1891 in Raine Street Infirmary aged 87 of senectus, old age, after a life well lived.

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

For Authors

#1 for value with 565,000 readers, The Fussy Librarian has helped my books to reach #1 on 32 occasions.

A special offer from my publisher and the Fussy Librarian. https://authors.thefussylibrarian.com/?ref=goylake

Don’t forget to use the code goylake20 to claim your discount 🙂

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Dear Reader

Dear Reader #141

Dear Reader,

We experimented by placing Operation Rose, Operation Watchmaker and Operation Overlord, the next three books in my Eve’s War Heroines of SOE series, on pre-order without blurbs and with dates running into next January, and already they are top 50 hot new releases. Many thanks to my readers for their support.

My latest article for the Seaside News appears on page 14 of the magazine. This one is about an illicit affair in 1814.

My 4 x great grandmother Sarah Foreman was born on 12 October 1803 in Tetford, Lincolnshire and baptised in the local church, St Mary’s, two days later. She was the youngest of four daughters. Sarah’s parents were Hutton Foreman, born in nearby Toynton in 1764, and Lucy Ironmonger, born in nearby East Kirby in  1761.

Hutton, who worked on the land, married twice. His second wife, Mary Blades, was nineteen years younger than him. He fathered eleven children, the last when he was sixty-four. He died in 1847 aged eighty-three.

Hutton’s first wife, my 5 x great grandmother, Lucy Ironmonger was widowed twice before she married him. Unusually for a rural woman of that time she was literate.

Sarah had three sisters, all with similar names: Mary born 1796, Maria born 1798 and Mary Ann born 1801. Maybe their mother Lucy liked the name Mary. Or maybe the children died in infancy because there is no further trace of them in the historical record. If the Marys did die in infancy then with Lucy’s death Sarah would have become the ‘mother’ of the house.

So what did Sarah make of these complex family dynamics? Sarah lost her mother, Lucy, when she was only eight. Her father, Hutton, then married a woman who was only fifteen years her senior. Sarah would have learned from Lucy in her formative years, so she was educated. Did she get on with her step-mother, Mary Blades? We don’t know. But we do know that by the early 1830s Sarah was living in London.

Sarah was in her late twenties or early thirties when she arrived in London. She was unmarried, which suggests that she had a career. In London, Sarah became a nurse/chemist/dentist. Although I have no proof, I suspect that she was nursing in Lincolnshire before her move to the Big City.

Why did Sarah move to London and how did she get there? Clearly, she decided that village life was not for her and that she would take her chances in the city. Maybe she responded to an advertisement looking for a nurse.

In the 1820s and 1830s the annual rate of pay for a nurse was £10, the equivalent of £600 today. Living expenses were covered. Even so, this was meagre renumeration.  In comparison, in the 1820s/30s a skilled tradesman could earn £10 in fifty days.

Sarah probably travelled to London on a coach. The journey from Tetford to London cost around £2, a huge financial commitment. She was making a life-changing journey and if things didn’t work out in London it was unlikely that she could immediately afford the journey back.

In London, Sarah met my 4 x great grandfather John Glissan, a surgeon/chemist/dentist. Had he placed the original advertisement seeking a nurse? After her initial time in London, did she apply to work for him? We don’t know, but I suspect that their careers overlapped, which led to love and marriage.

Sarah and John married on 24 March 1834 in St Brides, Fleet Street, a notorious location for ‘Clandestine’ marriages, marriages conducted in haste or secrecy, without the posting of banns. Many of my ancestors married in this fashion. However, Sarah and John posted banns so theirs was a regular marriage. Sarah and John signed the wedding register, thus confirming they were literate.

Separately, Sarah and John had travelled hundreds of miles from their homes to meet in London. Now, they were a couple. What would married life bring?

More about Sarah and John next time.

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

For Authors

#1 for value with 565,000 readers, The Fussy Librarian has helped my books to reach #1 on 32 occasions.

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Don’t forget to use the code goylake20 to claim your discount 🙂

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Dear Reader

Dear Reader #140

Dear Reader,

This week, I made great progress with the writing of Operation Rose, Eve’s War Heroines of SOE book seven, and Fruit, book four in my Olive Tree Spanish Civil War saga. Covid slowed me down over recent months, but this week was much more like it.

In this month’s issue of Mom’s Favorite Reads…

Crime and thriller author Shawn Reilly Simmons interviewed by Wendy H Jones. Plus, Author Features, Nature, Photography, Poetry, Short Stories, Young Writers, National Batman Day, and so much more!

You discover all sorts when you look through parish records.

My 3 x great grandmother Lucy Sarah Glissan was born in Stepney, London in 1842. In 1851 with her sisters Amelia, 13, and Mary Ann, 6, she was living in 28 Church Road, St-George-in-the-East, London in the shadow of this impressive Anglican church. Lucy’s parents were John Glissan, a surgeon/chemist/dentist and Sarah Glissan née Foreman, a nurse/chemist/dentist.

In 1861 my 3 x great grandmother Lucy Sarah Glissan, 19, was living with her sisters, Amelia, 23, and Sarah Ann, 16, in 2 Charles Street, St George-in-the-East, London. All three were unmarried tailoresses.

A baby also lived with the sisters, William, their ‘brother’. A problem: their mother, Sarah, was a widow of seven years and past childbearing age. To save face, the sisters had lied to the enumerator. So, which one of them gave birth to William?

The answer: my 3 x great grandmother Lucy Sarah Glissan. Shortly after the census was taken, Lucy Sarah married William’s father, Richard Stokes. Sadly, shortly after that William died. The couple produced seven more children including my direct ancestor William Richard Fredrick Stokes.

Lucy Sarah Glissan married Richard Stokes, who later ran a furniture-making business, at St Mary’s, Stepney on 27 May 1861. Both were nineteen, and literate. By 1870 80% of males were literate compared to 75% of females, up from 66% and 50% in thirty years. Lucy Sarah’s younger sister, Mary Ann, who witnessed the wedding, was also literate.

Roath Village School, Cardiff, 1899 (National Museum of Wales).

Lucy Sarah Glissan gave birth to eight children in twenty years 1861 – 1881. Her first and eighth child both died in infancy. The other six prospered. In the Victorian era the average number of children per family was six.

Family portrait, (not the Glissans) 1893.

The Glissan sisters were close, so we should take a moment to explore Amelia and Mary Ann’s lives. Amelia married Charles Samuel, a mariner from Antwerp. The couple did not have any children. When Amelia died in 1894, Charles fell on hard times and entered the workhouse. Mary Ann married James Reynolds, a gun maker/engineer. The couple produced only one child, who died young.

Lucy Sarah died on 9 October 1888 at Red Lion Street, Shoreditch.

***

My 4 x great grandfather John Glissan was born in 1803 in Ireland. In 1824 Apothecaries Hall in Dublin recognised him as an apothecary with a licence to trade. A few years later, John moved to London where he found employment assisting John William Keys Parkinson, son of James Parkinson, the doctor who gave his name to Parkinson’s Disease.

Photographed in 1912 this is 1 Hoxton Square, London, the home and office of Parkinson and Son, surgeons and apothecaries. In the late 1820s my 4 x great grandfather John Glissan assisted the son, James, and added the skills of dentist and surgeon to his trade of apothecary. Picture: Wellcome Trust.

17 September 1829 a report in the London Courier detailing the evidence John Glissan, a surgeon, gave to an inquest into the death of Henry Kellard, a pauper.

In the early 1830s my 4 x great grandfather John Glissan left Parkinson and Son and set up his own business as a surgeon/chemist/dentist. Initially, he struggled and was forced to go on the road as a traveller, selling his medicines. In 1834 he was declared insolvent. Life for him in London was tough.

In early June 1833, at nine o’clock in the evening, Susannah Griffiths left her lodgings at 12 Dyer Street, London. She walked along George Street to the junction of Blackfriars Road, one of the most fashionable roads in nineteenth century London. She made her way to 147 Blackfriars Road and the shop owned by my 4 x great grandfather John Glissan. There, Susannah purchased a quantity of arsenic.

Returning home, Susannah set her needlework to one side and wrote a note, quoting Shakespeare’s Macbeth, “Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas’d, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain.” She added, “I have taken poison.” Then she placed the note under her pillow and swallowed the arsenic.

Susannah was educated. She understood Shakespeare. I imagine that she was a sensitive soul. A coroner’s inquest held at Christ Church Workhouse absolved John Glissan of any blame and concluded that Susannah died whilst being of unsound mind.

Two days after the newspaper report on Susannah’s tragic suicide, this mysterious message appeared in the Morning Advertiser. I’m not sure what to make of the note. There were no follow up messages, so I’m not sure what my ancestor John made of it either.

17 November 1833. If gout was your problem, my 4 x great grandfather John Glissan, a surgeon/dentist/chemist, was your man. In the 1830s, John appeared in many newspapers advertisements promoting potions for all manner of ailments.

16 February 1834. Another advertisement featuring John Glissan. This advert ran on a regular basis in the Weekly True Sun.

Top of the Pops, 16 February 1834. Note that female singers dominated. Madame Vestris (pictured) was Lucia Elizabeth Vestris (née Elizabetta Lucia Bartolozzi; 3 March 1797 – 8 August 1856) an actress and a contralto opera singer. She was also a theatre producer and manager.

For the first thirty years of his life John Glissan concentrated on learning the skills of a chemist, surgeon and dentist, and on establishing his business. In 1834, life offered a new challenge. More about that next time.

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah

For Authors

#1 for value with 565,000 readers, The Fussy Librarian has helped my books to reach #1 on 32 occasions.

A special offer from my publisher and the Fussy Librarian. https://authors.thefussylibrarian.com/?ref=goylake

Don’t forget to use the code goylake20 to claim your discount 🙂