Favourite Recipe; Cooking in a Brothel, a Workhouse, and an Asylum

My grandmother was a fabulous cook, and baked some of the best cakes I've ever eaten. Her fruit cake was delicious, but for some reason I used to aspire to bake a sponge cake that was as light and airy as hers. It was many years after her passing when, as an adult, I admitted this aspiration to my own mother. I was astounded to learn that her lighter than a feather, and airier than air sponge cakes came out of a box!

I enjoy cooking immensely. It is some kind of magic, an alchemy of sorts, to take a group of individual ingredients, and conjure them into something delicious. I wish my grandmother had lived longer for so many reasons, one of which being that I could have learned so much about cooking from her. Her recipes were never written down, with the exception of the back of the sponge cake mix box! I'm told her measurements were along the lines of 'a pinch here' and 'a splash' there; the mark of a truly talented cook.

It's possible that she inherited her talents in the kitchen from her father, who she once said had been a chef in a big restaurant. This may have been a bending of the truth, by a fair margin.

William Nicholson Edgill was born on the 2nd July 1871, in Romiley, or Denton, Manchester. his parents were married later in 1872, at the Liverpool register office, just two months after Elizabeth, his first wife, had died. His father, also named William Nicholson Edgill, had worked for a long while as the Clerk to the Guardians of the Chorlton Workhouse, and had been the Superintendent registrar for the Chorlton area. His mother was Hannah Standring, the daughter of James Standring, an omnibus company owner and entrepreneur. I believe that William (junior) was born at Rose Bank, Gibraltar Lane, Denton, an address given in his father's probate record. I have not, however, been able to locate a birth certificate, or an 1871 census return for him, or his mother Hannah Standring, and her older children.

Rose Bank, Gibraltar Lane

William was 20 when his father died. The 1891 census, taken shortly after his death, recorded William as working as a warehouseman. At least one sibling had started out working as a warehouseman, before becoming a clerk, like their father. Considering the family’s connections to the Chorlton Union I imagine that William worked in the Poor House warehouse, keeping a track of incoming and outgoing stock, although this is pure imaginative speculation.

It appears that William married a Mabel Cowan in 1894. Mabel was the daughter of a tea agent, Henry Cowan, and presumably this was a good match. At this time William was soundly in his father’s footsteps and working as a poor law officer. 

Something, however, went wrong with their union, and by the 1901 census William was living in London, registered as married, and working and residing apart from Mabel, in a large restaurant on Kensington High Street, called The Golden Bells. Mabel Edgill cannot be found in this census, nor can Mabel Cowan, or Edghill, however a widow named Mabel Hill married a Thomas Blezard in May 1916. I have found no evidence of a divorce or an annulment and can find no evidence to suggest that Mabel married a different William Nicholson Edgill, or married anyone with the last name Hill. I can only assume that the marriage for some reason broke down, William ran off to London and Mabel started a new life as a widow, using the last name ‘Hill’, which is close to the name ‘Edgill’. 

The Golden Bells Coffee Palace and Restaurant was situated at 87 High Street, Notting Hill Gate.

Liverpool Mercury, 1886

It must have been a fun place, as the management regularly ran competitions to elicit business.

In 1891 The Golden Bells was known as a temperance hotel.

And in 1898 The Westminster Budget raved about the Golden Bells’ Christmas Goose Club!

Here is an extract from this Christmas Goose article, which explains a little about the enterprise.

"The array would have elevated Dickens's Tiny Tim not only to the second heave of delight, but right away to the paradise of good things itself. The grey fog that sometimes hangs about Bayswater floated in little golden-coloured clouds round the yellow gas-lights. It made the birds' rose-pink beards look crimson, and gave to their Lifeguardsman-like chests a fulness that did not really form part of themselves. But there, at Golden Bells restaurant, close by Notting Hill Gate, they hung; up the road, round the corner, along the back street; not only a regiment, but an army, really a wall, of turkeys, and a pavement of geese; and others lay quietly in crates, in boxes, and in hampers- the grand total was over 5,000. The interesting fact was that they were poor men's birds, and that they had all been sold, and, what is more, paid for."

The article goes on to explain how local people across London could pay a small amount each week, over ten weeks, to cover the cost of all their family would need for a Christmas feast. The club was offered to people via the Ragged School Union, and Golden Bells was a depot, to which the holiday fare was delivered, and from which it was then distributed to the club members via large vans all across the city.

I have wondered if one of the gentlemen in this picture was William Nicholson Edgill.

By the time William was found working at The Golden Bells, it is likely that the temperance movement had moved on. On the 13th August, 1905, the Kensington News reported that police had raided the hotel, and had arrested the manager, and night porter for running a brothel from the property. The manager was sentenced to 6 weeks hard labour, and the night porter received 4 weeks hard labour!

It seems that the establishment kept its poor reputation. This postcard, from 1907, depicting the town of Notting Hill, and dripping in satire, renamed the hotel ‘The Golden Fleas’.

As much as William may have been enjoying life as an employee in this 'fancy' restaurant/brothel, he was soon, once again, attracted to a career serving the poor, this time as a cook, instead of a clerk. The Brighton Gazette reported, on the 5th December, 1907, that the Guardians of the Brighton Poor House wished to hire an assistant cook. A certain William Edgill, from London, had applied and there was some discussion over whether or not the job should be given to him, or a local person.

It seems that despite the opposition to an outsider being employed by the workhouse, William got the job, which explains how William came all the way from Manchester to Brighton, where he met Alice Funnell, my great grandmother. Just two years later, on 26th June, 1909, William Nicholson Edgill married Alice Funnell. Their marriage certificate recorded him as a bachelor, not a divorcee, or a widower, which leaves to me to guess that he was possibly guilty of bigamy. Their first child (Mary Margaret Louise) was born in 1910, when her father's occupation was recorded as a master fishmonger.

By 1911 our chef had left the fish shop of Brighton and had gone with Alice to work below stairs for a grand house in Hampshire. This may have been an effort for them to work and live together. William was the cook, and Alice the house parlour maid. As a housemaid it would have been difficult for Alice to get work that was not a 'live in' position. Living and working together in live in positions, however, meant that they had to leave their first child and daughter (Mary Margaret Louise) in Brighton with a relative.

The next job that William took was a position, again, in a place ripe for social change; the Banstead Lunatic Asylum. William and Alice's second child, and first son (and the third generation of William Nicholson Edgills) was born in Epsom, in 1913. The family of 4 lived at Potters Cottages; accommodation provided for workers of the Banstead Asylum. On baby William's birth certificate his father's occupation was recorded as 'cook at lunatic asylum'.

Banstead Asylum went through a great deal of change in the time that William worked there. It changed from Banstead Lunatic Asylum to Banstead Mental Hospital in 1918, and then Banstead Hospital in 1937. Throughout that time William changed from being a cook to working as a nurse, possibly due to the work needed in World War I. At the time of their youngest daughter's birth in 1915 William was recorded as being a cook at an institution, yet by the time their youngest child was born in 1922 William was a 'male nurse'. William continued to work as a psychiatric nurse until shortly before his death in 1938, at the age of 67. He died of tuberculosis, a disease so very prevalent in this era.

So my Granny wasn't entirely wrong; he had worked in a big restaurant (or rather, brothel), but also in a workhouse, mansion house, and hospital for the mentally ill. And he had also finished his career working as a psychiatric nurse, possibly helping men who were traumatized by their awful experiences in one of the world's most bloodiest and traumatic of wars.

Whilst she may not have been telling the whole truth about her father's work, her own abilities in the kitchen certainly suggested that he had some expertise in the culinary arts, which she most definitely inherited. 40 years later and my mouth still waters when I think about that delicious fruit cake of hers!

#Edgill

Worship; Recusants in Elizabethan & Stuart Lancashire

It seems odd to me that just a few weeks back I was writing about Protestant refugees escaping religious persecution in France, by coming to England, and this week I'm writing about Catholic persecution in England. Suffice to say, the 15-1700s were times of significant religious unrest in Europe, and it's not surprising that we have people in our ancestry that suffered some sort of persecution for their various religious beliefs.

Richard Sherborn was a Tudor gent and land owner in the county of Lancashire, who died in 1597, towards the end of Elizabeth I's reign. Elizabeth had taken the throne in 1558, and prior to her time as ruler of England the country had undergone a huge religious shift. Her father, Henry VIII had famously split England from the Catholic church, when he sought to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, so he could marry Anne Boleyn. What followed was decades of religious change, sometimes towards more 'new age' protestantism, sometimes back to Catholicism, and sometimes towards a more traditional protestantism that verged on Catholicism. 

Henry VIII

After Henry VIII died, and his son Edward took the throne, the country wavered closer to the more progressive version of Protestantism. For the 7 years of Edward's reign the reformist regency council worked to create a new church of England, and some say that 1548 was the year that the Church of England was formed, not the 1530s when his father split from Rome. 

Edward VIII

On Edward's death in 1553, his eldest sister, Mary I, took the throne.  Mary was the daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife, the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon. She was catholic and was resolved to return England to Rome. She married Philip II of Spain, another Catholic monarch, and worked hard over the 5 years of her reign to restore the 'old faith' to the country. She was fairly successful in her efforts; the general population welcomed the old ways, and by the end of her reign protestantism was in the decline. This was not to last. She died without issue, and so the throne passed to her younger sister, the daughter of Anne Boleyn- a protestant.

Mary I

Elizabeth I ruled England from 1558 to 1603. During that time her religious reformations caused the catholic faith to become "the faith of a small sect". Many laws had been passed in those 45 years which resulted in many penalties for those continuing to practise a catholic faith. 

Elilzabeth I

One of the first acts of Parliament to affect everyday English catholics was the Act to Restrain Popish Recusants, which was enacted in 1593. It defined popish recusants as "convicted for not repairing to some Church, Chapel, or usual place of Common Prayer to hear Devine Service there, but forebearing the same contrary to the tenor of the laws and statutes heretofore made and provided in that behalf".

In 1559 an further act of Parliament made it illegal to defend the authority of the pope over the church. To support the Pope, and the Roman Catholic faith, a person could be punished by a loss of goods, on the first offence, loss of life long liberty on the second, and if repeated a third time, loss of life. To be Catholic was considered an act of high treason for which men could be hanged, drawn and quartered, and women could be burned at the stake. To say or to attend a catholic mass would entail fines and imprisonment, and all parishioners had to attend services at the local Anglican church, or suffer a fine.

There were three kinds of Catholics at this time, in England. First were the 'recusants'; people who refused to attend protestant church, and as such would bear the full brunt of the law. Next were the 'non communicants' who were the people who would attend protestant church services, and therefore avoid the recusancy fines, but would refuse to take communion. Finally there were the 'schismatics' who were those that would attend protestant services, and take communion, but remain at heart, a catholic. The second and third type of Catholic were referred to at the time as 'Church Papists'. During James I's reign a survey of Lancashire showed that whilst there was a high number of 'non communicants' (2,392), there was also a fairly high number of 'recusants' (2, 075). 

Vincenzo Carducci, “Martyrdom of the Priors of the English Carthusians
of London, Nottingham and Axholme”, c. 1639

Lancashire was considered a county with a large catholic population, although the catholic population did seem to be smaller in the northern hundreds (parts) of the county. The town or village that our ancestor lived in was Heysham; a small coastal community close to the city of Lancaster. Heysham was situated in the northern part of the county of Lancashire; a hundred known as Lonsdale where approximately 1/3 of the gentry population were Catholic. Of this Catholic population, 2/3 were living in rural areas. One such family was that of Richard Sherborn.

Richard Sherborn owned land in, amongst other parts of Lancashire, Heysham; a beautiful manor just to the west of the city of Lancaster, on the north west coast of England. At the time that he died the house that would come to be known as Heysham Old Hall was  in the process of being built on his land. A survey of 1580 noted that the house was in construction but well enough built to house the 3 tenants; Robert Edmondson taking half of the property, his son Robert Edmondson taking a quarter, and  William Mashiter taking the final quarter. The construction of the hall wasn't to be finished until 1598; a year after Richard Sherborn had died. Richard was married to an Ellen Browne and they had 5 children; 3 boys names Thomas, Robert and Richard, and two daughters one named Alice and another daughter, whose name is unknown. It is thought that Richard was catholic, and a recusant, although I have not found any record of him having been penalised for his faith. Richard left his property, including the land and Heysham Old Hall to his wife, and upon her death, to his son Thomas.

Thomas Sherborn was married to Elizabeth (nee Breres), and he was most definitely a recusant. In 1631/2 he paid a fine for refusing a knighthood, and in 1633 paid another fine for not going to church for a full month. In 1581 the Act to Retain the Queen Majesties Subjects in Their Due Obedience  was passed, and under this act convicted recusants could be charged £20 for each month they had missed Anglican services. This was a huge amount of money, that would have ben unaffordable for anyone, except the wealthy. 

Thomas died in 1635, leaving his land to Richard Sherborn his brother and legacies to his wife Elizabeth, sister Alice Holland, and his nephew Robert Edmondson of Heysham. Elizabeth died just two years later, when she left to her brother-in-law Richard Sherborn of "Heisham" sheets and pillow "beares". She also mentioned in her will her 'cousins' Robert and Thomas Edmondson, brothers. The executor of her will was her 'lovinge brother-in-lawe Richard Sherburn of Heisham". 

Richard Sherborn (junior) inherited the estate in 1635, when his brother Thomas died. He was married to Jane Leybourne. She remarried after Richard's death, and whilst we don't have a date for Richard Sherborn's death, we know that he must have died sometime between 1640 (when he inherited property from his cousin Hugh Sherborn of the Laund), and 1654 when Jane his wife was referred to as the widow of Richard Sherborn in papers relating to contracts drawn up by her new husband, Thomas Clarkson. 

In 1587 a second act of parliament was passed, in relation to recusancy fines. This act had the unwiedly title of the Act for the More Speedy and Due Execution of Certain Branches of a Statutes Made in the 23rd Year of the Queen Majesty's Reign. This act was designed to overhaul the work of the previous act, and was hoped to complete the job of forcing all catholics to convert to protestantism. One of the results of this act related to those recusants who had defaulted on their payment of fines for not attending Anglican church. It gave the state the ability to seize the recusant's goods and two thirds of their lands. 

Heysham Old Hall

Richard Sherborn (junior) had land sequestered from him by the state, suggesting that he had accrued significant debts due to mounting recusancy fines. He may also have been subjected to composition rents, which came about following an act of parliament in Charles I's reign, in 1627. Composition rent was an agreement between a recusant and the state whereby the recusant agreed to pay an annual rent based on the two thirds of the value of the property. This agreement was made usually, when the arrears for recusancy fines had become insurmountable. When Richard died without issue his land and property was passed on to Robert Edmondson his nephew, and son of his sister (for whom I have not been able to find a name).

Robert Edmondson (senior) had married the unnamed daughter of Richard Sherborn (senior) at some point prior to his death in 1597. Together they had at least 3 sons; Robert, Thomas, and William. Robert Edmondson (junior) was my 9x great grandfather, and it was he who inherited the property from Richard Sherborn (junior) sometime between 1640- 1654. A Robert Edmondson was described in 1607 as a "poor popish recusant unable to pay 8d fine", although I can't be sure whether it was the father or son that was described as such. The Edmondson family were living in Heysham Old Hall from at least 1580 when a survey was taken and recorded the following;

"Note this tenement is divided into three parts whereof this Robert Edmondson hath half, his son  William a fourth part and William Mashiter another fourth part: either fourth part is 9s 1 1/2d rent with the mussel silver."
(Mussel silver referred to money raised by collecting and selling mussels from the beach. The last name 'Mashiter' was a common name for the area, the family having been well established. Records pertaining to following generations sometimes included the last name Mashiter, who may well have also been a recusant.)

At the time of this survey the construction of the hall had not yet been finished, but was presumably well enough completed as to allow people to reside there. Heysham Old Hall was completed by 1598, which is a fact echoed by the stone in the east gable which bears the date, plus the letters R.E., and a Tudor rose. It's not a huge jump to consider that the letters stand for Robert Edmondson, even if he hadn't been an owner of the hall in that year. It is also possible that the stone carving was done at a later date, as Robert Edmondson's (junior) son Richard (1663- 1742) was a mason.

Unfortunately Robert Edmondson's (junior) ownership of the hall was not completely secure. By the year 1654 he was in serious debt to William West, of the nearby town of Middleton. It seems that he had taken a loan from William West in 1653, and put his inheritance from Richard Sherborn as collateral. Unfortunately for William West, Robert was neither able to pay the debt, nor hand over the property, as all of the Sherborn inheritance remained in the hands of the state. Mr West took this matter to court, and petitioned that since he was no recusant he hoped the court would allow him the use of the land so he could benefit from it, until the debt was paid. The court granted his request, and William West was allowed to use the land to his benefit for the following 21 years, after which we assume Robert Edmondson was allowed to continue using the land for his own income. 

The Heysham land and hall were held by these four men in turn, Richard Sherborn (senior), Thomas Sherborn, Richard Sherborn (junior), and finally Robert Edmondson (grandson of the first Richard, and nephew of the latter two), who were all punished into poverty for their refusal to give up their catholic faith and worship in a protestant church. Continual fines for refusing knighthoods, and lack of attendance at Anglican church services, composition rents, and seizing of land would have caused them to lose whatever wealth they had fairly fast.

Later, in the 1700s a further penalty was created for those of the catholic faith to deal with; the inability to make a will or inherit property. Robert Edmondson's son and grandson, Richard and Edmond Edmondson respectively, both died in 1742, neither having left a will. Instead they both left inventories of all that they owned at the time of their passing, drawn up by friends and neighbours (including in Richard's inventory, William Mashiter). This suggests that Richard and Edmond were the fourth and fifth generations of recusants to live in Heysham Old Hall.  The fourth and fifth generations to be penalised and financially abused for their faith.

Heysham Head

It is interesting to consider why, at the beginning of this story, would a family under threat of continual fines and other financial penalties, make an expensive decision, to build a new house. A story from the Victorian era might offer an answer for us. In 1888  Reverend C T Royds bought Heysham Old Hall, and it was he who had various work done to the building. The house was somewhat dilapidated and in need of renovation. It was during this work that a priest hole was discovered, in the west wing of the house, between the inner walls and underneath the floor. From a secret opening in the floor there was access to the left chimney breast of a huge fireplace. Hidden stairs ran up to the attic and an underground secret passageway led out of the grounds. Priest holes were designed to provide catholic priests with a space in which they could hide and avoid capture by the local law enforcers. A Jesuit priest by the name of Nicholas Owen was famous for building similar priest holes at about this time.

"With incomparable skill Owen knew how to conduct priests to a place of safety along subterranean passages, to hide them between walls and bury them in impenetrable recesses, and to entangle them in labyrinths and a thousand windings. But what was much more difficult of an accomplishments, he so disguised the entrances to these as to make them most unlike what they really were. Moreover, he ket these places so close a secret that he would never disclose to another the place of concealment of any Catholic. he alone was both their architect and their builder. No one knows how many he made. Some may still be undiscovered."

Could the building of Heysham Old Hall have been the work of Nicholas Owen? And was the original purpose of the hall to provide sanctuary for Catholic priests? We will never know, but what we do know is that this family, over several generations, were severely financially punished by the English state, for their faith and their desire to worship as Roman Catholics.

Heysham Old Hall is now a fabulous looking pub, with apparently a resident ghost. 
I wonder if that ghost could be an ancestor of mine?

#Holding

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https://muse.jhu.edu/article/50912#:~:text=The%20Execution%20of%20Catholics%20under%20Queen%20Elizabeth%20Tudor&text=The%201559%20bills%20made%20English,and%20by%20burning%20offending%20women.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Reformation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_VI_and_I_and_religious_issues#Catholics

https://www.heyshamheritage.org.uk/html/higherheyshamoldhall.html

https://archive.org/details/ahistoryfamilys00shergoog/page/n81/mode/2up?view=theater

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol8/pp109-118#h2-s1

https://books.google.ca/books?id=MycMAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA2390&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=1#v=onepage&q&f=false
(page 1997)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recusancy#:~:text=The%201558%20Recusancy%20Acts%20passed,confiscation%20and%20imprisonment%20on%20recusants.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Catholic-Emancipation

https://www.hslc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/126-2-Blackwood.pdf

https://issuu.com/tcrs/docs/volume71

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priest_hole

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Owen_(Jesuit)

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13918/13918-h/13918-h.htm

Technology; Submarines in World War I

William Belcher was the maternal great grandfather of my husband. He was born in the fall of 1884, in the Browney Colliery area, near Durham in the north east of England. His father was a coal miner, as was everyone else living on their street in the 1891 census. William was 28 years old when World War 1 started in the summer of 1914. By this time William was married, to Jane Henderson, and was the father of four children, Hugh (born 1910), Jane (born 1911), Lily (born 1913), and Thomas (born 1914). William was recorded in the 1911 census as a coal miner/ stoneman. A stoneman had the job of excavating stone from the mine, presumably to clear the hard strata to open up further seams of coal. Conscription did not start in the UK until January 1916, after the Military Service Act was passed, but as a miner William was not required to join the military; he was in a protected occupation. 

William joined the Royal Navy Reserve on the 6th January 1915, a year before national conscription, and despite his working in a protected occupation. His enrolment papers described him as having a height of 5' 7", a chest measurement of 40", with a sallow complexion and brown hair. His home address was recorded as 53 Thirteenth Street, Horden.

The not so 'Great War' had started 5 months earlier and combat fighting had started in earnest in September, when the First Battle of the Marne began. William was to serve about 4 1/2 years with the Royal Navy, as a reservist. It is not clear from his record whether or not he was able to return home at all during those years.

According to his RNR record, sourced from the National Archive at Kew, William started out serving at HMS Pembroke, as stoker. You can just make out the blurry lettering on this hat in the picture above. Confusingly HMS Pembroke was not actually a ship, but a 'stone garrison'; a training establishment at Chatham, Kent.

A stoker, during the time of steam powered ships, had the primary job of fueling the engine; transporting and shovelling heavy loads of coal to the furnaces deep in the bowel of the ship. With the decline of coal fired ships stokers became responsible for anything from the propulsion systems to hydraulics, electrical and firefighting systems. The word 'stoker' is now only a colloquial term for a marine engineering technician. I imagine that William spent time fuelling engines, and working as an engineer, given the variety of work he appears to have carried out during his time in service. There were various levels of superiority in the stoker role; Chief Stoker, Stoker Petty Officer, Leading Stoker, Stoker 1st Class, Stoker 2nd Class, and Stoker Fire Fighter. Since William's record simle states 'stoker', without any class, we can assume that he was probably a 3rd Class Stoker, or Stoker Fire Fighter.

After training William's first posting was with HMS Columbine, which started on 17th April, 1915. HMS Columbine was a depot ship, harboured in Rosyth during WWI. Whilst stationed on HMS Columbine the letters after the ship's name in his record suggest that his duty was related to working on B3, a submarine. At the start of WWI the Royal Navy Submarine Service had been in operation for just ten years or so; WWI would be the first time military submarines would have a significant impact on a war. In 1915 B3 and B4 submarines were assigned to local defence duties in the Firth of Clyde.

At the start of WWI there were just 10 B class submarines in the Royal Navy submarine service. By 1915 all the B class submarines were used for training and local defence purposes. These submarines were not designed for submariners to live in, hence the reason why William was assigned to the depot ship, HMS Columbine, where he would have bunked.

Life onboard a B class submarine would have been cramped, and stuffy. Ventilation was provided for the batteries, but not the crews living area, and there was no internal bulkhead (or wall) so the crew were exposed to the exhaust from the petrol engine. Mice were used to detect excess carbon monoxide. Missions in these submarines were to take no more than 3 days in the winter, and 4 days in the summer, but would officially only meant to stay submerged for a maximum of 10 hours. Several boats, during the war, would spend up to 16 hours under water. The boats were tested to dive to a depth of 100ft. Whilst their operational depth was closer to 50ft, several B Class submarines dived to a depth of 95ft during the First World War. With 2 officers to lead the crew, and 13 ratings (a naval term for a lowest level member of the navy, equal to private in the army), there would have been a crew of 15 men in this small vessel.

B3 was built in 1906, and served throughout the war. It was sold for scrap in December 1919. William went on to serve on various other ships throughout the war. He was demobbed in June 1919, with a clean record, a chevron for good conduct, and a British War Medal. His decision to enlist, when he didn't have to, and could have spent the war years working his regular job in the mines, speaks volumes about his strength of character. 

#Belcher

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http://www.dmm.org.uk/educate/mineocc.htm#s

https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/yourcountry/overview/conscription/#:~:text=Conscription%20introduced&text=In%20January%201916%20the%20Military,certain%20classes%20of%20industrial%20worker.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_B-class_submarine

https://britsub.x10.mx/html/class/b_class.html

Achievement; From Plumber, to Publican, to Producer, to the London Hippodrome

Francis Langdon Bell was not a direct ancestor, but his story of achievement, and that of his daughters, is one well worth telling. Frank was the cousin of my great grandfather, Kenyon Holding. Frank's father, also named Francis Bell, was the brother of my 2x great grandmother Ann Bell.

Francis Langdon Bell was born in 1862, in Kirkby Lonsdale. At the time of Frank's birth Kirkby Lonsdale was considered a small market town in the county of Westmoreland. Today Kirkby is found in Cumbria, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales national park and the Lake District. It is a beautiful town, surrounded by the most amazing landscapes. With its cobbled streets and ancient buildings, it's pretty easy to imagine what the town would have been like in the 1860s. 

Frank's father was a plumber. Whilst today's plumbers will work with interior pipes and faucets, showers, and flushing toilets etc, a plumber in the 1800s would have been quite different work. Most people would not have had much in the way of interior plumbing. Water would have been taken from a pump served by a well, and outhouses were the norm for toileting purposes. But plumbing had been an established trade since the 1300s. In the 1860s it's likely that Frank Bell senior would have been working with lead to install water cisterns, pipes, and gutters, for all sorts of buildings. Flushing toilets became more popular in the mid 1800s following its appearance in the Great Exhibition of 1851, so he may have been involved in installing one or two in the larger, grander homes of Kirkby.

A Victorian bathroom like this one, was not for the many, but for the very few.

In January 1881 Frank married Sarah Parkinson, a Lancaster lass, and they settled in the same city. By the time the census was taken, later the same year, they were found living together at 1 Golden Ball Yard, Lancaster. Frank was a plumber, just like his dad. Golden Ball Yard was situated just off Market  Square, in central Lancaster, and was one of the poorest places to live in the city. 

Golden Ball Yard, Lancaster, 1927

Within the next 10 years, however, Francis Langdon Bell, and his wife Sarah, were on their way up. No longer a plumber, by the time the 1891 census was taken Frank had achieved the status of 'publican' and was managing the Black Bull Hotel.

The Black Bull, prior to the widening of China Lane.

In the summer of 1891 Francis L Bell was accused of serving alcohol to an intoxicated man; a Mr John Miller. The newspaper article which described the ensuing court case gives us a small inkling of the musical talents of our Frank, which would bring him his biggest achievement yet!

Lancaster Gazette, 18th July, 1891

The Black Bull stood near the corner of Church Street and China Lane. Around about 1895 the building on the corner, next door to the pub, was knocked down, along with many other buildings down that side of China Lane, to widen the thoroughfare. It became China Street, and once all the work was completed the Black Bull had the prestigious corner placement of these two important roads in the centre of Lancaster. Eventually the original building that was the Black Bull was demolished in 1908, and was replaced by a very grand public house/ hotel which later became known as the Duke of Lancaster. This did not affect our Frank, as he had moved to manage the Fat Scot public house, on the corner of Mary and Gage Street, by the time the 1901 census rolled around, and was looking after the John O Gaunt pub, on Market Street, in 1905.

The Black Bull, circa 1910

 Within these decades of pub life Frank and Sarah had grown a small family, with three daughters. Margaret, the eldest, was 18 at the time of the 1901 census. The middle daughter Rebecca Hilda (who went by Hilda), was 13, and the baby of the family, Florence, was just 3. It turns out that it was with these three daughters Frank was to seek his biggest achievement.

The John O'Gaunt (date unknown)

Within the following ten years Francis Langdon Bell and his family, had left  pub life behind, and it's only in the 1911 census that we can see that  the whisper from that court case in 1891 had grown into a vociferous cheer,  demonstrating this family's musical gifts. No longer living above a  public house, the family had their own house, on King Street,  Lancaster; a short walk from his place of work as musical director of  the Lancaster Hippodrome.

40 King Street, Lancaster

I have no records or newspaper articles with which to fact check, but I  imagine that life as a publican all these years had allowed Frank to run taproom concerts and thus develop his skill as a musical director. Tap room concerts are considered a predecessor of Music Hall and Variety theatre, and even during the years when Music Hall and Variety theatre was most popular, tap room concerts held in smaller pub venues would have been common, just as band nights, and such like are common in pubs throughout Britain today. As a pub landlord Frank was well placed to hone his craft as a musician and musical director.

The Lancaster Hippodrome was situated on Dalton Square and had originally been a chapel, built by the local Catholic community in 1799, following the passing of the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1791, which allowed catholic people to practice their faith. Later it became a temperance hall, which is amusing, considering the future it was to have as a Music Hall and Variety theatre. By 1906 the building was repurposed and renamed the Hippodrome and Opera House, and it started show 'hippograph' moving pictures to their customers. A review in the Lancaster Observer (8th December 1911) noted the variety acts and added that the hippograph pictures were 'remarkably good'. 

The interior of the Lancaster Hippodrome

As well as directing the musical side of things at the Hippodrome, Francis was working as a music teacher in 1912-13; teaching out of his home at 40 King Street. And he obviously was a good teacher, as all of his three daughters became skilled musicians in their own right.

I believe the 4 King Street is a typo.
I have no other records that use the address 4 King Street.

In the 1911 census his eldest daughter, Margaret, was recorded as being employed as a pianist. The middle daughter, Hilda (now a married mother, and using the last name Burton) was recorded as a drummer. Together with their father on cornet they formed Les Trois Cloches (Cloche being the French for Bell; I think this was a rather brilliant name!)

Click here to see the document on Ancestry.

For some time I had believed that it had just been the two older daughters that had joined with their father to take to the stage, but it seems that when Florence, the youngest daughter, was old enough, she took Hilda's place on the boards. Hilda had met William Burton in the early 1900s. William came from the south of England, but had joined the army in 1897, at the tender age of 15. He was also a musician and had possibly joined the army with the intention of joining a military band, and finding therein a career as a musician. He joined the Kings Own, a regiment based in Lancaster, which is presumably how he ended up meeting the Bell family. William earned certificates from Kneller Hall, the military music school, and so was clearly a talented musician. He was not, however, a talented soldier, as his military record demonstrates. In the fall of 1909 William was discharged following numerous insubordination offences, the last and most serious being his striking a senior officer, for which he spent some time in military jail. William and Hilda married in the summer of 1910, and just 6 months later their son, Arthur Francis William Burton, was born. Hilda and Arthur were both living with the rest of the Bell family in 1911, at 40 King Street, Lancaster, so I've no idea where William the husband and father were living. I can only assume that the family were reunited some time later, as William used the same King Street address when he signed up for military service in 1915, for the duration of the war. 

Kneller Hall- military music school, now houses a private school.

Florence took Rebecca's place in the trio as early as 1916, when she was 17 or 18 years young. In 1916  Les Trois Cloches achieved such wonderful reviews such as this one which read as follows; 

"...the appearance there of Les Trois Cloches in their charmingly refined act "Home of Harmony". This gifted trio, which comprises Mr Francis Langdon Bell and his two daughters Misses Maggie and Florrie Bell, present one of the finest singing and musical performances ever seen in the town, instruments, both orthodox and unorthodox being played in an exceptionally clever manner, whilst the youngest member of the trio, Miss Florrie Bell, who is yet in her teens, displays vocalistic abilities of the highest order. Her beautifully clear soprano voice is heard with real pleasure in "Castellano", "My Hero", "Violets", "Until", "Caress (?)", "Life's Garden", and other numbers, the sweet songstress being particularly good in the higher register. Her sister, who plays the accompaniments throughout, and brilliantly executes several solos, is a pianist of rare ability, and her father contributes cornet and horn solos in masterly style. One of the most attractice features of the splendid entertainment is the introductoin of "The Rosary" played as a cornet solo, with tubular bells, flute, and pianoforte accompaniments. For this item there is scenery on a gorgeous scale, including the representation of the interior of a church, and when the three artistes joinin the rendering of this masterpiece the effect is very striking. Miss Florrie Bell also skillfully plays the flute, the piccolo, the tubular bells, and the drum, her playing of "Tommy Atkins" on the latter instrument, as a picture of the late Lord Kitchener is thrown upon the screen, being greeted with thunderous applause. The whole concludes with a grand patriotic scene, during which the national anthems of the Allies are played on a variety of instruments. The performance of Les Trois Cloches is worth going far to see and the novel and entertaining act has been thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated by the large audiences nightly present."

Lord Kitchener, famously featured in this poster, died on 5th June 1916

The next 4-5 years must have been a whirlwind for the three musically talented Bells. A search of newspaper archives bring up many shows in various locations across and around Britain. And in 1918 Les Trois Cloches achieved their biggest and best accomplishment so far in their stage careers, when they performed at the London Hippodrome.

The London Hippodrome had opened to rapturous applause in 1900, as an indoor circus and variety venue. It was a type of theatre never before seen in England, and everything about it was unusual, fresh, and the epitome of theatrical. The theatre was somewhat renovated in 1909, from whence it was used for variety and music hall performances. It was a giant auditorium and from 1909 had a seating capacity for over 1300 people. Appearing at the London Hippodrome would have been  quite the professional career coup for the family!

It was possible to flood the centre of the auditorium to allow for incredible water scenes.

It's interesting to me that they achieved such an accolade as to perform at the London Hippodrome in 1918, as that was the year of a big wave in what was known commonly as 'Spanish flu'. As anyone who lived through Covid can imagine, the epidemic of 1918 affected the theatre industry a lot, but surprisingly the theatre industry did not shut down entirely. Whilst some of the USA and Canada, and other parts of the world shuttered theatres and other entertainment venues, England, and the rest of the United Kingdom did not. Ventilation measures were put in place, and venues were thoroughly sanitized between performances, but in general it was felt that, due to the difficulties of the 'Great War', keeping entertainment venues open was an important part of keeping the country's morale going. I have to say that I was surprised to find, under a billing in the Devon and Exeter Gazette of Dec 1918, two articles relating to the spanish flu, one stating how the death toll had exceeded the birth rate that month, despite the fact that the deaths from influenza were decreasing. I don't know what the death rate had been for theatre workers during that wave of the spanish flu, but I have wondered if Les Trois Cloches had managed to get such a great billing due to  other performers being unable, or unwilling, to perform during such a  time.

Devon & Exeter Gazette, Dec 1918.

Les Trois Cloches continued to tour their show, following this land mark performance, ensuring that all billing and advertisements remarked on the fact that they had played the London Hippodrome! The latest newspaper reference to their show is dated February 1920, when they played The Palace, in Plymouth.

In the 1921 census Francis Langdon Bell was living once again, at 40 King Street, Lancaster, with Sarah his wife, and their grandson Arthur Burton. Francis was 59, and Sarah was 60. Frank was recorded as being a music hall artiste, with no added note saying that he was retired. As a daughter of an actor, I know that once you take to the boards, you never truly retire! None of the three daughters were residing at the King Street home at that time, and I've no idea how to start finding them. Their names were so very common. It almost seems like every other person in Lancashire was named Bell! And since they were travelling all over the country, they could have met a handsome musician anywhere from Lands End to John O Groats and settled down. 

Francis died later in the same year as the most recent census, October 1921. Family lore that tells us that Maggie married a cellist, and they lived in Glasgow. She apparently played piano for the children's cinema on Saturday mornings, and  twice weekly for dance classes. They had one daughter, called Maggie, who died in childhood. Her husband died at the age of 90. Margaret worked until just a couple of months before she died.

Family lore also tells us that Hilda and William Burton divorced. I don't know if she remarried, or where she ended up. Their son Arthur Francis William Burton, who went by Bill, did his military service with the Kings Own, and was last heard of living in Ashton Under Lyne, Lancashire.

Finally Florrie Bell met and married a Scottish gent named Peter, surname unknown. He was, according to the story, a projectionist at the King's Cinema, in Edinburgh. They had, we're told, 5 children. None of these story endings are backed up by records; an impossible task without names, dates, and locations. Family lore is incredibly unreliable, with without records it's all we have to go on.

My father, a great fan and aficionado of all things Music Hall, is searching for a recording of Les Trois Cloches; it would be wonderful to hear their musical talents as described so beautifully above. In the meantime I shall leave you with this version of The Rosary, by Perry Como. Try and imagine it sung by a clear, young soprano, with a lovely Lancashire accent!

#Holding

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https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/England_Occupations_Building_Trades_-_International_Institute#Plumbers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flush_toilet#:~:text=Thomas%20William%20Twyford%20was%20one,widely%20used%20and%20marketed%20invention.

https://maps.nls.uk/view/229946790

https://youtu.be/vsPoTSQe7fM?si=itfsVO-Jkfb7TtoA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippodrome,_London

http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/LondonHippodrome.htm

With thanks to members of the Old Lancaster Pubs Facebook group.