Horatia, a hero's daughter

I love what I can discover when I keep my eyes and mind open on my walks. England is so rich in history I am constantly amazed. For instance, only yesterday I decided to walk to Pinner village. I wanted to return to the church to take photos for another post (flat battery when I went there the first time) On the way there I passed Paines Lane Cemetery (appropriately enough on the intersection of Paine and Love Lane). I wasn’t too hopeful of anything too interesting as the commentary at the church had been very clear that Pinner church, while a solid architectural example, had no remarkable embellishments. That was because Pinner had never been home to anyone rich and powerful enough to want to impress with gilded angel ceilings or carved screens at their local place of worship. But it was a sunny autumn afternoon, and the graveyard was pleasantly sited.

Armed with my trusty smart phone and my “all you can eat” data from 3, I was able to google Paines Lane Cemetery and find… wow… Horatia Nelson Ward and some other family members are buried here. Then switching to the 'find a grave site’ I was able to quickly identify the grave from photos.

Why was I excited? For those of you whose only contact with the name Horatio is from Miami CSI of the (Shelton girls, for shame! What do they teach kids at school these days?) let me elucidate. My interest in naval history means that the first Horatio* to spring to my mind is Horatio Nelson, victor of Trafalgar. His exploits as a rising naval officer during the Napoleonic Wars made him the darling of the nation despite his scandalous public love life. Although married, the love of Nelson’s life, Lady Emma Hamilton was married to someone else! The British Library has on display the letter Nelson was writing to her on the eve of the battle of Trafalgar.

Emma bore him a child out of wedlock: the said Horatia. She was only a child when her father died at Trafalgar. She was brought up by her mother in straitened circumstances, because the nation preferred to show its admiration to the dead father by erecting grand monuments like Nelson’s Column rather than paying a pension to support his only child. Sadly Horatia was proud of her famous father, but never accepted that Emma, who brought her up, was actually her birth mother.

My writing time is up for today: more on Horatia/Horatio another day…

*Not forgetting Horatio, Hamlet’s bestie; Horatio Hornblower; Horatio the schoolboy killed by  a  polar bear; or the original Horatio who kept the bridge.

Jessie Archer Coulson: My Indomidable Grandmother

Jessie Archer Coulson’s arrival In New Zealand.

As many of you may know, I am currently on an extended gap year (now in its third year) in Europe. This is wonderful from a history inspiration point of view, but not quite so hot when wanting to refer to all those genealogy notes back in the understair cupboard at home in Leamington, New Zealand.

Despite this lack I wanted to get a few notes down on paper (or rather, uploaded to the cloud) about my maternal grandmother, Jessie. (I welcome any comments and corrections, and additions)

Jessie was the fourth child in a run of daughters born to John Archer Coulson and his wife Jane Jacklin. It took me many years of genealogical research to realise (doh!) she was named after her mother. Jessie is a pet form of Jane, and seems to be interchangeable with Janet and Jean in many of the Scottish and north of England censuses. (or should that be censi?) And of course her middle name honours her father. This seems so appropriate because although she spent most of her long life separated from them, her family were a central foundation for her life.

As I understand it, Jessie stayed on in Strathcona, Alberta for several years after her parents and younger siblings left Canada. One of her tasks was to wind up the family’s business affairs in the town. She was also studying and working as a student teacher, and in 1916 was living with her married eldest sister, Bertha.

In this time, World War I had broken out, and as in New Zealand, the loyal Canadian colonists were eager to enlist. Jessie had several regimental keepsakes from young men who went off to war, and she always kept a locket with the photo of one who never returned. My auntie Ruth has a poignant letter we believe to be from this man, written on leaving Jessie as his regiment departed for the fighting in Europe.

I believe Jessie made the trip to rejoin her family at the end of the war. By this time they had moved from Western Australia to New Zealand. My mother told the story of Jessie making the Pacific crossing, arriving in New Zealand and catching the train to the Wairarapa area, where her family were based, all on her own. Brave woman. And on arrival at the railway station, there was no one to meet her, so she just got on with it and carried her bag up and over the hill to the farm house. Not just brave, but indominable!

She soon secured a teaching job at the Rongomai School, near Eketahuna. This school no longer exists, and even the local hall, a rural social hub in its time, has disappeared. (was it moved or demolished?). The new teacher with the funny accent needed somewhere to live of course, so she boarded with Charlie and Kate Evans, whose house was on the other side of the road. She ended up marrying Charlie’s youngest brother Frederick John (but always called John), my grandfather. It’s hard to believe when you stand at this country crossroads that this location was so important to our family history. There is no remnants of human habitation visible there: my great uncle Charlie’s house is long gone too.

Remembering the random

Cibber

When writing yesterday’s post I had the niggling feeling that I recognised the name of the sculptor, Cibber. Did a little research and found Caius Cibber, originally from Denmark, settled in England where he had a (mostly) successful career. But that wasn’t why I recognised the name. Cibber had a larger-than-life actor son Colley who was also a writer, and was Poet Laureate to George II. But still it rang no bells for me. Next I find the sculptor’s grandson Theophilus Cibber, also an actor/manager at Drury Lane. Still nothing… then jackpot! I find that Theophilus married Susannah Arne in 1739.

I am familiar with the name Cibber because Susannah, already an acclaimed singer, continued to perform under her married name. I had no idea Arne was her maiden name: of course she is sister to the English composer Thomas Arne. We all know Arne for his composition, “Rule, Britannia!” His sister starred in the premier of "Alfred" in which "Britannia" features as the grand finale. (1740)

So finally I have puzzled it out, using some good old genealogy and Wikipedia (!) The name Cibber was familiar because of Susannah Maria Cibber, an acclaimed actress and singer, protégée of Handel. She was conveniently (for a performer) born near Covent Garden in 1714. The contralto solos in Handel’s Messiah were specifically written for her and include one of my favourites, the heartwretching “He was Despised”.  I have always thought that the contralto gets the best female solos in Messiah, and now I know why. Susannah also acted alongside the famous David Garrick, so now I am off to research whether there are any paintings of Cibber by Zoffany. I love these connections.

On a side note, as Messiah premiered in Dublin (1742), Susannah must have crossed the Irish Sea on at least one occasion. Her estranged husband Theophilus met his end on a similar crossing in 1758 on his way to start the season on Dublin.

Of all the Statues in London!

King Charles II by Cibber in Soho Square Gardens

In one of the twists of serendipity that make history research come alive for me, I happened on this statue of Charles II in Soho Square Gardens yesterday. It was only two days after visiting Grimsdyke Hotel in Harrow Weald where the statue once stood. You can see from the inscription that the restored statue was presented by Lady Gilbert, the widow of librettist W.S. Gilbert.

Apparently when the statue was first commissioned during the king’s lifetime, it was part of an ornate fountain which stood in the square, then called King Square. 150 years it was very much the worse for wear and removed to Grimsdyke, which was then the residence of the artist, Frederick Goodall.

A plaque in the square notes that Joseph Banks once lived at 32 Soho Square. I have a certain fascination for Banks, as he is often portrayed as the aristocratic antagonist to my hero, working class James Cook. Lets just say that his reputation was not enhanced in my eyes when I realised that he bought his home in Soho Square in 1779, at which time the notorious White House brothel was already established at 21 Soho Square.

I was also interested to read that underground the gardens are honeycombed with tunnels and air raid shelters from the Second World War.

Blindingly Obvious

Place Names

One of my great pleasures in my pursuit of trivia is discovering a link which is blindingly obvious when you think about it. So often familiarity or a different cultural experience means that years of exposure can go by without realising the implications of a name.

In New Zealand, as a former British colony, we have many, many places and roads named after British locations. I am glad to say we have also kept many Maori names too, which confounds tourists when they have to pronounce them. (Lots of New Zealand placenames underscore our British heritage and show our age by being named for 19^th century heros and politicians, but that’s another post)

So when I tell people in Britain that my home is in Cambridge, I have to quickly add, Cambridge, New Zealand. My suburb is Leamington, but here in England Leamington is over 100km from Cambridge! Many of the links are well known, with New Zealand counterparts for Oxford, Hamilton, and Christchurch. But you can still be caught out on the internet if you are not careful: I nearly booked accommodation in Cheviot in the Scottish Borders rather than the township in northern Canterbury, New Zealand.

Some are a newer surprise, for instance I only recently found out the famous House of Pain rugby stadium, Carisbrook in Dunedin is named for a castle on the Isle of Wight.

But the best realisation only occurred when I started living in the UK in 2014. In New Zealand we have many roads named after UK places… I have even lived on a York Avenue. But here in the UK if you are standing in the town square and see a road named say: London Rd, it will be the road to London. Doh! So obvious! The main thoroughfare through Hatch End is called Uxbridge Rd: so of course it terminates at Uxbridge. Brilliant for a directionally challenged traveller like me!

Cream Tea

Just booked a cream tea at Grimsdyke Hotel for this afternoon, and it got me thinking about cream.

In America they always ask if you want cream in your coffee: but I am never sure what they mean by cream. If by cream they mean milk at around 2 % milk fat, then yes, that is what I want in my white coffee. But it seems that sometimes they are actually using cream, judging by the fatty texture of the resultant coffee.  And I have been in many places when the request for a white coffee is meant by a blank stare. I have taken to asking for coffee with milk, with a shift to a short black/espresso when I am on the Continent, where a good non-frothy milk coffee so beloved in New Zealand is impossible to find.

A cream tea in UK is what we would call a Devonshire tea in New Zealand, although in NZ the cream has lost all connection with Devon, and isn’t even clotted. More details and pics after my cream tea today.

I remember my grandmother making her own clotted cream at home, using commercial milk and cream. It wasn’t til much later that I realise that she probably learnt to do this from her maternal grandmother, Emily Rowe (b. 1849) who was originally from Cornwall, next door county to Devon, and also famous for its dairy produce. The brand available here in UK is Rodda, which seems to be a Cornish surname judging from my family tree.

Commercial cream on this side of the world is confusing… in the UK shops you can buy single, double, whipping, extra thick double and of course clotted. That’s without going into the cultured types such as crème fraiche. In France I had difficulty in getting cream to whip and was told it is necessary to add a product to get it to thicken. More research needed here.

Grim

From Harry Potter, we have become familiar with Grim, the name of a spectral black dog that portends death.

According to Wikipedia, Grim is also one of the many old names for Woden, Northern European King of the gods. It is believed that the name Grim attached to several ancient earthworks in England is to honour Woden. Similar earthworks are sometimes named for the devil, make of that what you will.

The earthwork I am particularly interested in today is Grim’s Dyke or Grim’s Ditch, which runs very close to where I am currently living, in Hatch End. It runs for a length of about 5km from Pinner Green towards Harrow Weald and was built in Roman Britain times, probably by the local Catuvellauni tribe, as a defense against the Latin invaders.