Diary Dilemma
I was very interested in the ‘Reader Review’ article in your November issue, featuring Diary 1944: A Return Ticket to the Past by Carla van Beers, describing a transcribed English diary from 1944 that the author found in a secondhand shop in the Netherlands. I have in my possession a diary from 1937, which I bought at a car-boot sale in 2011 for £2. Every page is filled with the diarist’s daily activities, mostly taking place in the Wirral but including car journeys around the UK and a 14-day cruise from Liverpool, and weather statistics for each day.
There is slightly less intrigue with mine regarding finding out the diarist’s identity, as the front pages contain his name and address and even glued-in photographs of his house, “Pop” and “Mother”, together with a detailed hand-drawn plan of the house layout and garden. The diary also includes newspaper cuttings of important events throughout the year, including the coronation of George VI. The family’s 14-day summer cruise from Liverpool to Madeira, Casablanca and Lisbon is written about in detail and includes the original ‘Abstract of Log’ of the TSS Voltaire, together with photographs.
This diary is written by 16-year-old Ian Graham Wilson of ‘Springfield’, Gorse Lane, Grange, West Kirby, Cheshire. I have recently finished transcribing the entire diary which I was keen to do before it leaves my possession, because I have always intended to return it to any descendants of Ian. However, my initial research is proving very difficult.
All I can establish at the moment is that he died in January 2003 in Watford, Hertfordshire. I cannot find any trace of Ian Graham Wilson, born 5 September 1920, beyond the 1939 Register when he was an agricultural worker at the Ellbridge Horticultural Experimental Station in the St Germans district of Cornwall.
I have created a small family tree for Ian Wilson on ancestry.co.uk under the name WILSON/OHM FAMILY TREE in the hope that someone from his family will get in touch. There is always the possibility, of course, that he does not have any descendants and he does appear to be an only child, so maybe there is no one out there to pass the diary to.
This diary is clearly one of a series that he kept. He begins his “Summary of the Year 1937” at the back of his diary with “In writing these diaries I always feel somehow that I am not writing for myself alone, but rather for those who will come after me. Exceptionally conceited perhaps but the fact remains that whoever does read this in years to come wants to have a picture not only of myself between the ages of 16 years 4 months and 17 years 4 months, but also as far as space permits a background of the world I live in.”
I would be absolutely delighted to find the owner of his other diaries and return this one to the collection if they exist anywhere. Failing that, I feel this diary needs to be in the possession of a relevant local history society archive or museum, but I need help now to know what to do with it for the best.
I hope you or your readers can help!
Jo Kelly, Debenham, Suffolk
EDITOR REPLIES: What a fascinating find. Can any readers suggest a home for this diary?
DNA Success
Thank you so much for the AncestryDNA kit that I won as a prize for my letter published in January 2019. I must admit to having been rather sceptical, but the ethnicity areas were incredibly accurate in England alone.
Furthermore, I opted to go on the list for DNA matching and I emailed numerous people. I knew that my mother’s aunts had emigrated to the USA and their grandchildren appeared – giving me an opportunity to exchange photos etc with them.
I have also been contacted by another of my mother’s family who emigrated to Canada, and will send her information as she has none. I had a link to my paternal grandfather’s cousin who emigrated to Australia, and have exchanged photos with his granddaughter.
Closer to home I emailed the grandson of my great uncle who was killed on the Somme, and he passed me on to his sister Wendy. Meanwhile, she got in touch with another of my mother’s cousins. We all went down to Torquay last weekend and had a wonderful time together, along with another of Mum’s cousins who will be 90 in November.
I had the original letter from my great uncle’s commanding officer to his parents following his death in July 1916. Wendy did not know it existed, so you can imagine how moving it was. Following the advice in my letter, I passed it back to its rightful owner and just kept a copy for myself. We are all exchanging information and keeping in touch now.
I am going to buy a kit for my husband, as his maternal side came from Ireland and have been far more difficult to trace. Susan Rose, by email
EDITOR REPLIES: Thank you for sharing this with us Susan. I’m so glad the DNA test resulted in such a positive outcome.
Forgotten Battle
I enjoyed November’s ‘Behind the Headlines’ feature covering the 1830s, but noticed that it didn’t cover the last pitched battle on English soil, the Battle of Bossenden Wood. Although you will rarely read about it today, the incident dominated the front pages of the newspapers for several days in 1838.
The ring leader was John Nicholls Thom. Thom spent his early years in Cornwall and part of his education came from a fanatical preacher.
After his mother was admitted to Cornwall Lunatic Asylum Thom began to have business problems. Eventually he told his wife that he was going to France, but instead he moved to Kent, which was ripe for hearing his radical views. Initially he claimed to be Count Rothschild, but quickly revealed that he had been hiding his true identity and was actually Sir William Percy Honeywood Courtney.
He was persuaded to stand as a parliamentary candidate for Canterbury in the 1832 election, taking about 18 per cent of the vote. But his success was short lived, and he ended up in court for committing perjury in his defence of some alleged smugglers. His true identity was revealed and he was judged insane and confined to Kent
Lunatic Asylum in 1833. In 1837 he was released supposedly to the care of his father, but he actually ended up with William Culver and his daughter Sarah at Bossenden Farm.
It was then that he claimed he was the second Christ, gaining interest from local villagers with his message of land for all and abolition of tithes and taxes.
A warrant was quickly issued for his arrest and John Mears, Boughton’s constable, was sent with his brother Nicholas and Daniel Edwards to Bossenden Farm. Thom shot and stabbed Nicholas Mears and fled with his followers to Bossenden Wood.
About 100 men from the nearby 45th infantry regiment were called out to restore order. They split into two detachments. Lieutenant Bennett led the lefthand group and was killed as the rioters charged. But the righthand detachment shot and killed Thom and some of his followers, finally dispersing the rest with a bayonet charge.
Eight rioters were left dead with seven wounded, one fatally. On the side of the authorities three were dead including one killed by bullets from his own side.
Perhaps the most interesting
aspect is the close family ties between the rioters, and how the subsequent investigations found that those ties were instrumental in banding the rioters together.
I am descended from several of these lines and indeed from some of the men they fought against, and am researching “what happened next” for as many of these families as possible. If any of your readers would like more information or can help with my research, I would love to hear from them. Wendy Tait Mayfield, by email
EDITOR REPLIES: If any readers think they may have family members who were involved, especially if they have relatives from the villages of Hernhill, Dunkirk or Boughton-under-Blean in Kent, then we will happily put them in touch with Wendy.
A Touch Of Déjà Vu
You asked in the October issue if anybody else had tried to recreate old family photographs with descendants. Please find attached a photo taken in 1904
of my father on his mother’s lap with his grandmother to the left and great grandmother to the right (she was born in 1821 and died in 1911).
The second photo is one my father took in 1957. My elder sister is on my mother’s lap with our grandmother to the left and great grandmother to the right (she was born in 1873 and died in 1963).
Harriet Cozens, by email
EDITOR REPLIES: Great photos Harriet, thanks for sharing.
London Confusion
I have just purchased the November edition of WDYTYA? Magazine, which I find a most valuable help in my searches for my family, but couldn’t help but notice that the lovely aerial view of London on page 77 doesn’t show the City of London and Canary Wharf as the caption reads.
The photo was taken looking away from the City of London towards the south and west of
London. The large building in the centre is unmistakably The Shard and to the right of it one can clearly see the London Eye and the Shell Building. On the river is HMS Belfast which is moored close to the south embankment facing west between London Bridge and Tower Bridge. The Tower of London is clearly seen on the right of the photo, as is St Katharine Docks in the right foreground.
So you seem to have got things back to front! Canary Wharf would be directly behind the photographer and the only part of the City of London shown here is that immediately above the Tower of London on the north (right) bank of the Thames.
Geoff Bultitude, by email
EDITOR REPLIES: Sorry about that mistake. You weren’t the only reader to point it out Geoff! We were supplied the wrong caption by our picture library, but we should have spotted the error.
Correction
The ‘Your Projects’ article in our November issue unintentionally misrepresented the views of Helen Spencer, heritage education manager at Historic England. The quotation attributed to her should have read as follows: “What’s wonderful is that these children and their families now see Ramsgate through a different lens. This project has opened up their world to what has gone before them here and they’ve delved into the lives of the people that once inhabited the houses on Guildford Lawn. There is so much rich history here in Ramsgate for local people to explore.” We apologise for the misunderstanding.