How did my ancestors manage to travel between London and Cork so regularly?
QMy great great grandfather, Thomas Creed, was born c1823 in Borough. His father was John Creed, tailor, and he had a brother Timothy, born in Ireland. The only possible baptism I could find for Thomas was in Southwark in 1822, the son of John Creedon and Julia Flynn. The children born to John and Julia registered under variations of Creedon include: Daniel (born 1817, Cork); Margaret (born 1818, Cork); Timothy (born 1819, Cork); Thomas (born 1822,
Southwark); Daniel (born 1825, Cork); Julia (born 1827, Southwark); Helen (born 1829, Southwark); and Catharine (born 1832, Bermondsey). How might the couple have travelled from Cork to London and back again, especially with young children?
Fred Sedgwick
AIn order to confirm your hypothesis, it is worth constructing a full tree for the Creed/Creedon/Credam/Creden offspring. Check census entries for them all, and search for any probate records that could indicate relationships. Also check the Roman Catholic datasets on Findmypast ( findmypast.co.uk) if you haven’t already done so.
It is feasible that John and Julia took their family back to Cork from Southwark, in time for the birth of a second Daniel in 1825, and later returned to Southwark. They may have been visiting family in Cork, for example, or they may have intended to stay there but changed their minds.
Newspapers from the 1820s indicate that ships were sailing regularly between Cork and London across the Irish Sea.
Seasonal migrant workers tended to opt for the cheapest method of transport available – empty coal ships returning from Ireland after depositing their load. Otherwise, they could pay for packet ships, such as those run by the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company operating between Dublin and Liverpool, and later between London and Belfast.
Southwark had an established Irish community that expanded during the mid-19th century as a result of immigration from those fleeing the Great Hunger of 1845–1852. Those travelling from Cork would sail directly to South Wales and Bristol. By these dates, the railway line between Bristol and London had opened.
For further information, I recommend reading The Irish in Britain 1815–1939 edited by Roger Swift and Sheridan Gilley (Rowman & Littlefield, 1989). Emma Jolly