# all roads lead to sedgley



## discokermit (Nov 14, 2020)

this is a thread to put my stuff relating to my family history. within it are stories of rural poverty and how the black country working class was built.

within all this the nine hamlets (sedgley, gospel end, cotwall end, upper gornal, lower gornal, ettingshall, bradley coseley and woodsetton) of sedgley are quite important, so far i have found ancestors going back to 1700 in sedgley. ettingshall is where i live now, where both my parents lived, my grand parents and great grandparents all lived here also. 
this will save me spamming other threads. anybody feel free to chip in but try and keep it on a black country history theme. ta.


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## discokermit (Nov 14, 2020)

this is my third great grandfather and mother, simeon and sarah richards and their children, including my second great grandfather timothy.
as you can see, simeon is an iron puddler.
they lived in swan village, tipton, which borders woodsetton. also known at the time as coseley moor.

simeon richards grandad was the earliest i can find so far in this line of the family, benjamin richards, born in 1760 in coseley.


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## discokermit (Nov 14, 2020)

this is my moms side, john and lizzie stanley, of number two, furnace parade, tipton. (near woodsetton). john is a coal miner (and my third great grandfather) who died quite young


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## discokermit (Nov 14, 2020)

moms side again, ben and emma sefton. he a chainmakers striker (gie it sum ommer!) and his son a labourer. dudley.


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## discokermit (Nov 14, 2020)

at one point i thought i had some posh farmers in penkridge in the family, one who got married in lichfield cathedral but it was a mistake and they were miners from shropshire.


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## discokermit (Nov 14, 2020)

sam and sarah webb, he born in 1795 in dudley, she 1802. sam senior, my fourth great grandad, the bricklayer. sam junior, my third g g, a blacksmith. also good to see sams sibling is an "engine fitter", my original trade. makes me feel at home.
funny to see so many strikers and ommerers. i used to get called lightning every time i used a hammer because i never struck twice in the same place! lol!


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## discokermit (Nov 14, 2020)

this is the record of my third great grandfathers brother thomas haines/haynes aka tustin, being sentenced to transportation.


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## discokermit (Nov 14, 2020)

the family were from blockley in worcestershire. impoverished by the enclosure of common land. toms father had left blockley to live in broadway, worcestershire, where he married, had a child then got legally forced to return to blockley by the magistrates because they were too poor. toms grandfather and uncle had been arrested for stealing sheep along with two others. they were aquitted at trial but the other two got hanged. eventually toms brother john, my third great grandfather moved to rushall nr walsall to become a miner. there he met lizzie hadley from sedgley and they settled in ettingshall.


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## mauvais (Nov 14, 2020)

I've been on holiday to Blockley (it was in Worcs, it's in Glos now) a few times, and the wider area a few more. _I'd_ get kicked out for being too poor these days.


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## discokermit (Nov 14, 2020)

so far, out of hundreds of ancestors, i have found one who wasnt a manual worker. one of my great grandfathers reached the lofty position of weighbridge clerk.


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## discokermit (Nov 14, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I've been on holiday to Blockley a few times, and the wider area a few more. _I'd_ get kicked out for being too poor these days.


blockley is where they got kicked to. broadway is the place they got kicked out of. "the jewel of the cotswolds!" . twats.


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## mauvais (Nov 14, 2020)

You probably know this but did you know you can look up old maps in the NLS? Like this of Blockley from 1883 which is about as far back as the good, high detail ones go: View: Worcestershire LVII.8 (Blockley; Chipping Campden) - Ordnance Survey 25 inch England and Wales, 1841-1952

I got my dad looking at these, he's been able to marry up records of where some of his relatives lived in the now demolished areas of industrial Manchester with more meaningful maps and sometimes even aerial photos.


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## platinumsage (Nov 14, 2020)

Similar to my family, I have two branches from Staffordshire before they all met up in London, from Dilhorne/Kingsley and Aston/Eccleshall. All working class too, although one was a tenant farmer of 37 acres.


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## discokermit (Nov 14, 2020)

mauvais said:


> You probably know this but did you know you can look up old maps in the NLS? Like this of Blockley from 1883 which is about as far back as the good, high detail ones go: View: Worcestershire LVII.8 (Blockley; Chipping Campden) - Ordnance Survey 25 inch England and Wales, 1841-1952


after the treeing will come the mapping. ta!


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## discokermit (Nov 14, 2020)

i looked on the map and for such a tiny place i was directly related to the haynes, toms, handy and jobson families there. mad.


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## mauvais (Nov 14, 2020)

Shout if you want a hand on the mapping, the NLS tool is really good but takes a bit of figuring out, plus I love a 'where the fuck was X?' mystery.


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## discokermit (Nov 14, 2020)

so far i have three family lines coming from shropshire, one from worcestershire. the thing with shropshire is after all the trees around here had been burned for charcoal by the seventeen seventies a lot of the industry moved to ironbridge and didnt come back until smelting iron with coal was invented (by dud dudley, of woodsetton, sedgley!), so i dont know if they followed the work there and back.


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## discokermit (Nov 14, 2020)

my great great grandad william jones, the "roadman". lol! crossed with labourer written over it. dunno what thats about.
my great grandad jasper eli jones there as well and my g g grandmother lizzie tong from radnorshire. this branch of the family knocked around shropshire/herefordshire/radnorshire until they turned up here, the last of the arrivals in 1911 or so.


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## platinumsage (Nov 14, 2020)

discokermit said:


> so far i have three family lines coming from shropshire, one from worcestershire. the thing with shropshire is after all the trees around here had been burned for charcoal by the seventeen seventies a lot of the industry moved to ironbridge and didnt come back until smelting iron with coal was invented (by dud dudley, of woodsetton, sedgley!), so i dont know if they followed the work there and back.



One of my lines moved to Ironbridge, and married into the Evans/Jones crew there who i’m guessing came from Wales. Brickmaker‘s Assistant aged 12, makes a change from agricultural labourer I suppose.


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## discokermit (Nov 14, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> One of my lines moved to Ironbridge, and married into the Evans/Jones crew there who i’m guessing came from Wales. Brickmaker‘s Assistant aged 12, makes a change from agricultural labourer I suppose.


i reckon ironbridge would be massive conduit as central wales was cleared of people.


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## discokermit (Nov 14, 2020)

if you look on this old map of hurst hill, opposite the methodist church there is a little alleyway off the main rd, running parallel with it. my nan and grandad were neighbours there. my great grandad was licensee of a pub there for a few years then passed it on to my other great grandad. so thats my nan and grandad and all four of their parents in that tiny alley.







if you look on the modern map you can see the remnant of the alley and the methodist chapel is still there. go north a teensy bit and you see watton close. i live opposite that.
also, manor primary school in the top right of the map is about two hundred or so yards from where my third great nan and grandad lived along with my second great nan and grandad.


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## discokermit (Nov 15, 2020)

this is meadow lane, top right,





i live just to the left of where it says clay pit under the word woodcross.

this is where the haynes lived with their son in law sam webb,


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## lizzieloo (Nov 15, 2020)

discokermit said:


> this is the record of my third great grandfathers brother thomas haines/haynes aka tustin, being sentenced to transportation.
> 
> 
> View attachment 238850



I know a Tustin from those parts, he lived at Caggy's yard same time as us. Was your "Tustin" just an alias or do you have them in your tree?


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## discokermit (Nov 15, 2020)

lizzieloo said:


> I know a Tustin from those parts, he lived at Caggy's yard same time as us. Was your "Tustin" just an alias or do you have them in your tree?


yes, turns out tustin was his moms maiden name. he was born out of wedlock, then his parents got married leaving him the only one in his immediate family named tustin. his parents married after he was born.
i bet they didnt like that in broadway, worcestershire. the wankers.


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## discokermit (Nov 15, 2020)

lizzieloo said:


> I know a Tustin from those parts, he lived at Caggy's yard same time as us. Was your "Tustin" just an alias or do you have them in your tree?


i have got eight generations of tustin on my tree now. the family lived for generations in blockley. im back to richard tusten, born in 1568.


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## platinumsage (Nov 15, 2020)

I'd recommend, if you can afford it, paying £7 a pop for pdf death certificates for people who died from their teens to their forties from 1837 onwards to find out the cause of death. All sorts of accidents and incidents can show up.


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## mauvais (Nov 15, 2020)

discokermit said:


> this is meadow lane, top right,
> 
> 
> i live just to the left of where it says clay pit under the word woodcross.
> ...


Here's a few higher detail (OS 25 inch) maps:

1884: View: Staffordshire LXVII.3 (Coseley; Sedgley) - Ordnance Survey 25 inch England and Wales, 1841-1952
1901: View: Staffordshire LXVII.3 (Coseley; Sedgley) - Ordnance Survey 25 inch England and Wales, 1841-1952
1913: View: Staffordshire LXVII.3 (Coseley; Sedgley) - Ordnance Survey 25 inch England and Wales, 1841-1952
1938: View: Staffordshire LXVII.3 (Coseley; Sedgley) - Ordnance Survey 25 inch England and Wales, 1841-1952

You can Alt-click and get a transparency control that allows you to see a modern map behind it.

Big differences between the last two links. But it's surprising to me that in such an industrial area, the streets you've talked about seemingly remain to this day. In East Manchester for example, whole areas got wiped from the map with only arterial roads surviving.

Now if you're interested in later periods, like the 30s and 40s, you can look at Britain From Above.

You need a (free) account to view things in detail, but here is Meadow Lane in 1946, the third blue marker up from the bottom. This is zoomed in, there is more of this image available.

Link: EAW001260 ENGLAND (1946).  The industrial and residential area at Deepfields and Lady Moor, Bilston, 1946 | Britain From Above


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## discokermit (Nov 15, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> I'd recommend, if you can afford it, paying £7 a pop for pdf death certificates for people who died from their teens to their forties from 1837 onwards to find out the cause of death. All sorts of accidents and incidents can show up.


ta! im way too far down this rabbit hole as it is. after the tree i want to map the families and their movements and see if i can tie it in with stuff like local enclosures of land and recessions etc.


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## planetgeli (Nov 15, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I've been on holiday to Blockley (it was in Worcs, it's in Glos now) a few times, and the wider area a few more. _I'd_ get kicked out for being too poor these days.



I spent a birthday in a cottage in Blockley. There's a petrol station on the main road just before the village. I went in only for directions and I swear the attendant had her hand under the counter on some panic button the whole time I was in there.


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## discokermit (Nov 15, 2020)

mauvais said:


> Here's a few higher detail (OS 25 inch) maps:
> 
> 1884: View: Staffordshire LXVII.3 (Coseley; Sedgley) - Ordnance Survey 25 inch England and Wales, 1841-1952
> 1901: View: Staffordshire LXVII.3 (Coseley; Sedgley) - Ordnance Survey 25 inch England and Wales, 1841-1952
> ...


thats. brilliant! ta!

the canal bridge, top centre, is where in 1987 i got all four wheels of my morris marina off the floor by going over it at sixty. i landed on the opposite side of the road due to the bend. luckily it was three in the morning. my mate, martin from gornal nearly shit himself.


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## discokermit (Nov 15, 2020)

at least it felt like we got all the wheels off.


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## discokermit (Nov 15, 2020)

the canal in that pic running from left to right next to the railway line is where my great grandad worked his boat, from the steelworks that you can just see a bit of in the top left, to birmingham off to the right.


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## discokermit (Nov 15, 2020)

the site of my second scooter crash! it was wet, i had a vespa fifty special and was on my way from bilston to work in dudley. i went under the railway bridge, top left then went to turn right to cross the bridge over the canal (where the white vehicle is crossing) too fast for the conditions and slid into the bridge rail. lesson learned.


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## discokermit (Nov 15, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> I spent a birthday in a cottage in Blockley. There's a petrol station on the main road just before the village. I went in only for directions and I swear the attendant had her hand under the counter on some panic button the whole time I was in there.


all these beautiful little country villages are stock full of the cunts whos ancestors had their noses up the arse of the local aristo and assisted them getting rid of the riff raff when people became less use to them than sheep.


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## mauvais (Nov 15, 2020)

There's a lot more photos on BFA, especially in industrial concentrations to the north. For whatever reason between about 1920 and mid-1940s they took loads of industrial sites. Some of the photography, monochrome aside, is as good quality as anything you'd get now.

It's got a searchable map - Search > Map | Britain From Above - and all those blue pins within individual images are annotations someone has added. It's not immediately apparent but they display the title at the top.


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## discokermit (Nov 15, 2020)

mauvais said:


> Big differences between the last two links. But it's surprising to me that in such an industrial area, the streets you've talked about seemingly remain to this day. In East Manchester for example, whole areas got wiped from the map with only arterial roads surviving.


first off, you have lost me a days searching with those photos but i needed a break so ta.
second, what you say here was something i hadnt thought about before but now cant stop thinking about. not only do the streets remain but the footpaths became roads. even recently.

could it be cultural? ive noticed massive differences compared to birmingham, which sounds more like manchester. bourgeoise in big hats and nice suits, organised politically, thinking themselves very progressive like those lunar society wankers, possibly religious nonconformists (quakers etc.) grabbing power off and enveloping smaller towns in their orbit.
the black country seemed to be more like the wild west, as long as the earl of dudley got his cut of what you dug up, (which he did cos it was his blokes you sold it to on their terms) nobody gave a shit. a lot of the arrivals here were squatters, the deal being you could come here, pitch a tent or even build a shanty you scraped together out of the clay and then you start digging, turning the earl, or whoever into a rich man instead of him sitting on a load of useless rock.
its obv more complicated than that. bilston, for instance, was mainly copyhold land and as the copyhold courts hadnt sat for hundreds of years the ownership was dubious so anyone could squat there no problem and nobody to pay. you still got fucked though.

could it be topographical? the black country is on one scale fairly flat plateu surrounded by hills but when you get close in almost everywhere has been mined or quarried to one degree or another. there are pits, pools, banks, cuts, mounds and heaps all over the place and the road and footpaths have tended to go around or along them. this ties in with the cultural aspect.

this has deffo got me pondering.


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## mauvais (Nov 15, 2020)

To answer that I would have to understand a lot more about both Manchester & Midlands history than I do.

I went back to look at this re: Manchester and it's not as simple as I thought. Lots of streets do survive, but lots don't.

This, of Beswick in East Manchester, is a good example of 'not'.



I think it was the product of what became unsanitary, low-quality housing - after very heavy industry in these areas like steam locomotive manufacture departed in a short space of time post-war - turning into effectively 'slum clearance' and not being replaced at all until much later. Now some is residential and some is space-consuming 'industrial' parks and warehouses or grand projects like Man City's stadium.

As I say, it's mixed even in these places. When looking at the history of the more affluent suburbs, streets generally survived as you would expect. But often when I've gone looking for specific places in more working class locations, they're all gone, for a variety of reasons. One I tried to find in Stockport is now beneath a bypass.


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## discokermit (Nov 15, 2020)

anyways sedgley is a limestone hillat the northern end of a series of limestone hills. in woodsetton there is a hill called "wrens nest". originally it was called "wrosne" which was old english or summat for a link in a chain or a bead in a string of beads. which it kinda is.


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## discokermit (Nov 15, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I think it was the product of what became unsanitary, low-quality housing - after very heavy industry in these areas like steam locomotive manufacture departed in a short space of time post-war - turning into effectively 'slum clearance' and not being replaced at all until much later. Now some is residential and some is space-consuming 'industrial' parks and warehouses or grand projects like Man City's stadium.
> 
> As I say, it's mixed even in these places. When looking at the history of the more affluent suburbs, streets generally survived as you would expect. But often when I've gone looking for specific places in more working class locations, they're all gone, for a variety of reasons. One I tried to find in Stockport is now beneath a bypass.


that does look like brum, big long streets of houses. thing is though the black country had just as bad if not worse sanitation, its only river is more of a brook. everyone drew from wells that were poisoned from mineworkings and no sewers. the cess pits all leaked into the water table and gave everyone cholera. thing was nobody gave a shit.


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## discokermit (Nov 15, 2020)

mauvais
check this out, squatters houses near me (just to the right of where it says rough hills). you can tell they are squatters houses because of the layout, but i read years ago they were anyway.



now see on the map now, the council houses are all built on the same "plan" and the roads even follow the footpaths. like myrtle street and craven street.


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## lizzieloo (Nov 15, 2020)

discokermit said:


> i have got eight generations of tustin on my tree now. the family lived for generations in blockley. im back to richard tusten, born in 1568.



I tried to find him in BMD but can't. his name was Sam (he died a few years back in Kingswinford), but now I'm wondering if that really was his name, not uncommon with bikers on the boatyard, not sure I ever really knew anyone's real name


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## lizzieloo (Nov 15, 2020)

I always found it cool that if you stick a magnet in the soil round those parts it would always come up covered in iron. I miss the Black Country.


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## discokermit (Nov 15, 2020)

discokermit said:


> mauvais
> check this out, squatters houses near me (just to the right of where it says rough hills). you can tell they are squatters houses because of the layout, but i read years ago they were anyway.
> 
> View attachment 239026
> ...


even the names myrtle street and craven street stand out from the council names the other streets that have filled in the space. black country, where the squatters name the roads they are on myrtle and craven and it just carries on through history.


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## discokermit (Nov 16, 2020)

mad news, part of my moms family comes from radnorshire, so does part of my dads. even here in the land of the inbreeding our families had a headstart. lol.
my great grandad married my great granny named richards from sedgley. his dad married a daughter of a daughter of a richards from sedgley as well. yikes!


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## discokermit (Nov 16, 2020)

Orang Utan is my great great great grandfather!
born in church stretton in 1840?
married in ludlow?
died in clun?
or faked death and carried on living as an immortal but couldnt be bothered to think up a new name? hmm.


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## discokermit (Nov 16, 2020)

cannot say how made up i am i got a grandad bobby t.


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## Orang Utan (Nov 16, 2020)

discokermit said:


> Orang Utan is my great great great grandfather!
> born in church stretton in 1840?
> married in ludlow?
> died in clun?
> or faked death and carried on living as an immortal but couldnt be bothered to think up a new name? hmm.


Shh, don’t tell anyone!


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## platinumsage (Nov 16, 2020)

discokermit said:


> mad news, part of my moms family comes from radnorshire, so does part of my dads. even here in the land of the inbreeding our families had a headstart. lol.
> my great grandad married my great granny named richards from sedgley. his dad married a daughter of a daughter of a richards from sedgley as well. yikes!



I was worried about my ggg-grandad William Thorley from Dilhorne in Staffs who married a Hannah Thorley. Turns out William has three generations of John Thorley's behind him and Hannah has three generations of George Thorley's, so they are at least fourth cousins. They're all from Dilhorne which was tiny so perhaps they kept track of these things to some extent.


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## discokermit (Nov 16, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> I was worried about my ggg-grandad William Thorley from Dilhorne in Staffs who married a Hannah Thorley. Turns out William has three generations of John Thorley's behind him and Hannah has three generations of George Thorley's, so they are at least fourth cousins. They're all from Dilhorne which was tiny so perhaps they kept track of these things to some extent.


i think they kept very good track the further back you go. doing this has made me realise a little bit the power of the church in those days and its role as an arm of the state.


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## discokermit (Nov 16, 2020)

its noticable that almost all my grandmother have unpaid domestic duties as their job, ie housewife. today i found my third great grandmother, mary sefton, was a nailer, proving the women could swing an ommer as good as the men. and almost certainly better than me.


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## Smokeandsteam (Nov 16, 2020)

Interesting thread discokermit. It’s always fascinating to find out how our families found their way to the Black Country. My dads side can be traced back to Yorkshire and moved to the Black Country about 250 years ago to work in the mines. My mom was Irish (and in Brum).

In terms of migration patterns - and correlation to industrial development - I’d say the first waves were mainly from the north and also rural labourers from Worcester, Shropshire, Ireland and Staffordshire forced into the urban districts for work (mainly iron and coal).

Great thread...


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## discokermit (Nov 16, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Interesting thread discokermit. It’s always fascinating to find out how our families found their way to the Black Country. My dads side can be traced back to Yorkshire and moved to the Black Country about 250 years ago to work in the mines. My mom was Irish (and in Brum).
> 
> In terms of migration patterns - and correlation to industrial development - I’d say the first waves were mainly from the north and also rural labourers from Worcester, Shropshire, Ireland and Staffordshire forced into the urban districts for work (mainly iron and coal).
> 
> Great thread...


thats how its looking so far with me, though non from the north, mainly shropshire with some worcestershire and herefordshire which considering the importance of the river severn in those times doesnt surprise me much. some of the shropshire lot came into shropshire from montgomeryshire and some from radnorshire. coal mining seems to be what most of my earlier ones did with the ironwork coming later.


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## discokermit (Nov 16, 2020)

anyway, my plans have changed somewhat since the beginning of the thread. now this is just the first part of my plan to utterly destroy various little hamlets in various shires beginning with broadway in worcestershire. after this is completed, or concurrently, ill play it by ear, i shall be tracking down the entire offspring of broadway justices of the peace, richard hudson and thomas beale cooper esq who i shall assasinate one by one. then i will track down the offspring of broadway church wardens, wardens of the poor etc and do the same until my lust for blood and vengeance has been sated.


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## Pickman's model (Nov 16, 2020)

discokermit said:


> anyway, my plans have changed somewhat since the beginning of the thread. now this is just the first part of my plan to utterly destroy various little hamlets in various shires beginning with broadway in worcestershire. after this is completed, or concurrently, ill play it by ear, i shall be tracking down the entire offspring of broadway justices of the peace, richard hudson and thomas beale cooper esq who i shall assasinate one by one. then i will track down the offspring of broadway church wardens, etc and do the same until my lust for blood and vengeance has been sated.


i hope you won't omit hackney's broadway market


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## discokermit (Nov 16, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> i hope you won't omit hackney's broadway market


you got any hudson/beale cooper in you?


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## Pickman's model (Nov 16, 2020)

discokermit said:


> you got any hudson/beale cooper in you?


no


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## discokermit (Nov 16, 2020)

more churchwarden.


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## discokermit (Nov 16, 2020)

its weird, i had no idea of the emotional toll of doing your family history. its all stuff i had already guessed at but to see it confirmed is something else. and the people who didnt even have names now are not only names but ive seen them born, baptised, married and died. ive seen where they lived and how they worked. they have not only become people but my people. my grandparents.
ive been hit with five hundred years of love and three hundred and fifty years of burning furious anger in about two days.


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## Orang Utan (Nov 16, 2020)

I found out an ancestor was transported to Oz for stealing a bag of nails and beating the Mayor of Plymouth with sticks and I fucking love that.


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## discokermit (Nov 16, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I found out an ancestor was transported to Oz for stealing a bag of nails and beating the Mayor of Plymouth with sticks and I fucking love that.


ive loved it that all my ancestors were working class and before there was a working class, agricultural labourers. its still upsetting to see them go from dying at seventy/eighty generation after generation to dying in their thirties and forties over the space of a generation or two though. the english working class was made by the theft of others. assisted by the wankers who then employed them.


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## blossie33 (Nov 16, 2020)

I have Shropshire connections from my maternal grandmother, her parents came from the Church Stretton and Clun area.


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## discokermit (Nov 16, 2020)

blossie33 said:


> I have Shropshire connections from my maternal grandmother, her parents came from the Church Stretton and Clun area.


we could be related on my mom or dads side. or both!

pugh, pughnot, pursell, crowe, middleton , jones and taylor ive got from around clun.


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## discokermit (Nov 16, 2020)

Clunton and Clunbury,
    Clungunford and Clun,
Are the quietest places
    Under the sun

said ae houseman. they would be quiet after massive forced depopulation.


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## discokermit (Nov 16, 2020)

discokermit said:


> pugh, pughnot,


to pugh, or not to pugh, that is the question, thought alice pughnot sometime in the seventeen forties in hopesay. she decided to pugh, thankfully for me, which is a mark against nominative determinism.


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## discokermit (Nov 16, 2020)

so far i have uncovered 430 relatives. i thought there were a couple of brummies but it was an error and so far i am brummie free.


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## discokermit (Nov 17, 2020)

mauvais said:


> Here's a few higher detail (OS 25 inch) maps:
> 
> 1884: View: Staffordshire LXVII.3 (Coseley; Sedgley) - Ordnance Survey 25 inch England and Wales, 1841-1952
> 1901: View: Staffordshire LXVII.3 (Coseley; Sedgley) - Ordnance Survey 25 inch England and Wales, 1841-1952
> ...


just realised the house where my mom grew up is in this pic. the road at the bottom opposite the road that comes off perpendicular, of the four semi detached houses there, its the left hand one of the right hand two. they had nine kids in that house which didnt get an inside toilet until 1975 or 76 when it was modernised and they were moved down the road to lanesfield. my dads parents house was built a few years later just up the hill a few hundred yards.


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## discokermit (Nov 17, 2020)

talking of lanesfield, my 4th great grandfather thomas pritchard lived there for a bit. born in tipton, a coal miner, did six months for larceny in 1839. died when he was 40.


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## discokermit (Nov 17, 2020)

discokermit said:


> talking of lanesfield, my 4th great grandfather thomas pritchard lived there for a bit. born in tipton, a coal miner, did six months for larceny in 1839. died when he was 40.
> 
> View attachment 239207


when i say died when he was 40, it might be a bit more complicated than that. his wife, martha, got married soon after to a labourer named david guest, just before her and elizabeth guests trial for murder, of which she was found not guilty. she had a child soon after and the guests moved to rotherham.


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## discokermit (Nov 17, 2020)

if i were the judge i would have convicted roger coffee of being a rapist on his name alone.


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## discokermit (Nov 17, 2020)

so yeh, looks like my fourth great grandmother may have killed my fourth great grandfather.


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## discokermit (Nov 17, 2020)

i knew i shouldnt have started this family tree.


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## discokermit (Nov 17, 2020)

her first daughter was born four years before her and my ggg grandfather got married. she was sixteen and he was fifteen.


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## blossie33 (Nov 17, 2020)

discokermit said:


> we could be related on my mom or dads side. or both!
> 
> pugh, pughnot, pursell, crowe, middleton , jones and taylor ive got from around clun.



My ancestors were Luther - there were quite a few of that name around that area. When my grandmother was alive Dad drove us to Clun, Nan remembered where their house was and also that an elderly gentleman (her gt grandfather?) was living in the Almshouses.
We went to the Church, quite a few Luther graves there.


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## blossie33 (Nov 17, 2020)

discokermit said:


> i knew i shouldnt have started this family tree.



I think you're doing amazingly well to have found all that information, it's no easy task!


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## Smokeandsteam (Nov 17, 2020)

discokermit said:


> so far i have uncovered 430 relatives. i thought there were a couple of brummies but it was an error and so far i am brummie free.



Gutted to hear this. I was hoping you’d discover that all your family history led back here as you are always so complementary about Brum


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## Smokeandsteam (Nov 17, 2020)

discokermit said:


> ive loved it that all my ancestors were working class and before there was a working class, agricultural labourers. its still upsetting to see them go from dying at seventy/eighty generation after generation to dying in their thirties and forties over the space of a generation or two though. the english working class was made by the theft of others. assisted by the wankers who then employed them.



When you do your family history you realise the importance of EP Thompson. He was the historian who unearthed these processes of proto-industrialisation and it’s consequences and bought them to wider attention - and he presented his findings to give all those lives meaning and agency.

As the famous quote goes “I am seeking to rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the “obsolete” hand-loom weaver, the “utopian” artisan, and even the deluded follower of Joanna Southcott, from the enormous condescension of posterity. Their crafts and traditions may have been dying. Their hostility to the new industrialism may have been backward-looking. Their communitarian ideals may have been fantasies. Their insurrectionary conspiracies may have been foolhardy. But they lived through these times of acute social disturbance, and we did not. Their aspirations were valid in terms of their own experience…

Your family history sounds like mine. English labouring classes forced into the industrial zones through the enclosure act and starvation. Then starved again and worked to death making nails, working in the iron mills and digging coal. Irish migrants forced here through starvation employed as servants (women) or ‘Labourers’ (men). None could vote. Periodically those left would be made to die in wars.

Enough to make you despise capitalism ai it....


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## discokermit (Nov 17, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> When you do your family history you realise the importance of EP Thompson. He was the historian who unearthed these processes of proto-industrialisation and it’s consequences and bought them to wider attention - and he presented his findings to give all those lives meaning and agency.
> 
> As the famous quote goes “I am seeking to rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the “obsolete” hand-loom weaver, the “utopian” artisan, and even the deluded follower of Joanna Southcott, from the enormous condescension of posterity. Their crafts and traditions may have been dying. Their hostility to the new industrialism may have been backward-looking. Their communitarian ideals may have been fantasies. Their insurrectionary conspiracies may have been foolhardy. But they lived through these times of acute social disturbance, and we did not. Their aspirations were valid in terms of their own experience…
> 
> ...


ay it just.
i think "backward looking" is a loaded term, implicitly negative but if your past involved owning the common land and having enough food and shelter and a community, if a small part of that community wants to use the greater part of the community as expendable fuel for that "progress", then you cant blame them for not seeing being forced into a hole in the ground and thirty years off their life as a forward movement for humanity.
ep thompson may have "rescued the poor stockinger" but i bet one of his ancestors helped kick the poor stockinger off his land.

also, the artisan part. i always thought of the artisans as the proto working class but it doesnt look like that in my family or in the black country in general all ag labourers, then miners, then miners and ironworkers, then ironworkers. so far, i havent found a single artisan or craftsman amongst them.


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## discokermit (Nov 17, 2020)

and if any of the numerous species wiped out since the invention of steam power had a voice, i doubt they would see it as progress either.


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## discokermit (Nov 17, 2020)

if marx and engels had the option of go down a hole in tipton and have thirty years took off your life or starve to death i doubt they would have seen it as progress either. but those werent their options so their view was coloured somewhat.


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## discokermit (Nov 17, 2020)

progress for some was built on the ruin of many by that some.


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## discokermit (Nov 17, 2020)

the idea that industrialism was progress should be reviewed as we stand on the brink of the global disaster caused by it.


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## Smokeandsteam (Nov 17, 2020)

discokermit said:


> if marx and engels had the option of go down a hole in tipton and have thirty years took off your life or starve to death i doubt they would have seen it as progress either. but those werent their options so their view was coloured somewhat.



I think that’s one of the best sections of Thompson’s book when he takes on the argument that industrialisation was a ‘good thing’ for the working class - and demolishes it showing the upheaval, the forced destruction of a way of life and culture and the _increase _in starvation, poverty and forced time disciplined. He also rescues the Luddites pointing out that far from being ‘backward’ their concerns and analysis were both accurate and a defence of a way of life being smashed into nothing...‘Their aspirations were valid etc”

Anyway, back to the thread.....


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## discokermit (Nov 17, 2020)

i have also found and probably shouldn't be proud of but am a little bit, that none of my ancestors so far were ever servants. they would rather dig holes than tug their forelocks.


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## discokermit (Nov 17, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> I think that’s one of the best sections of Thompson’s book when he takes on the argument that industrialisation was a ‘good thing’ for the working class - and demolishes it showing the upheaval, the forced destruction of a way of life and culture and the _increase _in starvation, poverty and forced time disciplined. He also rescues the Luddites pointing out that far from being ‘backward’ their concerns and analysis were both accurate and a defence of a way of life being smashed into nothing...‘Their aspirations were valid etc”
> 
> Anyway, back to the thread.....


i was re reading engels (condition of the working class in england) a while back and couldnt help but notice all its bourgeois cliches about the irish and stuff and even though he was acknowledging the suffering it still had those overtones of "progress" that you would expect from any of those dickhead statues in brum of top hatted twats with tailcoats who never even knew anybody who went down the holes they made their money from.
books and books and books for hundreds of years, written by the sad and sympathetic sons and daughters of the people whose education was paid for by the enslavement of the people they feel sorry for, either by their ancestors or assisted by their ancestors.
im sick of reading books about us by people who arent us and dont and cant think like us. im sick of books to be honest.


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## discokermit (Nov 17, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Gutted to hear this. I was hoping you’d discover that all your family history led back here as you are always so complementary about Brum


i was very pleased, lol!
on a serious note though, it does show the degree of separation despite their geographical closeness.


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## Smokeandsteam (Nov 17, 2020)

discokermit said:


> im sick of reading books about us by people who arent us and dont and cant think like us. im sick of books to be honest.



You’ve hit the nail on the head there pal.

Talking of nails I’ve just re-read Arthur Willett’s book on the Black Country nailworkers riots of 1842.

Usual working day 4.00am to 10.00pm. Youngest workers 5 years old. Average life expectancy 23.4

When the bosses cut the piece rate by 20% (and in many cases there was no pay - it was a ‘truck’ system of payment in kind where workers were paid in goods by the master at double the usual price) the workers rioted and went into the homes of the bosses -roughing some up a bit - forcing them into Dudley for ‘further negotiations’ on lay rates.

This after none of the nail workers had eaten for two days. The army was sent in from Birmingham to slash and batter the rioters. New cops and magistrates were sworn in.

The leaders were then sentenced to hard labour and/or deportation.
Benjamin Bache, Joseph Linney, Eber Johnson, Joseph Foster, Charles Bridgwater, E Edwards, Elijah Bingham, Elijah Chapman and Edward Greenfield - names of our own class and history who nobody remembers......


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## discokermit (Nov 17, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> You’ve hit the nail on the head there pal.
> 
> Talking of nails I’ve just re-read Arthur Willett’s book on the Black Country nailworkers riots of 1842.
> 
> ...


it was those riots that got me started on this. i was reading about the nailor riot in sedgley and one of the rioters was named richards, got two months and is now buried just up the road. knowing i had richards blood in me (twice, as it happens) it made me wonder if we were related. i didnt even know if i had any ancestors around here at that time or what they did but i do now. 
another thing about it was the magistrates name was badger, which was also the name of the works manager at the foundry down the hill where i did my apprenticeship.


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## discokermit (Nov 17, 2020)

im gonna make a telly programme about this called "ood'nya think yow am?"


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## discokermit (Nov 17, 2020)

funny thing is my brother has gone the opposite way from the general trend. he now lives with his wife and children, he is an agricultural labourer (nearly, clearing brush from the side of railway lines), living in a tiny little village in devon on the edge of the moor. his wife would be listed as unpaid domestic duties and his kids have stopped going to school. he couldnt be happier. he is even growing his own tobacco, along with the chickens and rabbits hes got.


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## discokermit (Nov 17, 2020)

brothers house, council,




brothers view from the back door,






we all used to live like this.


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## discokermit (Dec 8, 2020)

things have taken a weird turn!
after going through over five hundred relatives today took an unexpected turn, amongst all the miners and ommerers i discovered a posh branch. my sixteenth great grandfather was executed for treason and i might be related to churchill/princess diana/the plantagenets.


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## discokermit (Dec 8, 2020)

an earl, a baronet, a lord of the manor in surrey, some of them born in castles, a colonel, knights of the garter, a chancellor of the exchequer, henry the sevenths standard bearer, sherrifs, constable of calais, ambassador to france, master of hunting, privy chamber member, all sorts of flotsam and jetsam.


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## Puddy_Tat (Dec 8, 2020)

discokermit said:


> an earl, a baronet, a lord of the manor in surrey, some of them born in castles, a colonel, knights of the garter, a chancellor of the exchequer, henry the sevenths standard bearer, sherrifs, constable of calais, ambassador to france, master of hunting, privy chamber member, all sorts of flotsam and jetsam.



this is why i've never been all that keen on family research - the risk of finding someone disreputable...


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## discokermit (Dec 8, 2020)

and a couple of members of parliament.


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## discokermit (Dec 8, 2020)

Puddy_Tat said:


> this is why i've never been all that keen on family research - the risk of finding someone disreputable...


it all went wrong when my seventh great grandfather got my seventh great grandmother pregnant, ten and a bit months before they married. her very posh family (muschamp) had married into a family of tipton gentry, the jevons family, who i presume made a lot of money during the industrial revolution. their daughter met my iron working grandad, johnny webb, in tipton. then it all went to shit for them.


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## Orang Utan (Dec 8, 2020)

discokermit said:


> an earl, a baronet, a lord of the manor in surrey, some of them born in castles, a colonel, knights of the garter, a chancellor of the exchequer, henry the sevenths standard bearer, sherrifs, constable of calais, ambassador to france, master of hunting, privy chamber member, all sorts of flotsam and jetsam.


castle wanker


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## discokermit (Dec 8, 2020)

i have a twelfth great grandfather named agmondesham muschamp!


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## discokermit (Dec 8, 2020)




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## Orang Utan (Dec 8, 2020)

reclaim it, mate!


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## discokermit (Dec 8, 2020)

discokermit said:


> . her very posh family (muschamp) had married into a family of tipton gentry, the jevons family, who i presume made a lot of money during the industrial revolution.


they were married at saint pauls cathedral in 1701.


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## Puddy_Tat (Dec 8, 2020)

discokermit said:


> View attachment 242444



"offers scope for DIY enthusiast"


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## discokermit (Dec 8, 2020)

Betchworth Castle - Wikipedia
					






					en.m.wikipedia.org


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## discokermit (Dec 8, 2020)

my sixteenth great grandad,  Thomas Browne (died 1460) - Wikipedia. born in 1402, executed for treason, 1460.


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## discokermit (Dec 8, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> reclaim it, mate!


it was built for this grandad, John FitzAlan, 1st Baron Arundel - Wikipedia


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## discokermit (Dec 8, 2020)

my heritage seems to be ninety nine percent celtic labourer and one percent norman castle living cunt.


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## Puddy_Tat (Dec 8, 2020)

discokermit said:


> it was built for this grandad, John FitzAlan, 1st Baron Arundel - Wikipedia



if i'm reading that right, then a few more generations back was king henry iii

when are you going for the fitting?


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## discokermit (Dec 9, 2020)

Puddy_Tat said:


> if i'm reading that right, then a few more generations back was king henry iii
> 
> when are you going for the fitting?


it is time to claim my throne.  Alan fitz Flaad - Wikipedia





__





						Ernulf de Hesdin - Wikipedia
					






					en.m.wikipedia.org


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## discokermit (Dec 9, 2020)

so, my ancestors, the start of the stewart dynasty. lol!


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## discokermit (Dec 9, 2020)

i worked it out, of the 1024 ancestors i have in the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century, one is norman bastard posh, one is tipton gentry posh and the rest are all working class or agricultural labourers.
obviously i was hoping to not find any trace of the normans. or the saxons for that matter. but overall that is a tiny percentage.


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## nogojones (Dec 9, 2020)

I can't wait for the discokermit commemorative mug


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## discokermit (Dec 9, 2020)

when i read that one of my g. grannies might have murded one of my coal mining g. grandads, i was very upset. now i have just read about one of my great grandads being executed with a blunt sword that took twenty two hacks to get through and it made me laugh out loud! these cunts are like the sopranos. posh people are awful. Edmund Fitzalan, 2nd Earl of Arundel - Wikipedia


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## Edie (Dec 9, 2020)

discokermit said:


> my sixteenth great grandad,  Thomas Browne (died 1460) - Wikipedia. born in 1402, executed for treason, 1460.


Mate surely when you get that far back, cos presumably for each generation you step back there are four possible grandparent lineages to potentially follow, by 16 generations haven’t you got to the point where everyone’s descended from Henry the Eighth or Attila the Hun anyway?


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## discokermit (Dec 9, 2020)

now i can despise the middle classes from both sides! one silver lining.


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## Pickman's model (Dec 9, 2020)

discokermit said:


> now i can despise the middle classes from both sides! one silver lining.


when i posted before i hadn't read the thread through but now i have i'm impressed with your research and the success you've had going back centuries when most people would struggle going back to 1800. i know my opinion weighs lightly with you, but it's an amazing piece of work.


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## discokermit (Dec 9, 2020)

Edie said:


> Mate surely when you get that far back, cos presumably for each generation you step back there are four possible grandparent lineages to potentially follow, by 16 generations haven’t you got to the point where everyone’s descended from Henry the Eighth or Attila the Hun anyway?


i think so. plus you only have to get one aristo in your tree and you are pretty much into all of them, the fucking inbreds. from cursory looks i seem to have gg parents from italy, france, welsh princes and brian boru. ancestry does a two week free trial if you wanna do your own and see!


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## Edie (Dec 9, 2020)

discokermit said:


> i think so. plus you only have to get one aristo in your tree and you are pretty much into all of them, the fucking inbreds. from cursory looks i seem to have gg parents from italy, france, welsh princes and brian boru. ancestry does a two week free trial if you wanna do your own and see!


I still remember you saying being born working class was like winning the lottery of life, and I still fully love you for that comment possibly over a decade on


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## discokermit (Dec 9, 2020)

discokermit said:


> when i read that one of my g. grannies might have murded one of my coal mining g. grandads, i was very upset. now i have just read about one of my great grandads being executed with a blunt sword that took twenty two hacks to get through and it made me laugh out loud! these cunts are like the sopranos. posh people are awful. Edmund Fitzalan, 2nd Earl of Arundel - Wikipedia


i just had some fun with my homophobic dad. "one of your great grandads killed the kings boyfriend!" i says, setting the trap. "he soon got another one" says my dad. "he did, another one of your great grandads!" says i. boom! have that.


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## discokermit (Dec 9, 2020)

Edie said:


> I still remember you saying being born working class was like winning the lottery of life, and I still fully love you for that comment possibly over a decade on


now, finding the tiny teensy bit of norman in me i have something to blame all my faults on. lazy? those fucking normans. feel like wildly riding round on a horse stabbing people? fucking normans.


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## platinumsage (Dec 9, 2020)

You should work out how many people you need to kill in order to be next in line to the throne.


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## Edie (Dec 9, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> You should work out how many people you need to kill in order to be next in line to the throne.


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## Puddy_Tat (Dec 9, 2020)

discokermit said:


> ancestry does a two week free trial if you wanna do your own and see!



obviously will vary locally, but local library service here has put access to ancestry online because of lockdown.

haven't used it for much family research (did some digging when happened to find a 1930s photograph of a shop in southend with my family name on - went back 3 generations in the hoxton patch and can't see any obvious link to family i'm aware of) but the phone book archive is quite handy for trying to nail down locations of old street scenes that come up on the interweb


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## discokermit (Dec 9, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> You should work out how many people you need to kill in order to be next in line to the throne.


 i was trying to think of which ones i could tap up for cash but this is a much better and i think, considering their background, more appropriate idea.


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## discokermit (Dec 9, 2020)

the crown just about to be lowered onto williams head when i burst in on the coronation, "whoa! owd up! not ser fast owd chum".


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## discokermit (Dec 9, 2020)

premature baldness? curse this foul blood.


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## discokermit (Dec 9, 2020)

discokermit said:


> it all went wrong when my seventh great grandfather got my seventh great grandmother pregnant, ten and a bit months before they married. her very posh family (muschamp) had married into a family of tipton gentry, the jevons family, who i presume made a lot of money during the industrial revolution. their daughter met my iron working grandad, johnny webb, in tipton. then it all went to shit for them.


talking to my brother about the ten and a bit month delay before the marriage of poor johnny webb and posh pregnant anne jevons, he reckons the parents made her wait to see if the child lived before getting married. sounds about right.


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## nogojones (Dec 9, 2020)

discokermit said:


> the crown just about to be lowered onto williams head when i burst in on the coronation, "whoa! owd up! not ser fast owd chum".


I think all the lower dukes and princes shouldn't be a problem for you, but watch out for Liz, she's the final boss


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## discokermit (Dec 9, 2020)

back to sedgley, i have got as far as thomas bate, 1600, thomas jevons, 1643 and elizabeth morris, 1644, all born there.


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## discokermit (Dec 9, 2020)

william elwell, born 1580, sedgley. married anne gunson who was also born 1580 in sedgley.
gunson is a bit of an odd name. i would like to have met her father and say gunson, you sonofagun.


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## discokermit (Dec 9, 2020)

another posho from that terrible line, Sir John Jacob, 1st Baronet - Wikipedia


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## discokermit (Dec 9, 2020)

king of sicily Edmund Crouchback - Wikipedia


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## discokermit (Dec 9, 2020)

and a shitty king of england, Henry III of England - Wikipedia


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## discokermit (Dec 9, 2020)

this is one of the worst most embarrasing things ever. my great grandad john John, King of England - Wikipedia


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## discokermit (Dec 9, 2020)

what a pair of wankers they were.


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## discokermit (Dec 10, 2020)

discokermit said:


> this is one of the worst most embarrasing things ever. my great grandad john John, King of England - Wikipedia


didnt take me long to work out if i was a direct descendant of henry the third, then i was also a direct descendant of william the bastard. oh the fucking shame.


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## blossie33 (Dec 10, 2020)

I'm amazed you are able to find all this information...and seemingly quite quickly too!
Are you using information online, like Ancestry, census, church records etc ?


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## discokermit (Dec 10, 2020)

blossie33 said:


> I'm amazed you are able to find all this information...and seemingly quite quickly too!
> Are you using information online, like Ancestry, census, church records etc ?


ancestry mainly. a lot of the work is done by other people and i just have to cross reference stuff to make sure it is ok. if you find a proper posho its easy to trace their ancestry on wikipedia. im back to rollo the viking, born in 860, and poppa of bayeux, born 880. poppa of bayeux may have been the daughter of berengar ii of neustria. Poppa of Bayeux - Wikipedia


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## discokermit (Dec 10, 2020)

just found the engels quote about the children of black country,  "so stolid, so hopelessly stupid, that they often asserted that they were well treated, were coming on famously, when they were forced to work twelve to fourteen hours , were clad in rags, did not get enough to eat, and were beaten so that they felt it several days afterwards. They knew nothing of a different kind of life than that in which they toil from morning until they are allowed to stop at night, and did not even understand the question never heard before, whether they were tired."

 thats not stupid, thats survival, top hatted bourgeoise cunt.


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## discokermit (Dec 10, 2020)

discokermit said:


> just found the engels quote about the children of black country,  "so stolid, so hopelessly stupid, that they often asserted that they were well treated, were coming on famously, when they were forced to work twelve to fourteen hours , were clad in rags, did not get enough to eat, and were beaten so that they felt it several days afterwards. They knew nothing of a different kind of life than that in which they toil from morning until they are allowed to stop at night, and did not even understand the question never heard before, whether they were tired."
> 
> thats not stupid, thats survival, top hatted bourgeoise cunt.


engels, so stolid, so hopelessly stupid, asserted he was coming on famously, when he was forced to wear the ridiculous clothes of his and grow a big stupid beard. he knew nothing of a different kind of life where people had a laugh and took the piss.


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## discokermit (Dec 10, 2020)

this one always makes me laugh though,

‘In Wolverhampton,’says Commissioner Home, ‘I found, among others, the following example: A girl of eleven years had attended both day and Sunday school, “had never heard of another world, of Heaven, or another life.”A boy, seventeen years old, did not know that twice two are four, nor how many farthings in two pence even when the money was placed in his hand. Several boys had never heard of London nor of Willenhall, though the latter was but an hour’s walk from their homes, and in the closest relations with Wolverhampton. Several had never heard the name of the Queen nor other names, such as Nelson, Wellington, Bonaparte; but it was noteworthy that those who had never heard even of St Paul, Moses, or Solomon, were very well instructed as to the life, deeds, and character of Dick Turpin, the street-robber, and especially of Jack Sheppard, the thief and gaol-breaker. A youth of sixteen did not know how many twice two are, nor how much four farthings make. A youth of seventeen asserted that four farthings are four half pence; a third, seventeen years old, answered several very simple questions with the brief statement, that he “was ne jedge o’nothin’”. 12 These children who are crammed with religious doctrines four or five years at a stretch, know as little at the end as at the beginning. One child ‘went to Sunday school regularly for five years; does not know who Jesus Christ is, but had heard the name; had never heard of the twelve Apostles, Samson, Moses, Aaron, etc.’13 Another ‘attended Sunday school regularly six years; knows who Jesus Christ was; he died on the cross to save our Saviour; had never heard of St Peter or St Paul’. 14 A third, ‘attended different Sunday schools seven years; can read only the thin, easy books with simple words of one syllable; has heard of the Apostles, but does not know whether St Peter was one or St John; the latter must have been St John Wesley’. To the question who Christ was, Home received the following answers among others. ‘He was Adam’, ‘He was an Apostle’, ‘He was the Saviour’s Lord’s Son’, and from a youth of sixteen: ‘He was a king of London long ago’. In Sheffield, Commissioner Symons let the children from the Sunday school read aloud; they could not tell what they had read, or what sort of people the Apostles were, of whom they had just been reading. After he had asked them all one after the other about the Apostles without securing a single correct answer, one sly-looking little fellow, with great glee, called out: ‘I know, mister; they were the lepers!’


from one gleeful sly looking little fellow to another, i tip my hat.


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## Smokeandsteam (Dec 10, 2020)

discokermit said:


> just found the engels quote about the children of black country,  "so stolid, so hopelessly stupid, that they often asserted that they were well treated, were coming on famously, when they were forced to work twelve to fourteen hours , were clad in rags, did not get enough to eat, and were beaten so that they felt it several days afterwards. They knew nothing of a different kind of life than that in which they toil from morning until they are allowed to stop at night, and did not even understand the question never heard before, whether they were tired."
> 
> thats not stupid, thats survival, top hatted bourgeoise cunt.



where is that from pal?


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## nogojones (Dec 10, 2020)

discokermit said:


> ancestry mainly. a lot of the work is done by other people and i just have to cross reference stuff to make sure it is ok. if you find a proper posho its easy to trace their ancestry on wikipedia. im back to rollo the viking, born in 860, and poppa of bayeux, born 880. poppa of bayeux may have been the daughter of berengar ii of neustria. Poppa of Bayeux - Wikipedia


Are they related to Poppa Large?


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## discokermit (Dec 10, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> where is that from pal?


the condition of the working class in england.  location 3984 on my kindle, whatever the fuck that means, 59% through. if it provides page numbers i cant find them. just after talking about willenhall lock makers.


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## discokermit (Dec 10, 2020)

nogojones said:


> Are they related to Poppa Large?


distantly, they descend from the cadet branch in burgundy. related to poppa cap in yo ass and poppoppoppoppoppoppa om ma mow mow papa om mow ma mow


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## discokermit (Dec 10, 2020)

ive been trying to avoid tracing these royals because they are scum but its like a scab i cant stop myself picking. anyway, great grandad king of the franks, Robert the Strong - Wikipedia


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## discokermit (Dec 10, 2020)

a saint! Matilda of Ringelheim - Wikipedia


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## discokermit (Dec 10, 2020)

leader of the saxons, died in 785. possibly hadnt even heard of sedgley. lol. Widukind - Wikipedia


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## discokermit (Dec 10, 2020)

tadaa! got there in the end.    Charlemagne - Wikipedia

this may be true then, So you’re related to Charlemagne? You and every other living European…


----------



## mx wcfc (Dec 10, 2020)

discokermit said:


> tadaa! got there in the end.    Charlemagne - Wikipedia
> 
> this may be true then, So you’re related to Charlemagne? You and every other living European…


Not impressed mate.  get to Alfred the Great, and from there you are straight back to Woden Himself.


----------



## discokermit (Dec 10, 2020)

anyway, fuck all them dickheads for a bit, heres great great great great grandad james ingram, born in 1809 in west bromwich, died 1892, friar park, west brom, 



i never knew they had synths then.


----------



## discokermit (Dec 10, 2020)

discokermit said:


> tadaa! got there in the end.    Charlemagne - Wikipedia
> 
> this may be true then, So you’re related to Charlemagne? You and every other living European…


it took six hundred and thirty seven years from the norman conquest for my aristo family line to lower themselves to marrying the gentry, then another thirty two years until those norman genes hit the working class.


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## Smokeandsteam (Dec 11, 2020)

discokermit said:


> anyway, fuck all them dickheads for a bit, heres great great great great grandad james ingram, born in 1809 in west bromwich, died 1892, friar park, west brom,
> 
> 
> 
> i never knew they had synths then.




Friar Park is Wednesbury not West Brom


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## discokermit (Dec 11, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Friar Park is Wednesbury not West Brom


only since 1966.


----------



## discokermit (Dec 11, 2020)

friar park, for those interested,


----------



## BCBlues (Dec 11, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Friar Park is Wednesbury not West Brom



Friar Park is not even Friar Park since they knocked the famous Coronation pub down for an Aldi.


----------



## discokermit (Dec 11, 2020)

where i live has at various times been recorded as ettingshall, coseley, sedgley bilston and wolvo as various borders and authorities changed.


----------



## nata33 (Dec 11, 2020)

amazing post.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Dec 11, 2020)

discokermit said:


> friar park, for those interested,




Used to love Credit. Matty moved to London and went a bit off the rails iirc?


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Dec 11, 2020)

discokermit said:


> where i live has at various times been recorded as ettingshall, coseley, sedgley bilston and wolvo as various borders and authorities changed.



And now it’s Greater Birmingham...


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## discokermit (Dec 11, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> And now it’s Greater Birmingham...


oof! low blow.


----------



## discokermit (Dec 11, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Used to love Credit. Matty moved to London and went a bit off the rails iirc?


i dunno.he was local celeb then i heard nothing. great though.


----------



## discokermit (Dec 11, 2020)

so, this is interesting, mary tustin, who was married to richard haynes and kicked out of broadway worcestershire for being too poor, i mentioned them earlier, hersix or seven times great grandfather was this feller, William Daunce - Wikipedia which means she and i are also from Thomas More - Wikipedia
another execution for treason and another posh line snagged and destroyed.


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## discokermit (Dec 11, 2020)

karl marx called my ggrandad a communist hero, according to wiki.


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## discokermit (Dec 12, 2020)

great nan and grandad john and jane jones, living in an alms house in knighton, radnorshire,


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 12, 2020)

Newspapers can add some colour if you haven't checked those yet. Ancestry's newspaper search function is shite.

The British Newspaper Archive is good, as is newspapers.com which has some local UK stuff despite being more global.

Thanks to the former I just discovered that my gggggrandfather, a lifelong cowman, won third prize at a country agricultural show in the 1860s for "Labourers in Husbandry who shall have worked the longest time in the same place, or with the same master or mistress, without intermission" having worked on the same farm for 52 years. He got £1 10s which was probably nearly a month's wages.


----------



## discokermit (Dec 12, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Newspaper can add some colour if you haven't checked those yet. Ancestry's newspaper search function is shite.
> 
> The British Newspaper Archive is good, as is newspapers.com which has some local UK stuff despite being more global.
> 
> Thanks to the former I just discovered that my gggggrandfather, a lifelong cowman, won third prize at a country agricultural show in the 1860s for "Labourers in Husbandry who shall have worked the longest time in the same place, or with the same master or mistress, without intermission" having worked on the same farm for 52 years. He got £1 10s which was probably nearly a month's wages.


ta, will check that.

i found a place name in my history! joan dudlick (1533-1580), son of thomas dudlick (1510-1535). she lived in mytton/fitz shropshire. the name comes from dudllewick, which was a place in shropshire. near burwarton, which another ancestor is from.


----------



## discokermit (Dec 12, 2020)

discokermit said:


> this one always makes me laugh though,
> 
> ‘In Wolverhampton,’says Commissioner Home, ‘I found, among others, the following example: A girl of eleven years had attended both day and Sunday school, “had never heard of another world, of Heaven, or another life.”A boy, seventeen years old, did not know that twice two are four, nor how many farthings in two pence even when the money was placed in his hand. Several boys had never heard of London nor of Willenhall, though the latter was but an hour’s walk from their homes, and in the closest relations with Wolverhampton. Several had never heard the name of the Queen nor other names, such as Nelson, Wellington, Bonaparte; but it was noteworthy that those who had never heard even of St Paul, Moses, or Solomon, were very well instructed as to the life, deeds, and character of Dick Turpin, the street-robber, and especially of Jack Sheppard, the thief and gaol-breaker. A youth of sixteen did not know how many twice two are, nor how much four farthings make. A youth of seventeen asserted that four farthings are four half pence; a third, seventeen years old, answered several very simple questions with the brief statement, that he “was ne jedge o’nothin’”. 12 These children who are crammed with religious doctrines four or five years at a stretch, know as little at the end as at the beginning. One child ‘went to Sunday school regularly for five years; does not know who Jesus Christ is, but had heard the name; had never heard of the twelve Apostles, Samson, Moses, Aaron, etc.’13 Another ‘attended Sunday school regularly six years; knows who Jesus Christ was; he died on the cross to save our Saviour; had never heard of St Peter or St Paul’. 14 A third, ‘attended different Sunday schools seven years; can read only the thin, easy books with simple words of one syllable; has heard of the Apostles, but does not know whether St Peter was one or St John; the latter must have been St John Wesley’. To the question who Christ was, Home received the following answers among others. ‘He was Adam’, ‘He was an Apostle’, ‘He was the Saviour’s Lord’s Son’, and from a youth of sixteen: ‘He was a king of London long ago’. In Sheffield, Commissioner Symons let the children from the Sunday school read aloud; they could not tell what they had read, or what sort of people the Apostles were, of whom they had just been reading. After he had asked them all one after the other about the Apostles without securing a single correct answer, one sly-looking little fellow, with great glee, called out: ‘I know, mister; they were the lepers!’
> 
> ...


reading this stuff makes me think of work, ive worked in a foundry, and what if someone came in dressed like the commissioner, asking questions, what sort of answers they would get and what they would think of it. reminds me of me and my mates telling the careers teacher at school we wanted to be things like a shephard. i told the careers teacher i wanted to be a gravedigger because my hobby was digging holes and my mom was getting fed up with what id done to the garden.
we had visitors to the foundry from another business when i was an apprentice and had got the place tidied a bit and all been told to be on our best behaviour. when i saw our top bosses showing their top bosses around i walked past them with the most exagerated limp i could muster, swinging one leg, stiff and straight, in a big arc. two minutes later i did it back the other way but swapped legs.

my mate alan had done his apprenticeship at bilston steelworks, they had visitors from an american company so they made brims for their hard hats out of cardboard to look like cowboys and made little wooden guns. he said they were having quick draw competitions for weeks afterwards. he reckoned the fastest gun in the works was a bloke hilariously named rick o'shea!


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## discokermit (Dec 15, 2020)

my ggg grandmother, mary hill, was born in lye waste, a squatters settlement, mainly nailers i believe, also known as "mud city" or "clay city", in 1824. she may have been fourteen when she got married.

here it is a bit later,



and for those into road planning, or lack of it, here it is now,












						“Slums” of the Black Country: Waste Bank, Lye
					

The South Staffordshire coalfield defines the Black Country for many purposes, but as a culturally-defined region, its borders are highly porous. Wolverhampton is in or out, depending on who you as…




					uptheossroad.wordpress.com


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 16, 2020)

discokermit said:


> ive been trying to avoid tracing these royals because they are scum but its like a scab i cant stop myself picking. anyway, great grandad king of the franks, Robert the Strong - Wikipedia


<tugs forelock>


----------



## discokermit (Dec 16, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> <tugs forelock>


no need. by my reckoning im roughly 99.9% weasel/stoat, and at best 0.05% badger and 0.05% toad.

i also have foxes and crowes, when it comes to actual names.


----------



## discokermit (Jan 3, 2021)

this video is great, especially the miner. i had ancestors in brierley hill, miners, 


this un is from the year i was born,


gornal, sedgley, in the seventies,


some great old pathe footage in this un.


----------



## blossie33 (Jan 3, 2021)

Great videos but the mining one is quite sad   dreadful conditions people had to work in.


----------



## discokermit (Jan 3, 2021)

blossie33 said:


> Great videos but the mining one is quite sad   dreadful conditions people had to work in.


they knew how to laugh and sing though, even if they did die in a horrific accident by time they were forty.


----------



## blossie33 (Jan 3, 2021)

Yes, they just had to make the best of it didn't they.


----------



## discokermit (Jan 3, 2021)

blossie33 said:


> Yes, they just had to make the best of it didn't they.


and they did.


----------



## discokermit (Jan 3, 2021)

blossie33 said:


> dreadful conditions people had to work in.


thinking about this and the time the foundry i worked in forced people to wear their safety equipment. everyone was outraged we had to wear hard hats instead of normal hats and caps and also had to wear ear defenders/plugs and facemasks. there was a lot of resistance. also the phrase you're not a fitter til you've lost a finger didnt deter people, it was more of a badge of honour.
the harder it is, the more we kinda enjoy it.


----------



## blossie33 (Jan 3, 2021)

Yep, I can understand that.


----------



## discokermit (Jan 3, 2021)

so, the thread title is all roads lead to sedgley, but so far i am finding that most of the roads on my own personal map seem to start mainly in shropshire, followed by radnorshire, montgomeryshire, staffordshire and herefordshire, with a tiny bit of worcestershire, warwickshire and gloucestershire. if you map them out they seem to correspond with mercia and before that the land of the cornovii. both sides of the river severn.

sedgley itself i can trace ancestors back to a couple born here, one henry born in 1515 who married alice who was born here in 1520.

i have been surprised to find nothing from brum, nothing from ireland, nothing east of coventry, very little east of the western side of the black country, nothing north of telford.
three of my grandparents have ancestors who all seem to come from the same small area on the border of shropshire, herefordshire, montgomeryshire and radnorshire.
also it seems to be almost entirely agricultural labourers, whos children became coal miners, then, as the work changed ironworkers (though one bit of the family seem to be ironworkers going back as far as i can, 1580.)
there is a tiny sliver of gentry/aristocracy that downgraded in 1720 something when she got pregnant out of wedlock to an ironworker but no sign of any middle class anywhere else.










						Cornovii (Midlands) - Wikipedia
					






					en.m.wikipedia.org


----------



## discokermit (Jan 3, 2021)

i have found two murder acquittals, a sheepstealing acquittal, a larceny acquittal, three larceny convictions and one for assault with intent to ravish. one geat great grandad was acquitted of stealing brass parts off a steam engine while his mothers brother got convicted at the same trial. the quintessential black country crime of tatting.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 3, 2021)

discokermit said:


> i have found two murder acquittals, a sheepstealing acquittal, a larceny acquittal, three larceny convictions and one for assault with intent to ravish. one geat great grandad was acquitted of stealing brass parts off a steam engine while his mothers brother got convicted at the same trial. the quintessential black country crime of tatting.



There's some interesting sentences sometimes. I've just been reading reports of the Norwich Assizes from the 1850s e.g.:

Stealing a gun - one month imprisonment with hard labour
Stealing an old pair of trousers - three month imprisonment with hard labour
Stealing a plank (fourth offence) - transported for ten years


----------



## discokermit (Jan 3, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> There's some interesting sentences sometimes. I've just been reading reports of the Norwich Assizes from the 1850s e.g.:
> 
> Stealing a gun - one month imprisonment with hard labour
> Stealing an old pair of trousers - three month imprisonment with hard labour
> Stealing a plank (fourth offence) - transported for ten years


i was looking through some local court stuff for wolverhampton and it seemed almost every other one was a boatman involved in an act of violence. their favourite weapon was the winding handle for the lock but they werent averse to pulling out a knife.
ive got at least two boatmen ancestors.


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## discokermit (Jan 5, 2021)

some ends of the lines i been following where i have gotten as far as i can for now,

edward webb, 1580, married frannces bury, born 1580 in ludlow. their child was born in brewood, staffordshire, which was making iron at the time. a few generations later they moved to forton, staffs, near newport, shropshire. the first of their ancestors born in sedgley was john webb in 1705.
frannces bury was the child of robert bury, 1542, and winifred hall, 1558. both born in shropshire.

ambrose hale and jane elwell were both born in sedgley in 1615. janes parents, william and anne were both born in sedgley in 1588. williams mother, dorothy daniel, was born in sedgley in 1575, so was thirteen when she became a mother.

thomas bate was born 1600 in sedgley. married als tompsone who gave birth to joan in 1636 in gornalwood, sedgley.

henry jevens was born 1515 in sedgley. married alice who was born 1520, sedgley.

prudence hinley, born 1741 in dudley, joined the sedgley lot when after marrying moses webb who was born in 1737 in sedgley.

thomas painter, born in burslem in 1723, moved to west bromwich and had a son, also thomas, in 1741. thomas junior married mary grainger from great barr and lived in wednesbury.

thomas hale, different hales to the previous ones, born 1720 in west brom, married hannah robinson, born 1740 in wednesbury.

john cartwright, 1760, wednesbury, married mary parkes, born 1763, wednesbury. marys grandfather, george, was born 1685 in wednesbury. her mother, martha parkes (stokes) was born in wednesbury in 1735.

william haynes, 1700, blockley worcestershire. this is the line with sheepstealing and transportation and eventually a coalmine in rushall then sedgley.
his son, richard rose haynes married anne handy, whose grandfather edward handy was born in blockley in 1670. her mothers parents, james marks and sarah cane were both born in temple, bristol, in 1675.

the tustins/tustens/tustons of broadway, worcestershire, though impoverished by the early nineteenth century may not always have been and settled in worcestershire. the furthest back i have gone is john tustin, born 1528, whose son john was born in london in 1548. johns son was born in 1568 in worcestershire.

isabell tayler, 1568, birlingham, worcestershire.

richard white, 1642, forthampton, gloucestershire.

the daunces go back to thomas more, 1478? the most recent saint in the family. cant be bothered to go further with those for a bit.

william richards, 1737, dudley, married mary, 1741, dudley and moved to sedgley where their son thomas was born in 1765. thomas married mary whitehouse who was born in sedgley in 1769.

benjamin richards, born 1721 in sedgley and married anne ross who was born in 1724 in sedgley. her parents, charles ross and sarah blakeway were both born in sedgley in 1700. sarahs mother was born in shropshire.

hannah parkes, 1761, tipton.

timothy woodhall, 1760, dudley.

ann sidaway 1758, dudley.

john hayes, 1812, woodsetton, sedgley.


hannah thomas, born 1778 in coseley, sedgley, married richard bowater born 1779 in wombourne.

sam parkes 1837, gornal, sedgley.

richard pugh, born 1720 in shropshire, married alice pughnot, also 1720 shropshire. they lived in hopesay in shropshire.

william pursell married mary wilkinson, they lived in whitchurch, shropshire and had a son, william, in 1672.

thomas ness was born in 1650 in shropshire, as was his wife jane.

william jacks was born 1620 in shropshire.

sam and rebecca gardner both born 1660 in shropshire.

william crowe, 1691, montgomery, powys (montgomeryshire)

humphrey humphreys, lol! born 1770 in llandyssil. humphrey humphreys married maggie morris in the church of st tyssil, llandyssil!

thomas middleton, 1737, llanbadarn fawr, powys (radnorshire), married elizabeth bayes, born 1733, also llanbadern fawr.

william anslow, 1715, stottesden, shropshire. he married alice hancock who was born in aston botterell, shropshire in 1720.

john morris born 1790 in presteigne, powys (radnorshire), married elizabeth of lapewaterdine, shropshire.

john cooper 1828, sedgley, was a coalminer who married ann, also born in sedgley. her father, joseph ward was born in bilston in 1793.


thomas brookes, 1821, oldbury, a miner, married sarah walker who was born in 1822 in rowley regis.



francis gilbert, 1637, married anne bagshawe. they were both born in staffordshire, i think near rugeley. by before 1722 the family was in west bromwich.


alice hadley,from hindlip in worcestershire was born in 1698.

elizabeth baker, 1720, stoke, coventry, warwickshire.


mary wild 1747, bulkington, warwickshire.


john bibb, 1742, west bromwich who married phoebe sitch, born 1745 in west bromwich.


maria mountain, 1803, west bromwich

joseph ingram, a miner, 1775, west bromwich, married mary tellons and they lived near where sandwell general hospital is now.


john stanley, miner, 1806, tipton.

thomas pritchard 1815, tipton. miner. his mother, elizabeth sheldon, was born in tipton in 1790. his dad william was also born, i think, in tipton, certainly staffordshire, in 1785.


martha morris was born in 1814 in tipton, on trial for murder the year after her husband thomas pritchard died. acquitted.


joseph cook was born in 1791 in kidderminster, moved to brierley hill nr dudley before 1822, when his son noah was born. miners, again, travelling from the worcestershire coalfield to the south staffs.


eliza briant, 1784, tipton

francis sifton, 1725, worcester. his great great grandson, benjamin sefton, would be born in dudley in 1855. benjamins mother was born in 1824 in dudley.

emma brookes, 1863, tipton.

john jones, 1818, old radnor. married jane, born 1828 in radnorshire.

thomas tongue/tong/tonge/tounge/tung born 1647 in ludlow.

thomas kite, 1660, clungunford, shropshire.

sarah mitchell, 1720, ludlow.

martha harris, 1745, ludlow.

thomas hammond, 1764, lingen, herefordshire.

anne bourton, 1765, diddlesbury, shropshire.

william morgan, 1733, llangwm, monmouthshire. his mother, sarah david, was born 1702 in goytre, monmouthshire.

joseph and elizabeth dunne were living in shropshire when they had their daughter elizabeth in 1754.

joe morgan and jemima hope were in blakemere herefordshire in 1765 when their daughter was born.


----------



## discokermit (Jan 6, 2021)

the boat in this video, at two minutes ten and on, is the exact same boat ive been showing people round for one day a week before the lockdowns. running along the same stretch of canal my great grandad worked.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jan 6, 2021)

discokermit said:


> so, the thread title is all roads lead to sedgley, but so far i am finding that most of the roads on my own personal map seem to start mainly in shropshire, followed by radnorshire, montgomeryshire, staffordshire and herefordshire, with a tiny bit of worcestershire, warwickshire and gloucestershire. if you map them out they seem to correspond with mercia and before that the land of the cornovii. both sides of the river severn.
> 
> i have been surprised to find nothing from brum, nothing from ireland, nothing east of coventry, very little east of the western side of the black country, nothing north of telford.
> three of my grandparents have ancestors who all seem to come from the same small area on the border of shropshire, herefordshire, montgomeryshire and radnorshire.
> also it seems to be almost entirely agricultural labourers, whos children became coal miners, then, as the work changed ironworkers (though one bit of the family seem to be ironworkers going back as far as i can, 1580.)



Yam as Black Country as they come chap! Iron in the soul...


----------



## discokermit (Jan 6, 2021)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Yam as Black Country as they come chap! Iron in the soul...


an coal for brains.


----------



## discokermit (Jan 7, 2021)

oh noes! i have discovered infiltrators from the dirty danegeld! stevyne southwick and margret stutherdaile of hedon, yorkshire! margret died in 1599. stevyne lived 1560-1640. their daughter isabell (1595-1642) born in hedon, married richard brettel (1572-1653) in oldswinford, which is now part of stourbridge. their child richard was born in kingswinford in 1617.
richard brettell senior had been born in romsley, halesowen, before his parents moved to cradley before 1585. the brettells had lived in romsley as far back as i have gone, which is richards great great grandfather, robert brettell, born in romsley sometime before 1497. romsley is about ten miles away from here.
richard brettell junior (kford 1617) married ann barnsley from tipton. their grandchild john hodgetts was born in west bromwich in 1680.
from there it went west brom - great barr - west brom - wednesbury- wednesbury - wednesbury - moxley - ettingshall, sedgley.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jan 8, 2021)

Great Barr eh Disco??!!


----------



## discokermit (Jan 9, 2021)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Great Barr eh Disco??!!


born in great barr but doesnt look like they were there long, her parents were born in west brom and her children were born in west brom. not even hundred percent thats right as there are conflicting reports and she could have been born in west brom.
i just put it down to prove i wasnt a bigot. which i am.
every ancestor that comes from within a couple of miles of here, or west of here, i secretly do a little "yay!" in my head. the further east, the more uncomfortable i am.


----------



## discokermit (Jan 10, 2021)

so, now im looking for lidar maps of deserted medieval villages in shropshire where my ancestors lived. places like aston botterell, bromfield, cound, forton and others. this is some rabbithole ive gone down.


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## discokermit (Jan 10, 2021)

one of mine. no wonder i got no hair. Idwal Foel - Wikipedia


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## discokermit (Jan 10, 2021)

and freckles, Merfyn Frych - Wikipedia


----------



## discokermit (Jan 10, 2021)

morvidus, born before 341bc. Morvidus - Wikipedia
no wonder im always killing giants with trees and getting eaten by sea dragons. bad blood.


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## discokermit (Jan 12, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> when i posted before i hadn't read the thread through but now i have i'm impressed with your research and the success you've had going back centuries when most people would struggle going back to 1800. i know my opinion weighs lightly with you, but it's an amazing piece of work.


ta.


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## discokermit (Jan 28, 2021)

picture of me preparing to fight some iron, like four of my uncles and three of my cousins.





heres my grandad (robert stanley) and great grandad (thomas) making iron, like my dad did, and living 1.8 miles from where i am now in bradley in the parish of sedgley.




my nan and other grandad, hilda and harold webb, he a maintenance fitter in a boilerworks, living less than half a mile away up and along the hill.


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## 5t3IIa (Jan 28, 2021)

You going to look into the transportee? It's fascinating stuff, just as grim but in the sunshine. This is good The Fatal Shore - Wikipedia


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## discokermit (Jan 28, 2021)

my other nan, mary jones, fifteen and a shop assistant, her dad eli jasper jones, a weighbridge clerk, in princes end, tipton, 2.4 miles away,


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## discokermit (Jan 28, 2021)

5t3IIa said:


> You going to look into the transportee? It's fascinating stuff, just as grim but in the sunshine. This is good The Fatal Shore - Wikipedia


of the two brothers, one transported, one, my ancestor, went down a coal mine. both died before they were fifty. like you say, just as grim but with sunshine.


----------



## discokermit (Jan 28, 2021)

now i do some 1911 census returns.

john and sarah webb, parents of harold, john is a labourer on the canals and his wife is repairing canals,




and hilda webbs parents, james pugh, he a drillier of hurdles. on his army papers in 1914 he was listed as previously working as a navvie. his father, also james is listed as an excavator. notice one of the daughters is a japanner. they lived at hargreaves street, bilston, 2.3 miles away.



eli jasper jones was with his parents in leintwardine, shropshire, in 1911. the year he moved to the black country. his dad a farm labourer.



his future wife, mary anne price, was in myndtown, shropshire at the time.


----------



## blossie33 (Jan 28, 2021)

I don't know if this would be of any interest / use to you - posted by someone on the Birmingham History Forum today?









						Free access to digital records - The National Archives
					

We are making digital records available on our website free of charge for the time being, while our reading room services are limited. Registered users will be able to order and download up to ten items at a time, to a maximum of 100 items over 30 days. The limits are there to try to […]




					www.nationalarchives.gov.uk


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## discokermit (Jan 28, 2021)

blossie33 said:


> I don't know if this would be of any interest / use to you - posted by someone on the Birmingham History Forum today?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


i will check it out. ta!


----------



## discokermit (Jan 28, 2021)

1901 census,

john webb is sixteen and working as a sheet iron worker, his dad sam, a labourer/docker, one brother a blacksmiths striker, the other a coremaker for iron moulding.


his future wife, sarah anne richards, was living in bradley with her coal hewing father, timothy. 2.2 miles away.



young james pugh is living with his parents elizabeth and james, a general labourer. living in derry street, blakenhall, wolverhampton at the time, which is 2.4 miles from here but was the next street over from where i lived up to the age of six.



florence, the future wife of james was a child in oldbury at the time, living with her mother harriet and  father joseph brookes, who was a blacksmiths striker, (flo is on the next page)



thomas stanley the iron moulder was doing the same in 1901 as he was in the later census but his future wife, emily, was with her mother emma and father ben sefton, a chainmakers striker. pitfield street is 3.3 miles from here walking.


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## discokermit (Jan 28, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> There's some interesting sentences sometimes. I've just been reading reports of the Norwich Assizes from the 1850s e.g.:
> 
> Stealing a gun - one month imprisonment with hard labour
> Stealing an old pair of trousers - three month imprisonment with hard labour
> Stealing a plank (fourth offence) - transported for ten years


how about this for an interesting sentence,

*Extract from the Wolverhampton Chronicle of Wednesday January 25th 1865*
*BOY SHOT BY ANOTHER* – On Friday, Mr *Phillips* deputy coroner, held an adjourned inquiry at the Summerhouse Inn Gospel End, into the cause of the death of a boy named John *Grainger* aged thirteen years who died on Monday, from injuries received from the firing of a gun in his face by another boy name Rupert *Hickman*.
James *Bagley* a labourer residing at Gospel end stated that on the day preceding Christmas Day, he left his gun hanging up in his house. It was not loaded. On his return he found that his son had fetched it out, loaded it, and that the deceased had been shot.

James *Bagley* son of the above, deposed that on the 24th of December, he loaded his father’s gun with powder and shot, and placed it in the stable ready for use an left it in there uncocked.

Shortly afterwards he saw *Hickman* go into the stable and told him not touch the gun. The witness then saw it in *Hickman*’s hand, and cautioned him that he might do some mischief. *Hickman* thereupon replied that he could shoot as well as the witness and pointed it at him. In a minute after he heard the report of firearms, and found that the deceased was shot in the forehead.

There had been no quarrel, and witness did not think *Hickman* shot deceased purposely but considered it to be an accident. *Hickman* at the time seemed very sorry and rendered every assistance in his power to the poor sufferer. *Hickman* had shot a lad some time ago accidentally, but the lad did not die. The witness was positive the gun he left in the stable was not either full or half cocked. (The gun was produced and it was found that at full cock it would go off very easily). The jury considered the occurrence purely accidental, and returned a verdict accordingly. The Coroner cautioned the boy *Hickman* against the future incautious use of firearms.



so yeh, you could get a very lenient sentence. especially if your name was hickman, who i assume is from the same hickman family who hickman park in bilston is named after. colliery owners, ironmasters and little cock ends named rupert shooting people repeatedly and getting away with it. i say get away with it but he went to australia to become a schoolmaster so maybe the other hickmans hated him as well. heres one of the twats, Sir Alfred Hickman, 1st Baronet - Wikipedia

slightly linked, i did nine months of my yts scheme at hickmans timber yard. one day i had to take a note over to the offices. the door to the office seemed blocked so i heaved at it with my shoulder and unwittingly sent old man hickman, who was exactly like the grace brothers in are you being served, flying across the room. i was not offered a full time place at the end of the scheme but that was probably more to do with the stealing and skiving.


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## discokermit (Jan 28, 2021)

mauvais said:


> Link: EAW001260 ENGLAND (1946).  The industrial and residential area at Deepfields and Lady Moor, Bilston, 1946 | Britain From Above
> 
> View attachment 238970


*The Deepfields Tragedy*
The Shocking case of The Fatal Shooting of Mrs. *Davies* From Meadow Lane - Which Shook An Old Black Country Hamlet In 1890 known as 'THE DEEPFIELDS TRAGEDY'
This story give's detailed reports from 'The Daily Herald' and tells of the shooting of Mrs Davies, the mother of *James Davies*.

*John Wise* was born in 1857, he was the son of *John and Jane Wise*. He married *Martha Glare*, daughter of *Joshua and Lydia Glare* of Meadow Lane, Sedgley. By 1889 John had four children, Albert, William, John and Phoebe.

The couple's married life had been spent between houses in Ettingshall Road, Rookery Road and Meadow Lane, Deepfields. It was this last residence in August 1890 that events unfolded that were to become known locally as 'The Deepfields Tragedy'

On Saturday the 23rd August *Martha Wise* and their youngest child went missing from home, also a James Davies together with a substantial portion of John Wise's possessions, to the value of fifteen pounds, including a navy suit, two blankets, four sheets, two pairs of shoes, two silver watches, a silver chain and three pound cash. All the items were found to have been pawned as the tickets were later discovered.

John Wise bought a gun, then having failed to trace the couple he went to the house of Mr and Mrs Davies at Deepfields, the parents of his wife's lover to inquire as to whether they knew of their son's whereabouts. He had previously been on good terms with this couple. It is not certain what was said, but it ended with his shouting words to the effect of "If I had found them I would have served them like this" whereupon he produced a revolver from his pocket and fired, the bullet entering Mrs Davies's side. Running from the house she collapsed in the street. John Wise left the house, was seen to unbutton his waistcoat, turn the revolver on himself and pull the trigger. Although badly wounded he survivied the suicide attempt. Mary Daives was carried to the nearby *Railway Tavern* where injured too badly to be moved. Believing that he was about to die, John Wise asked for his sister. *Mrs. Sarah Ann Simner* to be summoned, requesting that she take care of the his children. He was later taken to Wolverhampton Hospital where the bullet was removed. News of the tragedy spread through the village like wildfire.

On the 19th August the inquest and inquiry upon the body of Mary Davies was opened at 'The Railway Tavern' Deepfileds. The inquest was adjourned until the following Thursday morning. Saturday 6th September 1890. The Adjourning Inquest Verdict of 'Wilful Murder' On Saturday Afternoon last, the unfortunate victim of the Deepfields Tragedy was laid to rest at Sedgley, and as was expected, the funeral attracted a very large number of spectators , though there was a entire absence of boisterous excitement. The inquest resumed on Thursday 4th September, hearing evidence from several witnesses, among them *Thomas Williams* who sold John Wise the cartridges, and *PC Tittensor*, stationed at Coseley, who had been well acquainted with Wise prior to the shooting. Perhaps the most informed witness was *Mrs Sarah Butler* of 31 Meadow Lane, Deepfields, neighbour to Mr and Mrs Wise who was able to recall for word arguments between Wise and his wife which she was able to hear 'through the crack in the wall'.

James Davies and Martha Wise were arrested on Wednesday 3rd September at Arch Street, Rugeley. They had taken lodgings there a week previously. James Davies finding work at Brereton Collery a day or two later.'They presented a somewhat smart appearance, especially the woman who it said to have outdone all her neighbours in the way of dress. On their arrest, both were taken into custody and charged with stealing certain goods belonging to John Wise. PC Tunnicliffe of Deepfields traced the couple following the receipt of an anonymous letter. 'Dear Mr Tunnicliffe, I think you will find Jim Davies and Mrs Wise at 26 Arch Street, Rugeley'. The identity of its author was never discovered.

*Saturday 20th September 1890. A Further Remand.*

'A large crowd again gathered outside Bilston Police Court yesterday where Martha Wise (23) wife of John Wise, ironworker of Rookery Road, Meadow Lane Deepfield, and James Davies (19) miner of Meadow Lane were charged with stealing several items of wearing apparel, two silver watches, a silver chain and other articles, property of John Wise, husband of the female prisioner. Mr Clarke said the prisoner (John Wise) was unable to be present to give evidence and therefore asked for another remand. The man unfortunately still in hospital. The magistrate granted the remand for a week, Davies's bail was renewed and Mrs Wise was retained in custody. When next they appeared John Wise said he wished to withdraw the prosecutions, (Mrs Wise on hearing this commenced crying) The bench abandoned the case, the defendants were bound over pending the consent of the Public Prosecutor to the withdrawal. Davies was bound over to his previous bail. Martha Wise on her father's surety of ten pound.

On the 10th October, John Wise was taken from Bilston to the county Gaol at Stafford.

The following entry appears in the Home Office Records-Calendar of Prisoners for 1890. Record HO 140/121 (Tried at the Autumn Assizes) Prisoner No 22. John Wise. Age 35. Steel Fitter. (R) Received into custody at Stafford 16th Oct. Charged on the 27th August 1890 at Sedgley with the wilful murder of Mary Davies, also charged the same on coroner's inquisition. Tried on 16th December 1890. Verdict - Not Guilty of Murder, but Guilty of Manslaughter. No previous convictions. Sentence - Imprisonment with hard labour for six days in HM Prison, Stafford. (Able to read)






my family lived in meadow lane at the time. also, my dad reckons there was still a family named wise living round there when he was a kid.


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## discokermit (Jan 29, 2021)

thomas stanley junior, mentioned before, was the son of thomas stanley senior. thomas stanley snr was the nephew of john pritchard, here is a document showing the two of them on trial for stealing brass off an engine. tatting in the blood.


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## discokermit (Jan 29, 2021)

discokermit said:


> thomas stanley the iron moulder was doing the same in 1901 as he was in the later census but his future wife, emily, was with her mother emma and father ben sefton, a chainmakers striker. pitfield street is 3.3 miles from here walking.



the seftons lived just off this road,


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## discokermit (Jan 29, 2021)

joseph ward, blacksmith, ancestor, lived and likely worked here, goldthorn hill. the church just to the right of the tree on the left, is where i was baptised.


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## discokermit (Jan 29, 2021)

discokermit said:


> thomas stanley junior. tatting in the blood.


just got reminded that thomas stanleys son, leslie, my grandads younger brother, went round a new housing estate round here in the night with a hacksaw and sawed off all the copper overflow pipes protruding from the wall for tat. legend.


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## discokermit (Jan 31, 2021)

discokermit said:


> joseph ward, blacksmith, ancestor, lived and likely worked here, goldthorn hill. the church just to the right of the tree on the left, is where i was baptised.


upon further investigation it is not the church i was baptised in, which was built over a decade later, but may be the royal school. where eric idle went to school.


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## discokermit (Feb 6, 2021)

ive had a couple of ancestors born out of wedlock but their parents usually married afterwards but it seems i have found an unmarried mother of two in my family tree, sarah davies, born in lydbury north, shropshire, in 1754,


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## discokermit (Feb 17, 2021)

another transportation! my greatx5 granny, hannah parkes, probably a nailor, had a brother, this is a bit of his story.

Today's bustling Sydney suburb of Earlwood bears little resemblance to the rough and ready timber gatherers camp which was home to the suburb's first settler in 1829, when John Parkes and his family took up permanent residence on his fifty acre grant, first promised to him by Governor Lachlan Macquarie in 1816, though not officially gazetted until 1831. The tiny settlement hacked out of the rich stands of dense forest was in fact called Parkes Camp, a term then used to describe the base-camp of a gang of sawyers. The strange train of events which lead to John Parkes's unique place in Earlwood's history was set in motion in 1768 at Halesowen, a small English village just four miles from the city of Dudley in 'The Black Country" of Worcestershire, when John was born the son of Esther and Isaac Parkes. Worcestershire's Black Country was so named for it's ironworking history dating back to the sixteenth century, and the great predominance of the area's cottage-based iron working industry came about because of the district's rich deposits of iron-ore, limestone, and clay. Together with most of the able-bodied men of his village John had learned the art of making nails from the tender age of five or six, when necessity and customs of the time pressed him into pumping the bellows on his father's forge. 
John's Crime.
Wandering in the City of Dudley in 1797, caught up in the social upheaval of the Industrial Revolution and with winter closing in, John Parkes altered the entire course of his life when he was caught stealing a warm beaver coat from the shop of John Grimestone. He was arrested and taken to the City of Worcester where he stood trial at the Worcester Lent Assizes that year. 
The charge read: 
"The Jurors for our Lord the King upon their oath present that John Parkes (guilty) late of the Parish of Dudley in the County of Worcester Labourer on the eleventh day of February in the thirty seventh year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord George the third King of Great Britain and with Force and Arms at the parish a foresaid the Great Coat called a Beaver great coat of the value of sixteen shillings of the goods and chattels of John Grimestone in the shop of the said John Grimestone, then and there privately and feloniously did steal take and carry away against the peace of our said Lord the King his Crown and Dignity." 
Sentenced to seven years transportation on the eleventh of March 1797, John spent eight months either in prison or worse still on one of the many rotting prison hulks, then cluttering up most of the English sea-ports. 
Portsmouth was John's last sight of the not so merry England of 1797, when he finally left his homeland aboard the Thames-built ship "Barwell" (796 tons). In response to repeated requests from Governor Phillip, the Barwell's load of 295 male convicts had been specially selected as felons with a useful trade, and among the picked complement of convict-artisans was John Cadman of Bewdley, later of Cadman's cottage Sydney Cove. 
The struggling Colony of New South Wales was just ten years old and desperately short of food, clothing and tradesmen when the Barwell brought all three into Port Jackson on the eighteenth of May 1798. The worried Colonists must have rubbed their eyes in disbelief when the Barwell hove into view with her precious and long awaited cargo, for this was the first ship to sail into their harbour for twelve miserable months. Many of the Barwell's convict-tradesmen were assigned to work at the Government Dockyards in the fledgling boat-building industry then springing up at Sydney Cove, and among this group was John Parkes who soon became known as "Perks the Nailor" before completing his seven-year term at the Dockyards in 1803. In a manner of speaking John Parkes was at last a free man.


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## discokermit (Feb 17, 2021)

three of his sons became bareknuckle boxing champions in australia.


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## Orang Utan (Feb 17, 2021)

I think you might be related to Russell Crowe and Paul Hogan


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## Orang Utan (Feb 17, 2021)

And Joe Mangel


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## discokermit (Feb 17, 2021)

and bouncer


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## Orang Utan (Feb 17, 2021)

And Dame Edna - same specs


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## discokermit (Feb 17, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I think you might be related to Russell Crowe and Paul Hogan


i am if russell crowe is related to william crow, born in 1691 in montgomery in wales. it was sometimes spelled crowe.


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## discokermit (Feb 17, 2021)

yer flamin galaah


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## Orang Utan (Feb 17, 2021)

discokermit said:


> yer flamin galaah


You do have Alf’s temper


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## discokermit (Feb 17, 2021)

this is where john parkes settled, Earlwood, New South Wales - Wikipedia . it was named after him for a bit.


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## Orang Utan (Feb 17, 2021)

We could be related, bruv. Australia’s a small place


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## discokermit (Feb 18, 2021)

i thought you were my great great great great grandad, the agricultural labourer turned castrator from shropshire?


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## discokermit (Feb 18, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> We could be related, bruv. Australia’s a small place


now ive got an aussie, the tree has got easier for his ancestors beacause of all the work his descendants have done.


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## discokermit (Feb 18, 2021)

ive got an ancestor named gulielmum dearne, born 1650 in stone, staffordshire. died 1680, codsall, staffordshire. his dad was named gulielmus, his grandad was named guilielmi. although there may be some mix up.

anyway, it seems like gulielmums sons, stephen and john, both born in halesowen/quinton, had children that married.






gulielmum dearne and w dearne are the same person as he was also known as william.


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## discokermit (Feb 18, 2021)

discokermit said:


> another transportation! my greatx5 granny, hannah parkes, probably a nailor, had a brother, this is a bit of his story.


here is a bit of one of his sons story. this is after john parkes and family have been robbed of a couple of chickens by armed robbers, been granted fifty acres of woodland and started chopping.


William Parkes alias Fighting Bill Sparkes was born on the 9th April 1818, the eighth child and fourth son of John and Margaret Parkes. It is of interest to note that William was just eight days old when the robbers so badly terrorised his family at Petersham on the 17th April 1818. Bill was eleven years of age when the family moved to Parkes Camp, and in those days would have beer considered old enough to begin his apprenticeship in the timber industry as a sawyer, an ideal occupation to prepare him for his future career as an Australian champion athlete. Bill was a fitness fanatic, and at an early age entered the Sporting arena as a very successful runner, and by the time he was eighteen he was mixing freely among the sporting fraternity. Bill's father John Parkes died in 1839 when Bill was 21 years old, and shortly after Bill took Betsey Pithers as his first wife. Betsey bore Bill two children, William in 1840, and Jane in 1841, before what was believed to have been a de facto relationship broke up. Bill Perry was a very talented negro bare-knuckle fighter, and posed such a threat in English fighting circles with his science and hitting power, that the English "Fancy" not relishing the prospect of a negro as English Champion, had him "Framed" by planting counterfeit coins in his rooms. Perry was arrested, charged and sentenced to seven years at Botany Bay. The white Australia Policy had not yet been adopted, and Perry became a favourite with the military officers at the army barracks, where he was in "The manly art". Perry's modest bearing and great demand as a teacher of inoffensive disposition soon earned him a "Ticket of leave", and the opportunity to pass his unique skills on to the clamouring "Currency lads". Among Black Perry's first pupils were Bill, Isaac and Tom Parkes, who were quick to successfully adopt the "Perry touch", and from Perry's teachings sprang the first crop of high-class colonial fist fighters. Bill, Isaac, and Tom Parkes all rose to be champion bare-knuckle fighters, though "Fighting Bill Sparkes" was by far the most talented, as is borne out by his impressive record. Bill's rise to world-class in the fighting game was nothing short of meteoric; following a long succession of fights in Australia, and still undefeated, he visited New Zealand to do battle with Dave Gibson and win for his backers a purse of 100 pounds. Triumph followed triumph culminating in Bill being crowned Australian champion after defeating the then champion Bill Davis in a 63 round contest.
BILL SPARKES V NAT LANGHAM.
In 1846 Bill encouraged by an immigrant fighter named Bungaree, who had gone back to England the year before, decided to try his luck in England. Following is an extract from the "Evening News", a Sydney newspaper published on Saturday the ninth of July 1921, in which "Nimrod" a sporting writer who knew Bill Sparkes writes of the Australian champion's fight in England with the English champion Nat Langham:
Extract from the "Evening News" Sat. 9th. July 1921. by Nimrod
"Chatting recently with some country folk at Ourimbah, the boxing contest for the World's Championship between Dempsey and Carpentier came into discussion. Afterwards, the question was put to me, "Who did I think, of all the Australians I knew, took part in the hardest fought contests?" That was a question that could be quickly answered, so far as my opinion was concerned -- Patrick Slavin and William Sparkes. Of course, the great glove fight between Pat Slavin and Peter Jackson is so modern that when reminded, the questioner was quite satisfied as to Slavin's claim. It was a wonderfully hard battle that he put up against the coloured Champion. To my way of thinking, it was one of the gamest and best efforts that stand on record, in connection with, what may be termed modern fistic battles.
Who was Sparkes?
After agreeing with me in respect to Slavin, they put the question: "Who was Sparkes, and when did he fight?"
That they had never heard of game old Bill Sparkes is not surprising. Born out at Cook's River in 1818, William Sparkes and his brother Tom, who first saw the light in 1825, were two of the most notable men of their day. The former was a lot heavier that his younger brother. William's weight, when in form, was 10st. 121b, while Tom could go into the ring at 9st. 81b.
After beating Charles Wooten 25 Pounds aside, Joe Marshall 50 Pounds aside, Bill Davis of Liverpool 100 Pounds aside (and a belt): and Tom the Brewer 100 Pounds aside; Bill Sparkes in 1846 decided to make the trip to England to tackle the best man to be found. The game Australian worked his passage, so he told me, in a sailing vessel, and when he landed in the Old Country sought out Johnny Broome; Broome at that time, was in high favour with the leading "Corinthians" (sporting men of the day).
Johnny Broome commended the athletic Australian, who was not only a good boxer, but also a first-class runner, as just the sort of man to polish off Nat Langham, who at that time was Champion of England.
Fight with Nat Langham.
Following much haggling with Langham's camp, the date for the great fight was set for May the 4th. 1847. The approaching contest created a lot of interest, and on the day at an early hour, the steamer "Nymph", chartered for the voyage, took a party from the Hungerford Market Pier, and dropped down to Blackwall, where on the Brunswick Pier, a goodly muster of the "Fancy" had assembled. There was also a coal tug or two, laden with "Cheapside" customers, waiting to follow the flagship.
"Owing to some misunderstanding Tom Spring and Peter Crawley, with a following of Sports:", took passage on the Gravesend boat. Johnny Broome, who was in command the "Nymph" down to Charlton, where Langham was taken on board (he was trained Robinson, who was Ben Caunt's pet), near Dartford: Sparkes went on board at Hungerford. As there was evidently a split in the camp, Broome decided to cut the "Secessionists" out of the game, and turning the boat back, went to Nine Elms, embarked, and taking a South-Western train, proceeded to Woking Common, Surrey, e the ring was pitched.
The Fight.
It would take up too much space to give details of this memorable encounter, so I will generalise the leading facts: The men entered the ring at 2 o'clock. Langham, esquired by D'Orsay, Turner and Barnash; his colours were Blue bird's-eye. Sam Simmons, of Birmingham, and Joe Rowe, seconded Sparkes; Sparkes's colours were white with a scarlet border. In the description of the men, old scribe wrote of Sparkes that he was the more powerful of the two, and stood with his left arm straight out from the shoulder, with his right hand well up, his body being inclined backwards in a most extraordinary manner. The first knock down, credited to Sparkes in the second round. The fighting was extremely fast, no lasting more than half a minute, up to the 14th round. It was a very even to up to the 36th round, when Sparkes knocked Nat clean off his legs, and for following three rounds the Englishman was very careful. In the 50th round Sparkes for the fourth time, sent his man to the grass. The losing turn of the fight was in the 62nd round. Langham got home on Sparkes's neck, who returned on the ribs. A 'Close' followed, in, which was down with Sparkes on top. Sparkes unfortunately had his right arm, under his man, and as it turned out, the bone of the forearm was broken. From this the 67th round, Sparkes fought with one hand. With such a handicap, Johnny Broome decided much against the Australian's will, to give up, and threw his hat into the ring. Even then, it is said, Sparkes's seconds had hard work to prevent him rushing at his man to have another "shy".
"The Old Historian" says: "A gamer or more fearless boxer never entered the ring".


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## discokermit (Feb 18, 2021)

the bill sparkes cup.


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## discokermit (Feb 18, 2021)

in this shithole of a country they are reduced to stealing coats and linen aprons, in australia these people carved a city out of a forest and their children became athletes of renown.


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## discokermit (Feb 18, 2021)

it does make me lol a bit though, imagining ozzy john the nailer, walking round halesowen in a stolen sixteen shilling beaver pelt coat like hes the lord of the manor. must have took all of ten minutes to arrest him.

not at all like his relative a few hundred years in time away getting a "windfall" due to a "clerical error" and spunking it on a four litre jag. oh no.


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## discokermit (Feb 21, 2021)

this is a pub my great x 6 grandad, william pritchard, born 1785 in tipton, ran in bilston street, wolverhampton. Bilston Street
his one son was a file cutter, another, my g x 5 grandfather, was a miner who did six months for larceny and who died at forty (the one who might have been murdered).


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## Puddy_Tat (Feb 21, 2021)

discokermit said:


> although there may be some mix up.



i'm quite probably stating the bloody obvious, but spelling was somewhat flexible up until quite recently, and transcription of old handwriting can be suspect as well.  

i've recently done a bit of research and haven't gone back much before about 1850 (nothing at all to do with my own family - came from a photo of a shop that editor found for the brixton history thread) and bloke in question's surname spelled berkshire or barkshire, his mother in law's surname spelled more, moore, moores on three consecutive censuses, he and his wife listed in one census as ages 27 and 26 (and that's the 'fair copy' handwritten version) when they would have been 21 and 20 (on the basis of their first names, his occupation, her place of birth, i'm fairly confident they really are the couple i was chasing) and a few other minor anomalies like that...  

also her giving what seems to be a slightly fictional father's name on her marriage certificate (combination of her mother's surname and middle and surname of bloke who was listed as her single mother's lodger around the time she was born -  )


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## discokermit (Feb 21, 2021)

another angle,





the neighbours,


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## discokermit (Feb 21, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> also her giving what seems to be a slightly fictional father's name on her marriage certificate (combination of her mother's surname and middle and surname of bloke who was listed as her single mother's lodger around the time she was born -  )


i like these stories. ive had half a dozen births before marriage and one great granny who never married, had two children and didnt put the father at all on the certificate.


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## Puddy_Tat (Feb 21, 2021)

discokermit said:


> i like these stories. ive had half a dozen births before marriage and one who never married, had two children and didnt put the father at all on the certificate.



mum-tat did some family research a few years back and found a few marriages / births that would be extremely premature even by today's standards.  or as she put it "just in time, or born in the vestry"

i'm not quite sure what the ethics are of 'outing' this person as 'illegitmate' when i get round to writing it up for editor (she died in the 1950s and has no surviving children, there are probably grand-children around, though)


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## discokermit (Feb 23, 2021)

some black country towns and when we were there,

sedgley - 1484
halesowen - 1497
rowley regis - 1540
dudley - 1601
kingswinford - 1617
west bromwich - 1620
tipton - 1628 (ish)
oldswinford - 1650
bilston - 1672
wednesbury - 1705
oldbury - 1821

these are all dates of either a birth or a death so presumably these people or their parents lived there for sometime before that.


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## discokermit (Feb 24, 2021)




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## discokermit (Mar 9, 2021)

just for fun, a lidar map of clun,


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## discokermit (Mar 14, 2021)

discokermit said:


> so, this is interesting, mary tustin, who was married to richard haynes and kicked out of broadway worcestershire for being too poor, i mentioned them earlier, hersix or seven times great grandfather was this feller, William Daunce - Wikipedia which means she and i are also from Thomas More - Wikipedia
> another execution for treason and another posh line snagged and destroyed.


sixteen steps away from great grandad saint tom,


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## Puddy_Tat (Mar 29, 2021)

discokermit 

came up via a re-tweet today.  may or may not tell you anything you don't already know

and it's on farcebook


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## discokermit (Apr 21, 2021)

good news and bad news. bad news is i fucked up. i copied someone, or thought myself, not sure how it happened but i mixed up joseph, an engine fitter from moxley, with samuel, a brickleyer from dudley. 120 ancestors i thought i had, i dont. huge amount of work gone.
the good news is i got rid of dickheads like william the conquerer, agmondesham muschampe, richard the first, earls of arundel and all that shower of shit. also losing the welsh, irish, viking, saxon, frankish nobility but fuck them as well. will miss girguit barbtruc but thats the way it is.
in return i got a fitter whos dad was a furnaceman. like me and my dad. sweet. still got thomas more as well.

anyways, im doing a map. nowhere near finished as when i put a new person in i am also checking all the details in the tree, which is how i discovered my mistake above. the pointers are my dads side, the circles with star, my moms. different colours for different surnames and ive written a bit of detail about each one if you click on them.









						all roads lead to sedgley. – Google My Maps
					

my ancestors.




					www.google.co.uk


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## discokermit (May 21, 2021)

my 10x great grandad, john mintridge, a nailor from cotwallend, sedgley, burying one wife and marrying the next in 1600,


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## blossie33 (May 21, 2021)

Did he have young children?
He might have been eager to take a lady on to take care of them.


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## discokermit (May 21, 2021)

discokermit said:


> my 10x great grandad, john mintridge, a nailor from cotwallend, sedgley, burying one wife and marrying the next in
> 
> 
> blossie33 said:
> ...


no he didnt. though running a sixteenth century nailing operation was a family job, as they usually had a bit of land to work as well.


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## discokermit (May 21, 2021)

i feel sorry for francis marsh getting killed on the way back from dudley faire. they probably killed him for his coconut.
somebody got stabbed to death last year in sedgley when the lockdown lifted and the pubs opened. four hundred years later and some things dont change.


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## discokermit (May 23, 2021)

To Her Majesty's Commissioners​Gentlemen,
Upper Sedgley, 26th May, 1841.​
The Parish of Sedgley includes the villages of Sedgley (Upper and Lower), Ettingshall, Coseley, and Upper and Lower Gornal.

Reports by
R.H. Horne, Esq.​All these villages being either united with each other, or within from half a mile to a mile and a half's distance, and the articles manufactured, and the character and circumstances of the manufacturers being the same, I have thought it advisable to comprise my account of the whole under one Report.

There are only two large manufactories in the parish, where numbers of children and young persons of both sexes are employed --the one an iron-foundry, the other a screw manufactory. You will be pleased to observe that I do not include rolling-mills and other iron-works, nor any of the works connected with mines -- many of which are in the neighbourhood of Coseley, Lower Sedgley, and Lower Gornal.

With the exception of about half a dozen locksmiths, one or two chain-makers and screw-makers, and the two large manufactories previously mentioned, the whole population of Upper Sedgley and Upper Gornal, and nearly one-half the population of Coseley and Lower Gornal are employed in nail-making. I allude solely to nails made by the hammer -- that is to say forge-work, not casting.

These villages supply nails to the factors of Dudley and Wolverhampton, and may be regarded as so many colonies for the express production of that particular article.

General Statements​Dwellings of the working-classes​The squalid wretchedness of the abodes of the working classes, described in my previous Reports, deserves particular mention with reference to the parish of Sedgley, from the fact of its being an almost universal characteristic of all the villages; and universal, I believe, without an exception, of two entire villages. Throughout the long descent of the main roadway (or rather sludgeway) of Lower Gornal, and throughout the very long, winding, and straggling roadway of Coseley, I never saw one abode of a working family which had the least appearance of comfort or of wholesomeness, while the immense majority were of the most wretched and sty-like description.

Coseley​Coseley is a succession of straggling lanes, lined with hovels and hutches, and narrow gaps or "peeps" into other lanes; the whole descending into a hollow which contains what may be termed a miniature city of dirty brick hovels, stuck full of black chimneys, varying from 2 feet to 100 feet in height, and all vomiting thick sooty wreaths of swift-ascending smoke.

Lower Gornal​Lower Gornal is approached by a lane leading out of Upper Gornal; narrow, sludgy, very steep, and a mile in length, till you arrive at the village, through the centre of which the same steep lane descends winding, to the extent of nearly another mile. The invariable sludge occasioned by the rains and water from several springs above, is tendered bestial by the casting forth, both from doors and windows, of everything which would in ordinary cases be deposited on a dung-heap or dust-hole, or carried away by drainage. Low hovels, hutches, and work-shops, resembling little black dens, thickly line the lane or main-way, to the extent of perhaps three-quarters of a mile, and in some places are so crowded as to have two or three houses packed close together, with scarcely room to pass between, and sometimes rendering it difficult to open a door except the door open inwards. Compared with this, some of the worst streets of Wolverhampton would really appear civilised, if not respectable.

​


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## discokermit (May 23, 2021)

No drains nor sewers​Scarlet fever​There is no underground drainage to any of these hovels, nor indeed any special drainage or gutter above ground -- for the mainway is _all_gutter -- nor have they any privies. But in lieu of the common dunghill, as appropriated by the people of Willenhall, the working classes of Coseley, for the most part, as I am informed, and certainly the great majority in Lower Gornal, are in the habit of fixing a perch (about the size and length of a clothes prop) horizontally across one corner of their little strip of yard or dreary garden. Sometimes several families combine and carry a perch to the corner of a neighbouring field, which act of undue possession being sure to be very soon imitated by others, a disturbance is apt to ensue, if not a fight, the parties being so utterly ignorant and debased as not to be conscious in the slightest degree of the degradation implied in the whole proceeding. Mr. Benjamin Parker, the registrar, told me that he had some land in Coseley, which was almost converted into a nuisance, "from the numbers of people who come there who had no convenience at home." He added that -- "Scarlet fever was in the neighbourhood, particularly at a place called Prince's End (Coseley), where there was no drainage nor any privies." I visited Prince's End, and found it to be a long lane with houses on one side, a ditch all along the other and a revolting slush in the centre -- the lane being little more than 9 feet wide from the hovels to the ditch. Scarlet fever often breaks out in this part of the village.

Amidst this constant scene of filth, groups of infants and children under seven or eight years of age, are playing half-naked round the doors of the hovels. At the age of seven or eight, the children, girls and boys, are put to nailing.

Health​The health of the working classes presents no distinctive features from that described of other parts of the district, being good, bad, and indifferent, according to their several occupations, habits, and circumstances. The health of the people of Lower Gornal is described as being good, by Mr. Hickin, the surgeon residing there, which he attributes very much to the existence of several springs of water in the lane leading down to the village, which, with the addition of the rains, "washes the town in spite of itself." His account of the health and physical condition of the older people of Lower Gornal some years ago, especially with reference to _bronchocele_, will be found curious.

Hours of work​The hours of work are nearly the same among all the nailers throughout all the villages of the parish of Sedgley, being from 6 in the morning till 9 or 10 at night, and deducting two hours for meals. The younger children, of the ages of seven and eight, are generally allowed to leave off work two hours earlier than the rest; but on _weigh-days _(the day the nails are taken to the factors) the hours of work are often excessive--_i.e._ from three or four in the morning till nine at night.

Nature of employment​State of the place of work​The nature of the occupation of the children and young persons in the parish of Sedgley is almost entirely that of nail- making at the forge. The state of the place of work may be inferred from my previous description of the condition of the hovels in which the working classes reside. It will be only necessary to add that, as many of the forges (_i.e._ workshops) are at the backs of he hovels, and as there is a more constant carriage, in and out, of heavy articles, the state of the ground becomes more filthy with mud, and the atmosphere yet more confined. The best kind of these forges are little brick shops of about 15 feet long and 12 feet wide, in which seven or eight individuals constantly work together, with no ventilation except the door and two slits, or loop-holes, in the wall; but the great majority of these work-places are very much smaller (about 10 feet long by 9 feet wide), filthily dirty, and on looking in upon one of them when the fire is not lighted, presents the appearance of a dilapidated coal-hole or little black den. They are usually 10 to 12 inches below the level of the ground outside, which of course adds to their slushy condition, since they can never be cleaned out except by a shovel, and this is very seldom, if ever, done. In this dirty den there are commonly at work a man and his wife and daughter, with a boy and girl hired by the year. Sometimes there is an elder son with his sister, and two girls hired; sometimes a wife (the husband being a collier, too old to work, has taken to drinking, or is perhaps dead) carried on the forge with the aid of her children. These little work-places have the forge placed in the centre generally, round which they each have barely standing-room at an anvil; and in some instances there are two forges erected in one of these shops. There is scarcely ever room enough for any one to pass round to his or her stand while others are at work, so that men and woman, and boys and girls, are almost continually obliged to clamber over each other's bodies, or else step upon the hot cinders to get over the forge, in order to reach the door. The effluvia of these little work-dens, from the filthiness of the ground, from the half-ragged, half-naked, unwashed persons at work, and from the hot smoke, ashes, water, and clouds of dust (besides the frequent smell of tobacco), are really dreadful.


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## discokermit (May 23, 2021)

Apprentices​Hiring and wages​There are scarcely any regular apprentices here. It is not the custom of the place. The children are commonly hired by the year. They work the first half-year for nothing in order to learn the trade. The second half-year their parents sometimes get from 1_s_. to 1_s_. 3_d_. per week for the child. The parents then let the child out for another year, and usually get 2_s_. per week for the third half-year, and 2_s_. 6_d_. a-week for the fourth half-year. At this latter rate of payment the daily _stint _of work which the child is required to accomplish is 3 1/2 lbs. of 3 1/2 rose-nails. These 3 1/2 lbs. average in number about 1000 nails, all made singly by the hand in the course of one day. The children are first put to nailing from the ages of seven to eight, and gradually advance in the number of the nails they can make per day, till they arrive at the stint of 1000. A girl or a boy of from 10 to 12 years of age continually accomplishes this arduous task from day to day, and from week to week. Sometimes a young person, male or female, thus let out, is able to do more than this, either in number or of a much larger kind of nail, and occasionally can earn 6_s_. per week, in which case the mater usually gives them 2_s_ . 9_d_ . per week, reserving the remainder for the use of his shop, forge, and tools.

Nail trade​The forged nail-manufacture is entirely carried on by separate families, who work for the factors. A factor entrusts the head of a family with a certain quantity of iron which is to be returned in a certain quantity of nails, and these are paid for at a stated sum _per_ thousand. The employer has consequently no direct authority over the children and young persons who work at nailing, and seldom even knows any part of the family beyond the head, who is responsible for the iron he has received from the factor.

Treatment and care​Of the treatment and care experienced by the children from their parents, it is for the most part bad or indifferent, in the matter of food, clothing, and overwork, while towards those who are hired by the year, together with the few apprentices who are in the place, especially if orphans, there is often great cruelty practised.

Corporal punishments and assaults​Boys are sometimes struck with a red-hot iron, and burnt and bruised simultaneously.

The flash​Boys sometimes have "a flash of lightning" sent at them. When a bar of iron is drawn white-hot from the forge it emits fiery particles, which the man commonly flings in a shower upon the ground by a swing of his arm before placing the bar upon the anvil. This shower is sometimes directed at the boy. It may come over his hand and face, his naked arms, or on his breast. If his shirt be open in front, which is usually the case, the red-hot particles are lodged therein, and he has to shake them out as fast as he can.

Cruelty​A witness told me he knew a boy who was in the habit of making _scraps _(bad nails), and "somebody" belonging to a warehouse to which the boy carried the nails "took him, and put his head down upon an iron counter, and hammered a nail through one ear, and the boy made good nails ever since."

Winding up​A punishment called _winding-up _has also been occasionally practised. There is an iron hook in the warehouses, which is used for winding up the nailbags, and this hook has sometimes been fixed in a boy's trousers, and they have wound him up from the floor below through a trap in the ceiling into the room above, with his head downwards.

But atrocious as are these instances of ill treatment, I am happy to say that I believe them not to be of frequent occurrence at the present time, though witnesses Nos. 266 and 268 think they _are_; and that, on considering all my evidence, and the result of all my various inquiries, I am of opinion they should only be regarded as a small minority among the mass of ordinary hard treatment which is chiefly occasioned by the privations of the working classes.

Instances of barbarous cruelties to apprentices and hired children were formerly of common occurrence. I quote, however, the following story, chiefly on account of the application to the moral degradation of the present time, evinced by the behaviour of the inhabitants on discovering the mouldering remains of a fellow-creature:--

Murder.​"A good many years ago" (says one of my witnesses), "an apprentice-boy in Sedgley, belonging to a man named Cox, was suddenly missing: the boy disappeared from the place. It was known that Cox used to treat the boy shamefully. However, he disappeared, and nobody knew what became of him. About a year and a half ago some dilapidated houses were pulled down, being in a falling condition, and the house of old Cox, long since dead, among the number. In the corner of a back cellar, or of an out-house, the skeleton of a boy was dug out, as the men were working. Several of the old inhabitants, who recollected the disappearance of the boy exclaimed, "That's old Cox's apprentice as was missing!" The bones were shovelled into a wheelbarrow, carried away, and flung in the lane, where they were left to be kicked about."

Mr. George Jenkins (Evidence, No. 268) told me that he thought the children were worse off here than in any of the cotton factories; that they were _fighting fire_ from six o'clock in the morning till ten at night; and that they were sadly abused during the first year they began to learn, particularly if they were orphans. Mr. Benjamin Parker, registrar, remarked to me, in reply to my questions concerning the manufacturers, that "They make a profit and loss of the children; they make as much as they can of them. If the children, at the same time, have to live hard as to food, it stops their growth, and they never recover it." He thought, however, there was "but little of cruel beating now: the bad treatment was only in excessive labour, beyond what the constitution and age of the children could bear." This is precisely my own opinion, as the sum of all my evidence and inquiries.


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## discokermit (May 23, 2021)

Physical condition​The physical condition of the children (more particularly that of the boys) is very low, occasioned by early work, bad food and clothing, dirtiness, and the poverty and bad habits or constitutions of their parents.

Early work​Those children who are put to work as early as seven and eight years of age are very liable to become indifferent workmen in after years. "They make much better workpeople if their parents can keep them away from work till they are nine or ten years of age--much better."

Nursing​The nursing of infants is left almost entirely to the other young children of the family, and it is quite a common thing for a child of from seven to nine years of age (girl or boy) to be let out as a nurse at 1_s_ . per week.

Girls​The physical condition of the girls is much better than that of the boys. They are not put to work so early as the boys, by two years or more: they bear the heat of the forges better, and often become strong by the work. They marry early, and have many children.

Moral condition​The number of girls who work at nailing considerably exceeds that of the boys. Sedgley might appropriately be termed the district of female blacksmiths. They are its most prominent characteristic. Their appearance, manners, habits, and moral natures (so far as the word _moral _can be applied to them), are in accordance with their half-civilised condition. Constantly associating with ignorant and depraved adults and young persons of the opposite sex, they naturally fall into all their ways; and drink, smoke, swear, throw off all restraint in word and act, and become as bad as a man. The heat of the forge and the hardness of the work render few clothes needful in winter; and in summer, the six or seven individuals who are crowded into these little dens find the heat almost suffocating. The men and boys are usually naked, except a pair of trousers and an open shirt, though very often they have no shirt; and the women and girls have only a thin ragged petticoat, and an open shirt without sleeves. Amidst circumstances like these, it is but too evident that the efforts of the Sunday-schools can only be productive of a very limited good, chiefly confined to the children of those parents who are of a religious turn of mind.

I received very kind and valuable assistance from the Rev. Mr. Lewis, vicar of Sedgley, who accompanied me to various habitations and workshops, and also to the Sunday and day schools in connection with the Church. Great pains were evidently taken to instruct the children, but the schools were very thinly attended. In Mr. Lewis's reply to the Educational Queries, he says, "The children and young persons but too generally grow up in irreligion, immorality, and ignorance, owing to the difficulty of getting them to attend school, or of inducing their parents to send them, and enforce their attendance."

In the Church schools, and in the school attached to the Roman Catholic chapel, there are, I believe, educated teachers; but the teachers of the Methodist schools, of various denominations, are mostly working men, who are themselves scarcely able to read and write. There is a national school, and I was informed that the master had received some training as a teacher. The school, however, is thinly attended; and I have much reason to think that, when a schoolmaster follows any other occupation of a kind which is distasteful to the working classes, there will be a more than usual indisposition on the part of parents to send their children to school. One day, while I was wandering through the muddy roadway of Lower Gornal, I saw the master of the national school acting in the capacity of a collector of taxes, with a bludgeon under one arm, and an enormous bull-dog lounging along close to his legs, ferocious and watchful. A circle of boys and women was formed at a little distance from the schoolmaster, and angry groups were looking suspiciously out of most of the doors (and windows too), apparently ready at a moment to step back and close the entrance.


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## discokermit (May 23, 2021)

Ignorance​The children and young persons of this parish are, for the most part, in the lowest state of ignorance conceivable of those who dwell in a civilised Christian country. There is seldom much difference, as to ignorance, between those who attend the Sunday- schools, and those who do not. Out of seven children (taken casually from Sunday-schools, manufactories, and while playing in the street), who were asked if they knew who Jesus Christ was, you will find that _three _had never heard the name of Christ, and a fourth said he was "Adam.". The two latter -- one a boy of about 12, the other a girl nearly 15 years of age -- had never heard of a place called "London;" and the girl added that she never said any prayers, as "she did not know one." Elizabeth Fellows, aged about 15, did not know who Jesus Christ was; and Sarah Jackson, aged about 16, had never heard of a place called London. Elizabeth Round, aged 19, whose family was very religious, on being asked who were the apostles, replied that Jonah, Solomon, Samson, and Pontius Pilate, were apostles, -- adding that she believed Goliath was the last of them.

Independence​"As soon as the children," says the Rev. Mr. Lewis, "can get enough to keep themselves, or think they can, they get rid of parental authority, and either pay their parents for their board, or take lodgings for themselves. Girls frequently do this, as well as boys, at the age of from 14 to 16. The consequences are what may be expected: they grow up without moral restraint. Nevertheless, there are cases," proceeds Mr. Lewis, "in which even so dangerous a proceeding for young persons as this, is attended with advantages. The great number living at home, where there is a large family -- father and mother, brothers and sisters, and young children, all sleeping perhaps in one room -- rendered a change very desirable."

There is much drunkenness and improvidence among the parents and adult workmen, and their ignorance is proverbial. They are sometimes drunk for several days together. "They pawn their bundles of iron, and drink _on _'em."  I was informed by a clergyman of the place, that some years ago, when the efforts were first commenced, by various ministers of religion, to civilise and instruct the adults of the working classes, there was a general ignorance among them equal to the worst instances now to be found among the children and young persons. When a minister asked a working man if he had any knowledge of Jesus Christ, the reply frequently made was, "Does a'work on the bonk or the pit?" Considerable advances have been made in civilising the people of Upper Sedgley and Upper Gornal, but among those of Lower Gornal very little effect has been produced.

Nicknames of places​All the different localities of these villages are called by a nickname, and of a kind which alone will serve as a very strong suggestive evidence of the moral degradation of the inhabitants. Such, for instance, as _Clam-gut Field, Snout's Hollow-way, Can Len, Cinder Hill, Jail Hole, Bull-ring, Sodom, Catch 'em's Corner, Gospel End, Hell Lane, &c._

Number of children​Married women​There are a great number of children in each of the villages of Sedgley parish, but the precise amount I had no means of ascertaining. Early marriages being the habit of the place, there is no prostitution; and there are very few illegitimate children. It is common for a young couple to have a family about them when they are scarcely men and women themselves. A married woman here usually has from 6 to 12 children, the latter number being by far the more common. There was a working man here, some years since, who had 36 children. He was married three times, and was presented with 12 children by each wife.

Infants burnt​Infants being left in charge of children of from six to eight years of age, the latter as well as the former are frequently burnt to death. In the year 1838 alone, there were upwards of 10 children burnt to death in Sedgley.

Atkinson's Preservative​The mothers here to not administer Godfrey's Cordial to their infants, but adopt Atkinson's Infant Preservative instead. It was not used in very large quantities until recently, when a "spurious" Atkinson's Preservative was sold by a chemist, whereupon his opponent extensively advertised "the _real_ Atkinson's Preservative," and the contest has brought this pernicious mixture of chalk and laudanum into much more general use.


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## discokermit (May 23, 2021)

so when people talk about how prudish the victorians were and how showing an ankle would cause a scandal, remember that report.


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## mauvais (May 23, 2021)

Since I last posted on this thread with some advice on historical maps, I've done a few other things.

I did a bit of helping out Working Class History on Twitter trying to find the specific location of old addresses. Maps have their limits especially for short-lived or very fine-grained addresses like Whatever Terrace, Something Road.

I took out two free trial subscriptions, Newspapers.com (which lasts until the trial period ends, even if you cancel early) and Ancestry.com (which kicks you back to a basic account as soon as you cancel the scheduled payment).

Newspapers is particularly good for looking up address references, in fact I found the original advert for my house in 1909. It helps confirm the existence of places.

Ancestry lets you search through and view a few things of import: the actual census paperwork which is in the original sequential walk order (so you can work out adjacent streets) and also, for cities, directories like Kelly's or Slater's that have every street and business and often the people.

This is more relevant to circa 1900 perhaps than the much older stuff you've been through but I thought I'd mention it. I solved some quite complex mysteries involving street name changes using this stuff.


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## Orang Utan (May 23, 2021)

I tried Ancestry for a work thing and looked up my family. Could only find records of my mum’s mother’s family going back quite far. But neither my mum, dad, or aunts and uncles are on it so it can’t be that good


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## discokermit (May 23, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I tried Ancestry for a work thing and looked up my family. Could only find records of my mum’s mother’s family going back quite far. But neither my mum, dad, or aunts and uncles are on it so it can’t be that good


its well good. sometimes you have to do a bit of searching but once you get back a bit you start connecting up with other peoples family trees so a lot of the work is done.
i have noticed if you get info off ozzies, someone somewhere will have (convict) next to their name. their work is good. you notice when hou are getting info from an americans tree, suddenly heraldry appears as avatars next to people who were coal miners and at some point when they go back to the sixteenth century they run out of people and pick the nearest spelled name of an aristocrat. these need a lot of checking.


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## Orang Utan (May 23, 2021)

Why is there no record of my parents or uncles and aunts then?


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## discokermit (May 23, 2021)

mauvais said:


> Since I last posted on this thread with some advice on historical maps, I've done a few other things.
> 
> I did a bit of helping out Working Class History on Twitter trying to find the specific location of old addresses. Maps have their limits especially for short-lived or very fine-grained addresses like Whatever Terrace, Something Road.
> 
> ...


i was doing a lot of finding old addresses, i even discovered west bromwich has pretty much moved its centre by a mile. most of the ones im doing now though im not getting any addresses at all.


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## discokermit (May 23, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Why is there no record of my parents or uncles and aunts then?


so you put your dads date and place of birth and no records came up?
try filling in all the bits of the tree you know and see what the algorhythm throws up.


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## discokermit (May 23, 2021)

the map as it looks now, with over four hundred ancestors on.
pointers are my dads dads side, circles my dads moms. circles with a star, my moms dads, circles with a cross, my moms moms. each different colour is a different surname.












						all roads lead to sedgley. – Google My Maps
					

my ancestors.




					www.google.co.uk


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## discokermit (May 23, 2021)

and a close up of the black country,


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## mauvais (May 23, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Why is there no record of my parents or uncles and aunts then?


A lot of public data like electoral rolls is only released after people are dead, and the latest public census is at least 100 years old.


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## Orang Utan (May 23, 2021)

discokermit said:


> so you put your dads date and place of birth and no records came up?
> try filling in all the bits of the tree you know and see what the algorhythm throws up.


Aye nowt, marriage details too and whatever else I knew. He was born in NZ if that makes a difference. Also can’t find any record of my mum and her sister, just their parents and they were born in the UK. 
not that fussed cos an uncle did the research in the old school way (looking through dusty records in libraries n that) and managed to go back to the 16th century I think. Think I already shared details about my transported convict ancestor


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## Pickman's model (May 23, 2021)

mauvais said:


> Since I last posted on this thread with some advice on historical maps, I've done a few other things.
> 
> I did a bit of helping out Working Class History on Twitter trying to find the specific location of old addresses. Maps have their limits especially for short-lived or very fine-grained addresses like Whatever Terrace, Something Road.
> 
> ...


Directories are good but generally only list one name per address so miss out loads of people in houses of multiple occupation, also not every street covered - certainly not in london. Also few local directories online, so you'd need a trip to local archives / library. In addition the trades / business directories often capture eg lawyers at a rather higher rate than say butchers or bakers. A useful way to use directories to look up an address on ancestry is to find a name in your street pref unusual in say 1881 then search for that name on census in ancestry and cast  about for house name / number.


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## blossie33 (May 23, 2021)

mauvais said:


> A lot of public data like electoral rolls is only released after people are dead, and the latest public census is at least 100 years old.



Yes, 1911 is the most recent, I believe it's going to be a year or so before the 1921 will be online.


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## discokermit (May 23, 2021)

discokermit said:


> When a minister asked a working man if he had any knowledge of Jesus Christ, the reply frequently made was, "Does a'work on the bonk or the pit?"


this phrase, "does a' work on the bonk or the pit?" might need a bit of translation,
a' = she (actually an abbreviated her).
bonk = pit bank, where girls and women would sort the coal (pit bonk wench).
pit = coalmine, in this instance.

so the answer to who was jesus christ being "does she work at the pit bank or down the pit?" makes me think the minister was getting his leg pulled without knowing it.


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## discokermit (May 24, 2021)

some pit bonk wenches in this,


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