genealogy

Isaac Ludlam Executed For Treason

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The Pentrich Revolution

Jeremiah Brandreth, William Turner and Isaac Ludlam were considered the revolution ring leaders and labelled the Pentrich Three.  With over 500 men they set out to march on London to petition the King to better workers’ rights.

Jeremiah Brandreth, or the `Nottingham Captain’, was to actually lead the rebellion. Despite some rather wild stories about his origins, Brandreth was an unemployed framework knitter from Sutton in Ashfield. He had, almost certainly, been involved in Luddite activities.

Sunday 8th June 1817, Brandreth spoke at a crowded meeting in the White Horse Inn in Pentrich………

The rebels assembled at 10 am at Hunt’s Barn in Garner’s Lane, South Wingfield, to march to Ripley. The march route.

There was a traitor to the rebellion, in their midst, and they were stopped at Eastwood the following day.

By early morning, the two groups had come together again and had reached Eastwood. There, two magistrates accompanied by twenty fully armed men and Officers of the 15th Light Dragoons, met them. Mundy, one of the magistrates, afterwards described the confrontation: “we came in sight of the mob who though at three quarters of a mile’s distance from us no sooner saw the troops, then they fled in all directions…throwing away their arms”. Not a single shot was fired and, within a very short space of time, 48 men were captured. Some, however, stayed at large for quite a while. Isaac Ludlam was arrested at Uttoxeter, Brandreth at Bulwell………..

…….. all of the prisoners were isolated until the time of their trial in Derby; their relatives sold everything, down to their beds, to provide funds for their defence and a committee was formed in London to campaign for their release. 46 men of Pentrich, South Wingfield, Alfreton and Heanor, were indicted at the Derby Assizes on 26th July 1817 as having committed High Treason, along with “a multitude of false traitors, …500 or more”. The overwhelming majority of those on trial were labourers and framework knitters, but there was one each of a farmer, tailor, blacksmith and sawyer.

On 7 Nov 1817 Jeremiah Brandreth, Isaac Ludlam and William Turner were executed by hanging and beheading.

These sites provide more information about Isaac Ludlam and the Pentrich Revolution.

At the bottom right hand corner of the above image are my grandparents Jim and Bette Hardy.   Charles T Hardy my great grandfather changed his name from Wigley to Hardy as did my Grandfather.  If you follow the tree upwards you will find Isaac Ludlam near the top right hand corner.  Isaac Ludlam and Obadiah Wigley married sisters.  Isaac was also a witness at Obadiah and Mary Wheatcroft’s wedding.

In researching this blog post I’ve also found out that William Wheatcroft, Mary’s brother also took part in the revolutionary march.  That’s three brothers in law who took part.  William and Obadiah suffered no direct repercussions  however, as stated above, their relatives sold everything, down to their beds, to provide funds for their defence. 

The defeat in court and the deaths of Brandreth, Turner and Ludlam must have had a huge impact on them but Isaac’s death would have had the biggest of all.  Fourteen of their fellow revolutionaries were transported to Australia, six were jailed in England, twelve were tried and freed and many more were apprehended but not charged.

Obadiah and Mary Wigley moved to Mansfield, Nottinghamshire some time between the revolution and Obadiah’s death in 1828.  This move affected their son James as you can see in this blog post.

James Wigley – 2017 Update

James Wigley – 2017 Update

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I’ve been doing some more research into James’ life and rather than do a whole new blog post with links to this one I thought it would be easier to understand if I put the updates in a different coloured font here.

James Wigley is my 4x great grandfather. There are some family stories about James and some mysteries so I’m researching these to ascertain fact from fiction.

James was born in Wirksworth, Derbyshire, England to Obadiah and Mary Wigley (nee Wheatcroft) on 12 March 1807.

James’ first wife was either Jane Brock or Jane Carousa.  They were married in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.  On their son Charles Robert Wigley’s death record it lists his mother as Jane Brock but the only marriage of a James Wigley in Nottinghamshire at the right time is one to a Jane Carousa.  So I’ve emailed the Nottinghamshire archives and will be sending off for the parish register entry to see if this can shed any light on Jane’s surname.   If this doesn’t help then I’ll get a copy of the marriage license.  I got an email back from the Nottinghamshire Archives and as they don’t have a payment method I can use I’ve contacted a research agent instead.

I didn’t follow through with the research agent, at the time, however I was able to order documents via the Nottinghamshire Family History Society.  Jane was approximately 32 years old when she married James so I believe that she had been married previously hence the different surnames.  I will continue searching for Jane’s origins.  This is further complicated by that fact that she says on the 1841 census that she was born in Jamaica.

22 December 2017 update Samuel Barratt, who took part in the Pentrich Revolution with James’ father Obadiah, was a witness to James and Jane’s marriage. https://blog.kyliesgenes.com/2017/12/isaac-ludlam-executed-for-treason/

 

James and Jane had five children Mary, Grace, Charles, Eliza, Ellen.  In 1843 Jane and two of the children, Eliza and Grace, died in a house fire in Wirksworth, Derbyshire, UK.  I just recently found out that Mary didn’t die in the fire.  I will need to find death records to confirm if Eliza and Grace died then too.

In the 1841 census Jane was living in Nottinghamshire with Mary, Charles, Eliza and Ellen.  It appears that Grace died as an infant also James isn’t listed as being in the household either.  So far I haven’t been able to confirm or deny the story of the fire however, if it did happen, it would have only been Jane and Eliza who died in the fire as Mary, Ellen and Charles went on to marry and have families.  

I’ve been told that James stole the plans to a lace making machine and went to France and sold them there.  I don’t know that this story can ever be verified though.  It just may not be possible.

photo of James Wigley

James Wigley

When I think of James Wigley it always gets me thinking about this story of the lace making machine and taking the plans to France so I googled ‘English lace makers in France’ and came across an article from a genealogist right here in Adelaide, South Australia!!  Graham Jaunay writes about the Lacemakers of Calais in South Australia.  

The Calais Lacemakers were English men who designed, built and maintained the extremely complex lace-making machines that had been originally developed in Nottingham. Despite the best efforts by the British to keep the manufacturing process a secret, the techniques were leaked to France and the industry developed in the Calais region using British experience and skills. After the British got over the loss of their monopoly everything was fine until the 1848 Revolution that proved to be an economic disaster for the workers as their factories were closed and English owners returned to England. The workers were faced with destitution if they remained in France or returned to England. G. Jaunay

From there I found the Lacemakers of Calais website which says: 

With very low profits and high wages in England, around 1816 one Robert Webster, with an accomplice Samuel Clark, smuggled a machine into Calais. The machine was dismantled, packaged as old iron and shipped on numerous boats to Calais. Clarke reassembled it in a shop on quai du Commerce in the village of Saint-Pierre, outside the walls of Calais itself. 

James Wigley was only nine years old in 1816 so it is highly unlikely that he was involved with Robert Webster and Samuel Clark so that part of the family story may not be true however lacemaking in Calais went on for many more years and there are more tidbits which point to James perhaps being in France.  He wasn’t listed in the 1841 English census as being in the household in Nottingham with his wife and children and I haven’t been able to find him anywhere else in the UK.  Could he have been in France at this time?  I am currently going through the French census for 1841, for Calais, page by page as it isn’t indexed yet.  The lace makers who went to Calais were from Nottinghamshire where James lived.

James’ name isn’t on the Lacemakers of Calais website as one of those who left in 1848 and came to Australia however he does show up in Stepney, Middlesex, England where he marries Maria (as below) and then proceeds to South Australia in 1849.

Between 1841 and 1848 Charles Robert Wigley could have been in France with his father. (see below) 

In July 1848 James married Maria Lihou nee Bray and in 1849 he took the family to South Australia.  James and Maria, Maria’s daughter Sarah Lihou and Ellen and Charles.  There they lived in Burra for a time before moving to Victoria.

James’ son Charles Robert Wigley who I’ve mentioned above is said to have gone to boarding school in France and that he forgot how to speak English.  Apparently there was a sign on his house in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia which said, “French spoken here”.

I’ll keep adding updates as I find out more.

Searching In GEDCOMs

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I’ve been thinking for a long time about what things I can do with a .gedcom file.  A GEDCOM is a plain text file, which means you can read it in a text editor as well as being able to search it and extract data from it for statistical and other purposes.  That is how our genealogy software programs use it.  It is a file type which isn’t tied to any particular software program either.

This is what a .gedcom file looks like in a text editor.  It needs to be laid out in this format for genealogy programs to be able to understand it.

As you can see from the first few lines of the file, I create my family tree on Ancestry.  I regularly download my .gedcom file from Ancestry as a backup and keep copies of it on my laptop and in my Dropbox  cloud account.  If you don’t know how to download your .gedcom from Ancestry I have a tutorial here.

One of the things you can’t do on Ancestry is search your tree by location which I find really annoying.  One of the ways I’ve found to combat this is to download the .gedcom file, open it in a plain text editor and search it.

I’ll show you what I mean.

Say I want to find anyone who was born or lived in Flaxley.  Having downloaded the .gedcom file already I open it in a plain text program.  You may need to tell your computer to open it in a text program rather than a genealogy program by clicking the right mouse button on the file, as shown below, and click Open With Text Editor.  You may need to click the Open With option and choose a program from a list.  On Microsoft Windows you can use the Notepad program.

 

To search the .gedcom file press and hold the Ctrl key and press the F key on your keyboard.

Type in the place or word you want to search for and click Find.  When it finds the word you’re looking for it highlights it.  Keep clicking Find to go to the next instance of the word or place in the .gedcom file.

This is one way I can find anyone who ever lived in Flaxley or any mention of the place.

It may seem like a complicated process to find a simple piece of information but, as I said at the start, it is also the beginnning of my thinking about what other things can be done with a .gedcom file.  I guess it’s a case of what can I do myself rather than using a software program.  I’m not a computer programmer but I am interested in how programs work, how they handle data and what they can be made to do.  The same goes for web apps and to a lesser extent mobile apps.  I can’t make my own software program but I may, with lots of help, be able to do something with a web app.

What is something that you can’t do with your genealogy software program or with one of the online genealogy programs?  Do you have a particular bug bear which you would like to find a solution for?

People Present At William Chapman’s Funeral

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Update: Since writing this blog post back in June 2012 I have since found out that my maternal Auntie’s husband is descended from William Thomas Oke who was at William Chapman’s funeral, they may have even been friends.  If anyone else has any information to add please leave a comment here or send me a message.

There were many people listed as attending my 3x great grandfather’s funeral at West Tce cemetery in Adelaide, South Australia.  Here is the previous blog post about  William Chapman.   In that post I asked if anyone recognised any names or could provide more information.  Thanks to those who responded and a big thank you to Michelle S. for searching the Biographical Index of South Australia and coming up with the following information.  Not everyone listed here was at the funeral.

I love how this puzzle of family and social history fits together.  The more I research the more I find the inter-connections between people and events fascinating.  The who knew whom, and how they knew them, and why they worked together or how they met is intriguing to me.  There are themes which are repeated throughout history, couples who met at church or at work, parents’ friends who gave their children jobs, musicians who played together, those who were part of the same organisations and had similar interests it goes on and on.  We are made to be such relational beings!

 

GOODEN Jas Ed par: Gus and Ellen nee CANEY
b: 23.12.1845 Brentford SRY ENG d: 17.7.1913
bd: Payneham SA arr: 1848 THOMAS LOWRY
occ: Cricketer, Collector, Clerk res: Norwood
m: Mary Ann ch: 2 children, Rose Emma
(1877-1880)

OKE William Thomas par: Paul and Lavinia, b: 30.9.1855
SA occ: Coachbuilder res: Nth Adelaide, Malvern
m: c1879 SA Jacobina nee STIRTON ch: Paul, Joanna
Elder (c1885-), Kath Gardiner, Irene HENWOOD

CONIGRAVE Joseph b: 5.12.1841 SA d: 3.4.1905
Adelaide SA lid: WTC 0cc: Policeman, Postal
Employee res: Glenelg, Adelaide
m: (1/2) 30.5.1872 Jane nee MIDDLETON
par: Joseph and Eliz b: c1843 d: 3.8.1893 ch: Elsie
Joseihine McFEAT, Arthur Hedley (1879-1900),
Florence Evans STROUT (1877-1968), Harry Stanley b Feb 1882 d Dec 1968, (Harry survived 4 months at Gallipoli in WWI) Kate Muriel CROSS, Dudley Garfield (1887-1978)
a : (2/2) Mary

Update: New information from the family of Joseph CONIGRAVE.

SCHEDLICH Carl Gustav par: Carl Gottfried
b: 22.4.1821 Dresden, Germany d: 8.8.1901 Mannum
SA arr: 1847 occ: Farmer, District Clerk, Postal
Employee res: Bugle Ranges, Macclesfield, Adelaide
m: 20.10.1853 Bugle Ranges SA Ann Euphemia nee
LINN par: Matthew and Ann nee DICK b: 8.5.1834
Kirkliston SCT d: 1906 Ch: Matthew Carl (1854-),
Carl Gustav (1856-), Mgt Christina (1858-1866),
Christian Whme (1860), Ann Euphemia
(1862-1866), Caroline Whme (1864-), Jane (Jenny)
Latta GOLDRIN(1866-), Alfred Louis (1868-),
Ferdinand Fried (1870-1951), Henry Jas (1872-1936),
Marie Louis REID(1875-), Jas Henry (1878-1878)

VIRGO Ed Lewes par: Jas and Lucy nee LUXFORD
b: 6.10.1840 SA d: 3.7.1905 occ: Postal Worker
res: Adelaide
m: 31.1.1861 Nth Adelaide SA Sarah nee PARKER
par: Abraham b: c1837 Bristol GLS ENG
d: 12.11.1919

CONDON William b: c1830 d: 20.9.1916 bd: WTc
arr: by 1878 occ: Mail Guard res: Adelaide rel: RC
m: Bridget b: c1838 d: 24.7.1916 ch: Wm
(1861-1936), Jas( 1863-1916), Thos (1864-1936),
Nellie (1867-1907)

GURR Valentine par: Geo and Ann b: 6.3.1841 Ssx
ENG d: 28.9.1915 bd: WTC arr: 1850 SULTANA
0cc: Postal Employee res: Adelaide
m: Mary b: (1850 d: 6.4.1924

KIDMAN Saml Geo par: Saml John and Caroline
b: 6.7.1838 SA d: after 1885 occ: Letter Carrier
res: Adelaide rel: C/E

My note: If this is the right person then he must have died after 1897 otherwise he couldn’t have been at William’s funeral.

HAMLYN Arthur par: Arthur and Honor Gudge nee
GARNAUT b: 20.3.1870 Pt Adelaide SA d: 25.1.1922
bd: Cheltenham SA 0cc: Letter Sorter res: Pt Adelaide
rel: Bapt
m: 5.7.1899 Alberton SA Thursza Cath nee BASS
b: 12.11.1872 d: 8.8.1935 ch: Arthur Henry
(1900-1972), Mabel HUGHE(S1 901-1959)

MADDERN John par: John b: 1860 Adelaide SA
d: 1912 occ: Postal Clerk res: Adelaide
m: Lydia nee POMERY par: Jas Rowe and Mary
Ann nee BOASE b: 1857 SA d: 1905 ch: Florence East
(1886-), John Carrington (1887-1941), Norman
Pomery (1890-1967), Edith Grace MASON (-1970),
Cecil Boase (1894-1957), Hilda Vera MOAR (1896-),
Stella Beatrice POTTER (1897-), Evelyn d(8), Fred
d. inf

MALEY William b: 9.9.1829 DUB IRL d: 1920
bd: WTc arr: 1854 occ: Postal Clerk, Postman
res: Adelaide rel: Meth
m: 1854 unknown d: 1909

HOWELLS Philip Arthur par: Philip and Janetta
b: 29.11.1853 SRY ENG d: 24.8.1921 Adelaide SA
an: 1855 COROMANDEL occ: Music Seller res: Nth
Adelaide, Prospect, Adelaide rel: Cong
m: 28.11.1878 Nth Adelaide SA Harriet Maria nee
NEWMAN par: Geo Gough b: 3.11.1855 SA
d: 3.10.1939 ch: Edith Emily ANNELLS (1880-1963),
Alice Ruby STAFFORD (1883-1965), Clarence Newman
(1884-1885), Hilda Marian DALL (1885-), Dora
SLOMAN (1887-1968), Arthur Victor (1889-1890)

FRAY John Hill art: 1884 GARONNE occ: Professor
of Music res: Adelaide rel: C/E
m: Alice Emily nee SMITH ch: John Leslie Hill
1896-)

GRIGG Thomas b: 28.8.1859 Teignmouth DEV ENG
occ: Music Teacher res: Adelaide rel: C/E
m: 7.7.1879 SA Rachel Ellen nee WORTHLEY ch: 5
dau

CAWTHORNE Charles W. par: Wm Anderson and
Mary Ann Georgiana nee MOWER b: 1855
d: 26.6.1925 bd: Nth Rd SA arr: by 1870 occ: Music
Warehouse
m: Amanda Dorothea b: c1864 d: 18.9.1923
ch: Augustus Eckersley (1886-1937)

PYBUS Wm Richd par: Wm b: 9.10.1848 Adelaide
SA d: 11.11.1917 bd: Nth Rd SA 0cc: Music Professor
res: Adelaide
m: 27.9.1880 Annie Emma nee SWEET par: Capt
b: c1857 d: 30.5.1950 ch: Gladys Marguerite
(1886-1956), Doris Marjorie CUMING (1892-1972), dau

BASSE Frederick b: c1852 Dusseldorf, Germany
d: 7.4.1913 SA 0cc: Jeweller, Gold and Silversmith
res: College Pk, Norwood rel: He
m: 4.1.1883 Adelaide SA Annie nee UHLMANN
par: H. C. ch: Elise Elsa (1886-1886)

TODD Sir Charles b: 7.7.1826 Islington LND ENG
d: 29.1.1910 lid: Nth Rd SA arc: 1855 IRENE
occ: Postmaster General, Government Astronomer
res: Adelaide rel: C/E
m: c1854 Allice nee GILLAM b: 7.8.1836 d: 9.8.1898
ch: Eliz SQUIRES(1856-1937), Chas Ed (1858-1917),
Hedley Lawrence (1860-1907), Maude (1866-1929),
Gwendoline BRAGG(1870-1929), Lorna Gillam
(1877-1963)

 

I hope this list can help someone piece together a bit more of their family history!!

St John Ambulance Cadets

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I was going through a box of memorabilia tonight when I came across my St John Ambulance cadet certificates and badges.  I think I was missing a couple of service stripes for my years as a cadet.  I remember doing the drill and training but not so much the exams.  I loved the events that we went to to provide first aid support to the senior officers.  We went to agricultural shows, the Schützenfest at Hahndorf, South Australia and Christmas Pageants.  As it says in the Wikipedia link the Schützenfest was held in mid summer resulting in many cases of too much to drink, heatstroke and extreme sunburn for us to treat.

 

Our uniform was a white dress and black beret with a grey wool cape for winter.  It wasn’t very practical at all.  Thankfully in later years it changed so that women could wear trousers.  The below photos show cadets from another South Australian country town, during the time I was a cadet.  I couldn’t find pictures of my own cadet division online.