c1860: Robert and Elizabeth’s Children and the move to the city As idyllic as life might have seemed around Hathersage and the beautiful Hope and Derwent Valleys, most of Robert and Elizabeth’s children eventually left it behind them - for busy life in Liverpool, Salford and Manchester. They appear to have done quite well for themselves, particularly second eldest son John but it came at a price.
It’s hard to tell precisely when the five brothers moved to the city but we do know when they were and weren’t at their parent’s house in Derbyshire: In 1851 all of the children were still with their parents in one half of Hazzleford (Hall), Eyam Woodlands as usual:
Thomas 9, John 8, Benjamin 7, Robert 5, Charlotte 3 and Abraham 1. In 1861 there’s a new arrival: Mary aged 7 , but during the intervening decade, some siblings have flown the nest, namely: (our) Thomas aged 20, (uncle) John aged 19, Benjamin 17 and Charlotte 13. Those still at home: young Robert aged 15, is listed with No Occ. though he would help his dad Robert Sr. with the keepering - and Abraham aged 11 is still in school. If Thomas, John and Benjamin have left for the city they left fairly young and our Thomas has already married, aged just 20. Some time later Robert will leave for Liverpool perhaps when he’s 16, or perhaps in 1867 when he’s 21. Why is 1867 significant? - we’ll find that out shortly. Everton & Son Thomas Liverpool’s population had exploded dramatically since 1800, mainly due to immigration. Between 1801 and 1851, not long before our ancestors arrived, it had increased approximately five-fold from 77, 653 to 375, 955. The original compact centre of the town deteriorated an depopulated as it was abandoned by many including the more wealthy inhabitants who spread outward and headed for newer and more fashionable areas such as Everton. They left deprivation, overcrowding, disease and poverty behind them. Well, in a sense. The social demarcations in Liverpool were a little blurred. The grandiose Georgian-styled piles of the wealthy - in Everton for example - often fronted back-to-back Courts where the less fortunate lived in squalor: cheek-by-jowl with their betters. A massive portion of the population lived in cellars too where disease was rife. Back in 1801 12% of Liverpool’s population lived in cellars, 15% in Courts. The Cellars unexpectedly ended up saving lives in Everton during WWII when, with the government having recently strengthened many cellars, the people who took to them were protected from the blitz. The highest population growth was occurring in Everton and Toxteth Park in 1801-1811 but by the time our ancestors arrived, Walton’s was most notable expansion. This is where Robert Jr. would live with his family. But Everton was peculiar for it’s mix of wealthy residents and cellar and court-dwelling labourers. By 1851 almost half of Liverpool’s population had been born outside of Lancashire, with 22.3% of that number coming from Ireland – mainly due to the effects of the potato famine there. In 1871 it’s likely that three-quarters were born outside of the borough of Liverpool. Everton was, and still is, a very Welsh influenced part of Liverpool visually testified by those surviving yellow-bricked houses constructed by the many Welsh builders who lived and worked there. Our Thomas White was certainly living in Liverpool by 1861 and had already met a woman 4 years his senior – another outsider - from Birmingham. Her name was Phoebe Ellen Wells, she was 24 years old and they married that year in West Derby, Liverpool. (Wasn’t it Walton Breck?) The couple lived together just off Everton and West derby Roads at 40 Hughes Street, Everton, with Phoebe’s father Thomas William Wells and mother Eliza. Thomas William was a Tobacconist and cigar-maker, and he and Eliza were from London but as we’ve seen, their daughter Phoebe was a Brummie, born and christened in St.Martin’s, Birmingham in 1837. I wonder if she had the accent at all? It’s nice to imagine that she had a touch, it makes her personality more tangible somehow. It looks as though Phoebe’s parents moved in with the newly weds, because our Thomas was the Head of the household on the ’61 census. Not an ideal situation, one might imagine. Babies, didn’t arrive particularly promptly or in very rapid succession, perhaps due to the presence of her parents which may have caused tension, or perhaps this was a symptom of city living – with increased stresses, expenses and different priorities. There is indeed evidence of decreased fertilty in Liverpool in the latter half of the 19th century, and it made quite a change from the big, big rural families of their past. The children would still be weighted on the male side though, and the sad family trait of male infant deaths it appears, would follow them to Liverpool. So what was our Thomas doing for a living? Well, he would appear to have been in a profession requiring higher level study and qualifications: in ’61 our Thomas is a Druggist, and the business that he would soon get into with his brother John would be slightly related to this - and we’ll get to that shortly. A couple of years later Thomas was also listed in the Street Directories between 1864 and ‘68 as a Drysalter. Actually, 40 odd years later, brother John would enter Drug as his sole rank and or profession. But how did these young men from the country manage to study in college? How could Robert their father afford it? Well, the skill of the Druggist could be gained through a salaried apprenticeship - and the qualification by study either part-time or full-time and often by correspondence. The Museum of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society gives additional helpful information. First of all, Druggists were considered assistants or dispensers and so weren’t required to register with the Society even after the Pharmacy Act of 1851. Also somebody working in pharmacy didn’t have to register if they weren’t involved with the dispensing or sale of scheduled poisons. I’ll quote the Society’s information sheet: Chemist and druggist was a term first used to describe both chemical and drug merchants and practitioners (…) from the late 1700s (…) often used in trade directories and census returns. Under the 1868 Pharmacy Act, the term chemist and druggist was used by the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain to denote those who had passed its minor examination, thus meeting the minimum requirement to register as a pharmacist. The use of the title chemist and druggist became legally restricted to registered pharmacists only from 1868 onwards. Commercial chemical and drug merchants, sometimes called druggists, not involved with the dispensing or the sale of scheduled poisons were not required to register with the Society, and continued to trade after 1868. This means that they do not appear on the Society’s records. They may appear in local records such as trade directories and census returns. Legally they could no longer use the title chemist and druggist. If Thomas and John did take a formal examination, those offered by the Society from 1841 included the minor examination, a rudimentary qualification for pharmacists’ employed assistants. Successful candidates were required to register with the Society, and were listed on the ‘Register of Chemists and Druggists’, published annually from 1869. Our boys were never registered so it’s possible that they didn’t bother doing the exams, having seen no compelling legal or commercial reason to do so. Perhaps their plans to embark on a potentially lucrative food preservation business diverted their interests to making more immediate gains requiring no qualifications. It would prove to be a very good more. Sadly though, despite the brothers’ commercial successes, our Thomas and Phoebe’s lives would take some shockingly unfortunate turns and the central axis of our story will divert through Thomas’ brother John to us – not genealogically of course! - but John will play an increasingly important and influential role in our family history. We’ll actually end up knowing more about John’s life than that of Thomas. Son John and the Smiths of Hathersage and Sheffield The second son who was in Liverpool, later to be named ‘uncle’ John White by our family was probably also there from 1861 - at the latest – and was married to Sarah. He would marry twice and be a big player in the Liverpool business, eventually taking complete control - by fair means or foul? – we can’t say for sure. Sarah Smith was from Sheffield but could she already have been known to the Whites in Hathersage? - before they ever came to Liverpool? Smith is one of the most common of names but papers have come down through the family to us concerning people named Smith in Hathersage and Sheffield. One of these, from the 29th of November 1834 – before Robert and Elizabeth’s children were born - relates to a Sarah and a Job Smith from Hathersage. This is probably not the woman that John married because in 1861 she would have been around 57 years old! It starts with a large calligraphic flourish:“This Indenture” and continues to describe an agreement between Sarah Smith [interestingly], widow and her son Job, both of Hathersage; and Thomas Fisher, Joiner. Job was to be apprenticed to Thomas Fisher to learn the trade. The Joiner was from Sheffield, Yorkshire. Perhaps this young man Job went on to have a daughter called Sarah, in Sheffield, who would later marry John White in Liverpool. But just how likely is this? Well, we also have a will of Job Smith of Sheffield dated 1859 “of the Cemetery Road, Sheffield in the county of York, Joiner and Builder”. It looks as if his mother Sarah had put him on the path to success when he was sent away to be a Joiner’s Apprentice. The will is a long and detailed document, careful, and tinged with mistrust – plainly handwritten on small sheets of blue paper held now at the corners by a straight pin, on 5 pages front and back. He appoints his brother Thomas Smith as one of the executors and leaves £20 plus a weekly allowance to his wife Elizabeth (Step-mother to his children?). This is on the condition that she remains his widow and that the trustees consider that she is taking care of his children satisfactorily: specifically “not failing” in their care. It looks as though he may have been a man of some means, with real estate. More conclusively, the 1851 census for Sheffield lists a Job Smith, Joiner and his daughter Sarah. There’s also another more tenuous pointer to a White/Smith connection back in Hathersage. A document of 1858 – not handed down from ‘uncle’ John - detailing the ‘Tenants and Fields’ and their ‘quantity’ and ‘yearly value’ of Eyam Woodlands includes an entry for Robert White at Hazzleford Hall and a neighbouring tenant named Charles Smith. Finally, the 1841 census for Hathersage lists a Smith family headed by the Widow and Farmer Sarah and there are also Hathersage Smiths who were Wire Drawers. Based on this theory I speculate, and it is quite possible, that the Smiths of Hathersage made their way to Liverpool via Yorkshire – with Job as vanguard, encouraged by his mother Sarah - and finding good prospects in the city invited the Whites to try their luck there too. If they could also provide temporary shelter and accommodation it would make all the difference to two or three wide-eyed young country lads with strange accents, trying to get started in one of Europe’s largest and busiest cities. Thomas was at 40 Hughes St, Everton but we don’t yet know where John, Thomas and Robert – if Robert was also there - were living at this point but by July 1864 John and Sarah - if then married - may have been in Mill Road, West Derby. I’ll explain why later. New evidence: John may have been living in Sheffield working as a Carter. He may have married Sarah there or in Bradford (see: Ancestry Marriage records). This Sheffield theory fits with John Groome’s Postcard to Sheldon’s Pharmacy in Sheffield. Perhaps this is where John White - and Thomas too - learnt to be Druggists. Son Benjamin Benjamin White may have followed the Smiths’ example more closely. At home at Hazzleford Hall, news of Builder Job Smith’s success in Sheffield following his apprenticeship as a Joiner in 1934 may have traveled - across the garden fence so to speak - from Charles Smith and family to the Whites and the whole village of Hathersage. Perhaps impressed by this, by 1861 Robert and Elizabeth may have bidden their 17 year old third child farewell at Hathersage or Grindleford station as he followed the trail to Yorkshire. (He probably walked – only 10 or so miles). Like the Smiths he would eventually end up in Liverpool but Benjamin traveled about the country learning his trades first. In 1861 whilst brothers Thomas and John were possibly both married and working in Merseyside, Benjamin aged just 17, was far from home, an apprentice joiner in Yorkshire - just as Job Smith had been – except living with a Reuben Sanderson in Bradfield [Bradford?] rather than Sheffield. Back at home & Grandfather Thomas Charlotte White seems to have been away from home too on Census night in 1861, which is surprising as she seems never to have married and was perhaps a bit of a homebird, she was only 13.
On the 20th of January the will of Robert’s father Thomas - farmer and slate merchant of Tadgness, Nether Padley - who passed away back in 1857, has been proved at Derby. The beneficiaries first and foremost are Robert’s step-mother Barbara and half-siblings and then the “surviving children of [the] first marriage Joseph… Robert… and married daughters Dorothy Barnsley and Sarah Hancock”. One of the executors is “Samuel White of Calver”. Who is this person? There is a “Samuel White of Calver” buried at Baslow who died in 1820 so it’s not him. A more likely candidate would be Robert’s uncle Samuel White who was born in 1770 at Grindleford and it would make sense for Robert’s father Thomas to make a brother his executor. It would put that Samuel at around 90 years old though. I wonder how close Robert was to his dad? One day he’d end up following in his footsteps by going back to farming too. Or did he always farm on the side in addition to Gamekeeping? Liverpool and the first of the Grandchildren Little did the family know that in the early ‘60s they were on the verge of a very bad few years. But first there would have been some good news sent home to Hathersage. In 1862 Robert and Elizabeth’s first grandchild was born in Liverpool on the 27th of November to Thomas and Phoebe. He was born at home at 40 Hughes Street, Everton. The baby was our very own Thomas Wells White - Jack’s father. He inherited his late great-grandfather’s Christian name as well as his dad’s. His middle name Wells, was not a double-barreled surname it seems but was a respectful nod toward Phoebe and her father Thomas Wells the cigar maker and tobacconist. I do wonder at this gesture by a mid 19th century husband toward his wife and inlaws. It seems very magnanimous. Were the Wells family especially worthy of such a compliment? Perhaps Phoebe’s father was quite well off and it was advantageous to flatter him in this way: butter him up. It will be worth finding out more about the Wells’. On the other hand, the fact that they seemed to be living with the newly-weds at Hughes Street with son-in-law Thomas listed as head would appear to contradict this inflated theory of Phoebe’s dad’s status. Why would well-off parents need to move in with their children? Perhaps it was temporary whilst getting their own house. Or was Thomas just a really spiffing chap? The census form in a literal sense does only reflect a short period of time on one night out of a decade. Whatever the reason, the following February our little Thomas Wells White was christened in St.Peter’s Church, Church Street. Thomas Wells White b.27th Nov 1862 Everton, West Derby, chr.8th Feb 1863 St.Peter’s Liverpool.
Robert White b.3rd Jan 1865, chr.Apr 1865 St.Peter’s Liverpool.
d.18th Nov 1866 (at just 23 months).
Charles Henry White b.6th Oct 1866 at 104 Soho St. The west Derby Farm Back in the 1800s, West Derby Village and its surrounding area was really countryside with many pig-farms and dairies, lush green fields and country cottages. The area is still one of the more attractive areas of Liverpool, having lost little of its charm despite housing development and its absorption into the suburbs. In the early 1860s, a person named Smith makes another appearance. On the 13th April of 1863, there was an agreement signed between Thomas William Smith, Cowkeeper, and John Backhouse. Thomas William may be the brother of Job Smith of Sheffield. Remember Job appointed his brother Thomas Smith as an executor of that lengthy and detailed will? Thomas was taking tenancy of a “House, Outbuildings and appurtanances thereof, at 114 (Southside of) Mill Rd., West Derby” for £40 per year. Then, the following year on the 23rd of July 1864: enter John White. John purchases a farm – perhaps the same property - from Thomas William Smith, Cowkeeper and Coal dealer. This includes livestock, equipment and a house. The agreement was written up on the 23rd of July – the sum was £135 – and it was settled on the 29th of August. It’s signed by both parties and witnessed by Thomas White and Robert Whitherby (?) accountant (?). This document is really wonderful to see as it shows Thomas White and John White’s signatures. Did John shrewdly buy the farm purely as an investment, or did he live there in West Derby for a time with Sarah? The next year, 1865, there’s more good news but the start of very bad times are just around the corner. A calm before the storm. On the 3rd of January Thomas and Phoebe’s 2nd child Robert is born and in April he’s christened - in keeping with tradition - at St.Peter’s. The parents and grandparents must be celebrating. But then, in the same month Benjamin Sheldon, Elizabeth’s father/Thomas’ grandfather dies. With Elizabeth recovering from this blow at Hazzleford, yet another probably more terrible one fell 9 months later on the 7th of October. Little Annie, Uncle John and Sarah’s only child died. Perhaps she was under 5 years old. It must have been a terrible time for the family. John and Sarah may have been living as stated earlier at the farm on Mill Road, West Derby. Their world, no doubt, was shattered. Any respite from further tragedy would have been gratefully received and for about a year it lasted, some hope raising its head along the way with the news that Thomas and Phoebe were expecting another child. Things were certainly looking good for the couple. But how had the brothers’ careers been developing? The Cathedral Church of St.Peter on Church St., Everton where Thomas Wells was christened. Here painted by CW.Clennell in 1844, it’s now gone but it was the main church for Liverpool until the cathedral was built in the C.20th. St.Peter’s was demolished in 1923 to make way for Woolworth’s first British Shop. A plaque commemorates it today. The Brothers’ Business At some point during the ‘60s, Thomas and John and eventually Robert, got themselves into the food preservation business in Liverpool. Just when, and just how they achieved this is a mystery at the moment. By 1864 as we saw, Thomas was listed as a Drysalter in the Street Directory but was he a self-employed business-owner or working for someone else? There were several Drysalting companies in Liverpool at this time. Find the name of the huge one in Gore’s. Was it Matthew’s? He surely wouldn’t have been very well-off by this time and the house he lived in was probably a modest terraced affair. By 1865, the year that John and Sarah’s daughter died, Thomas and Phoebe had moved to 104 Soho Street in Everton (now Vauxhall), it’s just across Shaw Street from their old house on Hughes Street. To get there: just go down the hill past where the factory was along William Henry Street and then follow the road sharply to the left at the bottom. Soho Street seems to be cut into two separated lengths today - probably since the near total demolition of the area since the 80’s. So, weirdly: there are two Soho Streets very close to one another. It must cause no end of confusion for visitors and postmen. Virtually every building was leveled since then and replaced with characterless council housing. It’s a sad sight. There were only two old looking buildings still standing on Soho Street in 2007: one is modest, the other is large and on a corner but not that old. Perhaps around the same time as Thomas and Phoebe moved house in the mid 1860s, John and Sarah moved to Lyell Street in Everton where they would be listed on the 1871 census. Did they move after little Annie died? They might have needed somewhere easier to manage than a farm while they grieved. The closest match I can find on the map today is Lyle (as opposed to Lyell) Street in Everton, further down the hill towards the Mersey and just short of Vauxhall Road. Not too far from Soho Street. If this is the same street, there’s nothing left now: all modern council estate houses. Nice and new but generically characterless. An uninteresting place for a stroll.
During the 1800s many wealthy merchants who had had houses with attached warehouses sited close to the docks decided to move to bigger premises in nicer neighbourhoods. Some moved up the hill to overlook the town from between where the two cathedrals are sited today, but the really wealthy ones moved to Everton. In the case of the brothers White this may have been their aim all along: to get on the property ladder in Everton and make the right impression. Where they got the capital is quite a mystery however. Could they have become very wealthy already? How? An inheritance windfall perhaps? Or from John’s father-in-law Job Smith and Thomas’ father-in-law the Cigar-maker? Job certainly had money and real estate. In the mid-60s then, the business may have been well underway but we can’t say for sure what it was called or where it was sited. Eventually in 1870 it would be named R&J White and Co, after younger brother Robert and John, and located at 129 Back Salisbury Street – very close by, up the hill from Thomas and John’s homes. But what exactly was the business they were engaged in? Drysaltery I always heard that granddad Jack worked as a Carter at his ‘uncle’ John’s Pickle Factory. I imagined cartloads of glass chutney jars with attractive Victorian labels rolling off conveyor belts. In fact they ran a Drysalting factory in Everton up until 1915 at 129 Salisbury Street (William Henry Street). I’ve been told by Erna and other sources that three brothers moved to Liverpool in their late teens and early 20s – around 1860 - and started the business, namely Thomas, John and Robert. Eventually the company would be named R & J White & Co. Drysalters but it was our Thomas, the eldest brother who was in the Liverpool census records and was described as a Drysalter in various documents. Robert doesn’t show in Liverpool on paper until 1870. The three-brother theory and the initials R&J don’t really fit the facts do they?
No record of the company exists at Companies House under that name - so it may have been a partnership rather than a limited company - but the business does first show up in the Liverpool street directory of 1870 as Robert and John White Drysalters. Presumably the business operated under a different name originally – without any mention of teenager Robert. Below: R&J White & Co. copper printing plate for Letterheads, invoices etc. No older that 1874 (photo has been flipped for legibility). Martin Gee recently showed me a printing plate that the business used for letterheading invoices and receipts and the like. It’s made of copper and has the name of the business in exhuberant flowery script with the subheadings ‘Wholesale Drysalters’ and ‘Oil and Vinegar Stores’. The address is 129 Salisbury St. (with ‘William Henry Street’ in brackets). If you recall, William Henry Street is the street that we descended in our imagination, from Shaw Street to get to Thomas and Phoebe’s house on Soho Street. It cuts Salisbury Street forming a crossroads. In 1874 the business was probably sited, unfortunately, where the notoriously nicknamed ‘Piggeries’ council tower blocks stood in the 1960’s and council houses stand today. So no trace of the premises remains, following the WWII blitz and at least two council demolitions. It probably would have been on the end of one Salisbury Street block where the flats were, its gable end opposite the gable end of the boys and girls’ junior school on the next block of Salisbury Street; William Henry Street descending in-between. The unkind Piggeries nickname for the tower blocks may have had an earlier innocent origin. The whole area was at different times a hive of industry. There were sawmills and woodworking shops, steelworks and slaughterhouses. So perhaps there were piggeries too. A shop-keeping resident told me that he remembered cattle being driven up William Henry Street in the 1950s, on their way to be slaughtered nearby. “Oh yeah… shite everywhere.” And Don Gee concurred: “I remember that – the cows were offloaded from flat-top ferries at the docks and marched across (great Howard Street, Scotland Road and St.Anne’s Road, and probably along Richmond Row) to Everton”. Mr.Morris the shopkeeper said the woodworkers on Soho Street might have three storeys of workshops: saw mill on the ground floor, carpenters and joiners on the next two. He recalls “fellers comin’ into the shop with fingers missin’!”. But I’ve digressed - in order to paint a little local colour…
So what is this Drysalting business all about then? Here are some online Definitions of Drysaltery: n. dealer in dried goods, foods, chemicals, etc. drysaltery, n.
Dry´salt`er n.1.A dealer in salted or dried meats, pickles, sauces, etc., and in the materials used in pickling, salting, and preserving various kinds of food Hence drysalters usually sell a number of saline substances and miscellaneous drugs. Here’s a description of the process when used to preserve fish: The fish were had the head removed and were split along the back leaving the belly intact but removing the guts. They were then packed in wooden barrels with coarse salt separating each fish from the other. The salt turned to brine as the fluid was drawn from the fish. The fish was then repacked with fresh salt and this was repeated until the salt remained dry. The fish were then hung out on a line to finish drying. Fish preserved this way kept for two to three years before they became completely unpalatable. To use the fish they were soaked in fresh water which was changed frequently until most of the salt had been extracted and it was then boiled with potatoes. Needless to say they always tasted extremely salty, it was an acquired taste. And a literary reference: “There was scarce one of the ladies that hadn’t a relation a Peer, though the husband might be a drysalter in the City.” Vanity Fair by Thackeray, William Makepeace Above: A typical Drysalter’s Shop in Glasgow. So Drysalters used chemical processes to preserve food. The ‘Wholesale Drysalters’ and ‘Oil and Vinegar Stores’ inscription on the printing plate would also seem to back up the pickling factory scenario. They obviously used a whole variety of food preservation techniques. I wonder how and where our three brothers gained the experience? It’s possible that they worked at another Drysalting firm initially and learnt the ropes. Find that Co. that did everything in the directory In addition to household requisites such as wallpaper paste, bleach, soap, paint and varnish, a drysalter’s shop sold unpackaged chemical goods. In this picture dyes, glycerine, gum arabic, saltpetre, ’sugar of lead’, French chalk and raw soap are on sale. So it’s not too difficult to see from all of the preceding definitions and descriptions how a Druggist with knowledge of chemistry might fit into Drysaltery. Still, the question remains, where did they learn to be Druggists? In a Pharmacist’s shop in Hathersage? How on earth did they make those leaps: to Druggist, to Drysalter to running their own business? Further research is required. This was done: no education or qualification required prior to 1860(?). Mid 1860s onwards: More Terrible Times Ahead We’ve taken a little break from the family tragedies to learn of the business and as we saw earlier Thomas and Phoebe were expecting their third child. It was something for the whole family to look forward to optimistically after the recent passing of Grandfather Sheldon and niece Annie both within he space of 5 months. On the 16th of October 1866 Thomas and Phoebe’s 3rd child Charles Henry White was born, safe and sound, at home at 104 Soho Street. Such a wonderful event but how cruelly fate can twist. Between 1 to 3 days after the safe birth of Charles Henry, their little 23 month old son Robert died. The Anfield gravestone reads: In affectionate remembrance of Robert, son of Thomas & Phoebe Helen (sic) WHITE, who died November 15th 1866 aged 1 year & 11 months… “ You might think that Phoebe needed to be an extraordinary woman to give birth, rejoicing in the arrival of a new child only to have another snatched away almost immediately and to deal with this all in her weakened state: you’d be right. You might also think that this family had suffered enough? I’m afraid you’d be wrong. It’s not clear to me yet just how long Thomas was involved in the Drysalting business but, it wasn’t to last. Our Thomas died just 6 months after his son Robert on the 24th of May 1867 in Netherfield Road Hospital, North Everton aged just 27: leaving the shell-shocked Phoebe to raise the two children. It must have been an even more terrible blow to lose her husband when she was still grieving the death of little Robert; only the previous November. How different her life might have been had she and her parents stayed in Birmingham. In affectionate remembrance of Robert, son of Thomas & Phoebe Helen (sic) WHITE, who died November 15th 1866 aged 1 year & 11 months. Also Thomas WHITE, father of the above, who died May 28th 1867, age 28 years. “They have gone, the grave has received them, “Twas Jesus that called them away, They have gone to the Lord who redeemed them, From night to the splendour of day.” How on earth was Phoebe to cope with so much personal loss? She must have felt crushed. Her world falling apart – the earth opening under her feet – life in tatters. How would we cope today? The cause of her husband’s death was Typhus. Liverpool had had its share of horrific disease outbreaks especially in the 1700’s. The result of massive immigration and overcrowding in the hellish Courts, where whole families were jammed into tiny basement rooms that seethed with rats and flooded with sewage. As we read earlier, in Everton, the better off and even the very wealthy lived side-by-side with the most impoverished. It was an Everton phenomenon. No matter how grand your house, how big your bank balance, contagion was a perpetual hazard. The disease that struck most fear though, was cholera and it struck fast. In the Vauxhall borough of the mid 1700s, the average life expectancy had been 17 years. Paranoia was rife too amongst all classes. In one instance a cholera sufferer was taken away for treatment and the neighbourhood rioted, hurling accusations of ‘Burking’ at the carers. Burking referred to the notorious Dubliners Burke and Hare. Bodysnatchers. How closely did Thomas come into contact with disease? If he was a part-time pharmacist, then that might explain it, but then Typhus - a disease borne by lice and fleas - could affect anyone. It could have been present amongst the workers at the factory too. Erna rightly says that the ‘posher’ Everton residences were really only a stone’s throw from the much poorer ones as we’ve seen. It wouldn’t take much for it to travel across. Disease is no respecter of status or means. Incidentally, Typhus shouldn’t be confused with Typhoid, a disease usually contracted through contaminated drinking water. Typhus first became a real problem in Liverpool during the Irish Potato famine of 1846 and ’47. This catastrophe was basically allowed to continue unchecked by Parliament. It served the fortunes of big business for millions of Irish to starve when ample food was available: this free food was withheld for the sake of international market prices. The famine also gave rise to an outbreak of Typhus which was in part carried across to Liverpool by desperate Irish people trying to find better prospects. As we saw, at one point roughly 50% of the immigrants to Liverpool were Irish. The chickens came home to roost by ship – the vessels of Liverpool’s life-blood – and the people who came usually found nothing better. On the 29th of August 1867, letters of administration of the personal estate and effects of Thomas White late of Soho St. Liverpool a drysalter were granted to Phoebe Ellen White. Effects were under £600. It appears odd to me that Thomas died in May and wasn’t buried until September. Why was this? Was that common back then? How was his body kept for so long? And why? If it was unusual, then was it due to an inquiry of some sort? His widow Phoebe remarried 2 years later to John Redmond a Cabinet maker, son of a Joiner & Cabinet maker, and widower of Soho Street in February 1869. I wonder how Phoebe got to know John? - what did the Whites make of the relationship? Widow of businessman marries woodworker. At first I’d been surprised , presuming that mixing with tradesmen wouldn’t have quite fitted with the Liverpool Whites’ ambitions. But now I see that his being the son of a Joiner might be a clue. He wasn’t living far from where Sarah, ‘uncle’ John White’s wife had lived and she herself was the daughter of a Joiner – albeit an extremely successful one – perhaps he was a family friend or even a Smith family employee? Also, don’t forget that brother Benjamin was also a woodworker. Perhaps the Whites were proud, or at least unashamed of their own roots in manual labour. A little like the fictional Mr.Josiah Bounderby of Coketown in Dickens’ Hard Times. Their father Robert was now a farmer himself. (was he? Check) Well, whether they approved of Redmond or not; when fate might have seemed all out of twists, 2 months after the marriage Phoebe died, on her birthday, the 10th of April aged 32 years at 104 Soho St. Depressingly, the cause of death was certified as being of “alcohol poisoning” and disease of the liver. I believe the cert says: “Hyperatrophy of the liver”.
This is still shocking to learn after repeated readings. One could easily surmise that this was the sad consequence of her stressful experiences. Alcohol may have been her way of dealing with so much grief. Life had dealt her a really bad hand to say the least. She’d’ve had to be superhuman to get through it. The fact that she died of alcohol poisoning on her birthday might suggest that she died of over-indulgence on that special day in particular. Did her anniversary cause her to celebrate too hard? – or to reflect on her life and drown her sorrows? Had she received the family support she needed? Everton was famously described as having “a pub on every corner” and her nearest local, if she was allowed into it was possibly the Soho Arms. So Phoebe died at the family home in 104 Soho Street and widower John Redmond, who presumably had moved into their family home since their marriage 2 months previously, seems to have inherited her share of the Drysalting business. Letters of administration of the personal estate and effects were granted to him, effects under £450 . What happened to John next is not absolutely 100% clear at present, but on first glance it doesn’t look as though he was determined to take care of his step-sons. It’s quite a responsibility to suddenly find yourself landed with, after just two months of marriage; but it was part of the package so to speak. Unless the family meddled? The family showed how it would care for it’s own because the two orphaned boys were taken in by relatives. Our Thomas Wells was uprooted from his little brother and the home he knew, relocated to the country; and cared for by his Grandparents: gamekeeper Robert and wife Elizabeth at Hazzleford and 3 year old Charles Henry was taken in by his Uncle Robert in Walton. They’d likely grow up less like brothers and more like cousins – huge distances apart in totally different environments: the rugged but verdant mountainous Peak District and the soot-dusted Second City of Empire. As for their poor mother Phoebe, long gone; she was, according to Church records buried in the family plot in Everton, with first husband Thomas White. But her name doesn’t appear on the gravestone – only in her relationship to Thomas and Robert - why? Well, that’s something of a mystery. In affectionate remembrance of Robert, son of Thomas & Phoebe Helen (sic) WHITE The Whites may have seen things this way: 5 or 6 years after marrying Phoebe, their own Thomas died aged only 27 or 28 and it took 4 months before he was buried. Two years after Thomas died she remarried to a cabinet-maker – who moved into her house. Two months after that she died of alcohol poisoning and her share of the family business was inherited by Redmond. Her two orphaned boys were raised by the White family and not by Redmond. Families can see things in their own peculiar way – becoming consumed by a shared prejudice - and seeking out a scapegoat: Phoebe or Redmond. The inheritance of a large share of the business by a non-blood relative may have been a major sore point. Of course this is pure speculation and potentially unfair to those concerned. In Redmond’s defence, perhaps there was a perfectly reasonable excuse for not raising the boys; we may have one piece of evidence from Anfield Cemetery which vindicates him through a final cruel twist: John REDMOND who departed this life May 22nd 1869 aged 29 years. The same man? Acknowledgements to Fellow Researchers Special thanks to the late A.Neale, E & D. Gee., Ian White, Christine Draisey, Gail Stanhope, S.Rimmington, R.Lockie. Other Acknowledgements The Chatsworth House Archivists, Liverpool Records Office, Museum of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Bibliographical Sources Liverpool: The first 1000 Years Pevsner Guide to Liverpool Architecture Liverpool 800 Liverpool Walks (find author name) Tales of the Old Gamekeepers, 1999.
Brian P. Martin’s excellent and vivid books. An invaluable research source for this chapter. The Gamekeeper and English Rural Society, 1660-1830
P. B. Munsche -from The Journal of British Studies, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Spring, 1981), pp. 82-105 Oxford History of Britain
Kenneth O. Morgan and others A History of Britain
Simon Schama Hamlyn History of the World (!)
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Wearing
Thanks,
John