What should we know about William and Eliza Boot and Teddy Murphy and William Henry?

Extract from the death certificate of William Boot, 1893

When you spend your days looking into the corners of people’s lives who walked the streets of Manchester a hundred years ago it is always with a sense that you are intruding.

Even more so when you uncover a personal tragedy which makes you ponder on whether this is a story you should leave alone.

It is of course for this reason that many official records along with the files of institutions are closed for up to a hundred years, by which time enough distance has been put between the researcher and the researched to make any revelations less hurtful.

This can be a bit irksome especially if it is someone in your own family but I have to concede there will be moments in my own life that are best left sitting in the shadows.

All of which raises some interesting questions about disclosure, the rights of the dead to their lives against the understandable quest to learn more.

In the case of my grandfather and his family the records of the Derby Workhouse have been lost and the few fragmentary official accounts leave great gaps in his life story and more particularly that of my great grandmother.

Eliza Boot, my greatgrandmother, Derby Mercury February 1894

And the few bits we have of her life do not paint an endearing picture.

Likewise the army records of her partner for the years 1880-92 are shot through with some uncomfortable discoveries some which may still impact on the generations that have followed him.

So what are the ethics of research and is it possible to tread a middle path?

All of this has been prompted by the latest posting in the Together Trust blog on Accountability, culture and ethics and the degree to which the records and archives of institutions “play a key role in holding organisations to account and providing justice, while also acting as an important educational and cultural resource.”*

These are not questions which just vanish once that magic century has rolled over.  Most of the these individuals will have families who may or may not want to know what happened to them but once that Pandora’s box of ancient knowledge is revealed its impact can go off like a firecracker in all directions.

Teddy Murphy, 1885

Now one of my interests is the history of the British Home Children.  These were the young people who were sent from Britain to start new lives in Canada, Australia and other parts of the empire. Some were destitute, others from our workhouses and orphanages and always the guiding belief was that it was the chance for a new life.

Not everyone saw it as the solution to the problems of neglect, child cruelty and homelessness but enough did for thousands to have been shipped away.

Some of those institutions that sent them have in the past been reluctant to disclose information on the young people in their care, leaving in turn their children and grandchildren in a limbo of ignorance which has only been rectified by years of painstaking research. Research which in some cases has uncovered sad lives lived out in Canada while for others it was indeed a fresh start.

The debates on the rights and wrongs of the BHC programme rumble on fuelled by a mix of anger, disinformation, and compounded by the complexity of a policy which melds the prevailing social economic and political outlook of the period with a heap of prejudice and optimistic wishful thinking.

All of which throws up a minefield which the archivist, the researcher and the family historian negotiate with great care and in the process may even yet get it wrong.

But we are all in it to try and disentangle the past which brings me back to the two images from the Together post.

The young man staring out at us was looked after by the Trust and  as a parent I want to know what happened to him while as a historian I want to know what his early life can tell me about the social backdrop to the period he grew up in and how the Trust discharged its duty of care.

William Henry, school excemption certificate, 1903

In the same way the school exemption certificate raises huge questions about how we valued education in the early years of the 20th century.

The new Manchester School Board agreed to exempt William from full time attendance providing he had a job.

It is a tantalizing document which quite rightly obscures his identity, but with the address and father’s name it would be possible to track young William Henry across the decade before and the years after 1903.

And in so doing gain a better understanding of why perhaps he was exempted and offer a hint of his future life.

But that of course takes us into the very issues that the Together Trust has opened up so I suggest you visit the post and leave a comment.

Pictures; of a death certificate of William Boot and newspaper story of Eliza Boot from the collection of Andrew Simpson and remaining images courtesy of the Together Trust.

*Together Trust, http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/accountability-culture-and-ethics.html#more