And this doesn’t lessen when the individuals are not yours.
I have been exploring the Adlington family for Carol and what began as just a piece of research quickly became something much more.
It started with a newspaper story from 1917, reporting that “WORKSOP SOLDIER MISSING”.
This was Corporal William Adlington and the paper continued “the sympathy of our readers will be extended to Mr and Mrs G.B. Adlington, Carlton-road, Worksop, and family in the sorrow and anxiety that has befallen them respecting the fate of their youngest son, Corpl. William Adlington of the 2nd-5th York and Lancaster Regiment.
On Monday, Mr and Mrs Adlington received a letter from Corpl. Aldington’s commanding officer, stating ‘I am sorry to have to tell you that your son has been missing since May 3rd. We still have high hopes of news of him and it is possible he is a prisoner of war.”
Like so many families Mr and Mrs Aldlington had both their sons on the Western Front. Arthur their eldest was with the Royal Army Medical Corps having enlisted “shortly after the outbreak of the war, and has been in France for considerable time, rendering gallant service to the sick and wounded.”
I think Arthur survived but William who had “enlisted voluntarily on March 4th 1915” died on the day he was posted missing.
He had been the manager of a Singer sewing machine factory but had begun life as a coal miner. His wife Ada was the daughter of a framework knitter who had been married three times and like so many families stories the research confirmed what had become family lore.
Caroline had joked that he had married three times to ensure he had a partner who could help him in the business. Now I couldn’t confirm that this had been the motivation for his marriages but the census return showed that he had indeed been married at least twice between 1871 and ’81.
Not that this should surprise us mortality rates were still relatively high in the 19th century and bereaved parents often remarried.
What also came out of the census search was that in 1891 just three years after she had married George her brother was living next door and two decades earlier another young man was living as a lodger in a nearby house who in time would also marry into the family.
None of which is the stuff of great events but is still history and in its way just as fascinating not only because of the lives it reveals but also because it offers up the backdrop by which those great events can be judged.
Pictures; unknown Sheffield Newspaper, May 1917, courtesy of Caroline Smith
I found this very interesting, and would wonder just how many young men actually lost their lives on 3rd May, 2017. it would have been a tragic day for so many.
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