Now I could just say it is my fault for reading someone else’s’ history site, or that I should be less sensitive.
Certainly the story I wrote about my great grandparents back in 2017 had pretty much been forgotten by me.*
It was written in connection with a project by a group of school students researching the stories of soldiers from the Great War who were buried in Gravesend.**
I was asked to make a contribution about our great grandfather, who was Montague Hall, and from memory I made reference to Eliza his partner, their children, and that after the relationship ended he went on to marry and have another five children.
By chance I met up with one the great grandchildren of his second relationship and we have remained friends.
In the course of which I also talked to another descendant of that marriage.
We all thought it odd that two different sets of great grandchildren should be united having never been aware of each other.
What surprised me, and if I am honest knocked me back was on discovering an online history of Gravesend, which my cousin Marisa in Canada uncovered.
There in a listing for The Queens Own Royal West Kent Regiment was our great grandfather, listing his wife, and their children, but with no reference to ours, although the researchers had discovered his place of birth, the name of his parents, and that he had served in the East Yorkshire Regiment.
Our Marisa called it “whitewash”, in that the marriage was mentioned, but his relationship with our great grandmother which lasted from around 1894 to 1902, and resulted in five children was omitted.
Of course it may just be poor research, coupled with the fact that there are few historical records for Montague and Eliza, other than a press report from 1894, the birth certificates and one death certificate for their five children and one census return.
Easy perhaps to miss, if you weren’t looking for it, although a cursory search of the census records, will have turned up the entry in 1901 for when he was with Eliza in Gravesend, and that of 1911, when he was with his wife in Gravesend.
And if pushed the research might have delved into his military records during his time with the East Yorks.
But perhaps his time after he left our great grandmother and stayed in Gravesend was enough for them.
I am left wondering as to why the omission, but at least the 2017 story has come back out of the shadows, and is being reread, and I feel better as I know Marisa will, that we are setting the record straight.
Location; lots of places
Pictures; Montague Hall, circa 1914, the three of his surviving children from his relationship with Eliza, circa 1930-1950, and his gravestone in Gravesend, 1999, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*From Gravesend to Ontario and back ........ the travels of great grandfather Montague, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2017/02/from-gravesend-to-ontario-and-back.html
**“Remember Me To All” – Gravesend Parish Memorials.
 |
| Montague Hall, circa 1914 |
It was written in connection with a project by a group of school students researching the stories of soldiers from the Great War who were buried in Gravesend.**
I was asked to make a contribution about our great grandfather, who was Montague Hall, and from memory I made reference to Eliza his partner, their children, and that after the relationship ended he went on to marry and have another five children.
By chance I met up with one the great grandchildren of his second relationship and we have remained friends.
In the course of which I also talked to another descendant of that marriage.
We all thought it odd that two different sets of great grandchildren should be united having never been aware of each other.
What surprised me, and if I am honest knocked me back was on discovering an online history of Gravesend, which my cousin Marisa in Canada uncovered.
There in a listing for The Queens Own Royal West Kent Regiment was our great grandfather, listing his wife, and their children, but with no reference to ours, although the researchers had discovered his place of birth, the name of his parents, and that he had served in the East Yorkshire Regiment.
 |
| Jack, Bill and Laura Hall, 1930-50 |
Of course it may just be poor research, coupled with the fact that there are few historical records for Montague and Eliza, other than a press report from 1894, the birth certificates and one death certificate for their five children and one census return.
 |
| War Grave of Montague Hall, 1999 |
And if pushed the research might have delved into his military records during his time with the East Yorks.
But perhaps his time after he left our great grandmother and stayed in Gravesend was enough for them.
I am left wondering as to why the omission, but at least the 2017 story has come back out of the shadows, and is being reread, and I feel better as I know Marisa will, that we are setting the record straight.
Location; lots of places
Pictures; Montague Hall, circa 1914, the three of his surviving children from his relationship with Eliza, circa 1930-1950, and his gravestone in Gravesend, 1999, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*From Gravesend to Ontario and back ........ the travels of great grandfather Montague, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2017/02/from-gravesend-to-ontario-and-back.html
**“Remember Me To All” – Gravesend Parish Memorials.
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