On finding my uncle …… and losing his wife

Now yesterday I was exploring the story of my uncle, trying to solve several mysteries and reflecting on just how easy it was to disappear in the first half of the last century.*

He was born in 1901, married in 1933 and died in 1953, and for as long as I can remember he was a family secret.

A secret which I only stumbled across when a family tree came to light, after which dad and his three brothers owned up to the story.

Even then they were reluctant to offer much, and for perhaps 30 years I left him in the shadows.

But at 73 I was keen to tie up the loose ends of the family and over the last week I have been searching for him.  A search that took me from Alloa in Scotland to Gateshead and finally a grave in a Birmingham cemetery.

And for now, I think I mined the seam of his life, and while there are still plenty of gaps I am content that I will not find out much more.

The last intriguing piece was the discovery that on the evening of June 19th 1921 he was on holiday in Whitley Bay.  This I know because today I stumbled across an entry in the 1921 census listing him as staying at 26 Marden Crescent in Whitley Bay.

It is a modest looking property just a short walk from the sea and just a tad longer walk to Cullercoats Bay and Long Sands Beach.

He was not alone, for there were five other holiday makers, three of whom were sisters and a couple in their sixties.  Their occupations were as varied as their ages, with a travelling salesman, two teachers a housewife and a Florence Burrows who was listed as doing “House duties”, leaving my uncle who was an apprentice turner for a company in Gateshead.

Their hosts were a Mr. and Mrs. Smith who ran the holiday B&B, and appear to have washed up in Whitley Bay some time during the previous decade. Mr. Smith had been born in Orkney in 1858 and rose in the ranks of the police force before retiring sometime before 1901 and continuing to work as a toll collector.

We will never know whether uncle hit it off with the sisters who were aged between 30 down to 20 and who may have enjoyed the company of this young apprentice.

What is more certain is that his marriage ran into the buffers, and twelve years after he had got married his wife sought a divorce.  She was still in Gateshead, but uncle may already have settled in Birmingham where so far, he has left no record, other than his death certificate and a grave in Yardley Cemetery.

Nor has his wife proved easier to locate.  The marriage certificate allowed me to track her early years and the several homes she grew up in. But apart from that marriage certificate and a court notice referring to the divorce, she has gone missing.

And despite a day looking for her in the 1939 Register and other documents using both her married and maiden name, all has gone silent.

Leaving just one surprise which was that that the young bride lied about her age, which was actually 38 and not 32 as stated on the certificate.

A small deceit perhaps but one which might have been the first step on the road to unhappiness.

I doubt we will ever know.

In the meantime, I shall keep looking.

Location; Whitley Bay, Gateshead and Birmingham

Pictures; family and friends, circa 1920-30s from the collection of the Simpson family.

*Travels with my uncle, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Travels%20with%20my%20uncle

On losing your uncle …….. travels with a family secret ….the 1921 census part 2

I had hoped that the newly released 1921 census would help with the family secret.

Window girl, date unknown

Most families have one, and we have quite a few, but this one has remained stubbornly in the shadows.

He was one of my uncles who was never mentioned, and I stumbled across him in my 40s, and despite repeated questions to dad and my other uncles little was forth coming.

Father just met my inquiries with a vague comment and quickly changed the subject while Uncle George vouched safe only of a disastrous marriage, and a preventable death in a Birmingham lodging house.

Over the years I have gone looking for the mysterious uncle, and did find references to his marriage in 1933, and his death twenty years later. There are a few photographs of weddings and individuals which may be connected to him, but alas all are undated and unnamed. 

To which uncle George only added that the death could have been avoided if the landlady of the lodging house had been more attentive when his brother contracted an illness.

And that is it, leading to the family speculation that just possibly the marriage was never dissolved and instead he had left the northeast for the Midlands, and his location was never revealed to anyone except the brothers.

For years I have respected that silence, and even now I wonder at invading that closed story, but the 1921 census proved too much.  

After all this census which will be the last till the 1951 census is published has the promise of revealing so much about post war Britain, and especially about the family.

A wedding, date unknown

A decade earlier he had still been living at home, aged ten and was at school, so ten years on I reasoned there might be clues about him, from his occupation and where he might have worked.

But he was no longer in the family home, and so far, appears nowhere else in 1921.

Which is a blow, leaving me just to call up the marriage and death certificate, and hope that I can then follow up on his wife and his final address.

But I suspect he was a man intent on revealing as little as possible.  At present he has evaded electoral registers, directories and even the 1939 Register.

And that in turn makes me think perhaps he has done enough to stay in the shadows.

We shall see.

Location; the Northeast and the Midlands, 1891-1953

Pictures; unknown friends or relatives of the family, dates unknown, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Losing an uncle ……. and discovering much in the search

This is the story of my uncle, and a series of questions which almost 70 years after his death remain unanswered.

The unknown women in the window, undated

At which point I fully accept that one person’s family history is another person’s yawn, but there is enough in the search to find answers which will resonate with others, offer routes to find lost relatives and perhaps make broader comments about the last century.

For most of the time I was growing up I only had a vague knowledge of him, and Dad, and our other three uncles never spoke of him.  And even when quizzed would reluctantly let slide just the briefest of answers and quickly changed the subject.

Later one of them provided a family tree with the “missing” uncle, and another spoke of a disastrous marriage and a death which could have been prevented if his landlady had noticed how ill he had become.

So enough to suggest a few mysterious and pointers to find out more.

He was born in 1901 in Alloa in Clackmannanshire in the Central Lowlands of Scotland, and over the next decade the family moved south, finally crossing the border and settling in Gateshead sometime in the 1900s..

And in that the family were typical, having started their migration south from the east Highlands decades earlier.

Dad or an uncle with friends, date unknown

But there the trail begins to turn shadowy.  So, while he appears on both the census returns for 1901 and 1911, he is missing from the 1921 census as well as the 1939 Register.  Nor can I find him as yet on any official form, register, directory or newspaper account, until his death certificate dated 1953 issued in Birmingham.

Added to which that death certificate only makes for more mysteries.  It was registered by a Mr. Walter Francis Pountney, who clearly didn’t know our uncle very well, because the age at death was recorded as “about 52” and occupation as “not known”.

And all this despite the fact that Mr. Pountney owned the property.

To be fair it is unclear whether he was living in the house when uncle died.  In 1939 he was registered as occupying the place, but six years later according to the electoral register the house had been given over to multi occupancy, with fifteen residents one of which was his mother.

So, I am not surprised that our uncle ended up in a local cemetery with what appears the cheapest of burial services and no headstone.

Perhaps the brothers only came to know later, which would fit with the little I can surmise, which is our uncle didn’t want to be found.

His wife is recorded in the Manchester Evening News as petitioning for a divorce in the November of 1945  and the official announcement refers to our uncle’s last known address in Gateshead, by which time I suspect he was faraway.  Now whether Birmingham was already that faraway destination is unknown, although I don’t think it was Manchester.

Unknown family friend, date unknown

She was still living in Gateshead and the divorce petition was administered through the Newcastle division of the High Court.

I have her maiden name which was Smith but as yet no date or place of birth, and no parental name.

Those await the arrival of their marriage certificate, ordered up a fortnight ago from the General Registry Office but as yet with postal delays as they are I am still waiting.

So, the trail has gone cold for the minute, leaving just a few observations, starting with the bizarre one that I know more about Mr. Poutney than I do my uncle.

But then this was still a time when it was possible to disappear and pretty much reinvent oneself.  

Apart from a National Insurance Number, there was little to track or identify him.  The requirement to carry or present a National Identity Card had ceased in 1952, and if he avoided hospitals and doctors, he wouldn’t need an NHS number.  

Likewise, if he was careful about the jobs he did, and how he was paid it is doubtful he would have attracted official attention.

And of course, bank cards, online payments and social media were yet to be dreamed up.

Dad, date unknown

So, I think he could have stayed in the shadows, and finding him once he choose to vanish has been difficult.  I know where he lived in Birmingham at his death, and searching for Mr. Poutney took me to the 1939 Register and the house in Birmingham, along with a reference to the electoral register for 1945 living in a street close by to where my uncle had died.  

And armed with that link it was easy to search the same register for the house where uncle was to die in 1953.

All pretty much now hangs on that marriage certificate but that sits somewhere in a sorting office, and until it drops through the letter box our uncle remains in the shadows.

Location; Gateshead, Birmingham

Pictures; unknown family and friends, circa 1920s-30s, from the collection of the Simpson family