Beneath the Shelter of an Ancient Tree , livre ebook

B eneath the S helter of an A ncient T ree
David Brown
Austin Macauley Publishers
2023-01-06
Beneath the Shelter of an Ancient Tree About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgement 1. A Family Reveals Its Secrets 2. The Platts of Saddleworth Looking for roots Ancient stepping stones --> 3. Sophia’s Story: The Warp and Weft of Family Life John Eastwood and family The Mayor of Moonee Ponds Weavers – through and through The early years in Melksham Five children – setting out on life’s curious journey --> 4. A West Country Odyssey George Brown – an enigma or not Tolpuddle Martyrs Rural endeavours Somerton – once the crown of Somerset What’s in a name? Digging deeper Yeovil Fusion – a family comes together Coaching Inns and the Browns George Brown – the enigma settles down Reflections – on a country life --> 5. The Cheshires – Getting to Know You Victorian values Welsh connection: The road to Llanyblodwel Llanyblodwel --> 6. Workshop of the World Three brothers and three sisters Jewellery Quarter Family fortunes Birmingham Gazette and Express Tuesday May 10, 1904 A substantial business Three sisters Llewellyn Cheshire – 1862–1935 --> 7. The Last Piece in the Jigsaw The enigma of the Phillips The Phillips’ Diaspora Rebecca Benjamin/Theomin and her kith and kin Jesse and Rebecca Phillips – and a growing family Jesse Phillips – 1845–1922 Back to the Jewellery Quarter A marriage made in jewellery A four-year interlude Two great grandparents – first generation Jewish émigrés and both children of Rabbis --> 8. The Second Phillips’ Diaspora George Phillips – b.1872 David Phillips – b.1875 Nathan Phillips – b.1876 Rosa Phillips – b.1877 Flora Phillips – b.1879 Herbert Joseph Phillips (Bertie) – b.1881 Helen (Nell) Phillips – b.1889 --> 9. Looking Back What about the neighbours? ‘The Maid of All Work’ What have we learnt? --> 10. Appendix – Herbert Phillips Settles in the United States
About the Author
David Brown’s varied career as a bus driver, shellfish salesman, civil servant and management consultant (among many other jobs) first led to an interest in knowing what his ancestors had done for a living. And then, as his own grandchildren grew up, he began to wonder where his relatives had come from, and how they had fared in life. Starting from a relatively unremarkable upbringing in the Midlands he discovered a family with roots throughout England – in Poland and Russia – and a diaspora stretching across three continents.
Dedication
With best wishes:
to Whylda for all her understanding – and to my siblings, cousins, second cousins and all who came before them…
and to my father and mother – John and Natalie Ruth Brown.
Copyright Information ©
David Brown 2023
The right of David Brown to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781398462519 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781398462526 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published 2023
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd ®
1 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5AA
Acknowledgement
My thanks to my cousin’s friend, Yvonne Tribick, who first helped me to understand family trees – and revealed my hitherto unknown Yorkshire relatives. And, I am indebted as well to my former boss, Len Collinson, who tried to instil some discipline in my writing, and to my colleague and friend, Steve Baker, who provided much needed polish. Dorothy French’s extensive memoir provided a wonderful insight into some family connections.
1. A Family Reveals Its Secrets
When I retired from what had been almost full-time work – having kept myself occupied latterly by supporting Leah, my home-educated granddaughter – I took a moment to reflect on almost forty-five years of continuous employment. Jobs that had been challenging, jobs that had been fun and jobs that had kept the wolf from the door. I knew already that I had enjoyed my work, seldom been bored, gained much from experience and benefitted from frequent comradeship and occasional conflict. Perhaps not that surprising considering some of the jobs that I had held down (in roughly chronological order): plumber’s mate; bar cellar man; building site labourer; bus conductor and driver; civil servant (employment adviser, auditor, training manager); sea food salesman (part-time with my own wicker basket); odd job man in a management consultancy firm; training consultant (my first and fortunately only experience of redundancy); and further miscellaneous tasks in consultancy – including a short spell in Kazakhstan.
I resolved to record some of that activity, if not for posterity, but for my four grandchildren so that they might learn how their ‘papa’ had spent forty-five years, and that the result might answer that frequently asked childhood question, “What did you used to do at work Grandpa?” Somewhat moralising perhaps – but I had no doubt that my purpose was to teach them the virtues of hard work and the rewards that it might bring.
As Benjamin Franklin observed in his 18 th century autobiography:
’ …when Men are employ’d they are best contented. For on the Days they work’d they were good-natur’d and cheerful; with the consciousness of having done a good Day’s work they spent the Evenings jollily; but on the idle Days they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with their Pork, the Bread, &c. and in continual ill-humour.’
So, I decided to write a short memoir of my life: recording the few notable moments; describing my education and various employments; and dedicating it to four, most likely reluctant, young readers. When I had worked for the Department of Employment in the 1970s one of my tasks was to help in the maintenance and updating of CODOT, a vast volume otherwise known as the Classification of Occupations and Directory of Occupational Titles. It was an attempt, and quite a successful one, to capture, describe and classify every job in the United Kingdom from Milk Man (sex discrimination legislation in employment only became active in the late 70s) to Clerk, every type of Engineer, Clergyman, Bottle washer, Bricklayer, Banker, Miller, Jockey and thousands of jobs that you and I have never heard of. CODOT was used in manpower planning, defining new occupations, recognising skill shortages and identifying dying trades. I was sent to visit local places of employment, in my case two engineering factories and one of the very last woollen processing mills in Leeds, to watch how the job was done, the working conditions, the skills and temperament required; and to record how that occupation was changing or had changed since it had last been observed. One factory made equipment for handling steel in blast furnaces, some of it destined for export to South Africa; the other was a large pressed steel plant, manufacturing the carcasses for a well-known brand of gas cooker (New World). The textile works was engaged in milling (or fulling) cloth by washing it in wooden casks not unlike modern washing machines.
My memoir was not quite as detailed as CODOT but at least it gave a flavour of how I had spent my time. And then I decided to add a simple family tree – I wanted to describe where the Browns had come from and find out if possible the jobs that they had done in the 19 th and 20 th centuries. Enquiries with my cousins (all on my father’s side) yielded one or two clues and then an introduction to an amateur genealogist really got me going. Cousin Sarah’s friend Yvonne put together an introduction to my father’s parents – the grandparents I had never known. It described the history and recent ancestors of George Brown and Ethel Platt. One revelation stood out: Ethel’s family came from Yorkshire (Calderdale) and some from Lancashire. They may have been involved in the textile industry and some were engineers. I knew Calderdale and some of its history and this was just the morsel of information to really get me going – especially as Halifax, Saddleworth and Sowerby Bridge were only just down the road. On George’s side of the family there were farm labourers, waiters, grooms and bootmakers – all waiting to be discovered. They were from the West Country and with fascinating tales to tell.
There was some symmetry in my immediate family. My brother, sisters and I were each given a middle name in remembrance of our grandparents. Hence: Philip George , David Ernest , Judith Eleanor and Hilary Ethel . Ernest and Eleanor Phillips were my maternal grandparents and I knew them well, as well as you can know fairly formal but kind and loving relatives who lived not far away. I was well into my twenties before they passed away. Ernest was from a Jewish family, possibly with roots in Poland and Russia. Hilary had already compiled a history of that side of the family, so for the time being I decided to concentrate on my dad’s parents George and Ethel. And this was where I hit my first brick wall.
My father’s parents had died well before I was born and I suddenly realised I knew next to nothing about them. Dad had occasionally mentioned his father – a grocer’s assistant, born in Dorset, married (I thought in Trowbridge) and lived in Melksham, Wiltshire. He had a fondness for betting on horses – there was a family tradition that newspapers with racing form in them should never be thrown away – and he loved cricke