Skip to main content

Discovery at the National Archives

This month’s topic is “discovery” – so what better to write about than what I found on the Discovery section of the National Archives website?

Many years ago, when I first started exploring family history, my mother told me about a solicitor’s letter that she possessed amongst old family papers. This letter, addressed to Mr J W Holyland (JWH) of 186, Charnwood St, Leicester, and posted in 1911, referred to a claim against the estate of Thomas Bale, deceased. In short, the legal outcome was that JWH and Mrs Rawlings were “the persons entitled to the residue”.

John William Holyland was the older brother of my great grandmother Eveline Holyland; he seems to have been something of a reprobate and had spent his life in poverty. You can read his story (and see his photo!) in a separate post (1).

I knew the Bale surname as well; it was the maiden name of John William Holyland’s paternal grandmother.

As a newbie to family history research, I had no idea how to take this further. Imagine then my excitement when a rather aimless search on the National Archives site threw up this:


TS 33/63

William Bale (early 19th century). Pedigree (or family tree) of descendants, drawn up in 1910. Includes people with the following surnames: Holyland; Rawlings; Perkins; Bull; Neale; Sketchley; Dickson; Upton.

From my nascent genealogical studies, I knew some of these names – this was clearly my family! The record was not (and still is not) digitised but I was able to send away for a copy. (2)

What arrived through the post was an absolute treasure of a hand-drawn family tree which tied in neatly with the letter that my mother had kept. Dated 1908, it shows John William Holyland’s ancestral line back to his great-great-grandfather William Bale, who had died in 1812. The tree is incomplete; several of JWH’s siblings are not represented, and William Bale’s wife is wrongly named; however, other previously unidentified siblings of direct line ancestors were mentioned, allowing me to fill gaps in my tree.



Sadly the photocopy of the handwritten tree that I received from the National Archives is very faint, so this illustration has had to be “enhanced” (but not altered) with a biro!

It appears that Thomas Bale, the testator, had died in 1889. He had been married three times, but had no surviving direct descendants. When his widow Mary died in 1908, claims on the estate were submitted by descendants of two of Thomas Bales’ siblings. JWH and Mrs Rawlings (who turned out to have been born Emma Bale, the younger sister of JWH’s grandmother ) were descended from one line. The other claimant, Martha Barradale, was shown by the court to have descended via an illegitimate line , rendering her claim on the estate invalid.

As the estate had been worth only £51 when Thomas Bale had died 20 years earlier, I suspect that the main beneficiaries of this case were the solicitors. However, for one as poor as John William Holyland, I imagine that any extra money would have been welcome.

(1)   https://holylandons.blogspot.com/2020/01/john-william-holyland-1874-1918_31.html

(2)  https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C3554854


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hannah Holyland and the Duke of Buccleuch

How the name of a lass from a Leicestershire village became linked to Scottish nobility! In 1886, a civil action (“ Robinson vs The Duke of Buccleuch “) was brought in the courts by Benjamin Robinson, a labourer of Glen Parva, Leicestershire, against the 6 th Duke of Buccleuch. Twelve years earlier, the Duke had bought property at Knightlow, Warwickshire; but Benjamin asserted that he was the rightful owner of the property according to the will made by a greatuncle, George Robinson, in 1821. The inheritance trail was complicated and Benjamin’s claim to the estate was disputed. William Henry Walter Montagu Douglas Scott, 6th Duke of Buccleuch   and 8th Duke of Queensberry – the relevant duke!! Benjamin’s grandfather was said to be George Robinson’s brother John, who had married Hannah Holyland. John and Hannah Robinson had had one son, also John, who was Benjamin’s father. The case was widely reported in newspapers across England.   There was some confusion over the bride’s
Post a Comment
Read more

Swimming lessons

Arthur Holyland was born in 1877 in Wortley, a village to the north of Sheffield, in Yorkshire. Like his father and grandfather before him, Arthur trained as a blacksmith. When he was a child, Arthur's family moved from the rural setting of Wortley and into the heavily industrialised centre of Sheffield, which at the time was one of the world's leading centres for the manufacturing of steel items. In August 1899, Arthur enlisted into the Royal Marines, giving his age as 2 years younger than his baptism proves. He served on a variety of vessels before being invalided out of the Marines in 1908. My eye was caught by a small box at the bottom of the Marines enlistment form . "Able to swim?" – Yes, Arthur could swim – he was tested on this in December 1899, in Deal, Kent, four months after joining the Royal Marines. How did a blacksmith from a heavily industrialised town in a landlocked county learn to swim, I asked myself. It transpires that in 1892, a tidal swi
Post a Comment
Read more

When the Internet has it wrong! The real father of Mary.

  This lovely young woman was Mary Carmichael Smyth, the wife of James Carmichael Smyth, physician extraordinary to King George 111. Mary married James, who was several years her senior, in Gretna Green in 1775; the couple had 10 children and Mary apparently died in 1803 or 1806. This portrait was painted around 1788 by George Romney and is the possession of the National Gallery of Scotland . Multiple internet sources state that Mary's father was Thomas Holyland of Bromley, and her mother Mary Elton (eg, here: http://www.thepeerage.com/p20538.htm#i205375 ). However I am certain that these internet sources (many of which have probably been copied from each other) are wrong, and that Mary’s father was actually Christopher Holyland, a vintner of Cheapside in London, who died in 1769. Here’s my evidence. Firstly, I can find no baptism for a Mary Holyland (or variant on the name) to a father named Thomas in the south east of England in the mid 1700s. There was a baptism of Mary
Post a Comment
Read more