'Disaster: Herbert Henry HALL (senior)

It Was Almost a Disaster.

This is an abridged version  of part of Herbert Henry Hall's story, my maternal grandfather. The full version of his story is on this blog entitle 'In Search of Granddad'

According to family tradition Granddad was sunk at least twice during the First World War

What I learned when I was able to locate a copy of the crew list was that Granddad was a 'donkeyman', and the only crew member described this way. As such he was the operator responsible for looking after the donkey engine in the ship’s engine room. In the early days of steam donkey engines powered the deck equipment like cranes and capstans. I’ve discovered that his skill as a gas fitter (1901 marriage) would have transferred fairly easily to a 'donkeyman’s' duties. When he wasn’t working on the donkey engine it is quite likely that he would have had other duties in the ship’s engine room.

The Port Kembla called into Wellington NZ at least twice, its last visit was in July 1917. It next appears in my record in Brisbane, then on to Williamstown, Victoria where it spent at least ten days loading frozen meat, jams, and wool.

When the Port Kembla left there on September 12 1917 the 59-member crew thought they were headed home probably via Durban. The Captain knew otherwise though as he had orders to sail to Wellington and then head back to England, It was as well that they did for just 5 days later in the last minutes of September 17th and only 11 miles from New Zealand’s Farewell spit there was an explosion and the Port Kembla sank. If she had gone directly back to England they would have been in the open ocean when it happened, and with the radio mast gone and no way to summons help the outcome might have been decidedly different.

At least that’s the story that I was brought up with. The reality was a little different, and this is how I know.

One evening as I came in the door from work I heard the words Port Kembla mentioned on the TV news, and there on the screen was a group of divers actually swimming down to the wreck. They retrieved the ship’s bell and some dinner plates which positively identified her as the Port Kembla. She had been located using the charts from the German Admiralty of positions of mines laid by the Wolf.  Was this then a case of propaganda because it appears that the New Zealand government knew the real reason and obviously did not want the general public to know that the ‘enemy’ had come so close to its shores. Since then a book about the exploits of the Wolf has been published. The links below are to the  TV news Item and the dive on the Kembla


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toLl3V_WJuk

https://divenewzealand.co.nz/travel-165/

The real story is an interesting one. In June 1917 the German mine layer Wolf was in New Zealand waters and laid a string of 35 mines just off Cape Farewell. The mines, set too deep for small craft to activate, lay in wait for larger quarry. In the wee small hours of the morning of 18 September 1917 Port Kembla heavily loaded with cargo from Australia fell victim. The explosion blew a hole in the right side of the the hull

When it was obvious that she was taking on water Captain Jack ordered the crew to take to the lifeboats and when he was sure that the ship was definitely sinking, he and the last two officers jumped from the ship and swam to the waiting lifeboats. Within half an hour the Port Kembla was gone. Fortunately, the Steamer Regulus, on a routine run to Westport along the West Coast of New Zealand, discovered them and took the lifeboats under tow. There was great excitement in Nelson when the steamer returned unexpectedly towing the two lifeboats. I still find it hard to associate these much younger images of him in his flat cap with the elderly grandfather I remember.

This picture postcard (above) of Granddad and his crew mates has always been in the family collection. It was taken on the steps of New Zealand’s Nelson Cathedral.

  

Prosperity: Ephriam HARVEY

I’ve wracked my brains to write about this subject in the Ancestor Challenge.

Prosperity means being successful in material terms; flourishing financially. Something that could hardly be said of many of my ancestors who went from being ‘ag labs’ to labourers. From working in fields probably in clean air to the polluted air of London’s East End. So hardly prosperous, and I feel as though for the majority the shift from countryside to town was anything but.

My three times great grandparents had at least six possibly seven children. I descend from their second son Joshua, born in Wilby, Suffolk, England c1830. Ephriam, the sixth child, born 14 Feb 1840, my three times great uncle, was his brother.

So this is Ephraim’s story 

Along with their siblings, but not parents Ephriam age 1 and Joshua age 11 appear on the 1841 census. Ephriam is mistakenly called female. In the occupation column alongside Sara, the eldest at 15, is ‘Daughter of a B……..er’

This has generally been thought to have been ‘Daughter of a Baker’ as on both the 1861 and 1871 Ephraim’s occupation was Baker, and on his marriage banns to Elizabeth Read his occupation was confectioner. On the earlier 1851 census age eleven he was  living with his brother Charles, a baker, and his wife and described as scholar.

There is a curious change of occupation for Ephriam from baker to master builder between the 1871 and 1881 census, and further searching has failed to reveal why. Joshua’s occupation at the time of his marriage in 1860 was ‘Bricklayer’, and on his son’s birth certificate he calls himself a ‘tile maker’ so there is an association with the building trade.

On the 1881 census we find Ephriam aged 41, married to Elizabeth, living at 13 Northview, Heaton, Northumberland. Occupation Master Builder employing five men, and one servant. By the time of the 1891 census his occupation was retired builder. I wonder if his circumstances changed or if he just missed the building trade as he calls himself a builder on the 1901 and an employer.

Ephraim’s wife Elizabeth died    21 May 1918 age 73.

A year later Ephriam died in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in 1919 he left an estate of £44,723 1s 2d, just under one hundred thousand pounds in today’s NZD . He was indeed prosperous 

Favourite Discovery: George Arthur HARVEY & Georgina HALL

In 1996 Bruce and I spent several weeks in England. There were so many places I wanted to walk in. To see for myself the places of my parent’s stories, the places that up until then only lived in my imagination.

There was  little left of my parent’s East End. WWII and the subsequent rebuilding had seen to that. Despite that, one of the first places I wanted to go was to Beckton Road. My parents lived there, across the road from each other. Childhood sweethearts. Finding the exact place of numbers twenty-one and twenty-eight proved difficult. Eventually Bruce and I drank coffee in the Macdonald’s that was where the houses should have been. Definitely not  my favourite discovery.

Herbert Henry Hall and Georgina Pirrett (Nan), Mum’s parents married at St Margarets All Saints Church in Barking. I got to view the marriage entry in the original parish record, as well as the baptism of Mum, and her sister and brother. But that wasn’t my favourite discovery.

On one of our many day-trips out of London we drove to Doddinghurst.  

Nan had bought a bungalow at Doddinghurst, about 26 miles from Beckton Road. Apparently without Granddad’s knowledge,  as a weekend place. It was called Sunny Brae. Dad said that that was an unusual thing for working class people to do. Now, though, I’m not sure if this is totally true.

From ‘Doddinghurst. A Place in the Country’, compiled by Peter Kurton:

Until the First World War Doddinghurst had a small population. The first influx of people came between the two World Wars. At that time large areas of land were divided up into strips and sold off cheaply. Many people from the East End of London bought up land upon which they built temporary weekend bungalows. These shacks were constructed of any materials that were readily available...Many of these new residents stayed permanently, particularly to avoid the bombing of London during the Second World War.

Lots of Londoners went hop-picking for their summer ‘holiday’. Families of mostly women and children (many from London’s East End) fled the confines of the city for an annual holiday hop-picking in Kent. I think Nan might have done this too; I know she went hop-picking in Nelson. Did these country summers give her a lasting taste for the countryside? We’ll never know. The cottage like its neighbours had been modernised, but in the book, I read descriptions of these early basic dwellings. Doddinghurst remains a small village with a population of less than 3000 in a largely agricultural landscape

Nevertheless, it was to Sunny Brae that Mum, and her parents moved to, to escape the WWII London Bombings. And it was in Doddinghurst’s Parish Church that Mum and Dad married.

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The Wedding

The wooden steeple of the old stone church pointed into the clear winter sky and a small cluster of red and yellow flowers sheltered against the wall. Here and there a few short rows of old headstones cast long shadows onto the closely cropped grass. It wasn't the old headstones I was interested in though; it was the church itself. For here on Friday 21st February 1942, a marriage had taken place. Then, there was no time for tradition, no time for the banns to be read. The groom only had ten days’ embarkation leave, so they were married by ‘special licence', obtained just the day before at a cost of ten shillings.  A lot of money then, when an unskilled worker would have earned less than five pounds a week. Generally, a soldier needed the permission of his commanding officer to marry and in wartime this was usually agreed to. There is no evidence of this on his military record apart from a change in his next of kin from his mother to his wife.

"Oh hurry up, Bruce!" I thought. I was eager to be out of the hire car and to walk where they had walked. Hand-in-hand we crossed the quiet country road. He opened the gate and, at last, we were there. Dry leaves crunched under our feet as we walked up the path to the porch. I tried to imagine how it would have been that winter’s day, February 21^st, all those years ago. She, on her Dad's arm, his hand over hers reassuringly. Inside, the groom would be waiting - nervously perhaps - with the best man, his future brother-in-law, at his side. But today the door was locked! Had we come all this way not to be able to get inside?

"Look, over there, that must be the vicarage," Bruce pointed to a solitary house on the other side of the road. "Come on," he said “let’s go and see if anyone's home.” Bruce knocked and we waited. Inside my jacket pocket I crossed my fingers. Footsteps.

“Can I help you?"

"I hope so," I answered. “We're from New Zealand and my parents were married in your church. We were wondering if we could go inside."

"New Zealand?" he said. "Whereabouts? I'm from Auckland myself! Small world, isn't it?  Come in, come in, I'll just see if I can find the key."

As he unlocked the heavy wooden door he asked, "When did you say they got married?"

“Twenty first of February 1942."

“You’ve come at the right time, then," he said. “The church is pretty much as it was then, but we start our renovations next month."

Inside, the thick-plastered walls were painted a creamy white with the tall pointy top window arches picked out in pale brown. Dark timbers ribbed across the exposed-beam ceiling. Above the steps to the altar were three almost life-size figures. In the centre, a crucified Christ; Mary in her blue robes to the left; a red-robed St John to the right. Behind the altar three deeply set stained glass windows glowed in the late afternoon light.

My imagination took over, and I moved with Mum into the church. A few steps then turn right to walk down the aisle. Family and friends in the first few rows would have turned as she slowly walked towards him. I doubt if she wore a new dress for the occasion, let alone a wedding dress. Clothes rationing, which included shoes, began in June 1941. Each adult was allocated just 66 coupons per year. It cost 11 coupons to 'buy' a plain dress, four for a pair of undies, six for a nightie and eight for a pair of pyjamas. Dad would have probably worn his uniform; a man’s suit, if you could get such a thing, cost 26 coupons.  Stockings were very scarce, so use your imagination and draw a line up the back of your leg for the seam and hey presto... well I guess from a distance it would have looked like you were wearing a pair. ‘Make do and mend’ was the order of the day. Would clothes have mattered? Probably not: she was marrying her childhood sweetheart; that was all that was important.

I don't know if it had been a romantic proposal. When I asked Dad for his memories of their wedding day he said,

"I think it was me decided that we should get married. Everyone else said no, no, but it only made me more determined to get married. We were married at a little old church in Doddinghurst. We had a car to take us to the reception and everyone else went by bus!  The reception was at Aunt Cis’s - she had a shop in Brentwood about eight miles from Doddinghurst. She put on a good spread for us, and someone kept on playing a Flanders and Allen record called ‘Elmer’s Song’.” And they say men aren’t good historians!

                                                All Saints Church, Doddinghurst

Talking About George, But Which One?: George PIRRETT

#52 Ancestors. Week Six" Same Name

Talking About George, But Which One?

Yes, that’s right, which George, or Georgina for that matter am I talking about.

My father was George, so was his father, my mother was Georgina and so was her mother, and I’ve added to the confusion by calling one of my daughters Georgina too. There’s a couple of Uncle George’s and a grandfather George on both my maternal and paternal sides.  Confused?  

Today’s George was my great grandfather George Pirrett.

There was a family story about him, and it had a grain of truth, but only a grain.

He was said to have abandoned his wife, Annie (Dwyer), and the children and gone off to New Zealand to live with ‘that woman’ Jessie Bell. The other family story about him was that he had at one time been the mayor of Auckland’s New Zealand.

George did indeed come to New Zealand; he is buried at Waikumete Cemetery in Auckland. He did also live in the same house as Jessie Bell, as evidenced by this entry in this 1906 electoral roll.

So far so good., but this is where the grains of truth run out.

Jessie Bell was his cousin.

According to another family researcher, Great grandfather  George fully intended to bring his wife and family out to live with him in New Zealand. He wrote home to his wife Annie and sent her money. Annie was, as was not unusual for the time, illiterate, but Annie’s sister Kate was not. The money went into Kate’s pocket and Annie never got to hear that her husband wanted her to pack up the children and travel to New Zealand to be with him.

So why do I think that George did not abandon his family? Well I believe his true character is illustrated in an excerpt from a book by George Plimsol.  ‘Cattle ships; being the fifth chapter of his Second appeal for our seamen’

Plimsol writes of the plight of women whose sailor husband's had been lost at sea and were in need of financial support, support that was not forthcoming from the shipping company. It did come initially from my great grandfather. You can read about it in the below excerpt from the book. There is a photograph of him, proof that it is indeed my great grandfather.

It’s very sad to think that George and Annie died within a month of each other in 1921. Neither knowing the true story.

As to him being a mayor of Auckland, well that story can be tracked back to a family member reporting that they had seen  a photograph of him in what was taken to be mayoral chains. A photograph that no longer exists. I’ve searched the mayoral rolls of Auckland and its then provinces and he is definitely not there. I think it is more than likely that he was an office holder in a local lodge. Something that is proving difficult to verify

https://archive.org/details/cattleshipsbeing00plim/page/91/mode/1up/search/George+Pirrett