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News Updates 2022-23
Nov 2023 - Migratiion: Barrow-in-Furness, Reasons for Migration
Jul 2023 - Fact or Fiction? Ned Skyrme, Ragged Robyn, From High Society to Convicted Criminal
Apr 2023 - A Jeweller in Cornwall; Fire at Bodenham; A Schoolboy Leaves Too Eaarly
Oct 2022 - A Change of Name; Writing to a Theme
Mar 2022 - USA Miner Mystery Solved! (wealthy William Skyrme identified)
Jan 2022 - 200 Years Ago: A Desirable Farm; 100 Years Ago: Primo Skyrme
November 2023
Migration
One of the things that intrigues me is finding Skyrme from different family trees living in the same place. A good example is Cardiff at the turn of the 20th century. Within a few miles of each other at the same time in the Grangetown area, were Skyrmes from the two Pembrokeshire branches (Manorbier and Llangwm) and also Herefordshire. At the U3A Genealogy group I go to, our topic this month was migration. This led me to look at my greatx2 grandfather’s family living in Monkton in the 1860s. There were 8 boys, 7 of them shipwrights at Pembroke Royal Dockyard. Over time they migrated to other dockyards such as Sheerness, Chatham, Jarrow and Portsmouth. But the youngest son, my great grandfather Thomas, was briefly in Barrow-in-Furness in the early 1880s. But I remembered other Skyrmes who had lived there, so thus began my quest to see who was there when.
Barrow-in-Furness
1881: Thomas was a lodger in Barrow. He married a Pembroke girl (Ellen Morgan) later that year and my father wrote
“Ellen my grandmother and baby George went to Barrow on 3/11/1882 where Grandad had gone to get a job in the Shipyards"
At the time iron ships we coming into vogue and Pembroke along with Chatham were the first two royal Shipyards to be equipped to built them. As one historian of Pembroke Dockyard wrote:
“The shipwrights of Pembroke did not know much about iron”.
However, he was back in Pembroke in 1884, so maybe things at Pembroke weren’t too bad after all. (Photo: Barrow-in-Furness Dockyard 1890s, public domain).
1881-1922: Three siblings - Mary and Ellen Skyrme, and Benjamin Reynish Skyrme were all born in Haverfordwest and became teachers. Mary and Ellen were initially pupil teachers at Prendegast Girls School (Mary in 1881, Ellen who was 10 years younger in 1891). Mary had moved to Thwaite Street Girls School in Barrow in 1897 and had become headmistress of Barrow Island Girls School in 1895, a post she held until 1922.
Sister Ellen and youngest brother Benjamin had moved up to live with sometime in the mid-1890s. Ellen taught at an elementary school, and Benjamin was a teacher at St James’s school Barrow from 1901-2. Their father William, a solicitor’s cashier moved up to join them after his retirement and was there at the 1921 census.
After his job in Barrow, Benjamin moved around a bit (Northfleet, Foulness, Wisbech, Petersham and Gravesend) in various teaching jobs including headmaster. Will must have joined him sometime in the early 1920s since he died at Gravesend in 1925.
1900-1977: My database shows 17 Skyrmes being born in Barrow-in-Furness, and there are probably children of some of these not yet recorded. It all started with John Dixon Skyrme a descendent of the Vowchurch Skyrmes, born in in Credenhill, Herefordshire. A labourer, he had moved up to Barrow in the late 1890s where he married local girl Mary Richardson in 1900. They had seven children, four of them boys, though one died as an infant. I’ve found 9 Skyrme children for the other three, and so far 11 for their Skyrme children. And many of these descendants still live in Barrow.
So there you are – several Skyrme migrants to Barrow-in-Furness. Some of them (my ancestors) did not stay long, but others, and their offspring, made careers there, while others continued migrating to other parts of the country.
Reasons for Migration
When we looked at the case studies in our U3A group, there were four main reasons for migration:
- For work – like my ancestor shipwrights.
- For remarrying – divorce was expensive and in my database I have several examples of men deserting their wives, absconding to a different part of the county, then remarrying bigamously.
- Transportation as a criminal – often for quite minor offences, such as stealing a great-coat. This was mostly to Australia but also to the American colonies.
- To escape persecution – such as the Huguenots fleeing France and southern Belgium from the 16th to 18th centuries.
So although there are some similarities for today, there are also stark differences. These days you usually emigrate to Australia of your own accord!
July 2023
Fact or Fiction?
As you can see from earlier posts (e.g. 150 years ago, 100 years ago – April News), I regular check to see what newspaper articles that mention Skyrme have recently been uploaded. Even though I use my FindMyPast Pro subscription to read newspaper articles, I start by using the British Newspaper Archive website for much of my search. It has a very good 'advanced search' feature where you can search not only by publication date but by date added. Its content continues to grow at a rapid pace. When I started using it four years ago there were 11,000 Skyrme results. Now there are over 25,000 articles, i.e. about 40 are added every week. Currently the archive has nearly 70 million pages. Here are three stories that I've uncovered during my research.
Ned Skyrme – Witness to Murder
It was while doing a search a few weeks ago for recent updates that I came across an intriguing search result which mentioned a Ned Skyrme who with his poaching pal "Tom the Snowdropper" witnessed a murder. Now, although I have a few Edward Skyrmes in my database, I don't have a Ned. Further reading revealed that the article was Chapter XXVII 'The Poacher Tramp', published in a supplement to the Hampshire Post and Southsea Observer of 5th June 1896. The chapter was from the story 'Alan Cottingham' by R.T.Casson (author of Bonnie Mary and other stories).
Who was R.T.Casson? He doesn't appear in any of the usual book catalogues, nor on lists of authors. However, using genealogy websites, I'm fairly confident that he was Robert T Masson, born in 1861 in Keith, Banffshire, now Aberdeenshire. Censuses show that he was a newspaper reporter who lived with his wife Annie in Govan. Obviously his work was syndicated to newspapers across the country.
The Story of Ragged Robyn
The above discovery reminded me, that a year or so ago, while doing a similar exercise I came across references to Robyn Skyrme. Again I don't have a Robyn in my database, and the stories I found were all dated 1945 and were reviews of this novel by Oliver Onions. Unlike Casson, Oliver Onions is much better known. T here is a Wikipedia entry for him and a list of some 40 novels he had written, most in the period 1900-1934 after which there was a gap. One reviewer wrote:
"It is a long time since we heard from that rare and sensitive writer, Mr Oliver Onions, but the craftsman of 'Little Devil Doubt' and 'Good Boy Seldom' can still write most of us clean off the bookstalls. His hand has lost none of its cunning."
My namesake is mentioned in the first sentence of the book:
"Young Robyn Skyrme, trudging along by the side of the sea-wall with his pack of tarred cloth on his back, was secretly glad of the feel of his pistol in his pocket."
The novel is set in the Lincolnshire Fens in the late 17th century, where Robyn got into a feud with smugglers. We learn that he lived with his parents, John and Margaret.
Who was Oliver Onions? Again genealogy sites to the rescue. In fact he was born on 13th November 1873 in Bradford as George Oliver Onions. He moved to Fulham London in his late teens or early 20s where he married writer Berta (Amy Roberta) Ruck in 1909. She too has a Wikipedia page. The couple lived at Hampstead in 1911 and at 53 Queens Gate Gardens, Kensington in 1921. In 1918, George legally changed his name to George Oliver, but continued to publish under the name Oliver Onions. In later life the couple lived at Aberdovey, Merionethshire which is where he died on 9th April 1961.
From High Society to Convicted Criminal
Another story, though this time based on fact is the 2011 book 'Whatever Happened to Trixie Skyrme?' by Jennifer Green. There are many newspaper articles about one of Trixie's aliases, Josephine O'Dare, in the 1920s. For example the Phildelphia Enquirer has a headline on 26 September 1926 "Mystery of the Racing Queen who went Broke". Josephine moved in high society circles in London and was a frequent visitor to racecourses and the tables at Monte Carlo. She lived in style with George Davies at Barton Court near Hereford.
However, she faced several charges of conspiracy to defraud and after a lengthy trial at the Old Bailey in 1927 was sentenced to 4½ years in prison. It became apparent that her real name was Trixie Skyrme, born as Theresa Agnes Skyrme at Wellington, Herefordshire in 1899, the daughter of labourer John Skyrme from Canon Pyon and his wife Mary né Riley. She was described as "the most dangerous and unscrupulous adventuress that Scotland Yard had ever had on their books". On being sentenced the judge pronounced:
"The world in general and London in particular, is rid of one of the most remarkable and dangerous women of this or any other century."
"Trixie's life is brought to life by Jennifer Green’s docudrama. Although she puts words into the characters' mouths her background material is true to the many facts. Unfortunately "Jen the Pen" as she was affectionately known died in February 2018.
Interestingly there is a serendipitous connection with one of my other activities. I volunteer as a guide and walk leader at Greenham Common Control Tower. Jen's last book before she died was 'A Small Nuclear Fallout' about three Greenham Common Peace Women.
You can find a bit more about Trixie Skyrme on pages 26-8 of The Herefordshire Skyrmes. However, there is a wealth of material about her online.
From Fact to Fiction
The bottom line of these stories, or at least the first two, is why do authors choose my name for their characters? It's not a common name, and I'm intrigued to find the connection:
- Robert T Masson – I've over 2,500 Skyrmes in my database, but only one has ever lived in Scotland. He was a musician who lived in Aberdeen for a few years around 1891. Was this the connection?
- Oliver Onions – No Skyrmes lived in Lincolnshire until later in the 20th century. But did George or Berta (née Ruck) know a Skyrme? I do have an Agnes Ruck from Canon Pyon in Herefordshire who married Albert Skyrme of Vowchurch in 1910. Berta was born in the Punjab and brought up in North Wales. Was there a family connection to the Rucks of Herefordshire?
Since neither author is around to ask, I'm still bemused as to how our family name ends up as characters in novels. This is an unusual slant on family history research.
April 2023
It's a while since I've posted. My main excuse is that I've been working on my own and my wife's family trees. So rather than Skyrmes, it's been surnames like Yardy, Shinkins, Sedgwick in Norfolk, and Perret, Brawn and Dawkes in Somerset and Northamptonshire. Also I upgraded my FindMyPast subscription to premium so I have unlimited access to the 1921 census. It was an entry here that prompted my first story below. With now over 20,000 newspaper articles online mentioning a Skyrme, the following articles are two stories that caught my eye from 150 and 100 years ago.
A Jeweller in Cornwall
It was while adding more 1921 census entries that I found the entry for Daniel Rowland Skyrme (1892-1945). In earlier censuses he had been listed as a watchmaker. In 1921 he was listed as a jeweller working for Mr James Keir in the Castle Arcade, Cardiff. He is a distant relative of mine having descended (as I do) from the Skyrmes of Manorbier in Pembrokeshire.
It was this mention of "jeweller" that caught my attention since I recalled that of over 6,000 Skyrmes in my database I could think of finding only one other jeweller. This was John Skyrme (1823-1862) who also came from Pembrokeshire and whose father was a mason in Haverfordwest, but that's as far back as I can trace him with certainty. Although John was born in Haverfordwest, both his parents had died by the time he was 5 and in the 1841 census when he was 17 we find him living in Truro, Cornwall. He was one of very few Skyrmes to have lived in that county in the 19th century. He was obviously versatile since in different documents he was listed as a watchmaker, clockmaker, jeweller and even a silversmith. He lived in Kenwyn Street, Truro.
He made the news in September 1854 when his premises caught fire. The fire had started in the adjacent premises of Barrett's grocers in West Bridge and in one and a half hours had completely burnt down three shop's including John's. The newspaper report says: "He was helped to move stock away from the blaze, and although he was not insured his losses were slight." Anyway, six years later he was declared insolvent. He died in January 1862 age 38 and was buried in Kenwyn.
The intriguing think to me, is how did he finish up in Cornwall, when still a teenager, and at the time when most Skyrmes who moved from Pembrokeshire finished up elsewhere in South Wales (such as Cardiff like Daniel) or in neighbouring counties of England, especially Gloucestershire and Herefordshire.
150 Years Ago: A Farm Fire at Bodenham
The Ross Gazette of 27th Feb 1873 reported a fire at Holbach Farm, Bodenham (Herefordshire), where Joseph Skyrme was tenant. Joseph (1839-1923) was the youngest of 9 children of farmer Richard Skyrme from Norton Canon. Most of his elder brothers were also farmers (at places like Sarnesfield, Canon Pyon, Almeley, Kinnersley). At the time of the fire Joseph had been married (to Harriet Evans) for nearly three year. At the time they had one son, Richard, who later became a farmer at Norton Canon and then Sarnesfield. So very much a family steeped in farming.
Fire was always a hazard on farms. This one started late on the previous Thursday night and just before 1am on the Friday "a mounted messenger brought the news to the Hereford Police Station". Two powerful engines were dispatched and on arrival "they found the whole of the farm buildings adjacent to the dwelling-house on fire, and the roof of the house ignited." After five or six hours, all the firemen could save outside were some hay ricks. All the contents of the buildings and granary were destroyed. The house suffered less damage but some furniture was damaged while being removed to safety. All in all a traumatic experience.
100 Years Ago: Schoolboy Leaves Too Early
This was a case heard at Bromyard Petty Session on Monday 12th February 1923. The case was brought by the school attendance officer against Thomas Skyrme of Acton Beauchamp, Herefordshire, for non-attendance of his son at achhol. The father was Thomas Herbert Skyrme, born in 1874 at Pudlestone and a descendant of the Richard Skyrmes of Weboley and Norton Canon. His son, not named in the article, was Thomas William Skyrme, born 1911 at The Whyle, Pudlestone. The family had moved from there about 1915.
The essence of the case was that the school had been open 50 times that term and that Thomas's son had not attended. He was age 14 and his father admitted keeping him from school once he reached the age of 14. The attendance officer had explained that since he turned 14 after the start of the term that he could not leave school until the end of that term. Thomas senior admitted the offence and was fined 5/-.
As Wikipedia notes: "Compulsory education was initially introduced for 5- to 10-year-olds in 1880. The leaving age was increased to 11 in 1893, 12 in 1899, 14 in 1918, 15 in 1947 and 16 in 1972. In England, this was increased to 17 in 2013 and 18 in 2015 though that does not apply in Wales."
October 2022
A Change of Name
We all probably know someone who has changed their name, and not a female who married. In my own family one of my daughters changed her surname by deed pool to keep the Skyrme name going by hyphenating it with her husband's surname. Other reasons are divorce (e.g. reverting to maiden name) or for young step-children to adopt their step-father's name, and so on.
It was an article earlier in the year in Who Do You Think You Are magazine that caused me consult this useful index on the Deed Poll Office website. A search for 'Skyrme' found that William Henry Skyrme (b.1872) changed his name by deed poll in 1893 to William Henry Powell. He was the only son of 'The Infamous Solicitor of Ross' (see my Herefordiensis article). Powell was the name of his uncle with whom he lived after his parents died. In fact the 1891 census lists him as Powell. In 1890 he went up to Cambridge University and was later a librarian in Hampshire. Was the stigma of living with the name Skyrme of his infamous father too much?
I've found several other examples in my family history research such as:
- Ernest Skyrme who took his paternal grandmother's maiden name Scourfield on joining the Royal Marines
- Arthur Williams of Hereford who kept flitting between Williams and Skyrme at alternate censuses - see 'The Tailor Who Changed His Name.
- The large cluster of Skyrmes in Vowchurch who would have been named Cook had not a distant ancestor Mary Skyrme gave her illegimate son her own name - see 'The Skyrmes of Vowchurch'.
These examples will appear in an article that I have submitted to Herefordiensis. It was published in the January 2023 edition and can be found in our library.
Another useful resource is the ‘Changes of Name’ guide at the National Archives website - ‘Changes of Name’ guide at the National Archives website.
Writing to a Theme
I belong to a U3A Genealogy Group. At our monthly meetings we compare notes, update each other on useful new resources, share family history society news and tell of progress on our own research. A year ago, we changed the format of alternate meetings to replace our own research update with a theme. We then look through the research of our own ancestors to illustrate the theme. This may be research already done, but usually it prompts us to do more research to find out more about our ancestors from a given perspective. Themes we have covered to date include:
- sea-faring ancestors
- farming ancestors, including farmers, ag labs, carters etc.
- military ancestors
- crime - both criminals and victims of crime
- railway ancestors
- "A day in the life of..."
This latter one proved the most challenging. I chose a day in the life of George Skyrme (1819-1878), my great great grandfather, on Saturday 13th May 1854. He was a shipwright at Pembroke Royal Dockyard and they were working flat out building ships for the Crimean War. Things I hadn't previously considered were - how did they wake up early in the morning to walk the 3 miles from Monkton and use the ferry to reach the dockyard by 7am? What did they eat for lunch and dinner? Where were their (valuable) tools of the trade kept? How did his heavily pregnant wife cope with looking after 5 young boys? And all this before Monkton got a running water supply.
Doing this is something you might consider yourself. I might share some of my output in our library, since it is all 'work in progress' for future publications.
March 2022
USA Miner Mystery Solved!
In the news items of Feb 2019 and Mar 2019 I reported that hiers of William Skyrme were being sought to share in his fortune, whose value in 1926 was estimated to be between £20,000 and £500,000. To remind you, he had died in California, after emigrating to the USA and amassing his fortune through being a mine supervisor in places such as Montana, Nevada, Utah and South America. The first newspaper report I saw suggested that he was born in Portsmouth or Swansea. I had found quite a bit about his time in the USA from both genealogical and mining resources, from which I created the timeline shown in the Mar 2019 posting.
However, despite knowing his approximate birth date (1833-6) I could not trace his Welsh ancestry.
One of the tasks I do every week or so is to check what new Skyrme articles have appeared on the British Newspaper Archive. Its advanced search has a useful feature in that you can filter by the date content is uploaded, so I just enter the dates since I last checked. Lo and behold, I have just struck gold! One of the February uploads was from the Welsh Gazette of 27 May 1926.
It even gives William’s birthdate -18th October 1835. It goes on to mention sisters Sarah and Anne. Sarah married a John James and Anne married a Richard Sutton. It says that enquiries have identified a Samuel Sutton, a farm servant at the Old Castle, Cardigan. It gives information about what has been found about the Sutton and James descendants concluding:
“The name Sutton is therefore peculiar to the district, and has probably become lost in recent years by marriage. There are good chances of Anne Sutton, who might have married a Davies, Jones, Williams or Evans, being still in the district.”
Knowing William’s birthdate and names of his sisters, I found him in my database where he had been recorded about seven years ago. He was baptised in Llangwm, Pembrokeshire on 25th October 1835, the son of William Skyrme of Llangwm and Elizabeth Jones from Burton. He is descended from mariners, ferrymen and watermen. In fact in 1849, aged 14, he became a merchant seaman apprentice. He is described as “growing with a fair complexion and can write. Indentured to Hugh Taylor, Tower Hill London on vessel Thomas Kanion”. The next reference I found for him was as the father of Elizabeth, born in Lynn, Massachussetts in 1884 whose mother was Adelia Higgins. It’s just that I had not mined my database deep enough to connect my Californian William to the one in Massachusetts! What the Welsh Gazette article misses is that William was one of eight children. As well as the two sisters mentioned (and I had already identified their spouses) he had three more sisters as well as two brothers. His younger brother Peter married Frances Mason and they had 8 children, some of whose descendants are living today. So there could have been many more heirs than originally conjectured.
So I feel that I have struck gold. I now know that William, the miner who made his fortune, was not from Swansea or Portsmouth, but Llangwm by the River Cleddau. But this isn't yet the end of the story (is it ever in geneaology research?!). What was the end result? Did the heir hunters in California find William’s descendants? All of them or just the descendants of sisters Sarah and Anne? And how much was the final fortune?
Possibly one of the readers of this article knows the answer, having inherited a share of William's fortune from one of their 20th century ancestors.
January 2022
Apologies for the delays in posting. One of my 2022 new year resolutions is to do better this year! Using the approach I did last january I have been searching out stories from old newspapers 50, 100, 150, 200 years ago. Here are two that caught my eye.
200 Years Ago: A Desirable Small Compact Farm
This was an advert in the Hereford Journal of 2nd Jan 1822. It was "To Bet Let And Entered at Candlemas 1822". Candlemas is 2nd February. The compact small tillage farm was Abbey Sheepcott in Clehonger, 4 miles SW of the city of Hereford. The advert explains: "Buildings in excellent repair, and comprising Abbey Sheepcott Mill and Sharkhouse Lands, in all about 150 acres .. well stocked with Fruit and Plantation Trees."
And what is the Skyrme connection? Well other than the auctioneer, the other person to contact is T. Skyrme, Esq. of Widemarsh Street, Hereford. He is most likely the owner since an 1810 advert refers to "adjoining lands of T. Skyrme" of Clehonger. Also, after listing his name the advert concludes "The present Tenant will show the Premises." Thomas was born in 1758 the son of Isaac and his wife Jane (neé) Symonds. Isaac was born in Clehonger in 1724 and in 1772 Isaac was Mayor of Hereford. Land tax returns of 1798 shows that Isaac Skyrme, Esq. owned three properties.
There is today a 'Shark House' in the SW of the village. Although the mill at Abbey Sheepcott is listed in mid 19th century directories, there is no reference to it today. Maps of a similar era show the Cagebrook Corn Mill north of Clehonger near the Madley Road. When the Abbey Sheepcott estate was auctioned in 1845, it is described as "adjoining the Turnpike road leading from Hereford to Madley". So was there another mill or did the Abbey Sheepcott Mill change its name to Cagebrook Mill? Herefordshire Archives have papers relating to Abbey Sheepcott Mill but I have no plans to visit in the near future. In the meantime perhaps a reader with local knowledge could identify where it was.
100 Years Ago: Primo Skyrme
When searching the newspaper archive for Skyrme in January 1922 I found this reference strange "Primo Skyrme proposed 'The Visitors'". Who was Primo? Closer reading (Brecon County Times 12th Jan) showed that it was a report of an RAOB Dinner in Talgarth. On further research it transpires that RAOB is 'Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes' a fraternal lodge. The order had started 100 years earlier in London. The lodge was called 'The Pride of Talgarth' and succeeded an earlier lodge founded in 1910. The newspaper article describes how 70 people attended this dinner at the New Inn. There is a hierarchy within an RAOB lodge which goes 1. Brother 2. Primo 3. Knight and 4. Right Honourable.
So Primo was a title, not a first name! Searching my database for Skyrmes who lived in the area at the time, I came across several candidates. But an article a few years later mentioned Primo J. Skyrme. So it was James Henry Skyrme(s). He was born in 1865 in Monkton, Pembroke, where my ancestors are from. He is my third cousin twice removed and was the son of Thomas Skyrme who worked on the Corston estate and came to an untimely death (see news June 2021). Some time in the late 1880s James moved to Llandefalle, about 4 miles west of Talgarth. He married Monkton girl Margaret Reynolds in 1891 in 1891 and they had six children, all born in Llandefalle. By trade James was a gardener and domestic servant, but reading the various reports he had an interesting social life and clearly rubbed shoulders with others of a higher standing than himself. After he retired he moved into Talgarth itself and lived around another 20 years. He died in 1955 aged 89.