Week 213

13th January, 2013

Quite a nice coincidence – Week 213 starts on 13th January, 2013. The omens are all good. And so it is proving. Today, I received information from cousin David about my Great, Great Grandfather, Richard Sanders (1821 – 1891). His wife, our Great, Great Grandmother, was Ann Newbery (1828 – 1898). Notice that they both lived to 70 years old even then.

Above is Great, Great Grandfather, Richard Sanders (1821 – 1891) resplendent with his Newgate Fringe. This was the description given to his beard style expropriated from the convicts of that prison who grew their beard hair between the chin and the neck. It was so called because it occupies the position of the rope when men are about to be hanged.He was born in Birstall, Leicestershire but moved to the flour mill in Repton which went on to be the Sanders Family home until 1938. Richard, it appears, was an illegitimate son of a stocking seamer, Jane Sanders, who went on to marry a man called John Kilby, also a stocking seamer in Birstall. Below is a photograph of Ann Newbery. She looks a bundle of laughs.

Finished the day, happily, watching Man.U. beat Liverpool.

14th January, 2013

The tables are turning – cold here and relatively warm in Greece – so the heating is on and soup is for lunch. Fantastic swim today left us both glowing.

More from cousin David who is mining a rich seam. It appears that illegitimate Richard gained a stepfather when his mother, Jane Sanders, married neighbour and fellow stocking seamer, John Kilby. By the time he was 30, Richard was living in Swepstone (Measham/Swadlincote) at ‘Clock Mill’ which is now a listed building and may have later become known as Desford Mill. Within ten years, he had moved the relatively short distance to Repton in Derbyshire, a journey of 20 miles but one which in those days was quite adventurous. With his wife, Ann Newbery, who had been born in Desford, 10 miles from Swepstone and 30 from Repton. In the 1851 Census, they had one child, Elizabeth aged 1 year. They had two more children who I haven’t yet discovered names for but born in 1852 and 1854. All three children died in 1860. There was an influenza pandemic in 1859/60 which would be a plausible explanation for the loss of all three. I found a photograph of Desford Mill and a painting of it. Sometime after 1851 (yet to be established), Richard, Ann and family moved to the mill in Repton. This mill was at the bottom end of Repton on the way to Park Ponds on the opposite side of the road to Grandad Sanders house. The mill is pictured below and the Sanders family lived there until 1938 when they moved to the new house in the High Street.
     

Twenty years after they left it and I was living in High Street, I remember going ‘fishing’/exploring with friends at the bottom end of Repton in an idyllic, weeping willow fringed stream and coming across a ruined building. When I recounted that tale around the dinner table, Dad told me that I had found the ‘old mill’. If only I had understood the significance of it.

15th January, 2013

It seems that there is no stopping cousin David. He has discovered the most amazing story about Richard Sanders’ stepfather, John Kilby. When he was 41, in 1842, he was arrested for ‘feloniously killing a sheep with intent to steal’ and, at Leicester Quarter Sessions on March 2nd of that year, he was sentenced to transportation for fifteen years. He was taken from Leicester jail to a hulkship called Justitia at Woolwich. He was kept there for a month and a half – one can imagine in what conditions – and was described in the ledger as ‘bad in every respect’. He was taken to Plymouth from where he set sail in the ship, Susan, on April 21st. After eight weeks at sea, he was landed in Van Diemen’s Land, Tasmania on 24th July, 1842.

John Kilby returned to England – not on the 1851 census – maybe in 1857 after serving his full time. He is back in Leicestershire – in Belgrave, a parish of Barrow upon Soar. In 1851, his wife, Jane, is Head of the family and aged 52, living with her family of four. Jane died in 1856 and by 1862, John Kilby is living alone. It is possible he never got back in time to be reunited with his wife.

16th January, 2013

Temperature in Surrey this morning -3C/27F and in the Cyclades islands 17C/63F. Even so we went for a fantastic swim this morning and then got into conversation with an old chap who usually comes to swim at the same time as us. I have always had a fault/character trait which can get me into trouble. I am absolutely fascinated by people and their lives. I remember meeting an old lady in an old people’s home a couple of years ago. I got chatting to her and, after fifteen minutes, she said, You now know more about me than anyone else in this building and I’ve lived here twenty years.

Well, the poor old chap got into the huge jacuzzi where Pauline & I were luxuriating. When he escaped, ten minutes later, I had drawn from him the fact that he was 72 years old. He went to Oxford and then trained as a doctor in St Thomas’ Hospital in central London. He went on to become a specialist clinician but I don’t know what in yet. I didn’t get round to that because we learnt that, in 1962, he and his wife drove to Greece in an ancient Austin 8 motorcar. The didn’t stop in Athens but continued right on to the Peloponnese. Where did the stay en route? Oh, they had a tent with them! This is so far from the approach of Pauline and I as to be an anathema. Every hour of our journeys is mapped out and recorded. We don’t just stop off at a hotel; we book it months in advance and ferry crossings similarly. We are the last people one might describe as ‘intrepid travellers’.

Enjoyed United beating West Ham in the FA Cup this evening. Particularly, I enjoyed Old Man Giggs getting Man of the Match at the age of 39. The old ones are always the best ones.

17th January, 2013

I make no apology for stealing someone elses Blog entry today. This is why I read The Skiathan first of all blogs on Greece. Today Skiathan Man has summed up an important thread running through Greek – and particularly island – life currently. We knew it would come. We knew many Greeks were in denial. It has arrived:

Judgement Day

Many long faces here on the island at the moment, as seasonal staff make their way to the town hall, to enquire about their unemployment benefits. This year the rules have been tightened, and many staff who work seasonally are being informed, that they will not be getting any unemployment benefits payments. The wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly here, Finish work in September or October, lodge unemployment claims within one month, with the OACD (Unemployment benefits office at the town hall – often wrongly confused with IKA) Then nearly three months later, you get a letter saying claim denied. For many this means, another four and a half months until gainful employment resumes. Rents still have to be paid, bills too, and money to warm cold concrete apartments. Only today I have seen two cafes, that have dispensed with expensive electric (Prices up 11%) heating for old fashioned, and in one case – antique wood burners. This loss of unemployment benefits, could have a knock on effect, as landlords, not always progressive at lowering rents – thus leading to the seasonal merry-go-round, Now find that they are not going to get paid either. Or that the tenant departs quickly for lands further north, via the ferry when the landlord is out at the ouzeria or visiting friends on the mainland. 

Greece is tightening up the rules, what was taken for granted is now paid for by the EU, and overseen by the Troika. The writing is very clearly on the wall, there will be much tougher times to come

This is exactly the sort of writing I want from a Greek Blog.

18th January, 2013

Today the snow is falling. Not in Yorkshire Pennine terms but light, fluttering small flakes. When we were teaching, a foot of snow over the moors was acceptable; any more might mean the school being closed. This morning we heard that Surrey schools were closed in anticipation that snow might fall. We’ve cancelled our trip to the Health Club, not because of the roads but because it will be full of kids bunking off school. I don’t know what the education world is coming to!

We had to read our electricity meter today for Scottish Power and return our reading on-line. The bill was returned instantly. We worked out that our annual electricity bill here is about £400.00 which means that the Heating Allowance I received pays for half of it. If you take into account the cost of our hot water and central heating which comes through our service charge, out total yearly outlay is about £550.00. Looking back to our bills in Yorkshire four years ago now, this represents one third of our previous costs. There are real advantages to downsizing.

19th January, 2013

No snow today although it’s forecast for us tomorrow morning. The sky looked full of snow and the light was poor. 0C/332F felt like -4C/25F. It was a day to be indoors and to do a bit more research.

I told you earlier in the week that the step father of my Great, Great Grandfather, Richard Sanders was convicted of stealing a sheep and sentenced to fifteen years which were to be served in Tasmania. Between being found guilty at Leicester Quarter Sessions at the beginning of March 1842 and being shipped off from Plymouth on HMS Susan towards the end of April 1842, Richard was incarcerated on a hulk ship prison moored just off Woolwich. I managed to find information about the hulk ship which was then called the Justitia. First purchased by the Navy in 1804 from the East India Company, the vessel went through a number of names and services before ending up as a hulk at Woolwich.

I found an actual partial illustration of the Justitia which is held by the National Maritime Museum but is also on sale at …………………Amazon.

I know this is a fragment but I did find something else of interest to counter balance cousin David’s deliberate attempts to render the Sanders family as illegitimate criminals not entitled to the name Sanders. We may be all of those things but we have a connection across time with William Bligh, the unfortunate Captain in the Mutiny on the Bounty and Captain Cook, the explorer.

When the Justitia was first built out of teak in 1799, it was known as Admiral Rainier . In 1804, the vessel was commissioned by the Royal Navy and renamed HMS Hindostan. The most notable service the vessel saw was sailing to Australia in 1809 bringing Governor Lachlan Macquarie to replace Governor William Bligh after The Rum Rebellion. Bligh turned out to be a very unlucky man. After surviving the Mutiny on the Bounty, he was the Governor of New South Wales who presided over The Rum Rebellion of 1808 which was the only successful armed takeover of government in Australia’s history. More of this will feature on the Family History page very shortly.