Arthur Heath Parker

Name: Arthur Heath Parker
Event Type: Marriage
Event Date: 17 Mar 1896
Event Place: Toronto, York, Ontario, Canada
Age: 25
Birth Year (Estimated): 1871
Father's Name: John Parker
Mother's Name: Maria Heath
Spouse's Name: Louisa Mayes
Spouse's Age: 22
Spouse's Birth Year (Estimated): 1874
Spouse's Father's Name: Francis Mayes
Spouse's Mother's Name: Annie Mahaffy

   

Arthur Heath Parker and Louisa Mayes had a daughter Louise on June 14 1907 who was born premature and died.
and a daughter Ruth Mayes Parker 0n 29 april 1910

Name: Ruth Mayes Parker
Event Type: Burial
Event Date: 04 Jul 1910
Event Place: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Event Place (Original): Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Age: 0
Birth Year (Estimated): 1910
Birthplace: Toronto
Death Date: 02 Jul 1910
Death Place: Grace Hospital
Cemetery: Prospect Cemetery
Plot Owner's Name: Arthur H Parker
Volume Date Range: Volume 01, 1890-1914
She died of an intestial obstruction

Name: Arthur H Parker
Age (Original): 10
Gender: Male
Birth Year: 1871
Birthplace: Norwich, Norfolk, England
Relationship to Head of Household: Son
Marital Status: Single
Occupation: Scholar
Address: Church Lane
Event Place: Norwich Thorpe, Norfolk, England

England and Wales Census, 1881,

Head John Parker M 47 Burgh St Peters, Norfolk, England

Wife Maria Heath  Parker F 40 Norwich, Norfolk, England

Son John Herbert Parker M 14 Norwich, Norfolk, England

Son William Ernest  Parker M 13Norwich, Norfolk, England

Son Charles Edward  Parker M 11Norwich, Norfolk, England

Son Arthur Heath  Parker M 10 Norwich, Norfolk, England

Daughter Edith Mary Parker F 8 Norwich, Norfolk, EnglandSon

Frank Vlieland Parker M 6 Norwich, Norfolk, EnglandSon

Percy Jerome  Parker M 4 Norwich, Norfolk, EnglandSon

George Frederick  Parker M 3 Norwich, Norfolk, EnglandDaughter

Grace Ellen Parker F 1 Norwich, Norfolk, England

Niece Edith B Vlieland F 16 Prestbury, Gloucestershire, England

Servant Rosina Gray F 23 Reepham, Norfolk, England

The Niece in the census is Edith Constance Blanche Vlieland .
Why she was living there we have to find out 

Howard Howells Davenport

Howard Howells Davenport

Howard Howells Davenport was the husband of Charlotte and James Monfries’ eldest daughter Jessie Thomson Monfries (b. 1854 in Alderney); Howard was b. 1847 in Coventry.

 

census 1851

Household	Role	Sex	Age	Birthplace
George Davenport	Head	M	45	Ashby De La Zouch, Leicestershire
Eliza Davenport	Wife	F	42	Kidderminster, Worcestershire
George Davenport	Son	M	17	Darliston, Staffordshire
Eliza Davenport	Daughter	F	15	Wolverhampton, Staffordshire
Frances Davenport	Daughter	F	11	Wolverhampton, Staffordshire
James H Davenport	Son	M	8	Wolverhampton, Staffordshire
James P Davenport	Daughter	F	6	Wolverhampton, Staffordshire
Howard H Davenport	Son	M	3	Coventry, Warwickshire
Edith Vyse Davenport	Daughter	F	0	Birmingham, Warwickshire
Ann Harcourt	Servant	F	25	Berwick, Shropshire
Marria Stobey	Servant	F	21	Dinas, Kent

and they were married at St Andrew’s Church in Cardiff on 17 September 1879. We know of at least four children: 

census 1881

Name: Howard H Davenport
Event Type: Census
Event Date: 1881
Event Place: Roath, Glamorganshire, Wales
Registration District: Cardiff
Residence Note: Wordsworth Place
Gender: Male
Age: 33
Marital Status: Married
Marital Status (Original): Married
Occupation: Railway Wagon Builder
Birth Year (Estimated): 1848
Birthplace: Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England
Relationship to Head of Household: Head

Household	Role	Sex	Age	Birthplace
Howard H Davenport	Head	M	33	Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England
Jessie T Davenport	Wife	F	28	Channel I Aldernay, England
Muriel I C Davenport	Daughter	F	0	Cardiff, Glamorganshire, Wales
Alice Meeds	Servant	F	18	Pandy, Herefordshire, England

Muriel ?J[essie] ?C[hamberlain] (b. 1881), Robert ?H[oward] (b. 1883), Daniel Benjamin (b. 1886) and Howard Howells (b. 1887), who was the youngest and probably final child as Jessie was by then 33, although there is an Evan (b. 1891), who is not in the 1901 census.

census 1901

Howard Devonport

Head

Male

53

Coventry, Warwickshire

Jessie Devonport

Wife

Female

47

Alderney, Channel Islands

Muriel Devonport

Daughter

Female

20

Cardiff, Glamorganshire

Daisy Devonport

Daughter

Female

17

Cardiff, Glamorganshire

Nancy Devonport

Daughter

Female

16

Cardiff, Glamorganshire

Howard Devonport

Son

Male

14

Cardiff, Glamorganshire

Isabella Devonport

Daughter

Female

12

Cardiff, Glamorganshire

Howard, Jr. was a highly decorated 2nd Lieutenant in the 10th South Wales Borderers in the First World War, gaining the Military Cross at Lys in November 1917 during the 3rd battle of Ypres, as well as five other decorations.

Name: Howard James Davenport
Event Type: Baptism
Event Date: 1887
Event Place: Roath, Glamorgan, Wales
Address: 238 Newport Rd
Occupation: Manager
Father's Name: Howard Howells
Mother's Name: Jessie Thompson

The Davenport family of Coventry, from whom Howard must be descended even if distantly, has an illustrious history. Margaret and Nicholas Davenport were among the sureties at the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215, pledging that the barons in rebellion against the king would fulfill their obligations under the Charter of rights. Edward was Mayor of Coventry under Queen Elizabeth in 1550, Henry in 1555; another Henry was Sheriff of the town in 1602, and John was a Puritan minister who was one of the founders of the colony of New Haven in Boston in 1637.

Howard Davenport, Sr. must have come to Cardiff in the early 1870s, working for the Metropolitan Railway Carriage and Waggon Company (MRCWC) at East Moors, near the docks. The MRCWC was founded in 1863 by Joseph Wright and based at Saltley in Birmingham, and Howard may have worked there before relocating to Cardiff. Its advertisements in the South Wales Daily News after July 1875 ask prospective goods’ purchasers to apply to an unnamed ‘manager’ at the Moors Works, and this is almost certainly Howard; he is listed as such in Slater’s Commercial Directory for 1880 under ‘railway waggon builders’ and by November 1886 he is the named contact in all the company’s advertisements.

In 1891, Grace’s Guide lists a Howard Davenport & Co., ‘Railway Waggon Contractors and Colliery Stores Merchants’, with Howard a partner in the firm. Their advertisements in late 1891 and early 1892 in the South Wales Daily News boast that, at 135 Bute Street, Docks, they are ‘Builders of railway waggons of all descriptions for cash or deferred purchase. Agents for South Wales. A large quantity of second-hand waggons always on hand’ and that they ‘beg to announce that they have been appointed SOLE AGENTS in South Wales for the Mint’ (transporting coin around the country for the government). They also make ‘Vertical Cornish and Vertical Steam Engine’ boilers, producing steam to power engines in colliery locomotives and industries such as sugar, textiles and paper, to the design pioneered by Richard Trevithick in the Dolcoath mine in Cornwall in 1812.

A further arm of the business was as contractors, stocking other firms’ boiler covers, metal preservatives and lubricating oils, and acting as agents for companies such as the wheel and axle makers H & S Barker & Co. of Mexborough in Yorkshire and the United Asbestos Co. of London. Around 1887 the company moved its offices into the newly refurbished Victoria Buildings at 64–67 Bute Street, where Thomas Harper & Son (chandlers, steamship owners and ships’ stores suppliers to the Navy in the First World War), and James Evans & Co. (colliery proprietors), also traded, with shop premises at the front, offices on the first floor and warehouse space in the basement. Davenports was still active in 1897, when Howard was 49, and both Howard and Jessie appear in the 1911 census, aged 63 and 57, respectively, by which time Howard is a Commission Agent, his 24-year-old son Howard Howells is a clerk, and his grandson, William Howard (b. 1904) is a 7-year-old child. The business is not in the 1914 Grace’s Guide, so he may have retired or died by then.

By the early 1890s Howard and his family were living at 102 Llandaff Road, a newly developed tree-lined street of substantial ‘villas for merchants’ in the Canton suburb of the city. Like the estate built after 1885 by William Corbett in neighbouring Cathedral Road, the houses in Llandaff Road were built of blue Pennant sandstone with Bath stone lintels and window sills, and had a prescribed architecture, layout and grid of roads and sewers, and Howard would certainly by then have been classed as one of the ‘wealthy merchants’ for whom Llandaff Road was intended. The 1887 Owen & Co.’s Cardiff Directory lists Howard and a Henry (b. 1851, with a batchelor of engineering degree and possibly Howard’s younger brother) as living at the Customs House Hotel at 285 Bute Street, so one wonders if the Llandaff Road house was then still being built. By the 1891 census, Henry is listed as a Marine Engineer, involved in ship construction and maintenance, almost certainly for the Cory coal company. The Directory also lists a Benjamin Davenport living at 11 Pontcanna Place, which may be Daniel, but he doesn’t appear to be in the 1901 census.

Howard must have had frequent business dealings with the Cory company in Corys Building at no. 57 Bute Street, the largest private wagon-owner in the UK in the late 1800s, whose wagons would have been built by Davenports. In 1885 Richard Morgan, Corys’ accountant and then company secretary, married Annie Monfries, Jessie Davenport’s younger sister 

(b. 1863 and later Charles Archibald Vlieland’s mother-in-law).

Thanks very much Barbara for your information.

He referenced in a letter as his alter ego Archie Wheeland

"Dear Miss Davies
Thank you very much for your efforts over the Birmingham Mail. I am very glad to have the extra copies - one I shall now be able to send to my beloved mother in law, who is the Anne of the dedication (To Another Anne whose spirits as unquenchable as my love for her) and will be thrilled to bits!
I return your copy of the book endorsed on the title page.
Yours sincerely
Archie Wheeland"

Dutch flowerfields

Morning Post - Friday 14 November 1828



In the newspaper we read, we can post-order Dutch Hyacinths ,paper whites and tulips and crocus and anemonies.
And also Italian macaroni and Parmesan Cheese.

Only the date 1828 was a surprise for this  "online" shopping.

This year because of Covid-19 the flowerfields and the worldfamous Keukenhof are closed.

Tomorrow there should be an flowerparade with all flowers from Rijnsburg where the flowers are auctioned  to the Boulevard in Noordwijk where the float is presented as "the longest traffic jam" But due to the corona rules that is not possible.
so here are some pictures from last year.

Also the Keukenhof cannot and have a digital impression every day , just to show what we will miss this year .

And the flowerbeds always colourfull and beautifull are now clipped , because they would attract to much public.

It is a blow for the farmers as they worked so hard to have the tulips and other springflowers in bloom but they cannot sell them or transport them because of Corona.

from earring to tattoo

Traditionally fishermen wore golden earrings as an insurance to cover the funeral.
It was like the ganseys also a way to be identified when they had an accident at sea .
This is such an earring.

      

Earring as an insurance and tattoos as identification:fishermen always were aware of death.
It happened and happens that a ship does not return from fishing.
People went overboard ,or a ship was lost with all hands.
Fishermen were aware of the dangers at sea .

The sea gives and the sea takes .It gives money but takes lifes.
The fisherman were quite religious and wanted a proper burial.
But what if you fell overboard or washed ashore in a foreign place .
That is why they invented a kind of funeral insurance by wearing one or two golden earrings or a golden button of enough weight so , they could be sold to pay for a funeral.

Also the tattoo could make a identification possible , and with any luck you could be buried in your home town.

For the last 20 odd years a tattoo is trendy but it used to be a part of the fishing culture and had something to do with fisherie.

Also names were used a lot .

Ganseys

The guernsey(gansey) came into being as a garment for fishermen who required a warm, hard wearing, yet comfortable item of clothing that would resist the sea spray. The hard twist given to the tightly packed wool fibres in the spinning process and the tightly knitted stitches, produced a finish that would "turn water" and is capable of repelling rain and spray.

The guernsey was traditionally knitted by the fishermen's wives and the pattern passed down from mother to daughter through the generations.

The pattern was also the same in the village , so you could recognize the men by the gansey they were wearing 

While commercially available sweaters are machine knit, the final finishing of these machine-knit parts is completed by hand.

Through trade links established in the 17th century, the guernsey found favour with seafarers around the British Isles, and many coastal communities abroad  as well, developed their own "ganseys" based on the original pattern. Whilst the classic guernsey pattern remained plain, the stitch patterns used became more complex the further north the garment spread, with the most complex evolving in the Scottish fishing village .  

    

Also in Holland the ganseys were worn .The Dutch herringfishermen went every  year to Shetland .
And they could be recognised by their clumps (wooden shoes) and their gansey's .
                                                                              

       

Here a fisherman in a Dutch gansey with a " blackberry stitch" .Typical for Noordwijk.
The stich looks like the brambles from the dunes and are special for Dutch ganseys .
I wonder if such a pattern was used in England.

more on ganseys

a Cromer gansey

At the mercy of the elements, fishermen have always needed practical, warm clothing to protect them as they working the sea.

Before the invention of truly waterproof clothing, their main line of defence was the gansey, a densely-knitted garment which to this day makes a man’s profession instantly recognisable.

The traditional navy blue jumpers, patterned on the top half and part of the sleeves, were found along the east coast from the early 19th century to the middle of the 20th century with Norfolk ganseys among the most highly-acclaimed, particularly those from Sheringham.

Ganseys were traditionally knitted “in the round” on five or more very fine needles, or wires. Using size 16 or 17 needles with three-ply worsted wool, the stitch count of 13 stitches and 19 rows per inch resulted in a dense, finely patterned fabric which is highly resilient to wind and rain.

In their heyday, each fishing family would have their own gansey pattern which in turn would be inspired by everyday objects.

One Sheringham pattern included an inch column of zigzags alternating with similar columns of fine moss stitch to give the appearance of lightning and hailstones, other patterns represented ropes, nets, anchors, waves and herringbone. And in April, the gansey will be honoured with a special exhibition at Sheringham Museum which will put fishermen’s fashion under the spotlight.

Rita Taylor set up the Gansey Scheme for the Knitting and Crochet Guild and is the author of several knitting books, including A Stitch in Time: Heirloom Knitting Skills. She moved to Norfolk seven years ago, having previously lived in Aberdeen, where she first learned about ganseys.

“I loved the work that went into ganseys and thought they were worth preserving as a separate item. For a while, they seemed to have been neglected a bit and seen as the equivalent of a boiler suit or overalls, just something you wore to work,” said Rita, who lives in Saxthorpe.

“But I loved the wonderful patterns and textures. I have a lot of interest in the sea and to me and have been knitting ganseys for the last 12 or so years. I gathered together some volunteers and devised some patterns and we knitted child-size ganseys for the guild to keep in its collection.

“Since then, I’ve gone on to make adult-sized ganseys and it has left me in awe of the women who used to knit these incredibly dense ganseys over just a few weeks.”

Rita has helped to put together an exhibition for Sheringham Museum which showcases the unique gansey patterns developed along the east coast of the UK.

Shoal of Ganseys: The Knitting Legacy of the Fishing Community is a temporary exhibition which will include Sheringham ganseys and others from the Moray Firth and Yorkshire. The ganseys will be displayed on two of the museum’s heritage lifeboats and preserved local wooden fishing boats.

Examples of work by local textile artists and designers will also be shown to illustrate the continuing influence of gansey patterns – in Rita’s book, there are patterns for gansey-inspired hot water bottle covers and a shopping bag.

“Knitting a gansey is very hard on the fingers because you’re using finer needles than you would usually use for that thickness of yarn. It’s the fine needles and thick yarn that makes the gansey waterproof and so warm,” explained Rita.

“The extra patterning on the yoke means that the fishermen’s chests were kept as warm as possible which was essential when they were out at sea. I suppose you have to think of sheep standing out in all temperatures – they don’t get hypothermia for a reason!”

Some of Rita’s gansey-inspired patterns will be available to buy from Sheringham Museum during the exhibition.

Curator for Great Yarmouth Museums for Norfolk Museums Service, Johanna O’Donoghue, explained that longshore fishermen wore navy-coloured ganseys from around 1850 to 1950 and that the garments were also worn by lifeboatmen.

“They were knitted very tightly to make the garment waterproof and had unique patterns: the home town or village of the wearer could be identified by their jumper and they were symmetrical back and front so could be worn both ways around,” she said.

“There are a number of different styles in the Norfolk Museums Services collection, from Cromer ganseys to a gansey probably from Yorkshire and even machine-knitted ganseys. The Stevenage Knitting Company knitted the ‘Cromer Heavyweight’ exclusively for Stratton Long Marine of Blakeney.

“At the fishing fairs held on the Yorkshire coast, you could tell what part a fisherman had come from by the ‘cut of his jib’. Distinctive patterns were used at Filey, Flamborough and Scarborough and a macabre use for these ‘port’ patterns arose when a fisherman was washed overboard and down the coast.

“When he was found, even if unknown by the finders, they would recognise the pattern on the gansey and know which village he came from and who to inform. In Devon and Cornwall, the ganseys were known as ‘bridal shirts’ – sweethearts knitted ganseys for her future husband to wear on their wedding day.

“Some Winterton and Sheringham gansey patterns like the Larner developed with the number of rings of the pattern on the sleeves denoting the number of children in the fisherman’s family.”

At Cromer Museum, Henry Little’s gansey is on display. Donated by Mrs Little of Sheringham, it is one of two ganseys she owned in 1990: the other she was still wearing while out in the garden! The Little gansey has travelled to Melbourne in Australia to be exhibited and has a repeat of two vertical patterns: coil o’ rope, a two-over-two cable, and a column of stocking stitch decorated with diagonal bars.

“The condition of the gansey tells of a life of hard work – it is thin and shows plenty of signs of wear and physical damage,” said Johanna.

“Despite this, the quality of the garment shines through as the worsted wool becomes quite lustrous through wear. The repairs to neck and cuff indicate the thrift of the fishermen’s wives. By its style, this may be the work of Edith Middleton of Sheringham.

“The two buttons at the neck are a little unusual, but they have been observed on Scottish ganseys as well as Sheringham ones and it is a means of making the neck tight, but also allowing it to be pulled over the head.”

Another gansey in the county’s collection was knitted by Margaret Leeds of Aldborough (while at sea with her husband) who donated a particularly small gansey in 1981, a copy of one originally worn by John Tar Bishop which was made by his wife in the early 1900s.

“Tightly-knitted and snug-fitting, the fisherman’s gansey was virtually windproof and waterproof. The cuffs were very close-fitting so as to keep out the winter winds and ended short of the wrist to avoid being caught on any pieces of equipment or becoming soaked as the fisherman worked at sea,” explained Johanna.

“Cast off at the bottom end, any necessary repairs could be made by unravelling from the cuff and re-knitting. As these working garments were rarely washed, a layer of filth would have given extra protection against the elements.” Delicious.

For more information about Sheringham Museum, visit www.sheringhammuseum.co.uk or call 01263 824482.

For more information about Great Yarmouth Museums, visit www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk or call 01493 743930.
more on ganseys

Tuberculosis

Sorry , but we are not yet done with plagues and diseases.
Today we go on with tuberculosis.Also known as White plague
My father was a victim of this infection and it had a lot to do with his and our lives.
He was infected during w.w.2.and and had to be operated and missed half of his lung.
The only cure for tuberculosis was rest in places with good clean air.
Later in 1947  they found a  medicine 
So he had to spend , all his days in bed in a sanatorium.
named Sole Mio in Noordwijk..

Doing nothing .Only his wife was allowed to visite him ,but his children were not.
They had to stay at home.The cure was long.
Three years he had to stay in bed as a young man, with a happy family and two young children.( I was born years later).
Totally isolated and only resting.
My mother had to take care of everything , work,young children , food, money ,taking care of my father .
They did well ,but it was difficult for all of them.
Finally he was allowed to go home , but his lungs were not the same as before and he suffered a lot.
The other familymembers had to get used  being a family again.
Because of my fathers TB we had lot of checks and also a vaccination  which is now during this coronacrisis administered in care homes to helpers to see if it works for corona as well .
But in school we were all checked once or twice a year with a mantoux test  and because of the vaccination we always turned out positive and had to go for an extra check and an Xray.
We were used to it .But after the doctor returned in the classroom a week later to tell us the result of the test ,it was always panick and the other children and the teacher were very concerned for their health as their was a "positive child "in the classroom.

Typhoid on The Vigilance

Because of the Corona and spending more time behind the computer we now continue our plagues with Typhoid.

The fishermen of Noordwijk and Katwijk  and Scheveningen went every year herring fishing near Lerwick.
And on our  our last trip we went to Lerwick Shetland a place that is in our blood, and that we  wanted to visit for many years
Our Grandfather went there as well as a seventeen year old boy.
He told us many a time about his big adventure.
He fell ill with typhoid and could not stay on the vessel.
It is also very contagious  The ship  he sailed on was the Vigilance (Waakzaamheid) The SCH 352. Here in Lerwick harbour.

This happened on the 25th Of June 1898.
It was even in The Shetland Times.Almost 100 hundred years ago.

Shetland Times 25 juni 1898

Shetland Times - Saturday 27 August 1898

The Dutch vicar L van der Valk , who felt sorry for the lad ,took care of him and placed him in the hospital and later took care of him in his own house.
On the 27th of August he was allowed to return home.
The minister was there to take care of the 3000-4000 Dutch fishermen that visited Lerwick.He stated that there was hardley any drunken or misbehaving Dutchmen .

He went then with our grandfather back on the ss  St Rognvald .

The trip back to Holland could not done  by herringship,even then it was selfisolation, but had to be done by ferry and  overland.
So they went from Lerwick to Aberdeen and from there  to London.
And there Grandpa told us this remarkable story.....
I had to go to the toilet and there was not one .
"so I had to do it in some bushes"
However I was spotted by a Bobby .
Who told me "that will cost you a pound".
I replied.... looking at what I produced.....You can take that pound .There is more then enough there...
Grandpa did not go to sea anymore but worked in the bulbfields instead.
The fishermen brought back not only the herring but also Staffordshire flatback dogs and peppermint.So many comforters are still to be found in Dutch houses.
As the men went fishing a Quote was "Ze benne om Hondjes " They are going for dogs 

this poem by T.P Ollason about the Dutch Fishermen and their trips to Shetland

'Goeden avond, fader Clumper,
There's something in your voice,
That exhilarates our fancy
Like unto a good 'ci-har'
Though you sport an air of pickle,
And your clumpers make a noise,
Ever welcome are the winds that
Waft you o'er the harbour bar'.

Titel Hollanders in Shetland
Auteur Adrian J. Beenhakker
Uitgever Shetland County Museum, 1973
Lengte 18 pagina's

Cholera in Noordwijk

Today we go back in time with the family but also continuing with disease ...  cholera. 

To the horrible year 1849. and to Holland.

Noordwijk suffers from the scourge of the 'Black plague', the cholera, which prevails throughout Europe. 
These are very black days for Noordwijk. 
One eighth of the entire population of Noordwijk aan Zee has already fallen victim to the this terrible disease.

In the Vlieland family, the mother of  Cornelis Vliet Vlieland is the first to die. 
Mother Grietje Vlieland, then  widow of Hannes Noordermeer, dies at the age of 63, on August 13, 1849. 
Both her daughters follow. The second victim is daughter Gerritje Noordermeer, only 27 years old, married to Albert Steenvoorden, she dies on August 19, 1849 and, as then the  last daughter, Sientje Noordermeer, aged 29 years, married to Gerrit Brama, she dies on September 7, 1849. Also Gerritje's son , Jacob Steenvoorden falls victim to the cholera on August 22, 1849, he dies and the son of Sientje, Cornelis Brama does not survive the epidemic either, his end comes on September 5, 1849. It is unbelievable that 5 members of one family ,lost their lives in a period of three weeks.caused by  cholera. Unbelievable what a terrible defeat it must have been in the Zeedorp. There were many victims in every family.
Cornelis was left alone, there were no more children - his life went on without his mother and sisters - but years later he finds solace with his neighbour Jannetje van den Berg with whom he marries on May 20, 1853.
they live in a tavern near the beach ,with a figurehead from a stranded ship,

Vandaag gaan we met de familie een stuk terug in de tijd. Naar het afschuwelijke jaar
1849. Noordwijk lijdt onder de gesel van de in heel Europa heersende 'Zwarte pest', de cholera. Het zijn zeer zwarte dagen voor Noordwijk. Eén achtste van de gehele bevolking van Noordwijk aan Zee is dan reeds het slachtoffer geworden van de verschrikkelijke ziekte.

In het gezin Vlieland komt als eerste de moeder van stamoudste Cornelis Vliet Vlieland te overlijden. 
Moeder Grietje Vlieland,  dan de weduwe Hannes Noordermeer, sterft op 63 jarige leeftijd, op 13 augustus 1849. 
Haar beide dochters volgen. 
Als tweede slachtoffer volgt dochter Gerritje Noordermeer slechts 27 jaar jong, gehuwd met Albert Steenvoorden, zij sterft op 19 augustus 1849 en als laatste dochter Sientje Noordermeer, 29 jaar jong, gehuwd met Gerrit Brama zij sterft op 7 september 1849. 
Ook het zoontje van Gerritje, Jacob Steenvoorden wordt slachtoffer van de cholera op 22 augustus 1849 overlijdt hij en het zoontje van Sientje, Cornelis Brama overleeft de epidemie evenmin, zijn einde komt op 5 september 1949. 
Onvoorstelbaar dat in een periode van drie weken 5 gezinsleden het leven verloren door de cholera. 
Niet te begrijpen wat een verschrikkelijk verslagenheid er in het Zeedorp moet hebben geheerst. In ieder gezin waren er vele slachtoffers te betreuren.
Cornelis bleef alleen achter, meer kinderen waren er niet - zijn leven ging verder zonder zijn moeder en zussen- maar hij vindt jaren later troost bij zijn buurmeisje Jannetje van den Berg waarmee hij op 20 mei 1853 in het huwelijk treedt.

1849 - Cholera and a ‘Day of Public Humiliation

1849 - Cholera and a ‘Day of Public Humiliation’

From earliest times, 100's of millions have died from epidemics of Bubonic Plague "Black Death," Typhoid, Typhus, Smallpox, Yellow Fever, Spanish Flu, Malaria, Measles, and AIDS. The disease of the 19th century was cholera.

When the British East India Company built railroads and sent steamboats up rivers, individuals infected with cholera could quickly travel back to Europe, carrying cholera with them. Cholera spread by drinking unsanitary water. It was the first truly global disease, killing tens of millions in crowded cities. In 1849 the contagion was particularly acute.

In 1849, cholera killed 5,000 in New York, with a mass grave on Randall's Island in the East River. Its multitude of deaths included an estimated 12,000 on their way to the California Gold Rush and former 11th U.S. President James K. Polk.

On July 3, 1849, President Zachary Taylor proclaimed a National Day of Fasting: "At a season when the providence of God has manifested itself in the visitation of a fearful pestilence which is spreading itself throughout the land, it is fitting that a people whose reliance has ever been in His protection should humble themselves before His throne, and, while acknowledging past transgressions, ask a continuance of the Divine mercy. 

It is therefore earnestly recommended that the first Friday in August be observed throughout the United States as a Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer...

The rest of the world was not far behind. In London, ‘The Standard’ for Monday, September 10, 1849 reports that “the pestilence continues its debilitating progress ... fearfully exceeding anything that London has suffered within the last 184 years”. More than 5,000 had died in that week alone in London. It complains that the Government had not taken notice either of its support for a public day of fast on Thanksgiving Day.

It includes a notice of a ‘Day of Public Humiliation’ with a special ‘penitence and prayer’ service “under a solemn sense of the judgement of God” undertaken by the clergy of the Parish of Shoreditch on 14th. One of the “good men whose names are inscribed” according to the Standard is Rev. Jerome Vlieland, the curate of St Mark’s Old Street.

Thomas Robert Dunn, father of Thomas Dunn of this blog will be dead within a fortnight. The information on the death certificate is "bilious fever and diarrhoea 6 weeks certified". His symptoms are consistent with a form of dysentery. 

Once in the human gut, the micro-organisms multiply rapidly causing an inflammation of the intestinal wall and possible ulceration. The almost continuous diarrhoea is accompanied by the passage of blood and mucus. With his abdominal pains, there may be fever, nausea, and vomiting. The most extreme ‘choleraic’ state of dysentery causes severe dehydration, and a shrunken appearance. Extreme dehydration increases the complications.

With poor hygiene and sanitary arrangements plus crowded conditions, bacilli from faeces can enter a new host on contaminated food. If they recover, bacilli can be passed in the motions for some time afterwards. The recovered individual therefore becomes a potential carrier of the disease during that period. In a position where the water supply is (to put it mildly) ‘poor’, water can therefore also spread the disease. This was (so far) unknown to the Victorians.

The average age of death in London was only 22 for working classes; an average not helped by almost half the burials being of children under ten. Not the worst, in Liverpool it was 15! Nowhere in urban Britain did average life expectancy exceed thirty. Thomas Robert was 27 with a wife and three young children. His death would separate them.

Compulsory registration of births and deaths had begun in 1937 in order to ascertain the causes of mortality; as inspectors were issuing report after report on overcrowded cemeteries houses without water and sanitation. 

Three and a half thousand a year were dying in London alone from smallpox. Tuberculosis, (both glandular and pulmonary), was common and there were also regular outbreaks of typhoid fever, epidemic diarrhoea, dysentery scarlet fever, influenza and a variety of ills classified only as “fevers”. 

By 1849 London was ‘heaving’. Its population had doubled since 1800 (and would double again by the end of the century). In the 1840s some quarter of a million extra people arrived. They came to London looking for work from Ireland and all over England. Most were so poor that they had no option but to swell already overcrowded slums. 

It is now believed that the first large cholera outbreak in England in the 1830’s was brought from Eastern Europe. There is a suggestion that this recent one originated with the influx of souls from Ireland after the potato crop failures and subsequent famine. In 1848-9 London had been in the grip of a major cholera outbreak; even worse than that in 1832

Between November and December of 1847 the amazingly high figure of 500,000 people were infected with typhus fever out of a total population of 2,100,100. Typhus was also common in prisons (and other crowded conditions where lice spread easily - such as London slums). Imprisonment until the next term of court was often a death sentence. 

The Irish typhus epidemic of 1846-9 spread to England, where it was sometimes called "Irish fever" and was noted for its virulence. It killed people of all social classes, since lice were endemic and inescapable. In the slums there was certainly no possibility of ‘isolating’ an infected person; whatever their symptoms but the Queen, herself, had caught typhus and there is a possibility that the Prince Regent died of it, (although he may also have has cancer)

A letter to the Times in 1849 read: “We live in muck and filthe. We ain’t got no privez, no dustbins, no drains, no water splies… We all of us suffer and numbers are ill, and if the Colera comes Lord help us…” The cholera did come. It had no known cause and there was no cure. 

As well as sharing a standpipe for water in most cases a block would share an outside ‘privy’ (usually an earth closet – and quite often overflowing). Most dwellings had no real sewers at all: they relied on cesspits which, as we know, could be in their basements. As they filled up, they saturated the brickwork, rotted the wood of the foundations and sometimes seeped into the living area. The stench filled even well-to-do homes and there were cases of entire families being asphyxiated in their sleep because of noxious gases in the air.

In earlier decades nearly all were within a few hundred yards of open fields and clearing the ‘night soil’ into the countryside was possible. Now domestic cesspits were often sluiced out into the street or emptied by hand – a job frequently done by the youngest, smallest children. All this left whole communities surrounded by human excrement. 

Flush toilets did not become widespread until after the Great Exhibition (1851) but even if your property had its own modern privy the waste would simply sit in brick sewers ‘ripening’ until, in wet weather, the water discharged it into the local water course – from which the water company would extract its ‘drinking’ water. Such water, of course, did not just contain the outflowing sewage from properties but the waste from butchers, tanners and many other noxious remains.

Even when new houses were built, the builders might dig out and sell the gravel which should have been used for the base and replace it with decaying refuse. The (stinking) cess pit for the house may well be the ‘basement’ below the wooden floor and the gutters outside still ran with human waste.

Only the few more expensive properties had water piped to the property or a ‘new-fangled’ water-closet and, even then, most were simply using stinking brown recycled Thames water.  Even if they had, the water companies did not provide water ’24 x 7’. Sometimes water was only pumped for an hour a day – and not late evenings or Sundays when working men would be home. 

London’s sewage system was worse than useless. Many sewers were already broken and the others, simply discharged into yet another until, like the ‘River’ Fleet (now a ditch) running beside Holborn Hill, they finally discharged into the Thames. The river itself became an open sewer, described by Punch magazine as a ‘foul sludge and foetid stream’, yet this was the main source of drinking water for London’s poor. 

Should you avoid ‘death by water’ or a local epidemic, the rise in sales of untreated cow’s milk (even if not adulterated) caused heavy tolls from dysentery which also still killed more soldiers than war and, with typhus, decimated Napoleon's army in Russia. Boracic acid, to remove the sour taste and smell from milk that had gone off, also caused diarrhoea. 

One well known fatal disease of the time was dubbed ‘sausage poisoning’ – food poisoning from eating sausages made from bad meat. If anything, with the growth in town populations and the failure of real wages of the poor to sustain them, the position was now even worse. 

It was unusual for milk not to have been watered down by the time it reached the final customer – and the water was, itself, part of the problem. A 2010 TV programme on ‘the Victorian High Street’ showed bread (made from poor quality flour) being routinely adulterated with items such as chalk and (to whiten the bread) arsenic.

Even the burial grounds were packed to overflowing and bodies buried packed so close together and sometimes breaking through the ground. One graveyard worker reported that “I have been up to my knees in human flesh by jumping on the bodies so as to cram them into the least possible space at the bottom of the graves in which fresh bodies were afterwards placed”. Graves were ‘desecrated’ and re-used with alarming regularity, with disinterred bones left scattered across the churchyard grass. 

Poet William Blake was buried in Bunhill fields in 1821 on top of three previous incumbents. At intervals, later, four others were buried on top of him. The reason many older churches look as though they have ‘settled’ some feet lower in the ground is primarily down to the piled up bodies constantly causing the surrounding soil to get higher. 

It was not unknown for the noxious fumes to kill those living closest to the graveyards. Occasionally bones were moved years later to a charnel house in order that the ‘plot’ be reutilised but usually they were just ‘compacted’ in the digging to allow another body ‘on top’. 

The year after this terrible cholera outbreak (and Thomas Robert’s death) ‘The London Necropolis Company’ was set up. A massive (2,000-acre) cemetery was planned at Brookwood Surrey; “big enough to hold all of London's dead forever” (and, at 25 miles from the city, far enough away to avoid the spread of disease from the bodies). There were special funeral trains from London Necropolis railway station, adjacent to Waterloo station. 

The coffins (and mourners) were taken directly to platforms within the cemetery itself and the coffin also travelled either first second or third class (with each hearse car split into three sections of four coffin cells each) dependent upon the funeral ‘package’ booked by the mourners. 

So there were six distinct classes of travel (since non-conformists also had to be ‘accommodated’, addressing Bishop of London Charles James Blomfield’s worries that “for instance, the body of some profligate spendthrift might be placed in a conveyance with the body of some respectable member of the church, which would shock the feelings of his friends.” 


It was still used until 1941 but, a month after the last train had departed a massive bombing campaign not only levelled most of the Necropolis complex but destroyed the special funeral train and signalled its demise. Brookwood, still the biggest cemetery in W Europe, is now a Grade I Historic Park & Garden.

Thanks Ray !