William Ginn of Sacombe and Tasmania died 1846

 Every tragedy falls into two parts: complication and unravelling...By complication I mean all that extends from the beginning of that action to the part which marks the turning point to good or bad fortune.  The unravelling is that which extends from the beginning of the change to the end.

Aristotle

My 4x great grandfather John Cooledge stole a little food and was transported to Australia as a convict, leaving a family behind.   He died in Tasmania, in Hobart Hospital.  His wife and family were placed into Buntingford Workhouse and only two children of that whole family survived that experience.  It was shocking to read the workhouse records.  So this post has some meaning for me.

William was a descendant of John Ginn (see my post of 25th July 2014 ).  His further ancestors will be dealt with in later posts.  He was an agricultural labourer.

 19th cent labourers - I love the guy with the top hat

William married Hannah Surridge at Sacombe in 1826, Hannah came from Bennington.  Sacombe was and is a quiet rural village, not a place where there would be much happening or with plenty of work opportunities.  The couple were poor.

Now sometimes I know something without knowing  I know something.  And so it is here.  I had actually uploaded this post when "the penny dropped" that I knew more.

Hannah was born to Thomas and Ann at Benington in 1806.  The couple had indeed married that year, Thomas Surridge being a widower.  But Tom did not come from Benington, he came from Sacombe Green, his father being Wiliam Surridge (a labourer who owned a few bits of land) and who died in 1810 leaving a will.

And Thomas Surridge had the wherewithal to buy a copyhold cottage at Sacombe Green in 1816 (DE/AS/2389 Herts Archives) see extract which sale was finalised to him in 1819.  He was variously described as a Labourer/Carpenter.  

Now I am a property lawyer- deeds are what I do.  And I have turned up those deeds.  Tom Surridge converted this one house into two cottages before 1820.  And I know that William Ginn and Hannah were tenants of one of these cottages.  I also know that there are two farm cottages at Sacombe Green which are historic and listed buildings (for planning purposes) and their listing description says that this one house was converted into two cottages circa 1800 (the house has elements going back to the late 1600s).  I am certain that this is all one.  So we can see the house, cottages below.

William and Hannah had had two children when in 1829 they applied under the Poor Laws to move to Cheshunt, a small town on the London Road where there would have been plenty of opportunities.  The rules were that if the destination parish Overseers of the Poor thought that the family would be a burden on the parish and claim poor relief (paid for by the local taxpayers) then they could turn the couple away and send them back to Sacombe.  This is what happened.  (Settlement Records Herts Archives).  I have always thought that if the family had been allowed to settle in Cheshunt their story would have been very different.

William and Hannah continued to have children and we move forward to 1841.

Now 1841 was a significant year for several reasons, some trivial, some not.

For a start - it was the year that Britain saw its first Christmas Tree - a German tradition brought into England by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's consort.  It was erected at Windsor Castle.

Queen Victoria had a lovely Christmas that year, writing in her journal on Christmas Eve 1841

Christmas, I always look upon as a most dear happy time, also for Albert, who enjoyed it naturally still more in his happy home, which mine, certainly, as a child, was not. It is a pleasure to have this blessed festival associated with one’s happiest days. The very smell of the Christmas Trees of pleasant memories. To think, we have already 2 Children now, & one who already enjoys the sight, — it seems like a dream.

And a fine time would have been had by all of the aristocracy, gentry and the factory owners who took the riches of what was at the time the richest and most powerful nation in the world.  But the nation had crippling inequality, the wealthy few exploited the impoverished masses just as the slave owners had once exploited the slaves.  The poor could barely feed themselves in the good times, and these were not good times- 1841 was notable for another thing - it was a year in a decade which came to be known as "The Hungry Forties"

Thirdly, in Spring 1841 Thomas Surridge, now nearly seventy. sold the two cottages for nearly twice what he paid for them.  William Ginn was said to be in possession of one of them.  See extracts below (DE/AS/2390).  If Bill Ginn were only paying a nominal rent to his father in law, this could have crippled him financially.

And also in 1841- Hertfordshire saw the creation of its first professional police force - the Hertfordshire Constabulary.  The Metropolitan Police (one of the first professional police forces in the world) had been created in London in 1829.  It replaced an archaic system.  But the freedom loving British would not tolerate an armed force wearing the uniform of army red (the "Peterloo Massacre" of 1819 was fresh in the public mind) as that might induce riots.  So our police were to be the unarmed "boys in blue".  It is clear that Hertfordshire recruited some men from "the Met".

So we come to Saturday, 18th December 1841 - quite literally, the week before Christmas.  Bill Ginn would have had little work this time of the year but obviously decided that his six children would have a full belly that Christmas.   As a consequence he and Hannah were not to have the "dream" Christmas of Queen Victoria, but rather a surreal nightmare that would change their lives forever.  I knew the outcome years ago - but in 2007 turned up the whole sorry tale (full papers survive QSR 66) at Herts Archives.

Thomas Mardell was a local farmer in Sacombe.  He was also (for many years) one of the Overseers of the Poor, ie in charge of parish poor relief, which I am sure had brought him into contact with the Ginns. There was probably no love lost.

Thomas Mardell had 141 sheep in a field near Sacombe that Saturday, except his shepherd counted and noted that there were only 140.

Mardell was to say that he and the shepherd were able to track Bill and the sheep, but this seems unlikely and I suspect that somebody snitched.    Whatever the truth, Mardell and the shepherd approached the privy of Bill's cottage on Sacombe Green and noticed "ground fresh moved" and blood.  Mardell withdrew and the shepherd went to fetch the Hertfordshire Constabulary.

Chief Inspector Driscoll and Constable Thresher attended the scene later the same day, near dusk.  It was nearly the shortest day so this would have been about 4 pm.  Constable Thresher was Charles Thresher, he got my interest as the next year he indirectly features in the story of Billett King Genn of Cambridge (see below) and Charles was  later to find his own life turned upside down +

The police found William near his cottage.  Thresher held him fast while Driscoll searched the cottage.  They found a sheep's paunch (tripe) concealed near the fire place.  It was now dark and they left with William and locked the cottage up.

The police returned the next morning ie the 19th and opened up the cottage, Hannah was there.  They thought that she was trying to conceal something and moving her out of the way found the head of a sheep and a sack of mutton beneath her.  A butcher from Hertford was later to give evidence that all of the mutton was fresh killed and poorly butchered.

Nathaniel Surridge was the Parish Constable - ie the civilian appointed by the parish to keep the peace in the village. He was also Hannah's first cousin. He confirmed all that the police had said, and further mentioned that they had found a sheepskin in a pond near Bill's cottage.

William Ginn denied any knowledge of the sheep - but his fate was sealed.

William was put in Hertford Gaol - now long gone. His conduct there was bad - he was obviously traumatised.   His trial was delayed and he was not actually tried until 14th February 1842, 180 years almost to the day before this post.  He was sentenced to be transported for 10 years without possibility of return.  It was his first offence ever.

He then went to the prison hulks on the Thames to await his sentence being carried out and was there for five months.  The hulks were dismasted ships, many of them old warships from the Napoleonic Wars.  Discipline was very strict and life was tough.

                   An early photo from the 1850s showing prison hulks on the Thames

William was transported to Australia on the "Triton".  It took several months and he sailed into Hobart, Tasmania on 19th December 1842, a year to the day since Driscoll and Thresher had searched the cottage that Sunday morning.

We know from the records that William was 5ft 6 ins (about average for the time amongst the poor) had dark brown hair and beard, with blue eyes.

The convict regime in Tasmania had toughened in 1841 and new arrivals were to be put in what were  effectively chain gangs for the first two years after their arrival, carrying out government projects, road building and the like.  He went to Westbury. Whilst acting as cook to the gang he not unsurprisingly stole some extra food and was put in solitary for six days. The convicts were paraded on what is now the Village Green, below.

There was a Probation Station at Westbury which is where William went at the end of his two years, he now being assigned out to work (not for wages of course) for the local free settlers.  We know that he was assigned to a William Chitty.  He was still working for Chitty in 1845 when he was disciplined for drinking in a disorderly house after hours.

Had William lived, he would have got a conditional pardon in a few years, freedom, but not to return home.  This was sadly not to be as he became ill- we do not know what the problem was, and died in Westbury Hospital on 10th September 1846 - he was 45.  A descendant (ironically a good number of Bill's descendants emigrated to Australia) has told me that the convict dead from the hospital were buried in unconsecrated ground near the still to be completed Anglican church in Westbury.

Back in Sacombe, Hannah was made aware that William had died- thereafter describing herself as a widow. She took in laundry to try and survive. She never remarried and lived with her daughter Mary - dying at Sacombe in 1883.

William and Hannah had six children

Mary Ann - married William Luck at Sacombe in 1855

Thomas - married Emma Ruddell at Sacombe in 1864

Sarah - married James Kirby at Sacombe in 1852

William - married Mary Bradley at Sacombe in 1867

Charles - married Eliza Parker at Sacombe in 1863

Emma - is untraced

+ Charles Thresher who held Bill Ginn that day is an interesting cove.  He was born in London's west end.  Yet he married Ann Ellwood at Cambridge in 1832.  In 1836 he joined the Metropolitan Police.  At the inception of the Hertfordshire Constabulary in 1841 he clearly transferred.  His boss in Hertfordshire was a chap called Bailey, a former army man who was the "top man" at the Police Station at Stevenage.  There is an article on the Cambridge Police called "Provincial Police Reform in early Victorian England" by Roger Swift that deals with the early history of what became the City of Cambridge professional police force which was set up in 1842.  The new local authority were Tories (the liberals had lost the election) and they wanted an authoritarian police force.  They invited applications for a Superintendent of Police (largely an administrative post) and four people were shortlisted.  Three were serving police officers and all former army men, including Bailey, but one was "Mr Genn of Cambridge" this is Billett King Genn of Cambridge (see post of  10th October 2019) whose only qualification for the role (he was a Draper) were his connections - he was a member of the Garrick Club for a start.  Needless to say he did not get the job - but Bailey did.  And Bailey brought two serving Hertfordshire police officers with him to Cambridge in 1842 including (you guessed it) Charlie Thresher.  The outsiders were not welcome in Cambridge- Bailey was a martinet who never escaped his army roots and had the Cambridge force (who were supposed to be armed with cudgels) engaging in sword drill !  The liberals in Cambridge called the Tory council's recruits the "Hertford Pets".  But these "pets" prospered for a while at least, and Charles Thresher was made an Inspector of Police and Clerk to the Market (he enforced market regulations) in 1843.  But Bill Ginn could have told him that life throws you "curve balls" and so it proved.  For in 1849 Inspector Thresher both lost his job in the police and went bankrupt.  Th sorry tale is in the "London Gazette" the "Jurist" of 1849 and 1850.  It is unclear whether he lost his job and went bankrupt, or went bankrupt and accordingly lost his job.  But in any event, in a time when you went to prison if you were a defaulting debtor,  the former policeman was petitioning to avoid prison.   And he did - because in 1847 he had remarried an Ann Moore at Granchester near Cambridge, and in 1851 we find him (Trade Directory) pulling pints as the Landlord of the "Green Man" at Granchester which pub is still there.  Funny how life turns out

Uriah Ginn of St Giles Cripplegate, London died 1715

Uriah here is the son of Uriah snr of Cheshunt in my post of 10th November 2019 .  I did not know he even existed until late 2021 (no baptism record survives - he was born during the Commonwealth in circa 1658) and this research is a work in progress.  He does not have any descendants and you may think that this will be a boring post - but you would be wrong - Uriah was a Stationer - ie a Bookseller, unique in this blog.

 A local man called Robert Dewhurst had a charity school built in Cheshunt in 1640.  The original building still stands (below) and is used as the dining room for the now much larger and modern Dewhurst Primary School .  It is now part of a  State School, a school that my father (I come from Cheshunt) attended in the 1920s, my Dad and Uriah played in the same playground, 250 years apart. So Uriah and I come from the same town and have a personal link.

Originally the school was set up for "poor boys" ie those whose parents could not afford schooling for their children.  It was as stated in its constitution "for the teaching of them to read English so that they may know God the better and also to write and cast accounts so that they may be better able to be apprenticed to some honest trade or mystery"

Most of the boys went to manual trades, but the more academic went elsewhere and in early 1674 Uriah was apprenticed to a Thomas Harris a Stationer of London "he dwelleth in Camomile Street within Bishopsgate" (De/Ds/8/1 Herts Archives)

Camomile Street is still there but bears no resemblance to what it looked like in 1674.  It had escaped the Great Fire of London in 1666 and was a short street of less than forty buildings off of Bishopsgate Street - a map of 1682 shows it below.

 It is apparent that Uriah finished his apprenticeship and continued as a Stationer the rest of his life.

Stationers of this period were not what we think of.  It is true that they sold paper and pens, copy and memorandum books - but they were mainly publishers, printers and booksellers.  Thomas Harris was not a member of the Stationers Company and this is important, he was a bit of a pirate.

As a lawyer and collector of  antiquarian books this interests me. You see today we can access any book we wish to read, but this was not true in the 1600s.  The Stationers Company in the City of London had a monopoly on the publishing of books and were able to censor those that were published.  No book could be published without it being exclusively licensed to a particular stationer, and that licence was in perpetuity - ie for ever.  The book and pamphlets that were published were devoured by the literate public and were the internet of the day.  The Stationers Company controlled it all.  This applied even to classical, long dead authors - no licence - no book - and if the stationer with the licence refused to publish a new edition you could probably not get access to the book as there were no public libraries.  End of.

 
In an age of freedom of religion, of revolutionary political thought, of science (this was the time of Isaac Newton) this was not acceptable and in 1694 the Licensing Act (which gave the Stationers Company the power) was not renewed.  For a time there was chaos as any publisher or printer could publish anything without payment to anybody, including the author.  Authors were outraged, as Daniel Defoe (who wrote Robinson Crusoe) put it. he could work for 7 years to produce a book and as soon as he issued it it could be copied by anybody.  Defoe was reputedly born in St Giles Cripplegate and died there in 1731.

                                               Daniel Defoe

So, in 1710 they passed the Copyright Act, which was so revolutionary (the British were the first to make copyright law) that it is still quoted in British and American courts as the foundation of copyright today.  There were two basic rules- living authors could have exclusive rights to the income from their labours and could choose their own publisher for a period of 28 years from when the book was published, and there needed to be libraries and a copy of every published book deposited within. Private libraries sprang up everywhere.  The author had protection and the public who might not be able to buy a book, would still be able to access it.  

In 1989 (when I started this research) it was unthinkable to me that one day I might be able to post my research online and within a second it could be read around the world !  Uriah lived through such an information revolution. It must have been quite exciting.

Now there were two types of stationers, those who worked in shops and what our ancestors called Walking Stationers, and they were what it says on the tin.  Walking Stationers (in an age of pedlars and hawkers) would walk around London, particularly the City and near St Pauls where booksellers congregated, with  a basket, a trestle table or mobile booth that they could set up - selling books, prints, pamphlets, notebooks - you name it.  Think of the print and booksellers in Paris beside the Seine and you get the idea.  Some of these men were blind and one or two of them depicted in engravings as below - you can see St Pauls in the background.

I think that there is no question that Uriah was both sorts of stationer.  We know that he operated out of a shop, and the records suggest that he looked a good deal older than his years, which would accord with an outdoor life.

On a personal note, he married a lady called Ann, likely in about 1690.  There is no marriage entry I can find and it may be that like a lot of people at the time they simply too oaths to each other rather than formally marry in Church. They appear to have lived in a rented room in St Giles, Cripplegate.  This was a populous parish (three Ginn men and their families in this blog lived in that parish between 1710 and 1730 - they may came across one another as one was a churchwarden).  

In 1695 for a few years they introduced a tax on christening, marriages and burial in church.  The aim was to raise money and men to fight for the Protestant cause in the Nine Years War (don't ask) another one of the religious wars on the Continent of the 17th century.

To back this up the government took a form of census of householders and their families.  The vast majority of these records sadly do not survive.  But for Londoners (Inside the [City] Walls and Outside they do) and from these, now indexed on British History Online, I know that Uriah, wife Ann and son were already in St Giles Cripplegate in 1695, so they were there for at least twenty years.  The amazing thing is that they lived in Grub Street Precinct, Grub Street being the place of origin of what we might call the tabloid press.  Books, leaflets and news sheets, poetry, travel, amusing, serious, informative, often bawdy or downright pornographic were all produced there..  A living was to be made out of these and the British Press was born !

Ann Ginn "wife of Uriah Ginn, Stationer" took a fever (in an age without antibiotics it could have been anything) and died at St Giles Cripplegate in 1714.  The parish officials kept wonderful records (they had three burial grounds and access to three more) and she was buried in the Lower burial ground+ - that is the churchyard.  Uriah was said to have died "aged" (he could not have been 60) in 1715.  He was buried in the Upper Burial Ground in Whitecross Street in Islington no less, sometimes referred to as the burial ground of "The Bear and Ragged Staff" which was an Inn close by+.

Their children

Charles - there are no baptism records, but, amazingly, the 1695 Tax records denoted a son Charles  (5-10 years old I would guess) alive at this time.  There is no further record of a Charles Ginn in the London or Middlesex records before the 19th  century.  But the St Giles records are very accurate and complete, so Charlie seems to have survived to at least his teens.  Where he went, as yet, I have no idea.

+ The church and the Lower burial ground were blitzed in WW2.  Ann now lies under paving - the area was flattened.  Uriah met a worse fate, the Upper burial ground is covered by the Peabody Estate, and most of the human remains found at the time of the excavation were removed and buried elsewhere.

George Ginn of Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines died 1812

Given what is happening globally, this is a topical post.  Even more topical given that it is a new discovery.  But some will find it unpleasant, and given that my wife is part West Indian, I find it downright distasteful.  For this is a post about slavery - and the wealth it produced.

George here was clearly a son (I suspect there were several) of George Ginn of Nevis - see my post of  28th June 2020 who clearly prospered.    I know very little genealogical information about George jnr here, the Nevis registers have not survived or if they have are not yet digitized, but I suspect he was born in the 1750s and therefore on Nevis.

George Ginn senior died after 1765, I do not know when and as yet I have not found any entry in any existing and available records for Nevis dealing with any inheritence, but George junior followed in the footsteps of his father and became a Millwright and Carpenter.

Carpenters were essential on the Caribbean Islands, the sugar plantation owners needed them to build and repair the windmills that processed the sugar and to build and maintain the other buildings and infrastructure on the islands.  You thus find quite a lot of carpenters and they were treated with respect often referred to as "Mr" in the church registers.

I know that George married, likely about 1770 and I know that the couple had children, but most were clearly born on Nevis and sadly the entries are in general lost to us at present as I say.

St Vincent is in the Windward Islands, nearly three hundred miles from Nevis.  And you have to wonder what other islands these Ginn carpenters may have worked on, most of the records gone, a few not yet researched, because it is clear that the trades people who worked the plantations (George was not alone in this) were often itinerant contract workers, they went where the work was, and there was a lot of work in St Vincent in the late 1790s.

St Vincent was originally French (the Windward Islands include Martinique) but were taken by the British after the Seven Years War in 1763.  The British then attempted their own settlement and people arrived from the British Isles, many from Scotland.  It was not easy to colonise because, ironically, St Vincent was one of the few places home to a good number of the original indigenous Carib people of the Caribbean, and they did not like strangers.  So there was dislike and fighting and the Caribs kept pretty much to the north of the island, the British to the south.

With the French Revolution and the wars with Britain that followed, the French stirred the Caribs up against the British and supported and instigated more fighting which eventually led to the Second Carib War which ended in 1796/7.  During this the Caribs marched south, armed by the French, and devastated many of the sugar plantations and destroyed many of the sugar mills and related works to the east and west of the island.

British troops arrived in numbers and soon the Caribs were defeated and (not a glorious part of British history) expelled from St Vincent, the majority subsequently dying of disease.

St Vincent obviously had to be rebuilt, and word clearly got around because there appears to have been quite an influx of new blood to the Island, including George Ginn and his family, the first entry for them dates to 1797.

                                      Nr.  Calliaqua in 1827

We know that George settled in Calliaqua, a town to the south of Kingtown the capital of St Vincent.

The end of the Second Carib War brought the first period of stability to St Vincent since the British had acquired it.  The stability was good for commerce.   And it brought greedy opportunists, because when the Caribs were expelled their lands in the north were confiscated.  It was good land for sugar production and the Crown made land allotments and hived it off.  Among the opportunists who arrived were one William MacKenzie, a Scottish aristocrat and his relation Robert Sutherland, both of Ross-shire in Scotland.

These gentlemen and others acquired former Carib lands, bought hundreds of slaves to work them and did very well for themselves.  The Caribbean (unlike the southern "Cotton States" of America, were not really settled by the plantation owners.  The Planters of these islands were exploiters, absentee landlords, the plantations were managed on their behalf and worked by the slaves, the infrastructure maintained by resident whites like George Ginn.  McKenzie for example made his will while in Bath in England, dying and being  burried on the "Grand Tour" while in Florence, Italy in 1819 aged 43.  Sutherland was buried in Hastings in Sussex in 1828.  

William McKenzie owned the estate known as "Tourama", Sutherland those known as "Waterloo" and Orange Hill", a map below shows the general layout at the time quite clearly.

So where in all this was George ?  Well he was a cog in the wheel.  The Plantation owners were related to and in business with those who ran the Merchant Houses and Banks who financed the slave trade and the sugar plantations, the money they made slopped back  and forth between them like gravy in a jug.  Money made money, just as it always has.

George was born in the West Indies, had grown up in the system and I have no illusions, George had aspirations to be a Sutherland or a McKenzie for George was acquiring slaves.  And this is sadly not a passing mention for this gets personal - we have names 

British Library EAP 688/1/1/22

George had a workgang of black carpenters - Jacob, Douglas, Fortune, Peter, Yaco, Grey, Dublin, Robert and Pompey.

Then Daniel, Alexander, Isaac, Edward, Howell and Charles ("Field negros - men") Catherine, Juliet, Frances, Love, Amy, Jennet, Phillis [sic} Ann and Cudjoe "her  child" [a babe in arms) Siley, Jane, Nancy, Betsy, Biddy, Sukey, Fanny, Venus,  Harriet, Prudence, Cordelia, Patty, Belinda and Lucretia ("women" -some would be field and others house slaves) Dick, Archy [sic] George, Abraham, Richard, Nelson, Franky, Ned, Dary, Blackie, William and Roger ("boys") Annabella, Charlotte, Polly, Catherine, Pheby [sic) and Kitty ("girls")  

In all, George had 56 slaves.  The carpenters and house slaves apart, (he seems to have had little or no land) - the rest were hired out as "jobbing slaves" to the plantation owners, Sutherland and McKenzie doubtless amongst them.  This was of particular profit after 1807 as we shall see.  The vast majority of these slaves by the way were born in Africa - they had known what it was to be free.

                               Cutting the sugarcane

Things took a turn of the worse for the plantation owners (and thus the economy of the West Indies) in 1807 - because moved by public sympathy back home, the British government abolished the slave trade.  It was rigorously enforced by the Royal Navy, by far the biggest in the world - there were no more slaves coming out of Africa.  This led to a labour crisis for the slave owners as existing slaves were no longer dispensable and could not easily be replaced by "fresh blood".  It was the beginning of the road to emancipation of the slaves, and the planters knew it.  For George it meant that he got more for the jobbing slaves he hired to others.

George Ginn died in early 1812 - we have no way of knowing his age - but I would put him as 50-60.  He made our  "friend" Robert Sutherland (below) his executor, in my view because even if George had adult sons to succeed him (he clearly did) they would not be as well versed in the detail of investing and buying and selling as Sutherland was, for George left something in the region of £5000 - his slaves alone worth nearly £4200 and some of those probably already working for Sutherland.

Now the annoying this is that George left a will calling himself
"George Ginn Esquire".  But poor conditions in the Court Office in Kingstown where it has been stored have meant that it has not survived intact, although I am looking into whether anything can be retrieved.  But we know that he provided for several legacies as it is mentioned in the deed books, and we know that he provided that his slaves be quote "rented out" for a year or so to provide the income to pay those legacies and any debts he left at his death.  Then the capital was to be realised - ie the slaves sold, and Robert Sutherland sold them all to William McKenzie in 1813 - McKenzie to pay for them in yearly instalments of one third of the price over the ensuing three years - taking us to 1816.  Who got the money ?

I have no way of knowing whether George's wife survived him.  But at least one son clearly did.  

We do not know how many children  George and his wife  had, because he moved to St Vincent so late but

William

Is clearly George's son.  I know very little about him.  He was likely born in the mid 1770s and in 1797 he married Elizabeth Selby at St Vincent's Anglican Cathedral in Kingstown.  The old building had been destroyed in a hurricane and the new and current building was not completed until 1820, so it must have been a somewhat makeshift  affair.  He and Elizabeth had a son William Samuel baptised there in 1802 - his great uncle had been a Samuel of course and he may have had a brother of that name.

                                       Kingstown in 1837

The Selby name in the West Indies is unique to St Vincent.  A Thomas Selby  clearly arrived in the 1780s with his first wife and Elizabeth and her brother Tom jnr.  The first wife died and Tom snr remarried a servant from the Governor's House (at Calliaqua funnily enough) the Governor being a James Seton - below.

 Thomas Selby jnr died (accounted a Gentleman) but Elizabeth had two half brothers by the second marriage -  (Charles James and Joseph) who are listed as slave owners in Kingstown  in the earliest surviving  slave registers until emancipation in the 1830s.  There are people of that name still on St Vincent, supposedly those descended from people who working for the Selbys, took the surname post emancipation in the 1830s.

I have assumed that William was a Carpenter and this is currently all I know of him.  There is no Ginn or Gynn in any West Indian Slave Register which mostly commenced in 1813-7.  There is no further mention of him in the St Vincent records which survive forward to 1820 (there is then a huge gap).  The consensus is that he left the West Indies- the economy was in decline.  He could have gone anywhere - England, another Colony and the USA is a distinct possibility.  

NB "a son of George Ginn Carpenter" was buried at St Vincent's Cathedral in Kingstown in 1799. The clerk was not that efficient and he was clearly a young adult

Billett Genn of Ely d 1917

 Billett Genn was born to Billett Genn snr (see post of 4th June 2014)  ) in 1827.  In in 1841 aged 14 he was signed on as an indentured apprentice seaman (for 7 years) aboard the brigantine "George Robinson", a merchant ship which sailed for Newfoundland. 

 Billett kept a diary of his voyages which has survived, and after a short stay in Newfoundland he sailed for the West Indies in "The Garland".  In the West Indies he caught Yellow Fever and nearly died.

Soon after Billett arrived back in England, for some reason forgoeing the rest of his apprenticeship, he enlisted (in February 1846) into the 3rd Kings Own Light Dragoons, signing on for seven years as a trooper.

The 3rd had been stationed in India for some years and he was soon on the troopship "East Indies", sailing for India.  He fought in the Punjab Campaign of 1848/9 against the Sikhs.  The Sikhs have always been fine warriors and this and the usual thick headedness of some of our officers meant that there was some hard fighting, though ultimately the British prevailed and the Punjab was annexed by the British.  The 3rd Kings Own Light Dragoons were heavily engaged in all this, and their charge at Chilianwala is depicted below.

Billett was dishcarged back in London in 1853.  He received the Punjab Campaign Medal.

 This medal was awared to Billett's comrade in the 3rd King's Own Light Dragoons

 Returning to Ely, Billett became a Schoolmaster at Needham School in Ely which was a charity school for poor boys.  The old building survives (below) but is now used for teacher training.  Billett left and then returned and worked there for quite some years through to the 1870s.

Billett married Victoria Haylock, daughter of an Ely Miller on New Years Day 1867 - he was 40, she 23.  They had a number of children.  He retained the "cavalry" whiskers for much of his early and middle years as we can see below.

Even after leaving Needhams, Billett contiuned to work part time as a schoolmaster in Ely, doing so until the First World War when he was in his 80s.  He also continued to have an association with the volunteer forces in Ely, having loved his time in the army, and we see him below sporting his Punjab Campaign Medal

Billett and Victoria lived at 1 Lynn Road in Ely, the house of his father and opposite the Lamb Hotel.  I have been there a numer of times, it is now a shop

We see him and Victoria, he sporting a clay pipe in later life, but they are obviously visiting, as this is not their home. This is 1906, Billett is nearly 80 and Victoria 61. Below is Billet at nearly 90.

Victoria, who was well known in Ely in her own right,  died in 1913 aged 68.  Billett was the last of the Ely Ginn and Genn family to actually live there.  He died aged 90 in 1917, the last of a family to have been there continuously for 330 years. He was granted a full military funeral which is depicted below, the courtege is passing his house.

                                            

Billett and Victoria had seven children

Arthur Robert - the first Ginn in Ely  was Robert (1587) and his eldest son was Arthur.  The last Genn in Ely was Billett d. 1917 a descendant of Robert, so it is a little spooky that his eldest son was Arthur Robert.

Arthur Robert joined the 17th Lancers the "Death or Glory Boys" in 1898.  His very distant cousin Benjamin Ginn had left the same regment in 1891.

             17th Lancers on Parade before embarking for S.A

 Arthur fought in the 2nd Boer War and received the South Africa Medal with 4 clasps.

He subsequently joined the Bedfordshire Police and rose to Inspector.  He married and had issue and his son, the late Lt. Colonel Robert Seymour Genn left genealogical notes that have contributed research to this blog.  Arthur died in 1955

Algernon - actually Billett Algernon Manners Genn - hated his name.  I can scarcely blame him.  He went into Warwickshire as a young man and took an apprenticeship (Birmingham) and lived with a Haylock Aunt for a time.  He joined one of the Territorial battalions of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment when he was 18 calling himself Albert.  He obviously feared his name being ridiculed.  In 1900, there were moves to encourage volunteers from the Territorials into the regular army, and he volunteered (calling himself Alfred !) into a volunteer company of the 1st Btn. Essex Regiment.  It is all the same man- he gave his place of birth and parents.  Like his brother he fought in the Boer War earning the South Africa Medal with 5 clasps.  This was issued to him as Alfred of course and I have noticed that the medal was recently sold in Australia.  He took early discharge which as a volunteer was allowed in mid 1901 and some months later married.  There were issue.  Algernon was later an Engineer and a Freemason.  He lived in Bedfordshire like his brother.  He died in 1937.

Margaret Elizabeth - married Frederick Bixby in Westminster in 1906

Victoria Blanche - married Frederick Chambers at St Mary's Ely in 1913

Florence Martha - was a Housekeeper in Dorset in 1891 but untraced thereafter

Marian Bewster - married Thomas Martin Phillips at Ely St Mary in 1915

Yerbury Emile - died infancy

Acknowledgements - I am indebted to the late Lt. Colonel Robert Seymour Genn for much of the information on Billett, and to Robert's daughter Helen for the wonderful collection of photographs of him

John Thomas Genn and the Genns of Oregon USA

 Due to the discovery (during Coronavirus induced Lockdown) of conclusive evidence linking the Ely Genn family to the Ely Ginn family (who came from Hertfordshire) I have extended my research efforts on the Genn family and have created new posts out of the old.

John Thomas Genn snr  you will find online as the father of John Thomas Genn jnr (1867-1939) but where he is mentioned there is no comment on where he came from, nor any marriage record for his supposed marriage to a Mary Bloodworth  nor any burial record.  There is a reason for that - the guy is fiction.  Until a correspondent wrote to me in 2023 I believed this online story.   John Thomas Genn jnr was the illegitimate son of William Mackinder Genn (see post of  2nd March 2014)) and his cousin by marriage Mary Bloodworth.

 William Mackinder emigrated to America, going out to New York on the "Neptune in 1862 with the Bloodworths, his cousins by his sister.  He is not indexed on the Ancestry passenger list but is there as William Gen aged 18.  For some reason they give his origin as Ireland - a typographical error.  He was indeed 18 went he went out. He and the Bloodworths went to Winfield in New York State, a small place ner Utica.

William enlisted from Winfield into the Union Army in 1862, very soon after his arrival. After William returned from the Civil War in 1865, he went back to New York State where Mary Bloodworth was still living with her family in Winfield (1865 census) near Utica.  They obviously had some form of relationship and in 1866 she became pregnant, the child was clearly born in the area in April 1867 but there appears to be no record.  John T jnr later (see below) gave his birth place as Utica and his father as William Genn.

                                 William M Genn in later life

The relationship broke down, William Mackinder departed to Chicago (where he is reputed to be in 1867) and Mary, a domestic servant,  named the child John Thomas Genn (which suggests some involvement by William - he had a late brother of that name) and was living with her sister Fanny and family in Winfield in 1870.

In 1872 Mary married a George Cox and moved to Illinois.  George then died and she remarried Thomas Cox who was George's brother - both George and Tom were born in England also.  Mary died in 1903.

John Thomas Genn junior married Clara Sophia Morse at Winnebago Illinois in 1890 and moved up to Oregon by 1900 or so.  He was a Real Estate Salesman, what we in England would call an Estate Agent.  He and Clara had two sons - Willis B. (known as Bill Genn) and Vernon.

John T. jnr died in 1939 in Eugene, Oregon and Clara in 1949.  Their memorials are below

When John T died in 1939 his son Bill (Willis) was the informant on the death certificate which is below.  John T's parentage is given.

As for their two sons:

 Willis Burr Genn (known as "Bill") originally joined the Merchant Navy.  He had an ancestor and two Genn cousins who went into Law enforcement so it was no surprise to me to find that he joined the Oregon State Police and rose to Sergeant.  He married more than once but I do not believe  there were children.  Bill died in 1954. See below

                                                                 Willis in 1919

                            Bill is seecond from left (1925)

Vernon Chathburton Genn - worked as a manager for General Motors and spent some years as Japanese Sales Manager and in charge of a factory in Osaka.  A successful businssman.   He married, had three sons and there are known descendants.  Vernon  died in 1953.

                                                            Vernon in 1915