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The trouble I’m having with Auntie Kate…

On By HelenFinchIn Uncategorized4 Comments

Many of you will have met Auntie Kate before. But for those who haven’t Auntie Kate, Kezia Ching, was born in 1860 and lived to the ripe old age of 73. She had two husbands and both of them had more than one wife! She never had children herself, but became step-mother to my grandmother Muriel when Kate’s sister Georgina died. She collected many items which are much prized by family historians such as myself.

Now Auntie Kate has a new lease of life as she has become my alter ego. So I will be taking her along to the FREE #HistoryForUkraine event. This 24 hour history and genealogy event has been organised by Natalie Pithers @geneastories and a great many friends and colleagues. 47 world renowned history and genealogy speakers plus Auntie Kate will be online to entertain you from lunch time Saturday (GMT) all the way through to lunch time on Sunday (BST). Do read more here and consider donating through the JustGiving page to the Red Cross Ukraine appeal.

So what is this trouble? Well, the first thing was she wanted a new hat for the occasion. Then she wanted more flowers to decorate it. Happily it does just fit…

Now I am having real trouble keeping her to time. Like many Devon women of a certain era she can talk the hind leg off the proverbial donkey. I have told her 20 minutes is the absolute limit, and that includes getting the technology to behave! Fortunately it is at 6am and she perhaps will not be into full flow at that time in the morning, although being brought up on a farm she is no stranger to early mornings.

She is getting quite excited: “But I can tell ‘ee all ’bout my family and livin’ in Sticklepath – a whole lifetime or more!” Oh dear, I will have to keep her on a tight rein and not let her get too excited or that Devon accent gets too strong! Then again she has her moments of nerves too and has to be calmed down.

Feel free to join us, or if you are enjoying your sleep at that time, recordings will be available for up to 48 hours. A huge range of topics and speakers, do find time to come along to some of it.

#OnePlaceHealer Dr Sharp

On By HelenFinchIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Sticklepath Quaker Burying ground has a wall plaque:

In loving memory of Kay Kathleen Forrest Sharp 1904 – 1992 And her husband Dr Chris Sharp, Our much loved G.P 1936-1949. Both of Bridge House.

Kay Sharp and my mother Ann Bowden

Mrs Sharp I remember well, she came to my wedding in Sticklepath. However her husband had died well before I was born. They lived in a small cottage opposite Ladywell before moving to Bridge House. Bridge House had two door bells, including one for upstairs (night time use for medical emergencies).

Christopher James Lewen Sharp had a London Wedding. The Exeter & Plymouth Gazette of 27 August 1937 reports:

LONDON WEDDING. Dr. Sharp (Sticklepath) and Miss Brown (Okehampton). The wedding took place at St. Clement Dane’s Church, London, on Monday of Dr C.J.L. Sharp, of Sticklepath, and Miss Kathleen Forrest Brown daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H. C. Brown, of Okehampton. The Rev. W, Pennington- Bickford (Rector of the parish and Chaplain to the London Devonian Society) officiated at the choral service. The bride was given away by her father and. Mr. R. Wotherspoon was best man. The honeymoon is being spent motoring in the Lake District and Scotland. The bride and bridegroom are both well known in the Okehampton district for their interest local affairs and sport. Dr. Sharp is prominent in cricket, and his wife has represented Devon at golf. Mr. H. Croston Brown, the bride’s father, is Coroner for the Okehampton district, Clerk to Okehampton and Hatherleigh Justices, Chairman of Okehampton Parish Council, and a trustee of the local hospital. He takes great interest in sport. (Accessed via BritishNewpaperArchive.co.uk March 2022)

Dr Sharp was nephew to Cecil Sharp, musician and collector of folk songs and encourager of Morris dancers.

A good place to investigate doctors is The Lancet’s obituaries (some also in the British Medical Journal or BMJ). Dr Sharp’s obit., including a good story about when he was wounded in WW1 can be found here.

#OnePlaceHealers is this month’s blogging prompt from the Society of One-Place Studies. Watch this space for “The Perfect Cure” coming soon!

James Bond and Women’s Bonnets 1828

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I am continuing to try to add the burials and memorials in Sticklepath Burying Ground to Findagrave, but am frequently distracted… Looking for details of a Pearse death in 1828, as you do, I came across this inquest.

It is always a good idea to glance at the items surrounding an article of interest for hints about life at the time.  The inquest on poor James Bond follows immediately from this comment on female bonnets in the English Chronicle and Whitehall Evening Post on Tuesday 26 February 1828.  (The paragraph before is, randomly, about what Norwegians have for breakfast!) Transcription amended by myself, with added spacing, from BritishNewspaperArchive.co.uk .  (The North Devon Journal only adds the name of the Coroner, Francis Kingdon).

“The enormous width of the bonnets worn by our present race of females calls for a proportionate widening of the size of carriages, as well as of the foot pavement, and of the iron railing leading into St. James’s Park from Spring-gardens. 

An inquest was held on Sunday last, at Sticklepath, near Oakhampton, on the body of James Bond.

It appeared that the deceased (a cripple) and his wife had a quarrel in the afternoon of Saturday the 9th inst., when the deceased’s son put him out of the house and barred the door; his wife desired him to go to the poor-house, and the son offered to accompany him there, which the deceased did not like, but said he would go by himself, and went off that evening , but was not seen till the Monday evening following , when he returned to his house insensible and speechless, and died the Friday following of an apoplectic fit.

The Jury, after a patient investigation, returned a verdict of “Died by the visitation of GOD, in a natural way.”

The Coroner, notwithstanding,  most severely reprimanded the wife and son for their unkind, inhuman, and unnatural treatment and conduct, and said they had had a narrow escape of being tried for manslaughter at the ensuing Assizes; but he passed the highest encomiums on Mr.Pearse jun. of that place, for his most humane and indefatigable exertions and attention throughout this affair.—North Devon Journal. “

(Encomium – a speech or piece of writing that praises someone highly).