Unravelling the stories of residents

 Our 19th century register gives us the basis of a database currently containing 1,398 names.  Quite a number of those names have only come to light by checking the register against the censuses.  When a married man was awarded a room his wife, who entered with him, was often not recorded; she turns up on the census, either with her husband or as a widow awarded a room in her own right after her husband's death.  If I go on to research the life of a resident more fully, I will often need at least 3 family history websites, plus online forums and general searching.  Occasionally an interesting story will emerge.

A case in point is that of James Beecher, who was awarded a room on 26 August 1886.  Sure enough, he is on the 1891 census. 

I now know that he was a mariner and that he was born in Morton, Lincolnshire.  And I can add his wife, Mackenzie, born in Beverley, to the database.  They should be easy enough to find.

The first problem was that the name was not Beecher, but Beacher.  Perhaps the mistake had been the Master's when he wrote the name in the register.  Once that was cleared up, the story could be extricated.

James Beacher was born on 5 September 1815 in Morton near Gainsborough and was baptised 25 days later in All Saints Church, Gainsborough.  He was in Hull by 1837 when he married Ellen Pickering on 21 July at All Saints Church, Sculcoates.  On the 1841 census the couple were living in Catherine Square, Sculcoates.

A chunk of the 1851 census for Hull is missing, and it includes the Beachers, so I had to pick them up again in 1861.  They were then living at 10 Lucas Square, Sykes St, with their 4 children.  James is described as a merchant seaman.  A decade on and they are still there, with James described as a mariner.  The photo shows another square off Sykes St, which would have been very similar.

Ellen Beacher died in 1877.  James, however, is on the 1881 census, married to Mackenzie, living at 9, Groves Terrace, Sutton.  James is now a lighterman.  However, there is no record of a marriage between James and Mackenzie.  What is the story here?  Were they in a relationship even before Ellen's death?  Unmarried couples were common enough but would she have been accepted into the Charterhouse with James if their status was known?  Mackenzie died in 1894, and because she is not in the register the date is not recorded there.  James died a year later, on 6 August 1895.

Mackenzie remained a mystery.  With a name like that, and the birthplace of Beverley, she was findable - she was Mackenzie Creasor, who was baptised in Beverley in 1817.  Her only other appearance in the records is as the mother of Sarah Creaser [sic] who was baptised in Beverley on 29 December 1831.  No father is named, and Mackenzie would have been very young when her daughter was born.  I can find no other record of mother or daughter.

Two other residents show that mysteries remain.  One such is James Colvin.  He was admitted to the Charterhouse on 2 June 1870, and, as well as in the register, on the two censuses on which he appears his surname is written as "Coloine".  It took a while to discover the true spelling, and so to learn a bit about him.  His date of birth, the register informs us, was 15 September 1801.  He married Catherine McIntyre in Hull in 1830 and by 1841 the couple were living in Holden's Entry, Scale Lane.  Catherine died in 1857, and in 1861 James was a shopman at 22 Parliament St, with his grown-up son and daughter.  But all the censuses agree that he was born in Guernsey, Channel Islands.  Guernsey doesn't have the comprehensive, online BMD records that the UK has, but people more familiar with their records than I am say that they can't find anyone by that name.  So I know nothing about his background.

Another apparent foreigner was William Henry Foreman, who entered the Charterhouse on on 6 February 1889 when he was 73.  He became a shoemaker and broker on West St, Hull, by 1851, but in 1861 he was in jail for a misdemeanour - the record doesn't say what.  It probably wasn't too serious because he went back to shoemaking.  On all the records he gives his place of birth as Quebec, Canada.  And that is more intriguing because there is the record of a baptism of William Henry Foreman in Holy Trinity, Hull, in 1816, a date which fits exactly.  Just coincidence?  Or is there a real story behind it?

Not all the residents' stories can be unravelled.  But what research I can do turns them from names and dates in a book into real people with fascinating lives.