Edward Southwick - the Zoo Keeper

 The most exotic occupation of a future Charterhouse resident must be that of Edward Southwick who was a zoo keeper.

The zoo in Hull began as an addition to the Botanic Gardens which had opened in 1812 on the corner of Spring Bank.  By the 1830s zoos were becoming popular around the country, and in 1839 the decision was made to open one in Hull, next to the Botanic Gardens.  It opened in October 1840 and the whole site became known as the Zoological Gardens.  It housed an extraordinary variety of animals, but they were kept in conditions which would outrage us today, and caused concern even then.  

The Superintendent of the Zoological Gardens was John Simpson Seaman, who got the job in 1842.  When Southwick joined is unknown; the 1841 census has been lost.  But he was certainly there as keeper in 1851.  Edward was born c.1792 in Preston near Hedon, Yorkshire; his mother was Dianah and his father was John Southwick. He was baptised on 30th January 1793 and married Ann (nee Mitchel) at Skirlaugh, Yorkshire, on 28th July 1819. Together they had two children: Jane (born 1819 at Preston); and Harriet (born c.1829 at Long Riston, Yorkshire).  What Edward did for a living until joining the Zoo we don't know, but he may have worked at another zoo.  In 1852 there was a second keeper, Robert Wells, who appeared on an advertisement with Southwick but is not heard of again.  The advert was for a "Grand Gala" for the benefit of the two keepers.  

We can see the keeper's house at the top of this map of the Gardens, just above the menagerie.  For 20 years Edward and his family had a home to go with a job which must have been full of excitement.  The Gardens staged fireworks displays, which must have disturbed the animals, as well as galas. equestrian displays and even a balloon ascent.  

But despite their initial success, and continuing popularity, the Zoological Gardens cost huge amounts to run and fell deeper and deeper into debt.  By 1860 it was clear that the problems were intractable and closure was inevitable.  The last ever gala was held on 2 September 1861,  Southwick, who was still there on the census earlier in the year, was now out of a job - and without a home.  We can't pick him up until the 1871 census, when he was living at 5 Mason Terrace with his wife.  He is described as a labourer, although he was 78 years old.  He was admitted to the Charterhouse in June 1873.  Our register does not list his wife so we don't know whether she came in with him.  Edward Southwick died in November 1878.

A huge amount of information about the Gardens can be found in a booklet published by the Hull History Centre, and online at booklet

Song of the Men of Hull

 The Victorians loved a good ceremony.  All sorts of events provided an excuse; visiting royalty, the opening of a new housing scheme, even the start of work on an infrastructure project could occasion a civic party with a band and a choir processing from the station or church or town hall.  So when the Hull Barnsley & West Riding Junction Railway and Dock Company, founded in 1880, cut the first sod to begin a new line between the two towns on 15 July 1881 there had to be an appropriate ceremony.  (It was 4 years before the railway was actually opened and didn't make it quite to Barnsley).

Step forward Henry Kemp, Master of the Charterhouse.  He wrote a poem, Song of the Men of Hull, in 8 stanzas, which was set to music by William Spark.

The medallion of Kemp on the front of the sheet music was, we are told, "executed by Mr Charles Mason, Hull, and presented by him to the Rev H W Kemp B.A."  Kemp was not known as a poet - not surprisingly.  But he did his best to get as much of Hull's history into the work as possible, including Michael de la Pole.  Unfortunately this meant that both the sheet music and the catalogue entry (below) had to go to great lengths to explain that history.  True to the title, it is all about great men.  No women were apparently involved.

I know of only two surviving copies of the song, but perhaps there are more languishing in piano stools or choir cupboards.

The music was the work of William Spark, a Leeds-based organist, composer and music teacher.  How the collaboration came about is not known.  As we see in the lengthy introduction, it starts off in 6:8 time.  Two choirs are then involved, a 3-part and a 4-part.  Perhaps these were intended to be the junior and senior members of a large church choir.  Each verse switches from 3-part to 4-part half way through, and switches rhythm from 6:8 to 2:4 as it does so.  

The event was reported by the Eastern Morning News in mind-numbing detail for those accustomed to watching such occasions on film.  There are two broadsheet pages of very small print unrelieved by pictures.  The full history of the railway company and its plans; the vast numbers of people taking part in the procession representing all aspects of the city's life; who conducted the ceremonies and how; all are described meticulously including the fact that there was a great deal of snowfall.  But one has to plough through to the last column of the first page to find the only mention of the song:  'The "Song of the Men of Hull" was then sung and the vast concourse dispersed"'.  That's it.  Who sang it, who wrote it, the article writer seems not to care.  It would seem that the song was not written especially for the occasion.  And to be fair, it is only the catalogue entry (above) which claims that it was.  The sheet music simply says it was sung then.  Maybe it was the fact that it was sung then which prompted Kemp to get Gough & Davy, Hull's long-lived music shop, to publish it (at the price of 3 shillings - about £10 in today's values, so hardly cheap).  But it was destined to sink into deserved obscurity.

Thanks to Steve Bramley and Andrae Sutherland for their considerable help with the research for this post.

Celebrations

On 5 January 1950, reported the Hull Daily Mail, the Charterhouse held its first ever Christmas party.

The writer is careful; "as far as can be ascertained from records".  But it was probably true.  Early records are patchy and say very little about the residents.  In the earliest phase of the hospital there was plenty of outdoor space for partying, but little, if any, communal space indoors apart from the chapel.  However, it is unlikely that any money would have been forthcoming for celebration meals or the like.  Little changed with the rebuilding of the later 17th century.  

Religious celebrations would have followed the pattern of those in the parish churches.  Before the Reformation, Christmas and Easter could have been exuberant affairs.  Much changed after the religious upheavals after that.  It is said that Cromwell abolished Christmas.  He didn't.  Nor did the Puritans abolish it, or not quite.  What they tried to abolish was the celebration of Christmas; it should be a time of fasting.  When John Shaw became Master of the newly-rebuilt Charterhouse in 1651 we can be sure that there were no unseemly celebrations of any kind.  Shaw was such an ardent Puritan that he was sacked from his job at Holy Trinity and eventually forced out of the Charterhouse.

Another complete rebuild in 1780 again failed to provide a meeting place for residents.  There was (and is) a very large garden behind the Master's house, but it was private and residents could use it only at the invitation of the Master.  

Not all celebrations need to be parties.  Often a gift will do.  The first celebratory gift to the residents that we know about was on 5 November 1608, in commemoration of the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot 3 years earlier.  This may well not have been a one-off, but it is the only time we know about.  Royal occasions were especially popular.  On 3 December 1841 inmates got 2s. each to celebrate the birth of Prince Albert Edward nearly a month earlier.  On 29 January 1858 the Hull Packet reported that the Mayor had “provided an excellent tea for the aged occupants of the Charterhouse” to celebrate the wedding of the Princess Royal to the Crown Prince of Prussia on 25^th January. They also got two shillings each (c.£6 today).  Since there was nowhere to hold such a tea in the Charterhouse it is possible that it was at the Town Hall, a temporary HQ for the Council in what had been the Mayor's own house).  And on 10 March 1863 inmates were each given 2/6 (around £10.50 in today's values) to celebrate the marriage of Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra.  Again, there may well have been other such occasions which were not recorded.  

There was something special about Christmas 1899.  On 21 December the Hull Daily Mail reported a generous gift from the Sheriff of Hull, amounting to about £780 in today's values.  Where this entertainment was held we don't know.  It's possible that a local church hall was hired.  

The next day the paper reported a more practical gift from the local MP (and there wasn't an election in the offing).  At the time a pound of tea cost about 1/7d, around £6.20 in today's values.

For more personal celebrations, particularly from the mid-19th century, there were always the local pubs.  The Charterhouse was surrounded by pubs; but they were patronised by men much more than by women.

The need for a hall of some kind at the Charterhouse had long been obvious, and was discussed from the early 1930s.  The surveyor, John Watson, had a definite site in mind, a patch of land at the western side of the complex facing the road.  But there was never any money.  Finally, late in 1938, the building of a "recreation room" was agreed and work began.  What was immediately known as the hall was completed in August 1939.  The timing was bad.  The RAF expressed an interest in commandeering it, but didn't go through with this. 

Inside, the hall very much resembles a school hall.  It has plenty of space in which chairs and tables can be set out; a stage with rooms behind it; and, essentially, a small kitchen.  But it was ten years before it could be used.  In 1941 the Charterhouse was evacuated and the buildings fell into disrepair,  It was re-opened after restoration in 1948.  In April 1949 the Chairman of the Trustees “gave a tea to the inmates ..... to commemorate the restoration and re-opening of the Charterhouse” - presumably in the hall, which was given the title of the Watson Hall after the surveyor who had done so much to bring it about.  

Celebrations have changed over the years.  It has been a while since residents put on their own shows, for instance.  But we know that the hall has been the scene of memorable occasions.  In 1977 there was evidently a meal to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of HM the Queen.

This photo is from the Hull Daily Mail.  

Recent social occasions have been rather muted affairs, with Covid 19 much on our minds.  Royal births and marriages no longer attract monetary gifts.  There is room for personal celebrations to be held in our own flats.  But maybe we can have a big "do" on the 73rd anniversary of that first Christmas party.

UPDATE June 2022

Since the end of Covid precautions the hall has been busy.  The latest celebration was to mark the Platinum Jubilee, 45 years after that 1977 photo.

It was a less decorous affair.  Times change.

John Walkington - another piece of Hull's history

 Every older Hull native remembers the Humber ferries and the pier; and most of us have explained that the railway station by the pier never had trains.  Many have enjoyed the hospitality of the Minerva Hotel.  I was interested to discover that a past resident of the Charterhouse was a part of that history.

John Walkington was born in Malton, Yorkshire, in 1786.  He married Sarah Skelton there in 1811.  He was making his living as a currier, the branch of the leather trade which took the tanned leather and treated it for use.  But he and his partner went bankrupt in 1814.  So John seems to have come to Hull soon after and tried a different career,  He disappears from the public record until September 1840,

when an advertisement appeared in the Hull Advertiser.  John Walkington is running what we might now call a boutique hotel at 7, Nelson St, down by the "new" pier, and has apparently been doing so for more than 20 years.  It is ideally placed for the Hull & Selby railway terminus on Railway St, as well as for steam packets crossing the Humber.  Very similar adverts appeared in 1841 and 1843.  The 1841 census confirms John's address at 7, Nelson St but, since that census rarely records occupations, he is described only as "Ind." - of independent means.

This later map (around 1892) shows how well-positioned Walkington's guest house was.

This photo (undated) shows Nelson St with the early Minerva hotel on the left.

In 1848 Sarah Walkington died.  Perhaps it was this which prompted John to sell up - or perhaps the owners of the building knew what was coming and wanted him out.  Certainly John's son, also John, was not in a position to take it over.  He opened another guest house elsewhere in 1849.

And in 1849 John auctioned off the entire contents of the establishment, and the notice of the auction gives us a fascinating insight into the furnishings of a mid-19th century hotel.  It doesn't seem to have made John rich.  Or perhaps the proceeds went to his son to enable him to start his own venture.  Whatever the reason, John Walkington was admitted to the Charterhouse a year later, on 1 August 1850.

The Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway had begun a new ferry service; and their first offices in Hull were opened in 1853 at 7, Nelson St, Walkington's premises.  The building also accommodated a flat for the clerk in charge.

When the 1851 census was taken of Charterhouse residents John gave his former occupation as "currier"; and he did so again in 1861.  Was that old job more important to him than the two decades as a hotel manager?  He died on 29 November 1865.

Thanks to Bill Longbone and members of the Hull: The Good Old Days Facebook group for their help with this research.

The powers and duties of the Master

  "... thirteen poor men and thirteen poor women, of whom one should preside over the others and be named the Master... "  So says the license in mortmain granted by the King to Michael de la Pole in 1383.  The foundation deed of the following year goes into a lot more detail.  The Master had to be a priest over the age of 30.  He would have his own house and be responsible for the management of the hospital, the brethren and sisters (including paying their allowances), and the administration of the estates.  He also had to lead daily prayers and say mass two or three times a week.  He would be answerable to the representatives of the de la Pole family, to the Prior of the neighbouring Carthusian priory and to the Mayor of the town.

Little changed until 1525 when the last of the de la Poles, Edmund Duke of Suffolk, died.  Fourteen years later another layer of oversight was removed when the priory was "dissolved" under Henry VIII.  In 1552 King Edward gave the patronage of the hospital to the Corporation of the town.  That consolidated the power of the Mayor and the "Bench" of Aldermen.  But they showed little interest at first, and that meant the Master was left to his own devices.  The temptation was obvious; run down the number of inmates, do as little maintenance as possible, collect all the rents and pocket the surplus money. In 1558 Thomas Turner was appointed Master, and also had to assist at Holy Trinity Church, saying mass at least once a week. This dual role was to become the norm for centuries, but for the first time we see the view that the Mastership of the hospital was not a full-time job.

In 1571 the Bench at last showed an interest in what was happening. They came up with a long list of corrupt practices and petitioned the Archbishop of York to act against Turner. Turner pointed out that the Mayor and Aldermen had the power to deal with him themselves; so they did. The Master was made to swear adherence to a long list of rules, mainly financial (including an annual audit of the accounts), which would put the hospital back on track. In the process the Bench assumed powers it did not legitimately possess. But the next Master, Griffith Briskin, failed to comply and had to resign, owing £50 to the hospital. The problem of how to get rid of a Master was to recur for many years. The Bench could sack him; but what happened when he would not leave? In 1644 they thought that William Stiles had resigned and appointed a replacement. Stiles insisted he was going nowhere. There was a long legal wrangle and Stiles stayed put. It was Cromwell’s Council of State which solved the problem in 1651 by removing him for his politics, and at last John Shaw, who had been waiting impatiently for 7 years, replaced him. That didn’t end well either. Shaw was an extreme Puritan who was eventually sacked by Holy Trinity but refused to leave the hospital. He used it as his base for preaching his inflammatory sermons to his large following before agreeing to move elsewhere.

One power which seems to have been taken out of the hands of the Master for good in the 18th century was that of deciding who was to be admitted to the hospital. The Master received the applications but the Corporation selected the “winners”. This lead to a suspiciously high number of inmates who had connections to the Corporation. A practice grew up of the Aldermen taking it in turn to nominate someone to fill a vacancy, and, unsurprisingly, they rewarded people they knew personally. It was a scandal which was no secret but was only publicised in the 1830s. The newly-constituted Corporation acted to make the process more transparent. In 1847 a committee of Advisers to the Charterhouse was formed – a kind of sub-committee of Aldermen – to deal with admissions and other matters, such as the maintenance of the buildings.

One power, or responsibility, which seems to have been left with the Master for longer was that of collecting rents and organising leases on the lands which gave the Charterhouse its income. By the 1860s the Advisers thought they had control, but John Healey Bromby was not one to leave matters to others. He proposed that, in order to pay for new rooms, part of the land at Hessle be developed as “villa residences”, leased out at £20 per acre per annum. Bromby already had the lessees signed up and the plans drawn. The Committee members were not best pleased at his presumption but were obliged to go ahead. They would not allow this to happen in the future.

By this stage the City Council was becoming determined to diminish the powers of the Master drastically. The role, they argued, was not a full-time job. The Master should become a part-time chaplain, on half his current salary, and he should find and pay for his own lodgings. The matron (a role created in the early 19^th century) would run the place on a day-to-day basis. But the Council did not now have the final word. That lay with the recently formed Charity Commissioners, and they refused to countenance the plan. In 1872 they produced a set of rules based on the foundation document. The Council tried to ignore this and go ahead with their own plan but they lost the battle. In 1901 the Charity Commission’s scheme was imposed. There were to be 9 trustees, 5 of them to be nominated by the Council. The duties of the trustees were spelled out, as were those of the Master. He had to take services on Sundays and three other days; visit inmates and enforce discipline among them and the staff; pay the inmates their allowances; arrange for the special needs of infirm inmates and the removal of the insane; and “to appoint and remove the doctor, matron, nurse and porter of the Hospital”. There were few actual powers there, and one wonders whether he could, in reality, appoint staff without the approval of the trustees.

In the wake of World War 2 the question of downgrading the Master's role re-emerged. His house had been badly damaged by a bomb in 1941 and fell into ruin. The hospital itself was closed, and the Master, Arthur Kent Chignell, lived in temporary accommodation and had little to do. The Charterhouse was reopened in 1948 but the Master's House was a bone of contention for several years after. Some people reverted to the idea of the Master as chaplain, with the House being demolished or rebuilt as rooms for inmates. Chignell was naturally alarmed. He wanted a pay rise, not a cut. He asked for an assistant because he couldn’t afford to retire (there was no pension) but was too old to do the work. The Charity Commission was adamant; no assistant. In a letter which is startlingly blunt in its language it insisted that there was no provision or money for an assistant and if the Master was too old for the job he should retire. It seems that an assistant was appointed. Chignell died in 1951 and his assistant, Ronald Helm, succeeded to the Master’s job. In 1956 the House, rebuilt as closely as possible to the original, was reopened.

What few powers remained to the Master were weakened by the holder of the post of Clerk to the Trustees. He was also the Town Clerk, and he tightened the grip of the Council on the Charterhouse. One long-serving clerk took to pre-empting or ignoring any decisions by the trustees. At one stage he told the Master of the time that he should not be handling money. The Master responded that he couldn’t not handle money and he pleaded for a written job description. It is not clear if he got one. (The clerk to the Trustees is no longer a Council officer.)

The scheme of governance has been updated several times in the last 120 years, but the clauses on the duties of the Master remain almost the same, except that he (or she) no longer appoints staff without reference to the trustees and, of course, no longer pays allowances to residents. The emphasis is on duties rather than powers. No doubt the situation will continue to evolve, but the position of Master of the Charterhouse survives after 637 years.

  

The life and death of Robert Brock

 I wrote about Robert Brock's death in an earlier post.  He was the first person in our database of Charterhouse residents whose death was worth investigating.  Now I have researched more about his life; and it's a fascinating story.

Robert was born in Stainforth near Doncaster in 1813 and baptised in nearby Hatfield.  His parents were George and Elizabeth.  Stainforth was (and still is) a canal town, on the Stainforth and Keadby Canal which connects the River Don Navigation at Bramwith to the River Trent at Keadby, by way of Stainforth, Thorne and Ealand, near Crowle.  The waterways in this part of the country are part of a system which dates back to Roman times, connecting the Humber Estuary with the rivers to the west and south.  For centuries sailing vessels called Humber keels plied these waters, and the Brocks may well have come from generations of keelmen.  Whole families spent their lives on board, transporting goods to and from the Humber ports to the towns of Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire.  Many birth certificates showed the place of birth as "on water".  

Stainforth

On 30 October 1839 Robert Brock married Mary Richardson in Hull.  Mary came from Beverley.  In August 1840 Robert's name appears briefly in  the Hull Packet when two boys were charged with stealing a rope from his boat.  Evidently the Brocks were based in Hull from now on.  They are not to be found on the 1841 census but their son George Thomas was born in that year.   The 1851 census misses them, but Robert's older brother Thomas is there, with his family at 100 High St, Hull, and describing himself as a shipowner.  Perhaps he owned a keel which was crewed by someone else.

Robert and his family were moored in Hull's Old Harbour on census day 1861.

The "keel of river trade" called the Carrier had Robert as its Master, son George as mate and Mary as Master's wife.

Four months later Robert got his name in the papers again.  On 3 August the Hull Advertiser and Exchange Gazette reported:  

The incident didn't put Robert off a life on the canals.  Such mishaps were not unusual.  In 1871 he was on the Stainforth canal with Mary and a 14-year-old boy as "servant".  But Robert was perhaps finding the work increasingly hard as he got older.  By 1881 he and Mary had settled at 20, High St, Hull.  Robert described himself as a general labourer.  He was 68 and probably just picking up whatever work he could find.

On 3 May 1887 Robert and Mary Brock were admitted to the Charterhouse.  Five years later Mary died.  

Our register records that Robert Brock, aged 81, died on 7 January 1895.  But a note adds: "Presumably; body having been found in the Queen's Dock".  This prompted me to send for his death certificate, and I then found a letter in the archives.  Together they tell us more of the sad story.  7 January was the date he went missing from the Charterhouse.  Presumably there was a search; if there was, it was unsuccessful.  On 26 January, and again on 30 January, it seems that the Master assumed he was dead and was writing to the the council's Charterhouse Applicants Committee asking them to fill Brock's vacant room.  A letter survives from the Town Clerk in reply on 31 January saying that they were deferring a decision "in the hope that some news may be heard of Brock".  His body was not found for more than two months; it was recovered from the dock on 15 March.  There was an inquest, and the verdict was that he had drowned.  It leaves so many questions unanswered.  How did he come to fall in the dock?  Why did the body not surface for two months?

Can one say that it was an appropriate death for someone who had spent so much of his life on the water?

Thomas and Mary Ann Giles

 Like many Charterhouse residents, Thomas Giles was not born in Hull.  He was baptised in Camblesforth near Drax on 28 May 1820.  His father died when he was 9 and his mother remarried; by 1841 the family were living in Drax, where Thomas was described as a journeyman joiner.  That same year Thomas married his first wife, Anne Dean, on 27 Sept in Holy Trinity, Hull.  He was to spend the rest of his life in the city.  At around this time he started a business of "joiners, carpenters and builders" called Giles & Brown with a partner called James Brown.  The partnership didn't last long.  It was dissolved on 16 February 1855, and Thomas took on all its debts and assets.  In his hands the business prospered.  

Perhaps because of his experience, Thomas Giles got involved with the Hull Guardian Society.  These societies were taking over from the earlier Trade Protection Societies which were formed by local business owners to deal with creditors who failed to pay their debts.  We have seen many times in the stories of Charterhouse residents who had been in and out of bankruptcy that businesses failed with great regularity.  An auction of stock and assets would be arranged to pay off the debts, and the business owner might be imprisoned for a while until he could raise enough money.  Not long after, he would start up the business again.  Some of this was due to a banking system that wasn't geared to overdrafts and loans for a business with temporary problems.  Some of it was down to bad debts and not being able to afford to pursue the debtor through the courts.  The Guardian Societies enabled business people to club together to pursue the debts and perhaps to blacklist persistent bad payers.  On 28 Feb 1857 Thomas was nominated and elected along with many others to be a member of the Hull Guardian Society – to protect trade in the city. The event was held at George’s Inn, 66 Whitefriargate, with the society based on Trinity House Lane.  

Thomas Giles' wife Anne died in October 1859, leaving him with 6 children.  A little over 7 months later he married Mary Ann Gibson at All Saints, Sculcoates.  The family lived at 11 Grimston St, a building which still exists and is now listed.  (left).  Thomas ran his business from 12 Worship St.  

It wasn't all plain sailing.   In 1862 Thomas appeared at Hull Police Court charged with breaching the Builders Act.  One charge was that he had built a property on Park St with walls only 4.5 inches thick, when the law said they had to be 9".  He was given 14 days to rectify this, with increasing financial penalties after that.  It didn't do him any harm.  In 1873 and 1876  he was the President of the Hull Subscription Mill Society.  This had its origins in co-operatives attempting to bring down the high cost of good quality flour.  The Hull society was founded in 1800 and continued until late in the century.  

Giles was also Honorary Secretary of the Hull Mechanics' Institute, founded in 1825.  These institutes brought education, largely in evening classes, to working men and were a valuable part of the movement towards giving greater opportunities to the working-class and broadening their horizons.  They had their less earnest side; in Thomas Giles' time there were also theatrical performances.

With all this success, and no evidence of bankruptcy, it seems odd that Thomas and Mary Ann should seek to end their days in one room at the Charterhouse.  But they were admitted on 30 October 1884.  Our register is, as so often, confusing.  Mary Ann is not registered until July 1889.  Thomas had died in March 1886.  It was at that point that we would expect a widow either to be evicted (so we would have no trace of her) or to be awarded the room, or another vacant room, in her own right.  The more than 3 year gap seems excessive.  Yet it is unlikely that Mary Ann was evicted in 1886 and given a room 3 years later.

Mary Ann had her own moment of fame to come.  In 1899 she was the subject of a lengthy article in the Hull Daily Mail when the story emerged that she stood to inherit a fortune from a long-lost uncle, William Gibson, who had died many years before in Calcutta.  Years had been spent looking for his heirs, and it seemed that Mary Ann was one of them.  She and four other heirs, one of them Thomas and Mary Ann's son John, stood to inherit over a million pounds.  We hear no more about it; there is no follow-up in the press.  It seems improbable that she and her son actually got any money, and she died 4 years later.  Our register has her date of death, correctly, as 26 April 1903, but the death notice in the paper says she died at 62 Prince's Rd, her son's address.  Perhaps she had been moved there in her last days to be cared for.

Thomas and Mary Ann Giles were in some ways not a typical Charterhouse couple, but they show how diverse and interesting are the people behind the names in the register.

(Thanks to Joanne Bone, a descendant of the Giles, for much of the research into the couple.)