Who led us to Newfoundland?

You went where? Why?

As you can see in the photos in the previous blogpost, Newfoundland is a beautiful, wild and remote island; but not at the top of most folk's holiday destination list. So what prompted us to go?

About 6 years ago Cliff's aunt became very ill and we had the task of helping her move into a nursing home. Her house was sold and among the things we brought home were keepsakes that had been in Cliff's family for generations – including a writing box with a secret drawer and a print hinting of a naval connection; a Georgian snuff box and a portrait of Joseph (Cliff's GtGtGtGrandfather) painted in 1804.

Then, 2 Christmases ago, a cousin sent us a copy of the front page of a family bible, the names were familiar from what we knew of Cliff's family tree but what caught our eye was where Joseph got married . . . St John's Newfoundland!

St John's harbour

We we intrigued and did some research on the web, the Anglican Cathedral in St John's has records online, we found Joseph's marriage to Ann in August 1803 and he is described as 'Purser on HMS Iris'. So now we knew that Joseph was in the navy and his bride, Ann, was from St John's. 

By now we wanted to see Newfoundland for ourselves, it was a good a reason as any to go there for our holiday. 

Inside The Rooms

In the photo of St John's harbour at the top of this post, you'll see a huge building with pointed gables and red roofs, that is The Rooms. Inside are a theatre, galleries, a museum and exhibitions, as well as The Archives. We had two opportunities to visit while in St John's, on the first and last days of the holiday; so we headed straight to the Archives on our first day in Newfoundland.

We were able to look at facsimile copies of the handwritten marriage records from 1803, and we saw that there was more information than in the transcribed online records. The archivist told us that we could only make notes with a pencil and photographing the documents was not allowed, we copied the words carefully. 

St John's, 1800

As we travelled around we began to put together a picture of what Newfoundland had been like in the early 1800s. While staying in Trinity, which was a major harbour and like St John's, a crucial part of the salt cod industry; we went on an excellent walking tour of the town and also saw The Pageant - a historical play by Rising Tide theatre company which is acted out around the town.

The Trinity Pageant

This gave us some idea of the industrial scale of the salt cod industry and the tough existence of those who worked there. 

Salting Cod on the Flakes - Trinity Pageant

The hillsides around the harbours were covered with fish flakes, wooden shelves on which the salted cod fish was laid out to dry in the sun and wind, before being packed into wooden barrels and transported to Europe or to the Caribbean where the poor quality fish was bought to feed the slave labour in sugar plantations. Newfoundland was part of a triangular trade route crucial to the economy of Britain and Portugal. The French were vying for control of the key harbours, these were tumultuous times.

Fish Flakes at Bonavista Bay

Imagine miles of these wooden structures covered with salted fish and hundreds of people working to keep the fish from spoiling when it rained and packing the fish into barrels. Imagine the stench!

One thing puzzled us, although there was a naval record of HMS Iris, we couldn't find any mention of her sailing to Newfoundland. However, the flagship of the British admiral who was the governor of Newfoundland, was HMS Isis; the more we read the more the facts fitted with Joseph's story - what if the marriage record had said 'Isis' and not 'Iris'?

The Newfoundland Archives

There was one chance to find out, at the end of our holiday we arrived back in St John's an hour before The Archives closed for the weekend. We ran up the steps and up to the archivist's desk, she remembered us and retrieved the marriage records box.

So, was it 'HMS Isis'? It could be, but equally it could say 'HMS Iris', we could see how the transcriber had gone for a name that seemed more plausible. Then I noticed the minister who wrote the records was called 'Harries' and in every record he wrote his own name and the word 'married', both those word have 'ri' in them. He was used to writing 'ri' so if the ship was 'Iris' the letters would look the same ... they didn't! Surely it must be HMS Isis! And proves that you should always go back to the original source of the information.

The Trinity Pageant

Knowing Joseph was on HMS Isis made things fall into place. He had probably been on board the previous year when Admiral Gambier arrived in St John's, having survived a hurricane in the North Atlantic, his flagship Isis with broken masts and tattered sails. As the purser, Joseph would have been responsible for sourcing and paying for the repairs.

St John's in the early 1800s

There were more names of witnesses on the handwritten record than the transcriber had put in the digital records. One was probably Ann's father, we found that he may have owned a butchery and tavern, was this where Joseph got supplies for the ship? Other witnesses were Thomas Skinner and Jane Hester Skinner, most likely this was the surveyor and architect in charge of building the British fort on top of Signal Hill, and his daughter who was the same age as Ann.

The fort that Thomas Skinner designed and built

I wondered if Ann had stood on The Lady's Lookout on Signal Hill, waiting for the Isis to return in Spring 1803, after spending the winter months in England. Had Joseph already proposed to her? Or was she hoping he might?

Waiting for her sailor
- a scene in the Trinity Pageant

In November 1803 Ann sailed with Joseph to her new life as a navel officer's wife, on board HMS Isis leading a convoy of ships including captured French warships.

The view from Signal Hill

looking over the narrow entrance into
St John's harbour

In January 1804 the war against Napolean's France was getting more serious, Joseph had already joined another ship, HMS Scourge, which sailed to the Dutch coast to rescue a captured British merchant ship. Joseph rowed a boat under gunfire to help in the rescue and was commended for his bravery. Was this that prompted him getting his likeness painted in June 1804, was this a gift for Ann in case he didn't survive the next voyage?

Joseph had a long career in the navy as a purser/paymaster, a position that was gaining more respect and importance. He retired in his 60's with a naval pension.

So, raise a glass and toast Joseph and Ann, without whom we would never have thought of going to Newfoundland and having a wonderful adventure.

Celia

xx

Whose badge is it anyway?

My previous blog post about the White Boars and White and Tudor Roses carved into the medieval screen in the church near my studio, sparked off an interesting conversation on Twitter about whether these may be the badges of Richard III. We decided probably not BUT the carvings are late 15th Century and they are most likely the badges of a powerful family.

A document was unearthed which suggested a link with the Vere family, the Earls of Oxford who also had a Boar as one of the Supporters (beasts holding the shield) of their Coat of Arms. The document also mentioned that "the de Vere Mullet" was depicted on the North Aisle roof. 

I went to look . . .

There it is! 

A five pointed star or 'Mullet' in heraldic terms, right over the North Aisle Altar.

Another sort of star with roses (?)

A lovely Tudor Rose

And an Eagle . . .

there are more Eagles on the screen I blogged about yesterday.

But it is on the Font that I found de Vere symbols aplenty!

A Mullet

A Rose

Red or White? I'm sure someone will know!

**update: apparently the de Vere family were on the Lancastrian side so the roses would be red**

The shields were once probably painted in the correct heraldic colours.

Another Mullet, this one is six pointed which might be an earlier version of the de Vere badge.

The de Vere family were hugely important landowners in the Stour Valley (now the Suffolk/Essex border) so is isn't surprising they put their mark on our village church.

I wondered if there was ever confusion about whose badge one was wearing, like football teams that wear the same colour strip . . . is that Richard's White Boar or the de Vere Blue Boar? Is he friend of foe? 

The danger of mistaking one star shaped badge for another was all too evident at the Battle of Barnet in 1471. The Earl of Oxford's army wearing the de Vere Mullet rode through the early morning mist towards their ally Warwick the Kingmaker's troops who mistook the white star badges for the 'Rose en Soleil' (a white rose with sun rays) badges of their enemy Edward IV! Earl Warwick's men charged, the Earl of Oxford fled, in the aftermath Warwick the Kingmaker was felled from his horse and killed and the house of Lancaster's demise was sealed  . . . the course of English history had changed for ever.

(more info here and here)

If you like history and solving puzzles I can recommend wandering in to a local church and then asking Twitter* to help with the research.

Celia

xx

*Thank you to @manx_maid, @debmarson and @JonathanFoyle for pointing me towards the de Veres.

The White Boar and the White Rose

You never know what you might find when you do some dusting or dig up a car park . . .

It was while helping to dust the screen in the church opposite my studio, that I noticed the carving of a wild boar painted white - it rang a bell deep in the dusty recesses of my memory.

The White Boar was the badge of Richard III 

Have you been following the discovery and this week's reburial of King Richard III aka the King in the Car Park?

I can imagine the historians and archaeologists involved in the project are getting very excited, as are thousands of others who are prepared to queue for hours to see the coffin in Leicester Cathedral. Richard has certainly put Leicester on the tourist map!

Back to The White Boar, there's some interesting information here. I wonder if our village church screen dates from Richard III's short reign 1483-5?

Richard of York (as he was known before he became Duke of Gloucester and then King) may have chosen for his badge a Boar as a pun on Eboracum, the Roman name for York. Another part of the church screen has a White Rose which was the badge of the Yorkists in the Wars of the Roses.

In the right hand corner of the same panel is a White and Red Rose . . . the Tudor Rose which became England's badge uniting houses of York and Lancashire when Henry VII defeated Richard III at Bosworth in 1485. Although a Tudor Rose is usually red with a white centre, so I wonder if the roses have always been painted in these colours or have they been changed over the years - or was the rose painted by a Yorkist reluctantly adding a red centre? The North Aisle of the church was built in the 1480s which also includes a Tudor Rose, was paid for by Robert Wyburgh, did he also install the screen? was he a supporter of Richard of York?

The screen has somehow survived the Reformation and the Civil War, and it may have been painted (repainted?) in the 18th century.

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If it's not Richard's badge then whose is it?

Please pop over to the next blog post for an up date!

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If you are interested in the background behind the story of Richard III and whether he was a villain or not, I can thoroughly recommend this book: 

I first read 'The Daughter of Time' when I was at school and still have my paperback copy. This week's ceremonial reburial of Richard's bones is an interesting epilogue to the story.


Celia
xx