Frederick Haydon 1858 - 1912 (Part 2)
Sunday, 4 July 2010 10:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kjthistory
Continued from Part 1
1882: ASSENTED TO AD&R79
Frederick apparently worked as a shoeing smith throughout 1882.
The new Army Discipline and Regulations Act 1979 seems to have come into force in 1882, and it looks as if every serving soldier had to give their formal Assent to being covered by its provisions. It’s difficult to imagine the men were given any real choice in the matter, and Frederick gave his assent on 30th June 1882. From this date, new soldiers were entitled to enter into Barracks immediately, but against that they had no cooling-off period, and were subject to Army discipline - including punishment for desertion - if they changed their minds at the last minute and failed to report to camp as instructed.
On 15th September 1882 Frederick received a third-class certificate of education. I don’t yet know what kind of study that involves, or whether he had been studying since early June. Neither do I know yet what level of achievement it represents. It may be significant that the course presumably started on the fifth anniversary of Frederick’s joining up, but the main point to note is that a third-class certificate was required for promotion to corporal. It would be interesting to know whether this educational course was compulsory, or open to all who were interested, or only taken by those looking towards promotion.
On 23rd October, Frederick returned to hospital in Dublin, where the diagnosis was “Syph Prim”, which was apparently used to mean a syphilitic chancre on the penis itself, rather than primary stage syphilis - which this clearly wasn’t by now.
On 4th April 1883, Frederick received an assessment on his “Habits and Conduct in the Service, Temperance etc”. The assessment was “Regular, Good, Temperate”.
1883 - 1885: POSTED TO ST JOHN’S WOOD, WORKING AS A SHOEING SMITH
Frederick arrived at St John’s Wood in London on 22nd May 1883, and on 11th June - exactly six years after signing up - he was given Good Conduct Pay of 2d per day. The five-year Good Conduct Badge was introduced in 1876, replacing the six-year award, so it’s not clear why Frederick had to wait six years.
Frederick continued to work as a shoeing smith until 28th February 1884, and on 10th March 1884 he completed a Farriers’ Course. Presumably the course began on 29th February, although that was a Friday.
On 26th August 1884 Frederick forfeited 1d of his Good Conduct Pay. No reason is given, and his behaviour assessment on 10th November 1884 was, as before, “Regular, Good, Temperate”.
Frederick continued to work at St John’s Wood as a shoeing smith until Thursday 19th March 1885, when everything suddenly changed.
1885: DISCHARGED UNFIT FOR FURTHER SERVICE
On 19th March 1885, Frederick was deemed to be “Unfit for further service”, but no further information is given. He was again assessed “Regular, Good, Temperate”, and sent back for “further service while awaiting discharge”.
On 7th April 1885, Frederick was discharged from the Army. He had served seven years and 301 days, all of it on “Home” postings. Given that his records are in WO97, he was presumably awarded a pension, although this likely wasn’t permanent. It will have been in the region of 8d to 1/6 per day.
Because Frederick was discharged with Good Conduct, he was entitled to free transport to his place of enlistment, or his home if nearer. He stated that his Intended Residence was Northleigh in Wimborne, Dorset, so presumably that is where he was sent. Frederick’s future [first] wife Eliza and her family were at North Leigh in 1881 and 1891, and he married her less than eight months later, so there must be a strong presumption that he was going either to her, or to some member of her family whom he had met on service. There are other Haydons in Wimborne at the time, but none that I have found any family links to.
Alfred Cross, brother of Frederick’s future father-in-law, George, was in the Artillery, but he had been invalided out on 24th August 1875, and died towards the end of 1877, so he is unlikely to have been the link between Frederick and Eliza. Charles Cross, uncle of George, was invalided out of the Royal Artillery on 3rd March 1858 - Frederick’s birth-date.
1885: FIRST MARRIAGE, TO ELIZA ANN CROSS
From [second wife] Kate, via Dorothy and Mary, I knew that Frederick’s first wife was “buried in Wimborne Churchyard”. I didn’t know her name, so I decided to look in Wimborne for her death. My wonderfully helpful cousin Maurice Tilsed checked deaths of female Haydons aged 15-35 in Wimborne for the years 1876 (when Frederick was fourteen) to 1888 (when Frederick married Kate). The only one he found was an Eliza Ann Haydon aged 20. (Wimborne June 1886 5a 165).
On freebmd I had already found a marriage of a Frederick Haydon and Eliza Ann Cross, although I had originally dismissed this marriage as being too late, ie not enough time before he married Kate.
According to the marriage certificate, Frederick Haydon married Eliza Ann Cross on Christmas Day, Friday December 25th 1885, at St John’s Church, Wimborne. Eliza stated that her father was George Cross, a coachman, while Frederick gave no details for his father (“father not known, certified by JB Watson”).
Both parties signed their names, and their addresses are given simply as Wimborne. Frederick gave his age as 27, which is actually accurate, but for several years I assumed it to be anticipation on quite a large scale because it didn’t fit with the birth-date I’d been given. He gave his occupation as Blacksmith.
Eliza said she was 19 which, from the christening record - 30th April 1866 at Canford Magna - is correct. Her parents were George Isaac Cross, a coachman, and Sarah Covington. Eliza and her ancestors will have their own separate narrative at some point.
The ceremony was performed by the Vicar, Mr JB Watson, after banns, and the witnesses were Charles Poore and Clara Joy. I have no idea yet who these people were. I last looked for them before census records were readily available, so perhaps I could check them out again now.
1886: EXPECTING FIRST CHILD
Unless Eliza later suffered a miscarriage, she was not pregnant at the time of her marriage to Frederick. Given that she was stated to be about two months along when she died, this baby was conceived in the middle of April.
1886: DEATH OF ELIZA
Eliza Ann Haydon died on Wednesday 16th June 1886, at Mill Lane, Wimborne. She was only twenty years old. The informant was ‘F.Haydon of Mill Lane, widower of Eliza’, and Eliza’s occupation is given as “Wife of Frederick Haydon, journeyman blacksmith”. The death was registered on Friday 18th June 1886.
The cause of Eliza’s death was a little difficult to read, but it says something like “Extra uterine foetation 2 months / Rupture of Sac and internal Hemorrhage 12 Hours / Certified by CH&S Parkinson BSc 12eS”. In other words, ruptured ectopic pregnancy at 2 months’ gestation - precisely the normal time for such an event. Of course, we now know that Frederick was suffering from Syphilis, and I recently discovered that gonorrhoea can be a cause of ectopic pregnancy, so perhaps he had that too.
The only CH Parkinson in Wimborne in 1881 was indeed a General Medical Practitioner, living in West Street with his widowed mother, 5 younger sisters and two servants.
I haven’t yet found the record of Eliza’s burial, but Wimborne Churchyard was closed for burials by the 1880’s, so it’s more likely she was laid so early to rest in Wimborne Cemetery.
1886 - 1888: FREDERICK MOVES TO SOUTHAMPTON?
It is not yet known when or why Frederick moved to Southampton, if indeed he did. Nor do we know how he came to meet Kate, although the fact that her father was a blacksmith may well be relevant here. Perhaps her brother George Henry Plowman was in the Army with Frederick? If he was, his records have not been uploaded to findmypast yet.
1888: SECOND MARRIAGE, TO KATE ANNA PLOWMAN
Frederick Haydon married Kate Anna Plowman at the parish church of St Luke’s in Southampton on Monday 6th August 1888. The banns had been called, and the service was conducted by G. Kennedy Cooke. The couple both gave their address as 166, Derby Road, Southampton (presumably it wasn’t the red light district then!). Presumably either they were living together, or Frederick was really living in a different parish and they wanted to save money on the banns. Frederick gave his age as 28, although he was actually 30, and Kate (more truthfully) as 26.
Frederick said he was a blacksmith, but gave no details at all about his father, neither name nor profession. Kate gave no occupation, and said that her father was George Plowman, a blacksmith. This fits perfectly with the most likely birth family for her in the 1881 census.
Both parties signed their own names, and the witnesses were George Plowman and Alice Plowman. Kate’s father and three-years-older brother were both called George, and it was quite common for siblings to act as witnesses. Alice is presumably Kate’s sister, who was six years younger. There was another sister in between (Emma), but I don’t know whether it would have been unusual to choose a rather younger sibling over one older or nearer in age.
1888 - 1889: KATE AND FREDERICK MOVE BACK TO WIMBORNE?
Given that Frederick and Kate’s first child together was born in Wimborne, presumably at some point between August 1888 and his birth Frederick and Kate settled there, at least for a short time.
I have no idea what took them there from Southampton, if indeed Frederick ever did move to Southampton in the first place. Perhaps Frederick had settlement in Wimborne? (Did that still count in the 1880’s?) Did he go back to his first parents-in-law? Did he have work there? Or did he go back there for the same (unknown) reason that took him there when he came out of the Army in 1885?
1889: FREDERICK’S FIRST-BORN - BIRTH OF FREDERICK jr
Kate’s second child - the first born after her marriage to Frederick - was Frederick junior, known to Mary Rachel Cowan as Uncle Fred. His birth was registered in the first quarter of 1889, giving a birth date of mid-November 1888 to the end of March 1889, meaning that he was on the way when Kate and Frederick married on 6th August 1888. This seems to have been very common, and doesn’t tell us very much about them. Frederick junior was born in Wimborne, according to the 1901 census. Frederick jr was the father of ‘Cousin Win’, who I remember from Hamworthy Beach.
If Kate and Frederick were following a Victorian naming pattern (first son named after the father’s father, first daughter after the mother’s mother), the name of this first son would support the idea that Frederick’s father was called Frederick. It could have been part of a “parents first” pattern, but there was never a Kate until Winifred Kate at the end.
1891: CENSUS
In 1891, Frederick and Kate were living at 236, Nile Road in Poole, with Frederick junior aged 2, and Florence aged 10 born in Portsmouth, which she definitely wasn’t! Or did Frederick, as head of the household, think she was? Why would Kate have told him that?
1891: BIRTH OF WILLIAM
In Q2 1891, Frederick’s second known son by Kate, William, was born in Poole, and this does fit with a Victorian naming pattern, as I’m told Kate knew her own father as William.
William was known to Mary Cowan as Uncle Bill. This may be Edna’s Uncle Billy, who according to Marc Young was a men’s hairdresser in Bristol?
1893: BIRTH OF WALTER GEORGE
In the December quarter of 1893, Frederick’s third known son by Kate, Walter George, was born in Poole. This was the man I remember from my childhood as Uncle Walt. I think he had black-rimmed rectangular glasses and a rather dry sense of humour, and I liked him. Uncle Walt moved to Coventry at some point, but I think they used to come down for a visit in the Summer most years.
Walter’s son, known to Mary as Wally, was apparently the father of Nigel Haydon, who I made contact with via genesreunited - he says he was “the product of a wartime romance”. Nigel’s mother was from Scotland, and she returned there when Nigel was just 6 weeks old. Wally was apparently Walter F.G.Haydon, which is presumably Walter Frederick George.
I remember once the phone rang while we were still living at Turlin Moor. We were sitting at the table in the kitchen as Mary answered the phone and she just said something non-committal like “oh”, and straightaway I knew that Uncle Walt had died. I don’t know how, I don’t remember even knowing he was ill, and I don’t remember now what he died of.
1897: BIRTH OF ALICE MAUD
Freebmd has a birth registration for an Alice Maud Haydon in the September quarter of 1897 (Poole 5a, 254). There is no proof that she belongs in this family but (a) all other Haydons listed in Poole 1891 to 1911 are this family, (b) she fits into a rather large gap between Walt in 1893 and Bertie in 1901 and (c) I always thought Dar was the youngest of nine children so I’m missing a few. If Alice Maud does belong to Frederick and Kate, that would make eight.
If they were ever following a standard Victorian naming pattern, they had abandoned it by the time this supposed first daughter came along. The fact that there is no Rachel amongst Kate’s children at all, even as a middle name, goes to show how the family-name system was giving way to passing fashions in naming children by this time.
1898: DEATH OF ALICE MAUD
Alice Maud appears to have died in Q3 1898. I have not yet sent for the certificate, and she was never mentioned in any information handed down. In 1911 Frederick would state that Kate had had seven children “born alive to present Marriage” and that two of them had died, which would support Alice belonging here.
1901: CENSUS
On 31st March 1901 Frederick and Kate were living at number 17, Nile Row, Poole with Florence(20), Frederick(12), William(10) and Walter(7). Florence’s occupation was given as “Packer at Book Binder”, and her surname was given as Haydon. Frederick was an employee, working as a Blacksmith, and gave his place of birth as Bideford in Devon. He claimed that he was 43, which is actually about right.
1901: BIRTH OF BERTIE
According to Dorothy Sarah, who presumably got the information from her mother (although perhaps it came from a sibling), Dorothy had an older brother called Bertie, who as a toddler fell in the fire and died.
In the December quarter of 1901, a child called Bernard Albert Haydon was born in Poole (source www.freebmd.org.uk).
1903: DEATH OF BERTIE
In Q3 1903, Bernard Albert Haydon died in Poole at the age of one. I sent for the death certificate, and found that he had not fallen into the fire, but had tragically died of extensive scalding due to having pulled a flask of tea over himself.
The information below is taken from a report of the inquest, published in the Poole & Dorset Herald on 30th July 1903 and found for me by the staff of Poole Museum. The inquest took place at the Board-Room of the workhouse, Mr EJ Conway, Coroner, presiding. Mr Pennel King was elected foreman of the jury.
In the morning of Thursday 23rd July 1903, Kate made Frederick a can of tea and placed it on the table for him to take to his work. Little Bertie toddled round to the other side of the table to draw his father’s attention to it and Frederick, seeing the danger to Bertie in his touching it, called out to him. This seemed to frighten Bertie and he caught his hand in the handle and pulled the can over, the contents going over his chest and stomach. Frederick thought it was serious, but after sending his little boy (which one?) to the next-door neighbour for help, was unable to wait as he was due at his work. As Mrs Bessie Childs Dibben arrived from next door, Frederick left for work, telling Kate to send for the doctor.
When Mrs Childs arrived from no. 1 next door, she brought with her some linseed oil. She helped Kate to take Bertie’s clothes off and they poured the oil over the scalds. When this was done they sent a little girl for the doctor, just before 10am. (This may have been one of Mrs Dibben’s grandchildren; Kate had no young daughters.) The little girl was apparently unable to give the doctor a proper account of the seriousness of the injury, so the doctor gave her a large piece of what he called lint and Mrs Childs called cotton wool, with instructions to keep it soaked in oil.
At 11am, Dr Knox arrived, and found that his instructions had been very well carried out. He found that Bertie was extensively scalded over the neck, chest and abdomen. Mrs Childs was in and out of the house all day, and Dr Knox returned in the evening. At one o’clock in the morning, Bertie was taken with convulsions. The doctor returned for a third time on Friday morning, but Bertie died at four that afternoon, of shock occasioned by the extensive scalding. In the doctor’s opinion the scalding was not of itself very severe, but it was the extent of surface that was involved.
The verdict of the Coroner was that the affair was a pure accident, the child having done what was a natural thing. He said he was sure everyone very much sympathised with the parents. I’m not convinced he would say that nowadays.
Kate was about five months pregnant with Dar at the time.
I did some investigation into the neighbour, Mrs Bessie Childs Dibben. She was born Bessie Childs Whittle in Poole in 1846, and married William Stone Chalker in Poole in 1864. Their only known child, Minnie Jane Chalker, was born in Wilton in Wiltshire in 1865, as was Rosa Ann Plowman, older sister of Kate Anna. I haven’t yet found William’s death, but Bessie Chalker married Henry Debben in Southampton in 1874. Their children are registered as DEBBEN, but they are noted in 1881 as DIBBEN.
I thought it possible that Henry Dibben was a relative of the Dibben family that had links with Frederick’s first wife’s family. Eliza Ann Cross’s maternal grandmother, Ann Lock, had sisters Harriet Cleverlay Lock and Jane Lock who married, respectively, James Dibben and John Dibben. James and John had a sister, Eliza, who had a son named Henry in 1835, two years before she married Henry Bowden. This son Henry would properly be named Henry Dibben. I followed Henry Bowden forward from 1841, and Henry Dibben back from 1881, and found them both in 1851, so he is definitely not the son of Eliza Bowden née Dibben.
1903: BIRTH OF DOROTHY SARAH
On Monday 16th November 1903, Frederick’s daughter by Kate, Dorothy Sarah, was born in Poole, Dorset, at number 3, Denmark Road. On her birth certificate, Frederick gave his occupation as Shoeing and General Smith (Journeyman).
In due course Dar will have her own separate narrative. She was my maternal grandmother, and married William MacPherson Cowan in Poole in 1927. She used to love Clovelly in Devon, although she apparently had no idea that Frederick’s grandmother came from there. On the way to Clovelly they would go through Okehampton, and Dar would point it out as being where Frederick came from, which is how Mary always knew that part of his history.
1905: BIRTH OF WINIFRED KATE
At some point after Dorothy, Kate’s third known daughter was born, and was called Win. According to Dorothy, Win died in childhood. I have now found a freebmd record for Winifred Kate Haydon, birth registered December quarter 1905. This daughter is an example of the phenomenon I have seen in a number of families, where it is the youngest children who bear the parents’ name as middle names. I’ve always wondered how they knew which ones were going to be the last! Win died at the age of six, of diphtheria.
1907: MARRIAGE OF FLORENCE
Although no-one else in the family apparently knew about it, Florence herself must have been aware of at least some of the facts of her birth, because she married under the Plowman surname. Florence Agatha Plowman married Arthur James Masters in the September quarter of 1907 in Poole. They lived in Blandford Road, Hamworthy, and “Arf” worked as a foreman at Carter’s Tiles. In those days that was definitely considered success - “He had a job for life, he was somebody.” I don’t know whether “Aunt Flo” worked as a dressmaker, but she had one of those wonderfully enduring Singer sewing machines, which somehow ended up with Mary, and now it’s mine. Details of Flo’s birth and early life will be in Kate’s narrative.
1912 : DEATH OF FREDERICK, AND OF HIS YOUNGEST CHILD, WINIFRED KATE
According to Dorothy Sarah, Frederick died on Friday 12th January 1912, and this accords with the death certificate. The cause of death was given as “Apoplectic seizure 9 days, paralysis (spinal), coma”, which I would guess is in fact final stages of syphilis, and he died at the family’s home at 3, Denmark Road. Interestingly, his age was given as 49, which ties in with the 1862 birth date Dar gave us. This would suggest that Kate genuinely thought Frederick was born in 1862, although it’s quite clear that Frederick himself knew exactly when he was born: the ages he gave at Attestation, marriage and census all tie up pretty well with the actual 1858 birth date.
After his death, it “became known” that he had been married before, but I wasn’t given any information about the first wife, other than that she was buried “in Wimborne Churchyard”. The implication was that Kate herself didn’t know about it before, but this cannot have been the case, as his status was given as “Widower” on her marriage certificate.
Less than four weeks after Frederick’s death - on about February 7th - Kate and Fred’s youngest child, Winifred Kate, was taken into the Infectious Diseases Hospital at Alderney, suffering from Diphtheria. Dar had told Mary of her existence and her early death, and I have the death certificate: on 19th February 1912, Kate and Fred’s youngest child died at Alderney of “diphtheria 14 days, heart failure”. Her gravestone gives her age as six years and five months.
Frederick’s widow Kate lived on for many years, and was known to my mother, Mary Rachel Cowan, as “Granny Haydon”. She lived at 88, Sterte Road with her daughter Dorothy Sarah Haydon, and Dar’s family, until her death in 1954. She will have her own separate narrative file soon.
Before her own death, Kate apparently "destroyed all the papers so that nothing would come out". Dorothy and Mary speculated that the first child, Florence, was the daughter of the first wife, and that this was what Kate didn’t want known, although it turns out that it was Florence’s illegitimate birth that was presumably her secret.
