It's appropriate that this week's theme "So Far Away" should be my first post, since it allows me to showcase an intriguing family story that only recently came to light for me. This is the story of my great-great grandfather, John Thomas Richardson, also known as John Reeve. He's an appropriate subject for the theme of being "so far away" for a number of reasons: he traveled extensively in his relatively short life; his story out out of my reach for some time, and, as we shall see, he was removed from his own family history.
For some time, John Richardson remained a brick wall in my family tree. I knew that he had married by great-great grandmother, Elizabeth Louisa Chambers, at the Church of St John the Divine, Kennington, London, on New Year's Day 1912, and that he was born in 1888(1). But of his pre-marital life, I couldn't find a trace. Not even in the 1911 census, just one year before his marriage.
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| Marriage of John Thomas Richardson and Elizabeth Louisa Chambers, 1912. |
Coldstream Guards
Breakthrough #1 came with the discovery of his Army Pension Record. This contained a short service attestation that he had joined the 2nd Battalion of the Coldstream Guards as a signaler at age 19 1/2 on the 18th July 1907 (2). In January 1909 he was posted to the 3rd Battalion and sent to Egypt, where he served until March 1911. The 1911 census showed him posted at the Tower of London, possibly in preparation for the Guards' ceremonial duties at the coronation of King George V (3).
Coronation of His Majesty George V. British Pathé, 1911. Youtube.com. The 3rd Battalion of the Coldstream Guards were on duty at the Coronation.
In 1914, John was part of the British Expeditionary Force to France and Belgium - since he was dispatched August 12th, he one of the first British combatants of the First World War. In 1916 he was discharged from the Army to serve in the Royal Navy. A search of his regimental number showed that he died in January 1918, and received a place on the roll of honour in Camberwell Cemetery (4).
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| Detail from the Roll of Honour, Camberwell Cemetery, London. Richardson's name is second-to-last. Note that he was recorded as a Guardsman, despite dying while in the service of the Royal Navy. |
Alias John Reeve
So I'd pushed John's story back to 1909, but I still couldn't find any record of him in censuses before 1911. The story took an unexpected twist when I took a gamble on a record I came across at the National Archives - a Royal Navy service record for a "John Reeve alias John Thomas Richardson". The date (1901) wasn't promising, since John would have been 13, and to the best of my knowledge, John's Navy service began in 1916 (5).
Detail from John's Naval Service Record. Note that whoever completed his service record was unsure whether to call my ancestor Richardson alias Reeve or Reeve alias Richardson.
The Naval Service Record helped me piece together an intriguing story, in which there are still a few holes to fill. John Thomas Richardson had been raised in the Guildford Union Workhouse under the name "John Reeve" - where he appears on the 1901 census (6). In his military attestation, John gave his place of birth as Guildford, but the workhouse officials have noted he was born in "Ireland - Unknown". Ten years earlier, he appears (at age 2) to have been living with a foster family, the Elsons, also in Guildford (7). Again, his place of birth is "Ireland." I can easily see a 19 year-old who was raised in Guildford assuming that was his birthplace.
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| Detail from the 1901 Census. Place of birth - "Unknown - Ireland" |
Soon after that 1901 census, John Reeve was enrolled in the Royal Navy, on the Training Ship Exmouth and later TS Triumph. The Navy's training ships were common destinations for orphans in workhouses in London and the surrounding communities. The training was designed to give the children a skillset and career path that would be beneficial to them in future life. The pathos of this orphaned adolescent working on a Naval training ship is brought out in his physical description on the Naval record, which measures him at 5ft with a "fresh" complexion on enlistment (presumably at age 12) and 5 ft 5 ins. by age 16. A final description, perhaps taken in 1916, shows him standing 5ft 11 1/2 ins. with a "ruddy" complexion - perhaps the result of two years in the trenches of Flanders.
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| TS Triumph, c1887. Photo: Wikimedia Commons |
John was part of the majority of kids on the training ships who chose to enroll in the Navy as an adult, in 1904 (age 16) for 12 years of service as a signaler. The motto of "join the Navy, see the world" appears to have applied to John, who served (as a "boy") on HMS Edgar and HMS Spartan in 1903, in the Home Fleet based in Devonport, Devon, before being assigned to HMS Hecla and HMS King Alfred in 1905-6, based in the China Station at Hong Kong, and HMS Powerful, out of Sydney in January 1907.
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| Hong Kong Naval Buildings, 1894. Photo: Wikimedia Commons |
Thereafter, as we know, he enlists in the Coldstream Guards under the name of Richardson (this is noted in the naval record). It seems as though John may have deserted sometime around May 1907 and made his way to London by July, shortly after being promoted to 2nd signalman. This explains a reference to a court martial and 14 days' detention for "making artfully false answer" in January 1908 to his 1907 service attestation - John had claimed no previous military or naval experience upon enlistment, presumably to avoid drawing attention to his desertion.
His Naval service resumes in 1916 (for reasons that aren't clear - the Navy record notes a special dispensation to switch services), and he served on HMS Cambrian, a newly-constructed cruiser. from July 1916 to July 1917. In October 1916, he was awarded the Military Medal for bravery - perhaps from his Army service since he was mentioned in dispatches in 1916. Returning home in 1917, he was invalided out of the Navy in October 1917, with an aortic aneurysm, which might well be the cause of his death in early 1918. His two children, Violet (my great-grandmother) and Ernest, were five and two years old, respectively. Soon afterwards, with two small children to support, his widow, Elizabeth, remarried to a Herbert Edward Emery (8).
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| HMS Cambrian, 1915-8, From the Collections of the Imperial War Museum. Photo: Wikimedia Commons |
What Next?
So I now have a picture of an individual with two identities, and still lacking a link to his parents. John Richardson, a plumber, is the father named on the 1912 marriage record. John Thomas's army service attestation originally listed his next of kin as Kate Richardson of Guildford and Elsie Reeves of Plaistow Lane, Bromley (before they were replaced upon his marriage) - but it's unclear what relationship they had to him. At one point, I was even unsure which name to assign him. My instinct is to believe that Richardson was his birth name, and that Reeve was either the name of a foster family, or one assigned to him somewhere along the way from Ireland to Guildford. An alternative might be that Reeve was his birth name, and that Richardson was adopted when he joined the army to conceal his identity. If so, it was an elaborate deception that included lying on his marriage certificate and passing his false name on to his children.
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| Detail from Army Service Record, listing variously Kate Richardson ,Elsie Reeve, and Wife Elizabeth Louisa as his next-of-kin. |
The best clue to continue my search comes from the only census record I have of John as an adult - the 1911 record of him at the Tower. There, he gives his place of birth as "Newtownards, Belfast." Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a convincing matching record for a John Richardson (or a John Reeve) born in the Newtownards or Belfast districts in 1888.
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| Detail from the 1911 Census, in which John reveals his birthplace as "Newtownards, Belfast" |
I can't help but be intrigued by this story of a relative I never met - I briefly knew his daughter, my Great-Grandmother - who seemed to have lived a life which, at first glance could be seen as interesting and exciting, but also which is laden with tragedy. There's not only his untimely death at age 30, but the circumstances of his childhood. The information in the 1911 census makes me wonder - did John meet his birth parents after all, or at least learn more about his infancy, since he knew where he was born? How and why was he sent from Newtownards to Guildford? His story has taken a few unexpected twists and led me through a compelling narrative, but it seems there are still questions to answer.
Sources
1. London Metropolitan Archives, Saint John The Divine, Kennington, Register of marriages, P85/JNA1, Item 010, p.219
2. War Office: Soldiers’ Documents from Pension Claims, First World War (Microfilm Copies); (The National Archives Microfilm Publication WO364), piece 3273
3. Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA), 1911. Registration District: Whitechapel, Sub-District: Whitechapel, Enumeration District: 21-30 (Tower of London) Class: RG14; Piece: 1497.
4. Findagrave.com http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=24610962&ref=acom
5. Admiralty: Royal Navy Registers of Seamen's Services, The National Archives, ADM 188/383/218005.
6. Census Returns of England and Wales, 1901. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA), 1901. Registration District: Guildford, RG13; Piece: 605, Folio 70, Page 16
7. Census Returns of England and Wales, 1891. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1891. RG12; Piece: 561; Folio: 72; Page: 35
8. London Metropolitan Archives, Saint Matthew, Brixton, Register of marriages, P85/MTW1, Item 027, p197
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