The Family Tree of a Jam Pan
Today, 7 August 2023, I made five pots of Strawberry Jam in the Jam Pan. My young man grows fruit at the allotment but don’t worry if you don’t do the same. Strawberries are...
Is Your Name Comet?
As my small band of followers will know I have a family connection with Outer Space. Way back in the days of yore I was idling through the Brislington parish registers when I spotted...
Finding Pollie Wells
In 1874 a young woman called Pollie Wells wrote to her brother Charlie at Southampton. Exactly a hundred years later I saved the letter from the flames – her niece, an old lady called...
‘No Place like Home’ – Clements & Hodgetts: a Family Story
Chapter 11 of my book, ‘Killed in a Coalpit’, about the lives of the Kingswood district colliers is entitled ‘A Young Hero – Edward Albert Powell’, who was known as Ted. At the age...
My Pillinger Women: No. 3 Julia Pillinger
It will be no surprise if I say I am interested in those women who in days of yore, when it was doubly or trebly difficult, managed to have a life outside the domestic...
My Pillinger Women: No. 2 Amelia Pillinger (1835-1882)
In the present year, 2022, Amelia is number 3 in the top one-hundred girls’ names. Before we get to Amelia Pillinger let’s start with…two historical Amelias: The name first became popular when the German...
My Pillinger Women: No. 1 Hephzibah Day Pillinger
The first in my new series of my Pillinger women ancestors starting with Hephzibah Day Pillinger. When I began my family tree back in Palaeolithic times like most newbies I was guilty of racing...
‘Wanton Wenches’ and ‘Incorrigible Rogues’ Chapter 1: Two Mutinies: a Horrid set of Miscreants
Peace with the infant republic of America was declared in August 1783. With the small detail that Britain had lost the war apparently discounted, it appears that the arrogant assumption was made that everything...
Harriet Bumford – Another Victorian Girl – Revisited
It is often the case that the very next day after you have committed something to print more information will come to light. So it is with the family of Harriet Bumford Darke. When...
A Present from Queen Victoria
Some years ago my distant cousin, the artist and author Ian Pillinger bought a bag of items in a junk shop which “looked interesting”. Being a man of many talents, he started to put...
About Me
I have been researching the social history of the West Country for 45 years. During this time I have collated information on a wide range of people living and working in the West Country including miners, ethnic minorities, petty criminals, sailors, tommies, benefactors, brassmakers and many more. The thing that I find amazing is that ordinary people always lived extraordinary lives. I hope you like my blog that brings together my lifetime of research.
