‘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...
Hard Times: Another Victorian Girl – Harriet Bumford Darke, c1831-1895
Harriet’s Story Thomas Bumford and Amelia Evans were married on 3rd August 1828 at Abergavenny, a small Welsh market town on the river Usk about six miles from the border with England. This is...
Sarah Matthews: A Poke from the Psychic Facebook
“Overture and Beginners Please” Miss Sarah Matthews was a surprise package. I had never heard of her before. She had a life of two halves: an actress from our Theatre Royal, Bristol who was...
Burnt at the Stake: Jane Lumock and Mary Norwood
From the Middle Ages the penalty for the murder of a wife by a husband was to be hanged by the neck until dead, but the murder of a husband by a wife was...
About Me
I have been researching the social history of the West Country for 50+ 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.
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