Harry and Sophie Newland

Henry (Harry) Newland 4/10/1872 – 5/7/1954 – Stanley Newland’s father.

Harry was born at 34, Union Road, Newington, South London. He was the eldest child of Henry Newland and his wife Frances (Fanny) (maiden name Kemp). He had three sisters and one brother. Harry’s father was a tailor, and from censuses, it seems that the whole family were involved in the business. Harry spent his working life as a tailor too.  There were two shops in Southampton Street, Camberwell. This road is now known as Southampton Way; I haven’t been able to work out whether the properties are still there. There was another shop at 70a Peckham Rye. It looks as though that building has gone, replaced by modern flats. You can see the approximate location on Google Maps here.

 

Sophia (Sophie) Pearman 14/4/1874 – 17/7/1957 – Stanley Newland’s mother. 

Sophie was born at 10, Sultan Terrace, Avenue Road, Camberwell. By 1881 the family were living at 36, Wyndham Road, Camberwell. There’s a picture of Sultan Terrace in 1939 here and some views of Wyndham Road here. Not a very salubrious area! Sophie’s parents were William Pearman and his wife Emma Elizabeth (maiden name Pasby). Sophie had more than ten siblings and at least seven of them survived childhood. Sophie’s sister, Florence, married Harry’s brother, Herbert, in 1901. Sophie’s father was a carpenter and joiner and in later censuses he described himself as a builder and then a decorator.

Harry and Sophie were married on the 11^th of August 1898 at St Giles Church, Camberwell. The witnesses were Sophie’s father, William, and two of her sisters, Florence and Amy. In 1901 Harry and Sophie were living at 19, Manaton Road, Peckham and in the 1911 and 1921 censuses they were at 103, Southampton Street, presumably living above the shop. By 1936 they had moved to 25, Melville Road, Sidcup, Kent. A definite improvement on Sultan Terrace! Google maps.

Harry and Sophie had five children:-

·       Vernon was born in 1899.

·       Stanley was born in 1901. 

·       Leslie was born in 1903

·       Constance (Connie) was born in 1905.

·       Reginald was born in 1909.

Harry doesn’t seem to have played any part in the two World Wars. Conscription was introduced in 1916 during the First World War. Unmarried men under the age of forty were the first to be called up. Towards the end of the war the upper age limit was increased to fifty and married men were called up too. Conscription continued until 1920. By the time that WW2 started Harry was well over fighting age.

Here are some memories of Harry and Sophie from Stiggo:-

“Harry and Sophie were a very dear couple who came to stay for a week at a time or at Christmas. He was a tailor by trade and was full of fun. Sophie was very quiet in comparison- think I was a bit in awe of her! I left some of my dinner one day and she told me that children across the sea often didn't have any dinner so I should eat mine all up. Apparently, I said - let them have mine then. It didn't go down too well Mum said!! We loved having them to stay though.”

Harry died on the 5^th of July 1954, aged 81. He was buried at Sidcup Cemetery. Sophie died on the 17^th of July 1957, aged 83 and was also buried at Sidcup cemetery. Sophie didn’t leave a will but administration of her estate amounting to £354 5s 4d was granted to Vernon Newland.

 

Thames Watermen

 John Kemp 1797 – 1862

 I wrote about Henry Newland, tailor and church band leader, in a previous post. Henry married Frances (Fanny) Kemp in 1871. She was the thirteenth of fourteen children, eleven of whom survived to adulthood. She was born in Gravesend, Kent in 1846. Her parents were John Kemp and Elizabeth (maiden name Thurlow).

John Kemp was a Thames waterman. Watermen working on the River Thames between Windsor and Gravesend were required to become members of the Company of Watermen and Lightermen. Membership was granted after the completion of a seven-year apprenticeship, which was to commence between the age of 14 and 20 years.

The company was founded for watermen in 1514, and it became necessary for lightermen to join from the early 1700s. Watermen ferried passengers along and across the Thames, either by rowing boat or sailing boats known as Thames wherries. They wore distinctive red coats, and the wherries had red sails. Lightermen conveyed goods and loaded and unloaded ships.

 Roads around London were very poor and until the 1700s, the ancient London Bridge was the only bridge crossing the Thames. Water transport was a very useful means of getting around. Then things started to change. Westminster Bridge was built in 1738; Battersea Bridge opened in 1771. Vauxhall Bridge, Waterloo Bridge, Southwark Bridge and others followed in the 1800s.

During the early 1800s vast amounts of noxious waste were being discharged into the Thames from businesses along its banks. The invention of the flushing toilet made things a lot worse. “Night soil” had previously been contained in cesspools and privies and was collected by night soil men on a regular basis for use as fertiliser on the fields. This method of disposal was overwhelmed by the flushing process of the new toilets and raw sewage ended up in drains intended for rainwater. These emptied straight into the Thames. Water sources such as pumps were sometimes contaminated by the sewage, giving rise to all sorts of horrible diseases, including cholera and typhoid.

The long, hot summer of 1858 gave rise to “The Great Stink” when the smell from the river became unbearable. Queen Victoria was overcome by the smell when taking a trip to view Brunel’s new ship, The Great Eastern, which was moored at Deptford. Fortunately, she had a bouquet of flowers to sniff! Shortly afterwards she set off to the Isle of Wight to escape the miasma. Her less affluent subjects were left to cope as best they could.

The newly rebuilt Houses of Parliament were badly affected by the stink and curtains were soaked in lime chloride in an attempt to reduce the smell. Lime chloride was also pumped into the Thames itself and seems to have had some effect. MPs were spurred into action and Joseph Bazalgette was tasked with building a new sewage system for London.

It is said that watermen had a reduced life expectancy due to contact with all the pollutants in the river.

Paddle steamers became thorns in the sides of watermen and took away much of their business. At Gravesend some watermen found work rowing passengers from the steamers to and from shore. This new line of work was soon put into jeopardy by a proposal to build a pier. A bill was passed giving permission for the pier to be built and on the 22^nd of June 1833 the watermen rioted! They attacked a temporary jetty at the Town Quay and the local militia were brought in to break up the disturbance.

The Town Quay Pier was completed in 1834, and Royal Terrace Pier, a private venture, was built nearby. Royal Terrace Pier undercut Town Quay Pier’s prices, resulting in Town Quay Pier going bankrupt.

Kemp Watermen.

John Kemp. – Stanley Newland’s great-grandfather.

John Kemp was apprenticed to his father, John Bull Kemp on 28/11/1811 and was awarded his freedom on 27/6/1822.

John’s son, Aaron Benjamin Kemp was apprenticed to him on 8/6/1843. Another son, William Warren Kemp was also a waterman according to census records, but I can’t find his apprenticeship record in the indexes. The rest of John’s sons seem to have become tailors, which is presumably how his daughter, Fanny, met Henry Newland.

John seems to have been quite a feisty character and reports about him appeared in the newspaper on a couple of occasions.

South Eastern Gazette 28/2/1837

“COLD BATH, - On Monday a waterman named Kemp, in attempting to board the Gem, on her arrival from London, missed his hold and fell overboard; but met with no other misfortune than that of a cold bath – no very comfortable thing by the way at this time of the year. The watermen of Gravesend possess a singular and daring courage that would astonish the rest of their fraternity, plying between Windsor and Yantlet Creek, and would not disgrace the old and experienced boarders who fought under the gallant Nelson. We wonder that accidents among them do not more frequently occur. “

The West Kent Guardian 20/7/1839 recounts how John Kemp and Elias Pulling, watermen, were charged with unlawfully and feloniously stealing four bales of hay. Six bales of hay were being delivered to a ship, the Cherokee, which was moored at Gravesend. Four bales were swept away when the delivery boat was swamped by the swell of a steamer. These bales were subsequently discovered on a wharf belonging to a Mr Rackstraw. Kemp and Pulling refused to allow the removal of the hay without a payment of 10 shillings. Goods reclaimed from the river should have been handed over to the water bailiff. There was no evidence to say that this would not have been the case and there was evidence that Kemp had been to the Cherokee to inform the captain that the hay had been recovered. The case was dismissed.

The South Eastern Gazette 27/4/1847 reported that Elias Pullen (presumably John Kemp’s partner in crime above!) had taken John Kemp to court to answer a charge of assault. Pullen was well known to the court. On a preceding Saturday he had been at the Town Quay. The pier-master threatened to have Pullen locked up for annoyance if he did not go away.

Pullen claimed that Kemp had abused him. Kemp said that he was owed four shillings and that he would “pay him over the face and eyes”. He immediately hit Pullen on the head. An injury to Pullen’s nose was still visible. Mr Atkins, the pier-master said that Pullen insulted everybody and aggravated Kemp. He did not see the blow but heard Kemp say that Pullen had robbed him of 4 shillings. Both parties were “in liquor”. The defendant (Kemp) was ordered to pay 7s/6d costs.

John Bull Kemp 1755 – 1829. Stanley Newland’s 2X great-grandfather.

John was apprenticed to his father, Thomas Kemp in 1769.

Three of his sons were apprenticed to him, Thomas in 1801, John (our ancestor above) in 1811 and Aaron in 1819.

Thomas Kemp 1727 – 1775. Stanley Newland’s 3X great-grandfather.

Thomas was apprenticed to his father, another Thomas in 1741.

His son John Bull Kemp (above) was apprenticed to him in 1769.

Thomas Kemp about 1700 – about 1764. Stanley Newland’s 4X great-grandfather.

I don’t know who Thomas’s parents were.

Thomas was apprenticed to Robert Tuton in 1715.

His son Thomas (above) was apprenticed to him in 1741.

Richard Kemp born about 1690.

The first Kemp surname to appear in the Gravesend indexes, presumably a brother of Thomas (above).

The Watermen’s apprenticeship bindings have been indexed by Robert Cottrell. There are 17 Kemps listed in Gravesend over the years up to 1945. I haven’t listed the later ones. There are 82 Kemps in the index for the whole of the Thames, though it looks as if some of these have been listed twice.

Other useful sources of information have included FindMyPast’s newspaper indexes, Gravesham Borough Council’s website and a Channel 5 two-episode tv documentary, “The Great Stink”, which happened to be broadcast just as I was thinking about writing this story. Not a programme to watch whilst eating dinner!

The Lewisham Rail Disaster 1957

 

The Lewisham Train Disaster 4^th December 1957

Vernon Henry William Newland 1899 -1957

Vernon Newland was Stanley Newland’s brother. He was the eldest of Henry & Sophie Newland’s five children. He worked as a civil servant in London and married Annie Manser in 1926. The couple lived in Beckenham and had one son, whose name was Alan.

On the early evening of the 4^th December 1957, Vernon caught the train for home from London Bridge Station. It was a foggy evening with bad visibility and trains were delayed and out of their usual time slots. Vernon was travelling in the last carriage of an electric train, which was bound for Hayes, Kent. The train was brought to a halt at Parks Bridge junction, just outside Lewisham, due to a red signal.

A steam train headed for Ramsgate was approaching the same junction, travelling at about 35 miles per hour. It is believed to have passed two warning signals without slowing down. The driver probably missed these due to the poor visibility at the time. By the time that the steam train’s fireman noticed that the next signal was at red, it was too late to stop the train and it ploughed into the back of the stationary electric train. The impact was made worse by the fact that the electric train had engaged its brakes because it had stopped on an incline. The back two coaches of the electric train were destroyed.

The engine and first coach of the steam train were crushed together and thrown sideways, dislodging a bridge support and causing part of the bridge to collapse onto the steam train’s second and third coaches. A train approaching the bridge slowly on another line spotted the damage to the girders and was able to stop in time.

All three trains had been packed with City & West End workers and Christmas shoppers. It is estimated that there were nearly 1,500 passengers in the electric train and about 700 in the steam train. Ninety people, including Vernon, lost their lives in the accident and about two hundred people were injured.

This is a link to a video explaining how the accident happened https://youtu.be/ZxKRNkBr8Vc?si=auGrDOHdz4bnN9ei

This is a link to a Pathe news report about the accident https://youtu.be/zB4as3sCn_Q?si=HBkYj9gL0Rylppg4

A Court Appearance

 

A Court Appearance.

Henry Newland 1846 – 1930.

Henry was Stanley Newland’s grandfather. His name appeared in various newspapers, including The Times, in September 1885 when he appeared in court charged with disorderly conduct and causing a crowd to assemble. He was described as a tailor aged 35, living at 233, Southampton-street, Camberwell. He was actually about 40 years old, but the address and occupation are right. I’ve rewritten the article as the original is quite long and not very readable.

The prosecution called witnesses, who claimed that at about 7 o’clock on a Sunday evening, Henry was marching in front of a brass band in the Old Kent Road.

The first witness was a policeman, who was on duty at the time. He heard shouting and music and saw a band being led by Henry. The policeman asked Henry to order the band to stop playing as they were frightening two horses. Henry refused and pushed the policeman aside. Henry was taken into custody.

The policeman said that he had noticed a cornet and a big drum being played and that the drum made the most noise. People in the street were complaining about the noise. The defence suggested that the policeman may have caused the crowd to assemble by his interference in the situation and the policeman agreed that that may have been the case.

Another witness, William Thomas Overy, rag merchant, said that he was with his wife and family in the Old Kent-road when they were pushed about by the procession which consisted of boys and girls. Men were playing a cornet and a big drum and making a great noise. The defendant appeared to be leading them. The noise interfered with his comfort, and it frightened the horses of the tram car. He said that the band is a nuisance to everyone in the neighbourhood.

The magistrate enquired whether the band have a place of worship and the defence confirmed that they did but they also have a right to walk in the streets. Mr Bridge, the magistrate, thought that they had better confine their religious services to their place of worship. A third witness, Arthur How, umbrella maker, of Old Kent-road, also stated that the noise made by the procession greatly annoyed him.

Mr Bridge asked whether the defendant would promise not to annoy the public again with these processions, but the defence repeated that the band contended have a right to walk in the streets.

The magistrate stated that when they annoy the public, they should not do it and that the processions cause a great deal of bitterness. Henry refused to promise to stop.

The defence then went on to claim that the policeman acted in a most unwarrantable manner. The prisoner was marching in a proper and orderly manner when the officer seized the defendant and another young man without cause or reason.  It had been held by the Judges that religious bodies had a right to march through the streets singing and playing music.

The defence then called a number of witnesses to show that the procession was marching in an orderly manner, and that there was no occasion for the constable to interfere with it. If there was any disturbance or obstruction it was entirely through his conduct.

The magistrate observed that the question he had to deal with was whether the charge had been substantiated. He thought that under the circumstances the policeman had done his duty, although he did not think he had acted with discretion, as it would have been better to have taken the defendant's name and address than to have taken him into custody. It was clear that a breach of the peace had occurred. He should bind the defendant over in his own recognizances to keep the peace for six months. He advised the police on any future occasion to take the names and addressed of persons offending in this way and place the matter before the Public Prosecutor for the purpose of indicting them as a public nuisance. The magistrate refused to grant a case.