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LOL Janey - He was a well respected lover of food and ale - he also owned a pub!
Okay, there is one of the greatest humanitarians I could put in my tree.
Not a direct descendant of mine, but of my children.
The father of my children is apparently a direct descendant of Charles Stewart Parnell.
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One of my ancestors was Florence Fenwick Miller, a Victorian feminist. In 1871 she joined Sophia Jex-Blakes campaign to open Britain's medical schools to women and to seek matriculation at the University of Edinburgh. There is quite a bit more about her on google as a Rosemary T Van Arsdel has written her biography. I would buy the book, but is is quite expensive.
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Cooper -- your grx3 and my grx2 grfather must have known each other! (I think this makes me old ...)
Mine was from Essex, born c1821, and was a shoemaker in 1841, a police constable in 1861 and 1871 (blamed if I can re-locate him in the 1851) -- and by the 1881 census he was a boot maker.
Always thought his daughter was an odd choice of bride for my gr-grfather, a recent military deserter living under an assumed name ...
I should get you to tell me how to find out more, shouldn't I?
Now those WWI dead, like my gr-uncle, gased in France a mere 3 weeks or so before the Armistice ... I do think of them as victims rather than heroes.
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Oh! I was missing page 2. ;)
A Victorian feminist -- now *that* is more like it. Excellent!
ValerieM, you could try pitching a small fit and stamping your feet and saying "I wanna book" as I have done about the book that my efforts led to Allan's pictures being in. Hasn't worked so far. Of course, I could always just ask the author nicely.
"Charles Stewart Parnell" ... yes, I have to google now .. sounds kind of Civil War? ... well, in a manner of speaking, not the civil war I had in mind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stewart_Parnell
"He was one of the most important figures in 19th century Ireland and Great Britain and described by Prime Minister William Gladstone as the most remarkable person he had ever met."
See what learning I get by asking obscure questions?
If only someone would explain those Fenians to me:
"From August 1877 Parnell held a number of private meetings with prominent Fenian leaders."
They're mixed into Canadian history of the era somehow, I clearly remember it being in my grade 6 or 7 or 8 history curriculum, and I equally clearly remember never grasping a clue of what that was about at all.
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My fourth cousin Leonard (Len) Gristey was the London Area Organizer of the trade union APEX . During the bitter dispute that began in 1976 between the down-trodden workers and management of Grunwick and lasted almost 2 years. This was the union that the mostly Asian female workers had joined in their fight for better pay and conditions that they had put up with so long.
After the first woman Jayaben Desal walked out in protest she was followed soon after by the rest of her colleagues and they joined APEX in order to have some representation for their dispute. The media dubbed them as 'strikers in saris'.
Len along with others organized picket rotas, meetings and regular bulletins for the strikers. The strikers nicknamed him 'Elbow' as he was always telling them he had something else up his sleeve to further their cause !
In a conversation with my brother his wife said of Len 'that he was always for others- 15 years service in the Army and 25 years as a trade union representative.'
There is an article on the background to the strike at -
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/20/asian-women-trade-unions-grunwick
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I have a direct ancestry who at the age of 12 carried the Engkish flag at the battle of Waterloo. The same family have had people in the Army,and the Navy at various levels and one of my sons has continued this tradition.
A great grandmother was a midwife and was so appalled at the lack of support that she eventually started mother and child care at home in the area she lived in.
Maybe not famous but still important was my great grandfather who helped to design the Great Western Railway into Paddington Station.
if I am in the UK go if possible and walk around the building and the station and feel my great grandfather is with me.
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Terrific!
I couldn't get the link to work but careful googling found it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/20/asian-women-trade-union-grunwick
Looks the same to me ... also found the obituary of Jayaben Desai, who died last December. Congratulations to your cousin; immigrant women workers (here in Canada too) are usually the most exploited, and feel neglected by both the trade union and the women's movements.
Not an ancestor of mine, but a dear old friend ... Jim A was one of the cohabitants of the big old mansion he and I and 16 other close friends rented as students, with assorted dogs and cats and a guinea pig and a raccoon, in 1970.
My parents visited the first spring we were there, after a period of estrangement on my father's part due to my, er, lifestyle. My dad got out of the car and took one look around him ... it was spring cleanup weekend, time to dispose of the mountain of green garbage bags that had accumulated over the winter, etc., and Jim A was up on an old ladder taking down the storm windows ... with his long blonde hair (and bangs), in a pink and turquoise satin shorty kimono and bellbottom jeans with some missing bum. My dad got back in the car and refused to come out.
When we were waiting for trains to pass at the nearby level crossing, railway workers would throw lipstick at Jim from the caboose.
Well, he abandoned his philosophy studies, having spent his student loans on stereos and such, and went to work in a factory and joined the union. Eventually, he became president of the District Labour Council in my home town. And then at 45 he was struck down by the heart condition that had taken his dad at the same age. There is now a street named after him, a scholarship for union members' kids, and other honours.
My dad used to tell me all about him when he was in the news. ;)
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And an activist midwife! Yes, exactly. Maternal and infant mortality were a scourge of our ancestors' lives, and women like that were lifesavers.
I don't believe we saw Paddington Station when we were in London 15 years ago, but I must say *all* English train stations, from the tiny perfect 19th century things like in Wellingborough and Worksop where we caught trains to big impressive ones in London -- I think King's Cross and Waterloo were where we ventured forth from -- were lovely.
Well, except for the loos. Ew.
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Janey C
How tragic your friend was taken so young, but no doubt he achieved much in his short life that made a difference to many. That I think is what counts in this life, not to make a fortune but to make a difference for the good of all.
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