AMONG THE MORE revealing records to survive from nineteenth-century England are those created under the administration of the Poor Laws. We have already glimpsed one aspect of the dystopian Poor Law Act in my July 16 post: 'The Examination of Anne Wyer'. Here is another. Intended as administrative documents rather than family histories, Poor Law …
The RN Service History of Francis Wand FOR THOSE OF us interested in family history, there is something oddly compelling about official military service records. Unlike memoirs, they are not written to amuse or delight. Unlike family stories, they require no sentiment to soften the edges. They are, quite simply, administrative documents – written in …
Newly Discovered Photographs of Walter Sandall THE PAST RARELY yields its secrets in a single revelation. Instead, history tends to disclose itself one tantalising piece at a time. When I published Walter Sandall's story, I believed I had gathered together everything that remained of his military service. His Army records, family memories and official documents …
The Horseman who Rode East FOR MOST YOUNG men of the Lincolnshire fenlands in the early 1900s, life seemed destined never to carry them far from the place where they began. For Walter Sandall, that place was the quiet fenland village of Rippingale. Here, the rhythm of life was aligned to the seasons, the weather …
How a Forgotten Document brought a Young Woman to Life FAMILY HISTORIANS QUICKLY become accustomed to working with fragments of lives. A baptism tells us when someone entered the world; a marriage listing marks the beginning of a new family; a burial entry records the final chapter. Among genealogists these are known as 'hatches, matches …
The Double Sacrifice JOHN WILLIAM SANDALL is, in many ways, representative of countless young men from rural Lincolnshire whose lives followed the steady rhythm of the seasons until the First World War shattered the familiar order of things. He was a cousin of mine, and this is his story. JOHN WAS BORN at Rippingale in …
Changing Landscapes WHEN ROBERT WAND left Hacconby in September, 1914 he could scarcely have imagined that, two years later, the war that pundits considered would be ‘over by Christmas’ would continue to consume men at an unimaginable rate. Expected to last only a few months, the conflict had become one of endurance, measured not in …
The Horseman Goes to War IIN THE SUMMER of 1914, Hacconby and neighbouring Stainfield were quiet Lincolnshire farming communities whose rhythms had altered little for centuries. Spring brought ploughing and sowing. Summer promised long days for haymaking and harvest. Autumn filled the barns with wagonloads of grain and winter feed, while winter offered little respite …
From Farm Labourer to NCO SOMEWHERE AMONG THE rolling farmland of northern France, not far from a place called Vaurolet Farm, Sergeant Edward Ellis disappeared. There was no final letter home. No comrade was able to tell his parents exactly what befell him. And no grave marked the place where he met his end. 'Somewhere …
A Horseman of Hacconby AMONG THE NAMES carved upon the memorials of south Lincolnshire are men whose potentials were never realised, their lives cut short by war. Private Tom Hutchins was one such man. Tom was a young horseman working on one of the farms in the fen-edge village of Hacconby. He answered his country's …
RAVEN MOON 