Advent Calendar Day 15

Appropriate as it would have been my Dad's birthday today and he would have been 105.

I never thought about why Dad never talked about his father or I never saw him.  My grandmother never talked about him either.  I never even thought to ask; I wouldn't have understood about illegitimacy and its social slur during my childhood.  Even as a teenager and adult I never queried and asked; I suppose I just thought that one day something would be said if there was anything to tell.  I also wasn't doing family history to know that no birth father was listed on his birth certificate.  It wasn't until mid to late 1990s that I was told by Dad that  he had been doing a bit of research himself but couldn't do the travelling to Scotland any more. Thus was my start of getting hooked with family history.

Frank Grieve Jackson

Dad never knew his biological father although Frank didn't die until 1947. Dad so resembled his father in his facial features that I often do a double take when I look at this photo.

My father did remember a man on a motorbike who visited him at his foster parents, Alfred Crouch and Blanche Braban, when he was quite a young boy and apparently that was his father.  My grandmother never spoke about Frank and my father was only given his name when he was conscripted in World War II and needed it for the records. 

Frank was born in 1873 in Kilbarchan, Renfrewshire to Robert Jackson and Helen Telfer.  He was one of nine; six girls and three boys.  He was the youngest one. 

Not much is known about Frank as the only story I have is as the man on the motorbike. I have found the usual genealogy facts  from bmd records and certificates, census records and his Will but nothing else.  We only have one photo of him and one newspaper cutting for his obituary in 1947 that were with my grandmother's possessions when she died in 1975. 

Frank's obituary stated:    Kent Sheepbreader dies,  A member of the Kent or Romney Marsh Sheepbreeders' Association, Mr Frank Grieve Jackson, of Wytherling Court, Molash, died on Saturday, aged 74.  A bachelor, he came from Scotland to farm at Molash 28 years ago and had many friends in East Kent.  Following a service at Molash Church on Wednesday, cremation was at Charing, the only relations present being two nephews from Scotland.

Although Frank was born in Renfrewshire, the family moved closer to Glasgow where he went into partnership with his brother in a general drapers store. 

In 1901 he was unmarried and with his mother and brother, James, in 4 Kildonan Terrace, Govan (Glasgow) and both James and himself were drapers and clothiers at 80-82 Gallowgate, Glasgow.

 

Kildonan Terrace in days gone by.

My father did get a copy of the will written in 1902 but the handwriting was difficult to read.  The will was written in Feb 1902 and he was still living at 4 Kildonan Terrace.  His brothers Robert and James and sister Christina Jackson or Clark and sister Mary Jackson or Callan/Callum were all mentioned in his will.

In 1911 he was a visitor to a farm in Hastings.  The occupants originally came from Scotland close to where Frank lived as a child.  His occupation was listed as Draper retired (he was only 38!!) 

He later moved down to Molash, Kent where he became a well known sheep breeder and farmer. 

Wytherling Court Farm location

Wytherling Court Farm was not so very far away from the area the White family lived at Chilham.

I wonder how a sheep farmer coped in the blizzarding conditions in Kent in 1927-28: snow fell mid December in England and Wales, and on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, a blizzard raged in Southern England, from Kent to Cornwall.

There are a lot of newspaper articles about his sheep winning or being placed in agricultural show competitions.

He sold his farm in 1944 but continued to live in Wytherling Court, Molash.

Kent Messenger Notice 

The burning questions for me are why did he change occupation and move to Kent which was presumably where and why he met my grandmother; in what circumstances did they meet; why did he not keep in touch?  These are all questions that can never be answered now. 😢