Direct Line Ancestral Names

 Trying to find different ways to show the family names that I am interested in researching.  Shows my surnames back as far as my 3x great grandparents.

Finders ........not Keepers!!!

 Joseph Weston, nephew to Zacharias who you can read about here and also a railway employee, sounds like a man you could trust.  In 1935 The Hastings and St Leonards Observer reported that he found an abandoned attache case whilst patrolling the line between Etchingham and Roberstbridge stations and handed it in.  It was reported that the case belong to Alice Cole, district nurse for the area, who had had it stolen from her car.  The car was parked two doors up from Robertsbridge Station.  Interesting for me, my grandparents, my mother and my aunt were living in that house and they were all great friends of hers and this is the first time I had heard what her first name was!!!

Joseph is a first cousin twice removed to me and was born in April 1878 and died in 1972, another long living Weston!  His parents were John Weston and Mary Ann Humphrey.  He married Mary Maria Relf in 1904 and they had 7 children; 6 girls and 1 boy.  The men were well and truly outnumbered!!

In 1901 he was a platelayer working on the railways and living at Etchingham and could well have been working in the same gang as is uncle Zacharias.  In the 1939 Register, at the start of World War 2, he was recorded as a railway lengthsman and living at Rother View in Etchingham.

Joseph Weston is the man on the left. In the front row next to him is Ernie Wells, his son in law.  On the opposite end on the right is Farmer Croft.  On the back row on the far right is Will Eastwood.  Can you identify the others?  (Credit to Etchingham in Bye-gone Days Flickr site here.)

Platelayers and lengthsmen were responsible for a section of railway track and it could be dangerous work.  They needed to be careful they were standing clear from passing trains and not slip onto the tracks when working or not get crushed between carriages or trucks if stationery trains started moving.

My Pedigree Tree coloured by county of birth

 What a different way of viewing this and makes for something that might even interest those family members who aren't currently interested.

Dates UK censuses were taken

 

United Kingdom censuses are  held every 10 years. The census records relate to the persons whereabouts on the date given below:

 1801 - 10th March Tuesday

1811 - 27th May Monday

1821 - 28th May Monday

1831 - 30th May Monday

1841 - 6th June Sunday

1851 - 30th March Sunday

1861 - 7th April Sunday

1871 - 2nd April Sunday

1881 - 3rd April Sunday

1891 - 5th April Sunday

1901 - 31st March Sunday

1911 - 2nd April Sunday

1921 - 19th June Sunday (publication date 1st January 2022)

1931 - 26th April Sunday (publication date 1st January 2032)

1939 - 29th September World War II National Registration (publication date 1st January 2040)

1941 - no census taken due to World War II.

1951 - 8th April (publication date 1st January 2052)

1961 - 23rd April (publication date 1st January 2062)

1971 - 25th April (publication date 1st January 2072)

1981 - 5th April (publication date 1st January 2082)

1991 - 21st April (publication date 1st January 2092)

2001 - 29th April (publication date 1st January 2102)

2011 - 27th March Sunday

2021 - 21st March Sunday

Lewes Avalanche 1836

 I don't have many ancestors that come from the Lewes area but I worked there for 15 years and this disaster is part of the heritage of the town.

The deadliest avalanche in British history took place, not in the mountains of Scotland or Wales as you may expect, but in 1836 in the town of Lewes, Sussex, just a few miles from the south coast of England.
During the winter of 1836/7 Britain suffered some of its worst weather ever recorded, with freezing temperatures, heavy snow and gale force winds.
On Christmas Eve 1836 a huge storm blew up over southern England. Heavy snowfall and gale force winds combined to produce blizzards and massive snow drifts.
The town of Lewes is situated on the River Ouse, surrounded by the hills of the South Downs. By Christmas night 1836 the north-easterly blizzard had built up a deep layer of snow on the sheer edge of one of these hills, Cliffe Hill. The great overhanging mass of snow was reportedly around 20 feet deep.
Boulder Row, a row of seven workers’ cottages on South Street, stood at the foot of Cliffe Hill. These houses were ‘poor houses’ and were owned by South Malling Parish.
It soon became obvious to passers-by that the cottages were in danger from this huge overhang of snow. They alerted the residents and advised them to move out until the snow had melted. The residents refused, even when on 26th December, a large fall of snow from the clifftop fell onto a nearby timber yard, destroying it and sweeping it into the River Ouse.
The following day at 10.15am the inevitable happened; the huge weight of snow fell, swamping the cottages of Boulder Row below.
How many people were in the cottages at the time is unknown, but contemporary reports indicate that fifteen people were inside when the avalanche struck.
According to witnesses, the cottages were physically swept into the road by a huge wave of snow, leaving nothing to be seen except an enormous white heap. A mammoth rescue effort lasting seven hours managed to save seven people, but eight others perished from suffocation under the weight of snow.
The fatalities included people with the family names Barnden, Bridgman and Geer, while survivors included a young labourer Jeremiah Rooke, a middle-aged woman named Fanny Sherlock (or Sharlock) and a two-year-old child, Fanny Boakes, believed to be Sherlock's granddaughter (the 1841 census records two people matching these names and ages living at the same address in South Street) The white dress Fanny Boakes was wearing when she was rescued is on display in the Anne of Cleves House museum in Lewes, along with a contemporary painting of the tragedy.
Their names are recorded on a commemorative tablet, funded by public subscription, on the inside wall of South Malling parish church, one mile away, where the funeral and burial took place. A fund was set up to provide financial aid to the survivors and bereaved families.
Today a pub called the Snowdop Inn stands on the site of Boulder Row. The inn was built in 1840 and named in commemoration of the disaster.

Zacharias Weston 1857-1933

 Zacharias was my great great uncle. He was born 1 March1857 in Etchingham and died in 1933.   His parents were Samuel Weston (1806-1894) and Sarah Newick (1818-1897)  He married Emily Jane Kemp in 1887  Zacharias and Emily Jane had 9 children of which 7 were still living in 1911.  He died a widower, aged 76, in 1933 and left behind 5 daughters and 2 sons.  He had been a railwayman for 45 years.

He was a railway platelayer in 1881 and lived with his parents in Garners Cottages, Etchingham.  In 1891 he was living with his wife and family at Church House Cottages, Etchingham and was still a platelayer.  In 1901 he was living at Hammerden Cottage, Stonegate, Ticehurst and was still a platelayer.  In 1911 he was a railway labourer but that could still have been a platelayer.  He was a Sapper in the Royal Engineers during World War 1..  

Plate layers were trackmen. Some early railway lines were of wood, capped with metal plates to protect the wood from wear. The men who laid the track were therefore called "platelayers". The name stuck, even though that form of construction soon went out of favour.

The upkeep of the rails, sleepers, plates and permanent way are vital to the safe running of trains A plate layer would be responsible for all aspects of track maintenance such as replacing worn out rails or rotten sleepers, packing to ensure a level track, weeding and clearance of the drains etc. There was little available to them in the way of mechanical assistance in those days and it often involving arduous and uncomfortable work. They were usually assigned to each mile or two miles of track, with a platelayers' hut as shelter and working base. These were generally a single room, immediately adjacent to the running lines, equipped with a table, chairs, and a simple heating stove.

The status and pay of a platelayer, fixing and maintaining the track day in day out, was far lower that the engineman driving the train passed him.

Etchingham station building dates from 1851, when both the station and the first section of the Hastings line opened.