When some families fall apart, for whatever reason, some connections, very strong ones usually, remain.
This might be particularly so with large families. But not always. Family fallouts can be hostile, or they can quietly drift apart – like ice floes in the Arctic, never to be joined again.
It could be that these fall outs were never engineered, but just happened because someone had had enough with their lot in life. Then again, those fallouts might have been engineered by the hierarchal behaviour of others.
I’m writing this while trying to understand the fall outs in my own, birth, family. That is not the subject of this blog, but it does help me to think about what possible fall outs might have taken place in generations of my family from the past. Many famous psychologists, philosophers and politicians sought references in Shakespeare and ancient Rome to help paint pictures of family relationships within Royal families and political organisations.
Of the generations that I write about, the one that intrigues me the most is the Walker family, my grandmother’s paternal family, who, from a small beginning in Rotherhithe on the south banks of the Thames just downstream from the Pool of London, went into commerce on a big enough scale to have offices close to the London Bridge wharves. My Great Great Grandfather left a significant estate to share with two of his three sons. One of them was greatly sought after to give him his share.
My great Uncle Frederick was born in Croydon, Surrey in 1859, 165 years ago. He was the third child of six that were born to Samuel and Emma Walker. By the time he was born his father was well advanced into creating his career as a provision broker, or wholesaler. His older brother Samuel and younger one, Cornelius, my great grandfather, also went into the provision wholesale business. Frederick did not.
Frederick is the only person in my family history who I have discovered so far to have benefitted from a private education. At the age of eleven he was a boarder at the Protestant Grammar School in Shoreham. According to the1871 Census return he was one of 92 boys boarding at the school. I imagine the dormitories were crowded.
What Frederick did next, I don’t know. He may have left school at the age of 15 and gone to work in his father’s business. I can only guess. But I do know that he left home at the age of 19 to go to sea. I have written previously in the post titled ‘A Will and a Codicil’ –
I have previously mapped out the Walkers when they lived in Hackney. At this time Frederick was a boarder at a private grammar school in Shoreham. I cannot help thinking that Samuel Walker was becoming a wealthy man to be able to send his son to a private school. I have not found any other evidence that Frederick’s brothers and sister were also privately educated.
I have no idea what Frederick did after school, but I have found an entry in the Register of Apprentices Indentured in Merchant Navy. Frederick is entry 4256 and he was bound to Thomas Griffith and Company of Liverpool on 18th December 1877 for four years. He sailed to Australia on the Sailing Ship Alumina (merchant shipping registry number 50297) and at Port Victor (now known as Victor Harbour, south of Adelaide) he deserted his ship on 15th April 1878.
So, at the age of 19 Frederick went to sea. Four months after signing up as an apprentice, he deserts his ship. It seems, from my limited research, that deserting ship in Australia was a frequent method of gaining a free passage.
Frederick’s family had no contact with him, or if they did, he never told them where he was living. When his father died, leaving Frederick a half share of his estate, a very considerable sum of money, there was no knowledge of his whereabouts. His father, Samuel Walker, had left clear instruction in his will that a sum of money, about £2000 in today’s value, be set aside to fund attempts to find him. All that was known was that he was still in Australia.
By the end of his first year in Australia, 1878, Frederick appears to have been arrested in Kent Town, a suburb of Adelaide which was north of Port Victor where he had jumped ship. In The South Australian Police Gazette of November 1878, Frederick appears to have been working as a labourer. There is a good description of what he looked like.
Excerpt from the Police Gazette. I am uncertain who Frederick Bricknall was but I wonder if he was pursuing my great uncle for breach of contract as a labourer.
The next part of the story is thanks to my family history tutor at Strathclyde University, Ronnie Scott, who has read my story about Frederick leaving for Australia, and has helpfully pointed me to the free newspaper Archive in Australia called Trove, where evidence of those attempts to find Frederick are to be found.
This advert appeared four times in the Brisbane Courier and The Queenslander between February and March 1889.
What Frederick was doing in Augathella, I have no idea. It is a rural town with a population of less than 400 and is quite a distance from where Frederick set foot in 1878. If he was last heard of in Augathella in 1881 (according to the advert in the Brisbane Courier) then who told the solicitors that?
This illustrates the big mystery for me and leaves too many unanswered questions.
Firstly, why did he leave Britain for Australia? He had a strong family with stability. He had been educated at a private grammar school. What happened when he left school until the age of 18 when he signed up as an apprentice seaman? Did a fall out with his family make him want to leave the country?
Of course, there might have been a simple answer to all these questions. Frederick may well have been an adventurous soul with a wanderlust. However, he did fall foul of the law as a deserter from his ship, so he had to pay some consequences.
Frederick’s father, Samuel Walker died in 1888. The adverts searching for Frederick appeared in 1889. His last known place where he lived was in Augathella, in 1881.
What did separate him from his family? A fall out or was he like a separating ice floe ?
One certainty is that his father loved him enough to want him to be found so that he could have his share of the inheritance.