A double tragedy

As we know Samuel Hamlet was killed in an accident with winding gear at Tipton Green Colliery. I have been researching his children and I have discovered that his son John aged 8 was drowned in the pit shaft at the same colliery in 1859, three years before the death of his father. The death certificate quotes from the coroner that  "how he got in the said water  no evidence to shew".

Why did Joseph Hamlet change his name

During the course of his life between 1850 and 1933, Joseph Hamlet changed his name  several times

1845 Samuel’s marriage certificate    Hamblet
1850 Joseph’s birth certificate                 Hamlet
1851 Census                                           Hamlett
1861 Census                                           Amphlett
1862 Samuel’s death certificate              Hamlet
1862 Birmingham Daily Post                  Amblett
1871 Census                                          Hamlet

1873 Joseph’s marriage certificate        Hamlinton

1881 Census                                          Hamilton

1887 Walter’s birth certificate                Hambilton

1891 Census                                         Hamblington

1901 Census                                         Hamlinton

1911 Walter’s marriage certificate         Hamilton

1911 Census                                         Hamilton
1933 Joseph's death certificate             Hamilton

 

According to my father, my grandfather Walter, Joseph's son, was always very insistent that despite the fact that some people used variations, the family name was Hamilton. This wasn't true, and indeed Walter's own birth certificate Hambilton. Indeed Joseph's own marriage certificate to Sarah Emily Mills has Hamilton crossed out and replaced by Hamlinton. We had assumed that the variations were the result of sloppy enumerators, but there is one further twist. Joseph's  birth certificate gives his name as Joseph; his marriage certificate gives his name as Joseph, Walter's birth certificate gives his name as Joseph, and his death certificate gives his name as Joseph. My father who is named after him always refers to him as "Old Joe". But on Walter's marriage certificate his name is given as Thomas Joseph. Why? Is there some dark secret that made Joseph change his name when he moved from Tipton to West Bromwich?

 

I think that we who were born Hamiltons are unlikely to want to change back to Hamlet, but I did waste a lot of time in my youth supporting Hamilton Academicals unnecessarily.

 

The great greats

I'm about to start filling the gaps in the stories of the great great grandparents. There are of course 16 of them.  Some of them , like Samuel Hamlet, James Timmins, William Jasper and James Morris the chainmaker, we know something about. We even have two photographs of James Morris, but the others, especially the women need a deeper look. The sixteen are:

Paternal

Samuel Hamlet and Sarah Whitehouse
William Mills and Elizabeth Webb
James Timmins and Ann Worrall
Thomas Cotterill and Hannah Tompkinson

Maternal

Benjamin Billingham and Harriet Easthope
William Jasper and Mirah Edwards
James Morris and Sarah Little
William Perry and Elizabeth Partridge

The Hamilton Story part 1

The Hamilton Story

Let’s start with the Hamiltons as Julia and I were born with the surname Hamilton, although that turns out not to be quite right

Dad has written elsewhere about his childhood in Roebuck Street, growing up in the 1920s and 30s.

Walter Hamilton

Dad’s father was Walter Hamilton, born on 30^th September 1887 and registered as Walter Hambilton, although he always said the family name was Hamilton and spelt it Hamilton himself. Walter married Lily Gertrude Timmins on 2^nd January 1911, and they lived the rest of their married lives at 17 Roebuck Street, with eventually nine children

Arthur               1911-1991

Dorothy            1914-2001

Alfred               1916-1980

Frederick          1918-1979

Dad

Stanley             1923-1997

Norman             1926-1995

Betty                1929-2003

The Youngest

I haven’t included any personal details on this blog about anyone who is still alive

Walter died in 1966 and Gert in 1969.

Joseph Hamilton

Walter’s father was Joseph Hamilton. He was colliery engine driver at Sandwell Park Colliery. Joseph was born on 11^th February 1850 at Tividale in Tipton. He married Sarah Emily Mills on 2^nd November 1873 in Dudley Parish Church.

In 1871 Joseph was living with his mother and his sister Mercy in Sedgley Road East in Tipton, his father having died.

In 1881 Joseph was married and living at 10 Groveland Road Tipton , with his wife and the first three children, Emma, Thomas and Alfred.

By 1891 the family had moved to West Bromwich, to 74 Roebuck Street with their children Thomas, Alfred, Ernest, Emma, Sarah, Joseph, Walter and Eva. Joseph’s wife, Sarah Emily was, according to Dad, always known as Emily. At this time her mother Elizabeth Mills was living with them.

In 1901 they are at no 41 and have one more child Lilian, she who allegedly ran off to Tenbury Wells with the money.

Joseph died on 25^th January 1933 aged 83.

It is Joseph who was probably responsible for the variations in our name, together with some fairly slapdash census enumerators.

1845 Samuel’s marriage certificate         Hamblet

1850 Joseph’s birth certificate                Hamlet

1851 Census                                         Hamlett

1861 Census                                         Amphlett

1862 Samuel’s death certificate              Hamlet

1862 Birmingham Daily Post                  Amblett

1871 Census                                         Hamlet

1873 Joseph’s marriage certificate         Hamlinton

1881 Census                                         Hamilton

1887 Walter’s birth certificate                 Hambilton

1891 Census                                         Hamblington

1901 Census                                         Hamlinton

1911 Walter’s marriage certificate           Hamilton

1911 Census                                         Hamilton

1933 Joseph’s death certificate             Hamilton

Roebuck Street

In 1911 the Hamiltons were living at a number of properties in Roebuck Street and probably owned a few more. The 1911 census wasn’t available when Mandy started doing this and it gives us some useful information. Joseph, Emily (Sarah) are living at no 66. Some of the children have married and left home, and of these two are living in Roebuck Street, Walter at no 17 and Ernest at no 102. Later Walter’s son Arthur lived at no ? and we lived at no 85.

Samuel Hamlet

Joseph’s father was Samuel Hamlet. He was also a pit engineer at Tipton Green Colliery.

Samuel was born around 1827. This was of course before the registration of births, and we think that he was born at Charlton in Shropshire (according to the 1851 census). The 1861 census however gives a completely different birthplace. The transcribers have it down as illegible, but it’s possible that it says Wrockwardine in Shropshire. St Peter’s church in Wrockwardine was (is) the parish for Charlton. A Samuel Hamblett was christened there is 1818, according to the IGI. There was also a Samuel Amphlett christened at St Thomas in Dudley (where Samuel got married), on 26^th December 1830. This baby had a father called John, and we know from Samuel’s marriage certificate that his father was called John.

Samuel married Sarah Whitehouse on 10^th August 1845 in Dudley Parish Church. Samuel and Sarah were both living in New Hall Street Dudley at the time of their marriage.

I can’t find anyone on the 1841 census that I can definitely say is Samuel.

The 1851 census shows Samuel and Sarah living in Tividale with two children Samuel Jnr aged 4 and Joseph aged 1. Samuel’s place of birth is given as Charlton in Shropshire, and Sarah was born in Tipton. By 1861 they have moved to Park Lane Tipton and have another child Mercey.

Samuel died tragically, on 18^th January 1862 as a result of a accident at work. The Birmingham Daily Post of 23^rd January 1862 wrote it up as follows. The paper, as well as giving him yet another spelling, says he had six children, but I have only been able to identify three.

FATAL COLLIERY ACCIDENT – On Saturday evening last, there occurred an accident at the Tipton Green Colliery, which cost the life of a married man, with six children, named Samuel Amblett. Deceased was employed at Mr. Edward Williams’s colliery, at the above-named place, and was highly respected. He was engaged on Saturday morning at about eleven o’clock, in his usual duties as engineer of the colliery, when, by some means or other, he became entangled in the revolving arms of the cylinder upon which the pit rope is wound, and, before he was extricated, he was so severely injured that all possible chance of the resuscitation of life was gone.

John Hamlet

Samuel’s marriage certificate (1845) gives his father’s name as John. He is deceased by then, and he was also an engine man.  I haven’t yet been able to find John. As Samuel was born around 1818, I would guess that John was born around 1790.

Part 2 will take the Hamiltons further back, probably into Shropshire.