As much of the countryside between Middlesbrough and Whitby seems to have been designated the “Captain Cook Heritage Trail” we decided that our own travels this week constituted the Joseph Potter Heritage Trail. We had a full and rewarding time with excellent weather and I’m sure that John and Marion will both have something to say about their impressions.
Todays new extract from the Newman family history website comes from the London and Southwark section
A brief biography on four generations who shared the same significant first name. Click here to view the article.
This historic photograph taken on Boxing Day 1910, shows four generations of Newman, each bearing the name Hugh whose lives span a period of a century and a half. The first Newman of our family to be given this name was Hugh Newman (1689-1746), a bricklayer and builder of Epsom. The name passed to several cousins and nephews, who took pride in his success, and provides a link between the family before and after its move to London.
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Progress on preparing the text for the book is moving steadily. It is effectively complete but I am still tweaking sections, adding new information and trying to sort out the illustrations. Monty Newman in Australia and I have had a couple of profitable face-to-face exchanges on Skype; Marion Sumpter is carefully proof reading chapter by chapter and Adam Livick-Newman has promised to come and see me before the month is out.
As you will see from the attached photo, I have pretty regular assistance from Gregory, my Aquatic Armenian cat from Lake Van, whose pedigree is almost as long as the Newmans. My desk, is piled high with files, photos and books, all needed for navigating through the growing branches of the family tree. The word count currently stands at 61,000 words.
The idea that one has somehow reached an end point is just not tenable as most days bring something new. Yesterday’s post brought revealed the discovery of a previously unknown document referring to our remotest ancestor, Robert Newman the elder; whilst today’s post delivered three more BMD certificates, not to mention emails !
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News posted today by Seraphim Newman-Norton that the tour around Yorkshire will begin next Tuesday
Next week, John Townsend (Hereford), Marion Sumpter (Falmouth) and I will be visiting sites in North Yorkshire associated with Joseph Potter. We will be staying just outside Middlesborough but plan to visit Stokesley in Cleveland, where Joseph was born in 1769; Great Ayton, where he lived with his aunt and uncle and attended school; and Whitby, where he first went to sea in 1788. Armed with his own account of these early years, we hope to understand how the local landscape influenced this ancestor’s choices. Although much will have changed in the intervening 240 years, we hope there will be sufficient “footprints” to guide us time travellers. Watch this space, as we shall report back on our potterings in the North !
Keep an eye out for new photos and information when available on our forums, fingers crossed for new discoveries and an insight on Joseph Potters birth place.
Todays new extract from the Newman family history website comes from the Joseph Potter section
Joseph Potter recalls an uncle who made his fortune in eighteenth century London as a diamond cutter as well as two of Joseph’s half-brothers who inherited his wealth.
In his Memoirs, recalling the year 1792, Joseph Potter writes:
“We arrived safe in the River Thames and moor’d her abreast of the Tower of London. It came into my mind concerning a rich uncle I had in London which I had never seen, likewise two of my father’s oldest sons of his first wife’s children, Thomas and Ralph Potter …… He died possessed of about one hundred thousand pounds besides all Bell Alley, Coleman Street, belonged to him. He died when I was an infant and my mother alive, but Thomas and Ralph never once wrote to acquaint my mother with his death as the two shared the effects between them….”
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Todays new extract from the Newman family history website comes from the London and Southwark section
Hugh Newman, was Court Crier of the Rolls Court, but met his end at his own hands.
Hugh Newman (1778-1827) was the fourth son of John & Margaret Newman. He was six when the family moved to London. In 1805 he married a young widow, Ann Mathews, who bore him one son before her own early death. Hugh was employed as Porter and Court Keeper (Crier) of the Rolls Court in Chancery Lane, Westminster but lived with his infant son, George, in the same house as his brother-in-law, William Leedle, in Gibraltar Row, St. George’s Fields, Southwark.
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Todays new extract from the Newman family history website comes from the Distaff & families descended from Newmans section.
Between 1850-1900 the population of Australia rose from 405,000 to 3.7 million, the majority of whom came from emigrants from the British Isles.
Between 1850-1900 the population of Australia rose from 405,000 to 3.7 million, the majority of whom came from emigrants from the British Isles. One of these was Mary Jane Newman (1851-1905), eldest surviving daughter of Samuel John Newman (1826-1886) and Mary Jane Pollard. At the age of 17 she undertook the fourteen week voyage, probably disembarking at Melbourne in March 1868.
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Todays new extract from the Newman family history website comes from the London and Southwark section.
Thomas George Newman (1840-1933), like his grandfather, Joseph Potter, answered the call of the sea to serve as an Able Seaman in the Royal Navy.
Thomas George Newman (1840-1933) was the fourth and youngest son of Samuel Hugh Newman and Elizabeth Myres Potter. As a grandson of Joseph Potter, doubtless he had been told many tales by his grandfather. Bored with school, from which he frequently truanted, and unhappy with living with an aunt who seemed to favour her dogs more than him, he began to think of running away to sea. Twice he set off for Chatham Dockyard but at that time was not tall enough to serve, so was brought back until, finally, having grown to 5 foot 6 inches tall, he was accepted on HMS Waterloo as a Boy 2 Class on 9 August 1857 for ten year’s service.
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Joseph Potter was not only an important link between the older generation of Newmans and their later descendants, but also a remarkable character himself.
Here is an extract from our new website article on London in the 1840s to read more please click here.
Between 1843-1857 Samuel Hugh Newman and his family, lived at various addresses in Ship Yard, Strand. Ship Yard took its name from the Ship Tavern, which stood at the south corner, just at the east end of Butcher’s Row (which fronted the Strand to the rear of St. Clement Dane’s Church). To the left, marking the junction of Strand and Fleet Street, stood the historic Temple Bar. From the Strand, Ship Yard was barely visible as it was entered through a narrow archway beneath 246 Strand, the double-fronted Temple House, then occupied by Griffiths, Linen Draper. Ship Yard’s narrow entry gave on to a tiny court on the right before turning sharply to the left and opening out into a street almost as wide as Butcher’s Row itself. Its importance was increased, however, by the fact that it wasn’t a cul-de-sac but debouched into Little Shear or Shire Lane (a thoroughfare joining Boswell Court on the west with Shire Lane on the east).
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