Memories of Dad

Today the 19th December 2021 would have been my Dad’s 94th birthday but sadly he passed away 4 years ago, a day before his 90th birthday. In the week before he died I was able to visit and be with him. As my body was still adjusted to European time I offered to sit with Dad during the night so that my sister could get some much needed sleep. I would lay on the couch next to his bed and hold his hand, a treasured memory. My niece Breanna had put a playlist of golden oldie songs on Dad’s telephone so that he could listen to some background music. Sometimes during the night I could hear him softly singing along or tapping with his hand to the beat. Whenever I hear some of these songs they bring me back to this moment and to memories of my Dad, golden memories. One song in particular was very poignant ‘If ever I would leave you’ by Robert Meadmore from the musical Camelot, hear are the lyrics - ‘If ever I would leave you, it wouldn't be in summer. Seeing you in summer I never would go. Your hair streaked with sun-light, your lips red as flame, your face with a luster. That puts gold to shame. But if I'd ever leave you, it couldn't be in autumn. How I'd leave in autumn I never will know. I've seen how you sparkle, when fall nips the air. I know you in autumn, and I must be there. And could I leave you running merrily through the snow Or on a wintry evening when you catch the fire's glow If ever I would leave you, how could it be in spring-time Knowing how in spring I'm bewitched by you so Oh, no! not in spring-time. Summer, winter or fall. No, never could I leave you at all. No, never could I leave you at all.’ Sadly Dad, you had to leave us, but now Mum is with you again and your memories will always live with us in our hearts.

A Veritable Amazon

In his 1930's book about Kent Windmills and their Millers, William Coles Finch interviewed an 81 year old miller called John James Freeman who recounted stories about his Freeman 'Miller' ancestors and particularly mentioned his grandmother Sarah Freeman whom he recalled was a "veritable amazon", had 21 children and lived to be 101, a masterful woman of wonderful personality." The author also said that he gleaned so much information about Chatham windmills from John J. Freeman and that he never saw eighty-one years set more happily on a man than they did upon him - active, robust and with a memory far more ready than his own in recalling the past. John J. Freeman's grandmother was my 4 x great grandmother and through historical research I have indeed confirmed that she lived to the grand old age of 101, she was born in 1771 and died on the 13th February 1873 leaving a last Will and Testament which I will later discuss. As yet I haven't been able to find all her 21 children, 13 children where born and baptised in the Frinsdbury, Strood area where her husband William worked as a Miller, but considering the fact that she would have been 28 when the eldest of these was born then I am sure that she would have had more children before this time, probably born in another location. As I said Sarah was born in 1771 probably in Southwark, London, which lies south of the river. On the 1851 census though, her birth place was given as Strood in Kent, her age was given as 79 and she was residing with Thomas Godden and his wife Martha in Frindsbury, Kent, I am still trying to find a connection between Thomas Godden and Sarah as he was also one of the Executors in Sarah's Will. In both the 1861 and 1871 census her birth place is given as London, and the 1861 census is more specific in mentioning Tooley Street, Southwark which is also the area known as Bermondsey. In 1861 Sarah was a lodger by Ebenezer Moulton and his family together with her Grandaughter Mary Ann Freeman in Chatham, Kent. In 1871, aged 99 she is residing with her daughter Hester Duly in Rochester, Kent. I have surmised and changed Sarah's maiden name many times during my research, for a long time I thought that it was Sarah Lester as the name Lester is used many times within the Freeman family, but I have been unable to find a marriage between a William Freeman and a Sarah Lester. I now believe that Sarah's birth name was Sarah Walker who was born in Bermondsey on the 26th July 1771 to Thomas Walker and Sarah Richards. I have also found a marriage of a Sarah Walker to a William Freeman on the 3rd May 1787 also in Bermondsey, Southwark. Sarah would only have been 15 at the time of this marriage and William is recorded as being a widower so until I find further proof this is still a surmise.

What I do know about Sarah, my 4th great grandmother is that she married a Miller, William Freeman, and that for a large portion of their married life they lived in Frindsbury, Kent, which is a small village on the banks of the Medway opposite the lovely town of Rochester. William was probably the miller of the House Mill which was built in 1819. A very sad occasion in Sarah and William's life was reported in the 1813 edition of the local newspaper when their young son George Edward Freeman a toddler of two and a half years wandered away from home and was struck by the turning sails of the Windmill. This must have been a very traumatic time in Sarah's life, as well as the other times when her children died before her.

Sarah's husband William passed away in 1841 when she was 69, Sarah outlived him for another 32 years and when she eventually died only five of her many children where still alive. As I mentioned Sarah left a Will which she made on the 18th April 1868 when she was 96 years old and still sound of mind. Her daughter Hester Duly and good friend Thomas Godden were her Executors. All her household furniture, books, plates, wearing apparel, linen, china, prints and other articles were left to her daughter Hester Duly as well as 300 pounds. Her two surviving sons Thomas and James Freeman also inherited 300 pounds each and her dear daughters Maria Dunham and Sarah Orwin inherited 50 pounds each. Sarah Orwin was my 3x great grandmother who had been living in the North of England in Hull since 1840, I wonder how often she was able to travel down to Kent to visit her Mother. Sarah also left 100 pounds to her Grandson James Duly, 30 pounds to her friend Martha Godden and 10 pounds to Thomas Godden. She also requested to be buried at Frindsbury Parish Church and that a head stone would be placed on her grave.

Even though Sarah was a widow for more than thirty years she was an independent woman of sufficient means and as her Grandson described her a masterful woman with a strong personality, a "veritable Amazon".

Memories of my Mum Doreen Strickland

Going back in time - memories of my Mum, Doreen Strickland nee Orwin, wrote by her in 1981 - in her own words.

As a little girl I seemed to be the one in the family that had accidents, I had three fractures of the left elbow, at different times. After the third one I had problems and the Infirmary doctors wanted to cut the guiders of my arm as they couldn't get the bones to set properly. My Mother found me crying and I told her my wrist ached, she insisted they remove the dressings and plaster which was down to my wrist and they found gangrene had started just in a little place, so they had to take me up to the operating theatre and my wrist bone had to be scraped, fortunately that was a success. My Mother and Father took me out of the Infirmary and took me to an Auntie Joe at Bridlington, a sea side resort. They had heard there was a very good Bone setter from London who was in Bridlington treating someone. My Auntie and Mum got in touch with him and he decided he would see me. It was painful and I had to see him a few times so it meant staying with my Auntie for a while, my poor Mother and Father had to sell some of the things in their home to pay this specialist a Dr. Carr. However, he saved my arm, I didn't have to have a deformed arm, it's a little thinner than my right arm and you can see when I stretch my arms out that it isn't perfectly straight and also my first finger is shorter than it should be and hard to bend, but no one notices unless I bring it to their attention. I had to have a lump removed from my neck when I was about 9 years old, I think it was a firework that exploded near my neck and started it off. When they operated the doctor who was a lady, said it came out just like a shelled hard boiled egg. I'm glad it was a lady doctor as she was so careful, leaving a very slight scar, she really thought about my feelings and looks for the future. It is a long scar from my back ear to my throat, so it could have been ugly. I found out whilst in my 30's that I'd had two broken toes, I remember bumping into the wardrobe and hurting my toes, they were black and blue, it wasn’t till years later I found out they had been broken. I had been trying to clean my Mums ceiling and I fell off the chair hurting my ankle. When I went to the Hospital for X Rays a young Intern came up to me and said “I’m afraid you have 3 broken toes”, I said “I didn't come about toes, I came with a twisted ankle.” A Doctor heard me saying this and came over and looked at the X Ray's and said, “Mrs Strickland, you evidently did have two broken toes years ago.” the 3rd toe was a bunion. The young intern had seen that the bones. were not as straight as they should have been, bless him, and had thought that I had come in with broken toes. My ankle was badly strained, thankfully no broken bones. I used to be in a dancing group in my early teens, and we used to dance on the stage for the troops, I also walked in splits. We all had our own thing to do at the end of the performance, we formed a horseshoe and each in turn did our special thing. I can’t believe that I could walk in splits from one end of the horseshoe to the other. I also taught people to do ballroom dancing, but on roller skates, at the White City Roller Skating Rink, Anlaby Rd, Hull. It isn't there anymore, what a shame - it was a lovely place. Of course Hull was badly blitzed in the 2nd World War and many beautiful buildings were bombed. Our house in 122 Spring Gardens, Anlaby Common, Hull, a lovely house,was damaged when a land mine was dropped by Parachute, the Germans were trying to hit the big guns in the Park about one and a half miles from our home. Fortunately there was a slight wind that evening and it carried it over our houses landing on soft ground, the crater was enormous, you could have put quite a few houses in it. My Sisters husband to be (she didn't know him at the time) well his house was badly damaged, along with many others, but the fact that we had had rain had made the land soft stopping a lot of the blast, and maybe saving our lives. My Dad hadn't been called up then, but he was an Air Raid Warden, they would take turns and patrol the streets if there were air raids in progress. He came in and saw the windows in and our ceilings down, also soot all over everything from the chimneys. He said. - "I must go next door and get Mrs Skelton in our house",she was an older lady and on her own. She came in, gave one look at the mess and said, "You had better come in my house". Her's was fine, it seems every other house got the blast. It was a very pretty house, such a shame to see so much damage, but we got it fixed after a while. When the Buzz bombs as we called them were being fired to destroy Londen and the South, they would be shot at and now and again some of them would be knocked and they would go off the planned direction and come our way. I can remember we were under the table which in turn was piled with cushions from the chairs and couch, we hadn't got out to the air raid shelter which we had in the garden. I had the torch and suddenly my mother knocked the torch out of my hand and told me not to use it whilst a raid was on. The light she had seen and thought it was the torch light, was one of these Buzz Bombs coming down in flames. It was awful, but again we were blessed it missed us, but other people had to suffer. These Buzz Bombs were awful, you would hear them like a plane then suddenly the engine would cut out, and that was it they just fell, you had no idea where. You just waited and prayed. I pity what the people in London and the South of England went through, we only had a few. It was often that we had Air Raids though, with being a Sea Port. We had a German. plane which had been hit land in the fields behind us, almost hitting our houses, and many nights a week we would hear the awful noise of bombs coming down, the screeching noise, then the explosions. If we went to the City Centre after an Air Raid, many times we stood crying when we saw people digging and trying to release people who were trapped under buildings. I vividly remember standing near a building where quite a few people were trapped, and the people working to save them knew that water was creeping in the building and that they maybe couldn't get to them in time. Such horrors, no wonder I had night mares. My poor Mum, with us kids and having to pacify us, it must have been such a worrying time for all parents, trying to protect their little ones. We often had our fields behind us on fire, they used to drop incendary Bombs to try to light up the area, as they were after bombing the Anti Aircraft Guns in the Park, those guns were called the (Big Bertha's) that upset me as my middle name was Bertha. (Doreen Bertha Orwin) I have hated that name ever since and try not to use the name, just put B. I was named after an Auntie though and I love my auntie, just not the name.

I have gone way back to when I was a child in these few pages. As I keep remembering things I will use these pages up. My Dad had a beautiful singing voice, I like to sing but my voice isn't any thing like as beautiful as Dads. My fathers brothers and sisters had children who got this beautiful talent of singing, and my sister Joan has a lovely voice. My Jackie is clever with her fingers, she knits beautiful things, a suit that she made looked out of this world and Mario our Son in Law married to Denise, he loved the waistcoats Jackie had knitted. She also used to do her own cards, all with coloured pens, the patterns were beautiful. She does patchwork, and you should see her home, she has so many antique things, a baby doll's pram, a Victorian doll, a brolly, a really old bike. Jackie's Jacob and Sam used to go to an old Victorian rubbish dump, they would dig and come up with dishes, jars and lots of things from the Victorian days. Debra went a few times also and Jackie gave Kim a few things, like old Victorian Jars that held ink and meat extracts for gravy, bottles that held medications, very interesting. We lived in many places in England. Our home town was Hull, then we moved to Little Neston in the Wirrel part of Cheshire, then Four Oak's near Birmingham, Sunbury on Thames, then Scotland, East Kilbride. After three and a half years in Scotland we came to the U.S.A. San Pedro, California in 1971. I gave birth to Kim in the San Pedro Peninsular Hospital. I had a slipped placenta at 8 months but managed to carry Kim to full term. Kim was born, then straight after the placenta tore out and I had problems. It was a wonderful blessing that Kim was born before this happened. Kim came into the world round about 1.20 a.m. and they (the doctors) were with me until about 6a.m. I had blood transfusions, Dr. Matthews really saved my life. I was 45 years old, not an awful lot of women аre blessed to have a baby at that age. Sarah in the Bible was much older. Isn't that something!

Doreen B Orwin - 1926 - 2021

 

Doreen B Orwin

 

Doreen Bertha Orwin was born the 22nd August 1926, she was the third child of Herbert Cyril Orwin and Violet Popplewell, and she had an elder brother called Cyril and an elder sister called Joan.

One of Doreen's earliest memories is from when she was about 4 years old, a neighbour boy was teasing her and chasing her with a pin trying to prick her, she was frightened of him and started climbing on the wrought iron fence to get out of his way but she slipped and one of the spikes from the fence pierced her forehead. She had a nasty jag on her forehead and blood was streaming over her face when her mother came out to see what all the noise was about. She was so shocked by what she saw that she picked Doreen up and jumped over the fence with Doreen in her arms, something which she wouldn't have been able to do in normal circumstances. She took Doreen to their neighbour Mrs. Skelton who had been a nurse and she washed the wound and then held it together for a couple of hours so that Doreen wouldn't need to have stitches.

Doreen had a happy childhood with loving parents, one night per week her parents would go out together and Cyril would baby-sit, the children always looked forward to this evening as their parents would usually win a big bar of chocolate

and bring it home for them. Doreen's Dad had a little car with what they called a dickey at the back where the children could sit strapped in, usually on a Saturday or a Sunday they would go for a drive to Hornsea or Withernsea, little seaside resorts. On their way home they would always stop at a wayside pub called 'The Jack of Hearts' and the children would sit outside by the tables and get a glass of lemonade and a packet of crisps. Doreen always loved this treat and sometimes if her Dad pretended to drive past the pub without stopping all three children would start yelling from the back of the car. Next to the pub was a farm and the lady who lived there got to know them quite well and would often bring over a glass of goat's milk for them to drink.

One of Doreen's stories from her growing up years is from when she was about 7 or 8 years old. The children living in her street, Spring Gardens in Anlaby near Hull, asked her if she would go to the shops for them on her bicycle, they said that they badly needed some elbow grease.

Doreen recalls: "I agreed to go and get some, about 30 minutes later after having been in just about all the shops, I arrived back in the street to see my friends doubled up with laughter, it was then that I realized what elbow grease was, (elbow grease means hard work). Feeling very embarrassed, I fell off my bicycle and ended up with a very bad knee which took a few weeks to heal up, and I must say ended up with my friends feeling very sorry, but it was a laugh when I think how foolish I was."

Doreen loved to go swimming and would often go to the swimming baths on Albert Avenue with her friend Jean Cottingham, after swimming they would always go to the fish and chip shop and treat themselves to fish and chips. Doreen biked a lot also and would often bike with her friend Jean to Aldborough, a distance of about 14 miles.

When Doreen was 13 World War 2 broke out, this was a very worrying time and caused Doreen to breakout with psoriasis. With Hull being a big port it was very badly bombed during the war, Doreen's family had an air-raid shelter in the back garden with bunks and bedding and food, but it was not very nice having to sleep there every night and hearing the sirens and the bombs falling. Doreen usually received the hand me down clothes from her elder sister Joan, but once during the war she had received a brand new strawberry pink coat, she was so proud of it that she had it hanging in the living room to show to some friends, when her father came to warn them of an air-raid, land mines hanging on parachutes were blowing in their direction. They rushed to the shelter, it was very frightening as they could see the land mines coming down, thankfully the wind blew them further down the street and one of them landed in Rokeby Park in a lot of mud, but it caused such a big crater you could have fitted three houses into it, and the explosion caused all the windows to blow in and the plaster to fall from the ceilings. Luckily everyone was in the shelter so no one was injured but Doreen's new coat was covered with plaster and soot so she was most upset. The buzz bombs were also very frightening, they made a horrible shrill noise as they were passing overhead, but it was when they went still that you were most afraid as it meant that they were coming down. Once Doreen recalled sheltering under the table and her mother got angry with her because she thought she was playing with a torch, "stop playing with that torch" she said, but it wasn't the torch but the flames coming out of the back of the buzz bombs. One of the reasons that the area in which Doreen lived was regularly attacked was because close by was a park in which there where two anti-aircraft guns, these guns were called Big Berthas and for this reason Doreen hated her middle name and would never tell anyone what the B was for.

During the war her brother Cyril enlisted in the RAF and often flew on missions to the continent, on one of these missions he was shot down above the Hoek of Holland and taken as a prisoner of war. This was a terrible time for Doreen's family, at first they didn't even know whether he was still alive until someone from the Dutch resistance was able to send word to the family. In the last years of the war Doreen's father was also called up to serve even though he was already in his 40's. he was sent to India. It was also at this time that Doreen met a young American man who was serving in the American Merchant Navy and was stationed in Hull, his name was Wayne Frederick Weber. Doreen was 17 when she met him, still very young and naive, they were in love and times being what they were with no surety of what the future would bring or if there would be a future. After he sailed out of Hull Doreen discovered that she was pregnant, her Mother accompanied her to the Naval headquarters so that they could notify Wayne, but she was interrogated so impersonally about her relationships that her Mother took her away, she never heard anything from Wayne again. Thankfully for Doreen her parents were willing to adopt the baby, in those days it was a scandal to have a child before marriage so Doreen was sent away to an Aunt in Bridlington for a few months and then in the final months of her pregnancy she moved into a young mother's home in Grantham, Lincolnshire. Doreen gave birth to her daughter on the 16th September 1944, she was named Jacqueline Wayne

Orwin. It must have been so difficult for Doreen in those days, being still so young and on her own, luckily her baby wasn't adopted by strangers but by her own parents so she could watch Jackie growing up though she could never tell her that she was her mother. Jackie always felt that Doreen was a special sister, she always felt very close to her and would always call her Do Do, when Jackie was 14 she discovered that she had been adopted, she was really pleased when she discovered that Doreen was her real Mother.

During the last year of the war Doreen served in the ATS and was stationed close to Stonehenge. Once she and some friends were sat watching some parachuters practising when one of the men failed to get his parachute open in time and crashed into the ground, it must have been awful to see that.

Doreen was very good at roller-skating and did ballroom dancing on skates, she loved to do this and also to go dancing.

She would often go dancing with her friend Pam at the Dance Deluxe on Anlaby Road, she had a partner and together they were very good, they would often take part in competitions, the waltz, foxtrot or tango and everyone would clap when they finished. Doreen said that they would rather miss the last bus home than miss the last waltz and often she would end up walking 3 miles home at night. Doreen also learnt to tap dance and eventually became so good at it that she would perform with a group for the troops in Hull. At the end of their performance they would all do a special party piece, Doreen's speciality was to walk round the stage doing the splits! She doesn't know now how she ever did it.

After the war Doreen started studying shorthand and typing at the Greg Business school, it was here that she eventually met her future husband Bob Strickland, they were married on the 25th March 1950.

Doreen and her brother Cyril

Doreen stood in front of her Father and sister Joan sat next to her Mother

Obadiah Popplewell

Obadiah Popplewell was my great great grandfather, he was a Woolen Weaver from Batley, West Yorkshire. His son Harry, the father of my Nana died in February 1903, aged 26. Two months later Obadiah also passed away, on the 3rd April 1903 aged 66. Both Obadiah and his son Harry where buried St. Paul’s Church Hanging Heaton, Batley.

Harry’s widow Rose and his two year old daughter Violet (my Nana) moved away from Batley and Rose eventually remarried widower William Whiting of Bridlington, North Yorkshire. As far as I know Rose and Violet never had anymore contact with the Popplewell family of Batley, but when my half sister Jacqui was a young child her ‘Mum’ Violet, gave her this beautiful funeral card of Obadiah Popplewell to draw on! Thankfully Jacqui appreciated it’s beauty and value and kept it safe, just recently she rediscovered it and shared the photo of it with me.

My Tozer Family

 

High Street, Dartford, Kent

I have said it before and will say it again, Family history is like detective work, you find names that match up with your criteria, name, date and place, but sometimes there are more people with the same name living in the same general area at the same time period. How do you know that you have the right person, especially in the time period before the Census returns were started.

I knew that my 3rd Great grandfather, William Henry Tozer was a painter and decorator, as was his son William Frederick Tozer (see blog February 2019 and September 2018) and via the Census returns I was able to see that he was born around 1810 in Dartford, Kent. 

Many years ago I found his baptism record which was on the 9th March 1810 at Frindsbury, Kent, his birth was recorded as being the 13th January 1810 and his parents William and Elizabeth Tozer. A couple of other children are recorded as being from this couple, Charles James Tozer and Elizabeth Ann Tozer. To confuse matters though I discovered another couple called William and Elizabeth Tozer living in the same proximity who where also having their children christened around the same time at Chatham, Kent, they also had a son called William who was christened in 1813.

The William Tozer of Chatham was married to Elizabeth Dixon and he had a chemist and druggist business which produced and sold cough remedies. 

The other William Tozer was married to a young widow from Dartford called Elizabeth Couchman, I discovered that she had three young children from her previous marriage, Thomas, Eliza and Selina, and it was via records from these children that I was able to confirm that my William Henry Tozer was from this couple.

First of all I discovered that William Henry's daughter Annette Maria Tozer was staying with her cousins Ellen and Ann Couchman in 1861. Also I found a newspaper article of 1837 that announced that William Henry's brother Charles Tozer was appointed as a Deputy Registrar to Registrar Thomas Couchman of Eling, Hampshire. Finally last week I discovered a Will of William's half sister Selina Couchman which confirmed without a doubt that I had the right family. Selina Couchman, married William Asquith a publican of the Rose and Crown in Leadenhall, London in 1824. In 1838 at the young age of 33 she left a Will which not only mentions her brother Thomas Couchman but also her brother Charles Tozer whom she left a silver watch and also her brother William Tozer of Gavel Lane, Southwark, Painter, who was one of her Executors. Gavel Lane was the same address which is recorded on William Henry Tozer's marriage certificate of 27th August 1837 to Maria Bishop.

From Selina's Will I also discovered that she had another younger brother, James William Tozer. After further research I discovered his christening record, but for some strange reason his christening didn't occur until he was 15 years old, and then in St. Dionis Back Church, London, which is close to Leadenhall where Selina, who was a widow was living, possibly with her widowed mother and brother and her two young daughters.

On the christening record his birth date is given as the 9th October 1819 whereas the record is 29th June 1834. His parents are recorded as being William and Elizabeth Tozer and his father's occupation was Publican.

As I mentioned in my last Blog, William Tozer senior was a Publican at the Crown and Anchor Inn at Dartford where he was father to his three step children and five of his own (two of whom died in infancy), though as I have discovered this week he also seems to have passed away at a very young age. On the 9th May 1817 a William Tozer  was buried at Holy Trinity church Dartford, he was recorded as being aged 34 which corresponds with the birth date that I have for him.

I have also discovered that his widow Elizabeth remarried for the third time in 1824 to widower William Rashbrook of Chatham, her married daughter Eliza Jones nee Couchman was a witness at the wedding.

I have one mystery amongst all these facts, that is that her youngest son James William was recorded as been born on the 7th October 1819, whilst his father William passed away in May 1817. Maybe the year 1819 was recorded wrongly as it wasn't recorded until 1834, or did Elizabeth have a child from someone else after her husbands death or maybe one of her teenage daughters had an illegitimate child and this was the reason that he wasn't christened as a baby. There always remain mysteries to be solved.

I believe that the parents of William Tozer senior are Charles and Mary Tozer and I have a possible candidate for Charles, though this also needs more detective work to make sure that I have the right person.

His story will be written at a future time. Next week I will share some more interesting facts about William Henry Tozer the painter and decorator.

Fake news and William Tozer

 William Tozer was born on the 7th June 1783 in Chatham and was christened  on the 4th July 1783. His parents where Charles Tozer and Mary (more about them in a following blog)

In the early 1800's he was living in Stepney in London and was working as a baker. At the age of 25 he married a young widow of Dartford, Kent, Elizabeth Couchman formerly Archer who had three very young children, they where married at St.Dunstan's church in Stepney, London on the 23rd October 1808, William was 25 and Elizabeth 33. 

After their marriage they lived in Dartford, Kent where William became a publican at the Crown and Anchor, an old 15th Century pub which is still standing and is located at 80 High Street, Dartford. William and Elizabeth had five children, two of whom died in early childhood, so along with Elizabeth’s three children from her previous marriage it was a large family.

In 1803 Britain resumed war against Napoleonic France, hostilities were to continue until the British victory at the battle of Waterloo in 1815. This period required the resumption of mass enlistment, higher taxes and the fear of a possible French invasion.

Last week I was trying to find some more information about my Tozer family and decided to do a Google search of ‘William Tozer of Dartford ‘  I discovered an interesting fact in a book in Google Books. The book is called ‘The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger and Sir Thomas Cochrane....’ by William Brodie Gurney which recounts a trial which was held in the Court of King’s Bench, Guildhall on Wednesday the 8th and Thursday the 9th of June 1814. The trial was about a Hoax which had a significant impact on the London Stock Exchange, it is known as the du Bourg hoax.

On the morning of Monday, 21 February 1814, a uniformed man posing as Colonel du Bourg, aide-de-camp to Lord Cathcart, arrived at the Ship Inn at Dover, England, bearing news that Napoleon I of France had been killed and the Bourbons were victorious. Requesting this information to be relayed on to the Admiralty in London via semaphore telegraph, "Colonel du Bourg" proceeded on toward London, stopping at each inn on the way to spread the good news. Three "French officers" dressed in Bourbon uniforms were also seen celebrating in London, and proclaiming the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy.

Rumours of Napoleon's defeat had been circulating throughout the month, and the combined events had a significant impact on the London Stock Exchange. The value of government securities soared in the morning, after the news from Dover began to circulate among traders at the Exchange. Lacking official confirmation of the news, prices began to slide after the initial rush, only to be further propped up at noon by the French officers and their handbills.

However, the entire affair was a deliberate hoax. In the afternoon, the government confirmed that the news of peace was a fabrication. The affected stocks' prices immediately sank to their previous levels.

The Committee of the Stock Exchange, suspecting deliberate stock manipulation, launched an investigation into the hoax. It was soon discovered that there had been a sale that Monday of more than £1.1 million of two government-based stocks, most of it purchased the previous week. Eight people were eventually convicted of conspiracy to defraud, including Lord Cochrane, a Radical member of Parliament and well-known naval hero, his uncle the Hon. Andrew Cochrane-Johnstone, Richard Butt, Lord Cochrane's financial advisor, and Captain Random de Berenger, who had posed both as du Bourg and as one of the French officers. Six, including those involved in the purchases, were tried, and sentenced to twelve months of prison time, with the most prominent also sentenced to the public pillory; fines were also imposed. Lord Cochrane was stripped of his naval rank and expelled from the Order of the Bath.

William Tozer was one of the witnesses at the trial, this is what is recorded in the book ..... ‘William Tozer, the next witness, says, “I keep the Crown and Anchor at Dartford; I remember Jem Overy bringing a fare to a house in our town on Monday about the 21st February, and the person I took notice of was sitting in the chaise. I made my obedience to the gentleman in the chaise, hoping he had brought us good news; he said he had, and that it was all over; that the allies had actually entered Paris; that Bonaparte was dead, destroyed by the Cossacks, and literally torn to pieces.” ...’

I can imagine the joy and relief that William and his family must have felt on hearing this news and the disappointment when they heard it was fake news. 

For me it was a great discovery to find out a little bit more about one of my ancestors and the life that he led.