Read All About It

Today I will be mostly scrambling to finish the book which I am supposed to have read for Book Group this month.  They are meeting at my house too, this time.  So no excuse.  But as I was walking the dog this morning, I was thinking that I really could think of much better things to read.  I do not like the book and with limited time available for reading, I am resenting having to persevere. 

I did also muse about the fact that we are so lucky to be able to read whatever we want, wherever we want, here in First World countries.  Imagine living in a place where learning and reading was restricted.  Many of the recent films for Comic Relief showed African children desperate to get to school, guarding the few books in their possession.  It is terrifying that our world is so unequal.

But how could I link this thought process to a genealogical blog post?  How did my ancestors go about learning to read?  What did they read?  Who taught them?  Of course, the history of education is a huge subject.  Most of us have a vague idea of the increase in child schooling which took place in the Victorian period.  We know that people used to leave school at much younger ages.  We have some idea of the rise of public libraries and we know that books used to be the preserve of the rich.

To narrow it down for this post though, I wondered about the schooling arrangements made for the Anglo Indian children.  The English soldier of the 30th Foot, Joseph Shaller, who took my family line to India, had four children with his Indian partner [the children are all listed as illegitimate].  Three of them were still alive when he himself died in 1822.  And thanks to the work of historian Carole Divall, I have, as previously discussed, managed to find original documents in the National Archives which contain those children's signatures.  Their handwriting was neat and legible.  They were clearly educated.  An assumption born out by the two boys' subsequent forays into teaching and the church as professions.

In the regimental diaries examined by Ms Divall, the number of "wives" and children with the battalion are shown for most months' entries.  In 1811, the Duke of York started a regimental school system and over the following century, teachers were recruited by the Army and sent all over the globe to teach both British soldiers and their children.  Apparently, it was quite usual for the sons of soldiers to end up joining the same regiment as their father so it was a good reason for spending money on their education, be they white or otherwise. 

Interestingly, although I do have other ancestors for whom this was the case, on this particular line it appears that their father's premature death [from illness rather than army action] led them to be taken up by a missionary society rather than joining the army.  So their reading matter was more than likely of a religious theme.  However, they had definitely taken advantage of the army education offered prior this and actually, the arrival of an education officer is mentioned in the diary. 

For Anglo Indian children, education also set them above full blood Indians to an extent.  Not in terms of colour discrimination socially but in terms of their usefulness to the British.  By the height of the Raj, Anglo Indian descendants populated the majority of the posts in civil service, the railways, the telegraph office and so on.  Positions of a certain responsibility but rarely allowed to be full in charge.  Relied on by the British because of their Christian, beholden upbringings yet not fully treated as equals.  Certainly, my grandparents received brilliant educations, at schools still well regarded.

Of course, this is a very minor happening in thousands of years of human education history.  Yet as can be seen now in Africa and other underdeveloped areas or in deprived areas of the First World countries, education is key to moving onwards and upwards for any person or for society as a whole.  Look at India now - the gaps between the educated castes and the others.

So I am going to try to be grateful for my excellent education, for my many life chances and for my easily-fed love of reading, even if it means reading The Geography of Bliss by tomorrow.  However, I do not recommend it....

Note:  Nor do I recommend falling asleep whilst lying in bed reading a Kindle.  Woke with a start to a fat lip as it fell on my face.....

Tardis Required

 

 

 

I have decided that today is Time Travel Tuesday.  I had wanted to blog about the definitions applied to the Anglo Indians in British India but it is rather statistical and official and definitely needs more research.  So whilst pondering for a theme for today, I took to the idea that if one could time travel (preferably with David Tennant's Dr Who, sorry Peter Capaldi!), which ancestor would I most like to go and visit.

 

I have been to London a couple of times quite recently and was amazed at the changes in places that I had not visited since leaving in 2003.  I have always wanted to experience London in another age.  Pre Blitz, with all the little alleyways and courts and so on - so few of which remain today.  So I think I will ask the lovely David to take the Tardis to eighteenth century London.

 

Joseph Shaller Sr was apprenticed to Benjamin Pickering, a brandy merchant by his father Edward.  The indenture was paid on 18 April 1753.  The original document for this can be seen on Ancestry.  From the records I have found online for their parish church in Shoreditch, it appears that Benjamin Pickering was known to Edward Shaller personally.  They served together on parish committees.  [This was another example of how googling/fiddling about/ whatever you want to call it can produce unexpected results.  I tried Edward Shaller's name with the baptism church's name and managed to find references to the Shaller family (this site is a great place for such research too http://www.british-history.ac.uk).  I was of course helped by the unusual surname!

 

I would love to know the family's circumstances.  They would seem at first glance to have been reasonably well off and Joseph Sr was able to marry as soon as his apprenticeship was finished, going on to have six children with his wife Susanna Slade.  However, I have not as yet managed to find any reference to property so it is highly possible that although they had reasonable livelihoods and supported families, they did not actually own any "bricks and mortar".

 

Would I recognise anything about these Shallers or their personalities?  Could any characteristics have made their way this far down the family tree?  What did they wear, for surely that would have been an indication of their place in society?  Well to do?  Or just keeping their heads above water?  Would an apprentice brandy merchant have been taught to read and write?  There were four sons and two daughters.  Joseph Jr was not required to sign the surviving muster list which recorded his joining up with the army in 1804 so I don't know if he could write either.  According to the muster, though, Joseph Jr was a staymaker (a profession looked at during Mary Berry's Who Do You Think You Are? last week, as it happens - corset making!).

 

The difference in father and son professions raises endless questions.  Did Joseph Sr leave the booze trade?!  Did he and his eldest son have a falling out?  More importantly, how did Joseph Jr end up in the army?  I have a suspicion that my whole paternal line stems either from someone escaping justice or someone who got drunk with the press gang and woke up the next morning in uniform!  Carole Divall, who has done a huge amount of work on the history of the 30th Regiment of Foot (where Joseph found himself!), has told me that London was not a usual recruiting area for that regiment.

 

So from the Tardis, I will need to visit 1778 when Joseph Jr was born and then periodically wander into their lives until 1804.  And David Tennant will be helping me!  Must not get distracted.  I suppose a basic survey would be very useful, if they could be persuaded.... questions like dates, birthplaces, ancestors and relations would be brilliant for checking my research so far!  Yes, time travel is definitely the answer for genealogists.  The possibilities would be endless.

 

 

Where there is a Will, there is a way

Tomorrow I am venturing to London Town for the first time in a long time.  Sometimes I think that I must have dreamt living there for ten years of my life as it seems so far removed from my current existence.  Actually, it is probably that I drank and partied away ten years, if I am being honest.  I did work very hard but pre children, one could also party hard with little discernible effect...

Anyway, I am off to London to see Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies at the theatre.  A lot of theatre in one day but it was the only way to see both plays (And by the way, if by some miracle Hilary Mantel should read this small and insignificant blog, please please please Hilary, hurry up with the third book of the trilogy!).

Preparing to go today, I realised that the last time I had been to London was to visit the National Archives (NA) for research.  It was a fascinating visit and I cannot recommend a visit highly enough if you are able to get there and have found things online that it would be worth you checking out for your own research.

My own visit came about because I stumbled upon a wonderful website run by an historian named Carole Divall (actually called www.caroledivall.co.uk funnily enough!).  The 30th Regiment of Foot is Carole's particular interest and she has written a fascinating and ongoing online diary of the Napoleonic years in its existence.  I had been searching for information about that regiment as the original adventurer to India from my own family,  Joseph Shaller, had enlisted with it.  I then decided to read Carole's fabulous book,  Inside the Regiment, about the daily life of the 30th Foot - postings, family life, education, discipline and so on.  It looks at the battalions in both Europe and India.

So I was reading the book and suddenly Joseph's name leapt out at me from a page!  Carole had used him as an example of how the soldiers were encouraged to write basic Wills to ensure that any monies due to them were passed to their children.  She detailed Joseph's bequests and noted that he had left everything to his three children.  She also stated that she had seen the Will and that all three had signed it to confirm receipt!

It was an amazing moment for me as it confirmed a sibling name that I had been pondering over but more importantly, there was a document available to see and touch which had been in India and had been signed by my great great great grandfather in 1822.

So that was it.  I was determined to find it!  Except that I had no idea how to go about seeing the paper for myself.  Then Carole Divall very kindly replied to a post on her site, explained how to find the Will at the NA and also gave me some further information.  I read up on the NA rules and regulations on its website (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/) and off I went, filled with trepidation.

Sometimes I think we are frightened of places like the NA.  They seem so quiet and serious and quite beyond the reach of "ordinary" people.  However, the whole experience was fantastic (if you like that sort of thing - and frankly if you don't, I am surprised that you have read this far as I wax lyrical!).  It is easy to find, easy to use and the staff could not be more helpful.  There are some incredible documents available and they detail quite normal lives - they are not all the Magna Carta or Cabinet papers or such like!

I was able to view the Will and touch my 3xgreat grandfather's signature.  I also saw enlistment rolls and documents relating to other family tree brick walls.  Sadly, the pictures I took are on a defunct phone so unless I can retrieve them, I am going to have to visit again.  Do let me know if I can help you with anything while I am there.... any excuse for another day...