Ships collide off the Irish Coast 1835

Mary Ann Gadsen, described as 'wife of John Gadsen' [sic] appears as part-owner of a schooner, the Susan, in 1835. Records in the Admiralty Court show that during a voyage on 24 August of that year from Newport in South Wales to Waterford, the 150-ton Susan was involved in a collision with a much larger vessel, the Chester, near the Hook Tower on the Irish mainland.*

Damage to the schooner was considerable and petition was made regarding this in court in October 1835. The Susan, Joseph Read, Master, was carrying coals and had her full complement of crew on board, seven persons in all.

The Chester, of St Johns, New Brunswick, was on her way to Liverpool with a cargo of timber.

Hook Lighthouse and coast off County Wexford

According to the report the schooner 'was staunch and well found' and on her proper course, 'shewing a light' (it was midnight) and all hands 'except one of the Boys' on deck, when she was struck on her Starboard Lee quarter by the other ship which was sailing at eight and a half to nine knots with a strong wind behind her, carrying away both the schooner's masts and entangling the rigging.

There can be little doubt as to the identity of Mary Ann, at this date, with husband John and linked with Waterford, though it is rather surprising to find her mentioned as one of the owners of this vessel.  All are named in the lengthy document. 

The Susan may have made a regular round trip from Waterford to English ports, carrying one sort of cargo out (butter, cheese, bacon, for example?) and another back. John Gadsden is recorded as a bacon merchant in Bridge Street Waterford at the time. Let's not forget that his father, John Gadsden b 1759, was a cheesemonger of London.

Extract from the Admiralty Instance Court proceedings:

'...although the Master and Crew of the said Schooner called out to the people on board (the Chester) to cut her adrift and shorten their canvas ... the said Ship continued her course dragging the said Schooner in consequence whereof the Master and Crew were obliged to beg for Ropes from the said Ship to save their lives and it was only after considerable delay that their request was complied with and the said Master and Crew got on board the said Ship and thereby saved their lives that after getting on board ... Joseph Read the Master of the said Schooner remonstrated with the Master and Crew thereof for not attempting to rescue them from their perilous situation and earnestly requested the Master to remain by the said Schooner until the next morning in hopes of saving her which then appeared practicable but which he refused to do and shortly afterwards he caused her to be cut adrift when she sank and together with her Cargo was entirely lost. ...the schooner Susan was quite a new vessel having been only launched fourteen days and was tight staunch and substantial her Hatches well secured and was in every respect seaworthy and he expressly alleged that the said Schooner being run down ... was occasioned solely by the negligence or want of skill of the Master and Crew of the ship Chester in not keeping a proper look out ...'

*Admiralty Instance Court record: PCAP/1/26 pg 15a-16 b; 34a - 36

Hook Tower: the lighthouse on Hook Head, Co. Wexford, originally tended by monks and one of the oldest beacons in Europe, established ca 1172. 

Gadsden family history and the Canal Duke

The Packet House at Worsley on the Bridgewater Canal

The Duke of Bridgewater built this canal in 1761. On the left is the Packet House, its 'Elizabethan' modifications carried out in Victorian times, where the Queen's (i.e. Victoria's) barge landed when visiting the Duke. Here also passengers to Manchester and Runcorn embarked.

This photograph is by the late David Tasker a descendant whose direct line comprised Gadsden tenant farmers on the Bridgewater Estates. 

The 'Canal Duke' came from Ashridge, Little Gaddesden and is of the same Bridgewater/Egerton/Brownlow family which until recently owned most of Little and Great Gaddesden.

The white building in the background is the 1725 Nailmaker's House and is the oldest building in Worsley (Manchester). It was featured on a dinner service made for Catherine the Great by Wedgewood when he visited the Duke's canal. The service is now preserved in the Hermitage, Leningrad (St Petersburg).

The Duke allowed his home Ashridge to fall into disrepair whilst he was concentrating on building the canal.

Note the red colour of the water from iron in the world's longest underground canal tunnels nearby.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgewater_Canal

Acknowledgement:
David Tasker

In Memoriam: Roger Bell Gadsden 1950-2012

Roger Bell Gadsden

 13 August 1950 - 25 February 2012

Actor who played Captain Hook 2 300 times

A Gadsden in the Limelight

This undated obituary was the initial clue in a search for Lionel Gadsden, who died on 9 November 1965 (some sources give 10 November; the death was registered at Bromley in December 1965).

He was an actor with an unusual claim to fame: he performed the role of Captain Hook in J M Barrie’s play Peter Pan, over 2, 300 times. Between 1913 and about 1937 he played Hook on at least 16 tours, sometimes taking on the dual part of Hook and Mr Darling.

In 1924 a review stated Gadsden was ‘a terrifying figure as the pirate captain’. His long association with the character became legendary, his version of the role establishing a theatrical tradition in its own right. He appeared in the play – in various guises - more than 4 000 times and on occasion was also stage manager.

Smee (Cassidy) and Hook (Gadsden)

Gadsden co-starred with well-known Irish actor and comedian John Rice Cassidy who played Smee to his Hook in Peter Pan on tour between 1921 and 1925.

The news report above mentions that at the age of 14 he worked as a theatre call boy, messenger and stagehand. If he was 86 when he died in 1965 it gives a birth year of about 1879 yet no birth record has emerged. He is also significantly absent in the UK Census, though shows up in London electoral registers between the 1930s and 1960s, including at Bromley the year before his death.

There are numerous references to him in press reports and reviews of theatrical productions. These show that while his Captain Hook was most memorable, Gadsden also performed in other plays and was known for ‘his fine elocutionary style’. In October 1930 he was on tour to the States in a production of Marigold for the 49^th St Theatre. In 1935 he appeared at the Fortune Theatre in When Knights Were Bold, a review in The Times on 27 December stating that ‘the knockabout atmosphere does not prevent Mr. Lionel Gadsden from playing Isaac Isaacson intelligently.’

His career spanned more than 50 years. His first stage appearance was at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, when he was 21. A descendant of Patrick Desmond, who directed Peter Pan several times during the late 1950s and early 1960s, states that Lionel Gadsden was a member of the company for at least one of the productions. When Gadsden turned 80 in 1959 the veteran actor was appearing in The Trial of Mary Dugan at the Savoy, in the role of a spectator at the trial, receiving a round of applause each evening without having to say a word. He died in harness while playing a supporting role in Hostile Witnesses at the Haymarket Theatre.

The question remains: where and precisely when was Lionel Gadsden born and who were his parents? His death was registered by his son-in-law, Wilcoks [sic] but Lionel’s daughter’s name, and that of his wife, are not known.

Acknowledgement:

Jennifer Forsyth

John Gadsden

Chris Duff

Death of a boxer: but who was he?

The above report in the Evening Telegraph of 15 March 1926 tells a sad story but also presents a conundrum: there is no death record for a William James Godson, given as the real name of boxer Billy Gibbins of Canning Town, aged 27, who died during a match against Edward Ferry.

There is, however, a death registered in Hackney for a William James Gadsdon. Some sleuthing turns up a relevant baptism at West Ham Essex in 1898 for a child of that name born to William James Gadsdon snr and his wife Julia (born Peterson). The age of the boxer is slightly out.

Apparently, Billy Gibbins from Canning Town boxed between 1925 and 1926. He had three professional contests – a brief career and a tragic end.

His opponent, Edward Ferry, was in all likelihood Ted Ferry from Bethnal Green who had a more successful career than Gibbins: Ferry boxed between 1922 and 1937 in 188 professional contests. 

There was another Billy Gibbins, a boxer of Western Australia who was shot in the stomach in 1931. And another from Sheffield fighting in the 1930s. Anyone know who the original Billy Gibbins was who inspired these boxers to carry his name into the ring?

If you have a boxing ancestor try Find A Boxer at www.boxinghistory.org.uk/alist.html


FOLLOW-UP:
The Chelmsford Chronicle of 19 March 1926 confirms Billy Gibbins's real name as William James Gadsdon:

A further report in the Yorkshire Evening Post 15 March 1926 gives a little more personal detail:

Acknowledgment:

Celia Dodd

A Gadsden birthday and a marriage in Australia

Waterford, The Quay ca 1880-1900

Tomorrow marks the birthdate of Florence Amelia Gadsden b city of Waterford Ireland 3 April 1835 to John and Mary Ann Gadsden (nee Bone).

Florence Amelia was the sister of Thomas Alfred Gadsden, my great grandfather, also born in Waterford.
Her marriage announcement was
recently spotted by an eagle-eyed researcher:

DAVIES—GADSDEN—April 18th [1863], at St. Paul's Church, Ipswich [west of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia], by the Rev. John Bliss, M.A., William John Davies, second son of the late A. T. Davies, Esq., of Tyglyn, Cardiganshire, to Florence Amelia, third daughter of the late John Gadsden, Esq.,  of Waterford.

trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/28621159

It's always worth checking the amazing trove newspaper site for references to ancestors who apparently disappeared into thin air - you might find they emigrated to Australia.

Barbados and the Gadsden connection

And now for something completely different.

Barbados first assumed significance for me through its connections with the Gadsden surname. In November 1715, Thomas Gadsden (1688-1741), born in Stepney, London, married Elizabeth Terrey in the parish of St Michael, Bridgetown, Barbados. Elizabeth was Barbadian born, daughter of an Irish sea captain, Christopher Terrey. The sea featured largely in Thomas Gadsden’s career, too. His father, another Thomas, had been a merchant captain sailing his own ship, the Mary & Elizabeth, between Britain and her American colonies and dying - in all likelihood of fever - at Nevis in the West Indies in 1691.

Thomas Gadsden the younger joined the British Navy as a midshipman in 1702, climbing the ladder to the rank of Lieutenant within five years. Discharged on half-pay in 1712, he returned to the sea in the merchant service, trading in various commodities as his father had done before him between the New World colonies and Britain. During this time Barbados would have been a regular port of call and Thomas undoubtedly took advantage of the brisk trade between Barbados and Charlestown (later Charleston) on the mainland of South Carolina.

Thomas established useful contacts in Charlestown and he and his wife Elizabeth moved there permanently, Thomas graduating to the important post of King’s Collector of Customs. Their first three children died in infancy. A fourth child, a son, was born and named Christopher after Elizabeth’s father.

Christopher Gadsden

Christopher Gadsden (1724-1805) was destined to become famous as a leader of the South Carolina Radicals, serving in the Continental Congress which enacted the Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776. During the Revolutionary War he was a Brigadier General of forces defending Charlestown.

His story is told in numerous sources, among them Godbold and Woody’s Christopher Gadsden and the American Revolution (University of Tennessee Press, 1982). Read my brief account  at www.infobarrel.com/Christopher_Gadsden_1724-1805

Barbados July 2012, coastal view; could be Natal.

As usually happens, the search for context – the backdrop to events - draws family historians to a wide variety of topics, including in the case of Gadsden research the strong ties which existed between Barbados and South Carolina. I also found a number of intriguing similarities between Barbados and Natal, both sugar-growing colonies which experienced attendant labour difficulties.

St Michael's 

St Michael’s, Bridgetown, the church where Thomas and Elizabeth Gadsden were married in 1715, was a wooden structure put up in the 1660s and taken down by a hurricane in 1780 (hurricanes were prevalent in Barbados). Consequently, the building now on the same site is not the original church, but one constructed in 1789.

The Great Hurricane of 1831 attempted, though failed, to destroy this replacement edifice built of coral stone. Now officially the Cathedral Church of St Michael’s and All Angels (Diocese of Barbados) it is still in use but in urgent need of restoration. In the churchyard, gravestones – some of very early date - show signs of vandalism, lead picked out of memorial  inscriptions.

East Point Lighthouse, Barbados

General dilapidation extends to other man-made landmarks, including the lighthouses at Harrison’s Point and East Point.

Despite inevitable concessions to tourism, the scenic beauty of Barbados remains untouched: wide white sands and limpid turquoise sea, palm trees and green fields of sugar cane. This
is not the place to comment on the darker threads in the island's tapestry: pirates and slaves.

At Bathsheba

Further reading:

Warren Alleyne and Henry Fraser: The Barbados-Carolina Connection (Macmillan, Caribbean 1988)