George gets to Canada, at last!

The SS Dominion. Courtesy of Jeff Newman www.greatships.net

When we last saw George Cockram in June 1875, he was boarding the SS Dominion in Liverpool to head for Canada, using the name Thomas Smith - and I'm sorry to say I still can't shed any light on why he did that.  So I'll just pick up his story where I left off.

from http://www.norwayheritage.com

The cost of the journey across the sea would have been out of many people's reach at about £5 to £6 in steerage (it's very difficult to find accurate information about that (1) so I'm estimating, based on what I could find.)  As a labourer, it could take him two months or more to earn that much.  But Canada offered 'assisted passage' to many people who had the skills the country wanted. In this 1883 Allan Line ad, they're listed as mechanics, navvies, agricultural and general labourers, and their families, and female domestic servants.  I don't know if George was able to afford his passage or not - but his marriage record says he was a 'labourer', which certainly suggests that he could have been in a position to get 'assisted passage' to Canada, for which he might have only paid one pound.

George may have been helped in other ways too.  For example, if he knew someone in Canada who could 'take him by the hand' for a short while when he arrived, and help him get work.  Uncle George is a possibility in this regard, but I don't know what part of Ontario he was in when his nephew arrived there, and he might well have already settled in St Thomas, where young George probably never went. But George might well have had a friend who went to Canada before him (or for that matter, with him) about whom I know nothing.

As far as I know (and that's not very far) George spent his first year or so in Canada in Singhampton, Nottawasaga Township, Simcoe County, in southeast Ontario, about 500 miles west of Ottawa, which by the way is listed as his intended destination on the ship's passenger list.  This could mean that he had booked a rail journey from his arrival point in Quebec, to Ottawa - then again, it could mean that when asked where he was headed, he named the only city in Ontario that he knew.

Either way, after he had gone through the rather slack arrival procedures (2) in Quebec, he must have taken a train west. Canadian rail journeys at that time were far from comfortable.  An 1870 emigrant writing home from Hamilton said: "The unpleasant things on a sea-voyage, can well be put up with, but the horrid, dirty, filthy, jolting railway cars, made one say they wished they never had left the Old Country. We got into the cars on Monday afternoon, and got out on Wednesday afternoon---forty-eight hours packed together like a lot of pigs, without a chance to stretch one's legs, unless they laid on the dirty floor, where they stood a good chance of being trampled upon."... (3)

If George did get an 'assisted passage' he would have been required to stay in Canada for at least one year - otherwise, he would have had to pay it back.  He did stay for a year, probably working as an agricultural labourer during the growing season, and at Singhampton's sawmill in the winter.  Whatever he did, he must have earned enough money to pay for his passage back to England, to fetch Louisa and baby Clara.  This sets him apart from many other English emigrants to Canada, who found the living and working conditions there terrible, and felt they had been duped by the Canadian government and the shipping lines that lured them there with tales of plentiful work and high wages.  Some of their letters home were published in British newspapers, such as this one:

from The North Devon Journal, May 6 1875, p.5

But George obviously liked his life in Canada, and once he had brought Louisa and Clara to Ontario in 1876, he settled his small family near Duntroon in Nottawasaga, where he was most likely growing wheat.

In 1877, Louisa's mother Jane left England and joined the family in Canada.  She spent the rest of her life there, apparently living sometimes with George and Louisa and sometimes with her other daughter, who I like to call Jane Jr.  You might recall that Jane Jr has been bothering me for some time, her whereabouts after 1871 unknown.  But according to my cousin Donna, who heard it from one or two of our great-aunts, Jane Jr emigrated to Ontario too.  I can't find her there, mainly because I don't know who she married, but I'm assuming it's true.

Anyway, George and Louisa had another daughter, Annie (Maud), in 1877, followed by George Jr in 1881 and Fred (Will) in 1883. The family was still at Duntroon in 1884, when George was listed (as Thomas Smith) in the 1884 Simcoe Gazetteer as a tenant farmer at Con 9 Lot 21 (marked in green on the map below). 

Another daughter, Bessie Jane, was born in 1885, and then the family moved a few miles south to Con 9 Lot 10 near Glen Huron (also known as Smithville - is that significant, I wonder...) where Elizabeth (Grace) was born in September 1886.  On the 1881 map below, their 200 acre farm (marked in red), is shown to belong to Thomas Ovens.  I haven't been able to discover whether George rented or owned this farm.

George's first farm, at Con 9 Lot 21, marked in green. 
His second farm, at Con 9 Lot 10, marked in red.

Southern Ontario, showing the location of Nottawasaga, on Georgian Bay, Lake Huron

At Glen Huron, three more more children were born - Walter in 1889, who died two years later, my grandfather Herman (Ryley) in 1891 and Prudence in 1893.   Then in 1894, the family moved to Saskatchewan - but that's another story.


1)  for instance, see: Dupont B, Keeling D and Weiss T, Passenger Fares for Overseas Travel in the 19th and 20th Centuries, a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association, Vancouver, BC, Canada, Sept 21-23, 2012
2)  Personal correspondence from the Canadian Immigration Museum.  See my previous post here.
3)  Quoted in  The Ships List, from Canada Sessional Papers No 64 A 1871 Report of the Minister of Agriculture for 1870, p.79-80

That Pesky Old Mayflower

Great-granddaddy George has been neglected lately.  I've been spending my genealogy time on other family lines, and was recently reminded of another family puzzle, which has absolutely nothing to do with George.  This one is from my other maternal great-grandfather, William Henry Wanamaker's branch of the tree.

It seems like it was long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away that I wrote an article about whether or not I'm descended, via my Wanamaker line, from anyone who was on the first voyage of the Mayflower in 1620.  It was an inconclusive article, mainly dealing with the question of whether or not Esther Alden, a descendant of John Alden, the Mayflower's cooper, really married Clark Bates, my 4th great-grandfather.  If so, I'm a Mayflower descendant, but I still haven't found any reliable evidence to either prove or disprove it.  If you're interested, the article is a PDF document, here.

Recently I was reminded that a different Mayflower connection has been staring me in the face for a year or two, but I've been ignoring it, because it too, is inconclusive.  This is a more interesting connection though, partly because there's lots of information about the people involved, and partly because there are several conflicting ideas about the truth of the matter.  I'll try to put it in a nutshell:
Among the crew of the Mayflower was a ship's pilot whose surname was Clark or Clarke.  Some historians and genealogists say he was Thomas Clarke, born in 1599 in England; others say he was John Clarke, Thomas' father, born in 1575 in England.  And still others say that the Thomas Clarke above was actually the son of another Thomas Clarke, who was the Mayflower's pilot.

I've been having a new look at my Clarke/Clark line, and I'm about 98% sure that the Thomas Clarke born in 1599 and his wife Susanna Ring were my 9th great-grandparents, so if any of the above three scenarios is true, then I'm a Mayflower descendant (or at least, 98% of one).  So do I need to bother trying to find out the truth about the Mayflower's pilot?  Maybe not - but it would be satisfying to be able to trace a clear line between me and the Mayflower, rather than a murky one.  Why?  Mainly because my great-grandfather William Henry Wanamaker apparently believed that he was a Mayflower descendant, and I'd like to prove him right or wrong.  And also because it's a challenge!

So after reading several old documents that disagree with each other, I asked for some help from the members of the 'Mayflower Descendants' group on Facebook - and so far the feedback I'm getting strongly suggests that I need to double-check my Clark pedigree again.  It seems that my 98% certainty could be 100% wrong, and Thomas Clarke and Susanna Ring might not have been related to me at all!   And even if they were, nobody can say for sure if Thomas had any connection to the Mayflower Clarke.  Back to the drawing board.

Mapping Clara Cockram

Clara Cockram, perhaps in the 1930s or 40s.
This photo, and much of the following information about Clara,
comes from the book 'North Finchley and Beyond'
by Yvonne Peters and David Golton, two of Clara's grandchildren

Looking at George's siblings, and hunting for their living descendants, I realized that of the twelve children born to William and Prudence Cockram (George's parents), all of whom lived to at least early adulthood, only six of them had children of their own.  I find that rather remarkable, considering the times they lived in - their childbearing years roughly spanned 1860-1915.  Nevertheless, the six who did reproduce managed to have at least 37 children altogether, so there's no shortage of Cockram descendants.

And recently, I found four more of them - my 3rd cousins Helen, Lizzie, Karen and Simon.  Their great-grandmother was Clara Cockram, George's youngest sister.  I have a particular interest in Clara, as I have a feeling George was rather fond of her, and I had hopes that he corresponded with her from Canada, and told her why he changed his name.  Helen has found several interesting documents among the family papers, but sadly, there are no letters from George among them.

But that doesn't curb my interest in Clara.  I've been lucky enough to find pictures of most of the houses she lived in, as well as a few other significant places in her life, so I thought I'd make a map of them, just to see if Google's 'My Maps' application is really as easy to use as they say it is.

UPDATE:  Two days after spending a ridiculous amount of time going through the tedious process of adding pictures to the map, I've discovered that almost all of them are now refusing to show up.  So I've added some of them to this post instead.  The most you can hope for from the map is that it will show you the locations of these places - don't count on anything else.  Cross your fingers and click on the map for a larger, zoomable version, and if by some miracle you can see the photos, please let me know.  And take my advice - don't ever bother trying to make a customised map with Google.  Life's too short.

Amen Court, London, built as residences
for the minor canons of St Pauls.

Clara was born in Bickington, Devon in 1864 and the family moved to nearby Fremington when she was still a girl. As a young woman, Clara left Devon and went to live and work in London, no doubt making the 200 mile journey by train.  Her older brother Thomas lived in London at that time, and she probably relied on him until she found herself a job.  By 1891 she had done so - the census for that year shows her at the age of 27 as a live-in housemaid for an Anglican clergyman at 7 Amen Court, near St Paul's Cathedral. 

I don't know when or where Clara met her future husband, Henry Moran - he was her first cousin, so they may have known each other since childhood - but Henry grew up in London, so that's not altogether likely. In 1891, at the age of 22, he was living at 80 Corporation Buildings in Clerkenwell, London, with his younger brother and sister. These were large apartment buildings built in 1865, intended for the poor, but they were quite well appointed for their time, complete with balconies and indoor toilets, and were inhabited by many working and middle class tenants. In 1894, Clara was living at the same address. Perhaps she had moved in as a flatmate with her three cousins, and a relationship with Henry grew from there.

Part of the Corporation Buildings, in 1865.
The floorplan below shows the layout of four one-bedroom apartments - two with parlours
and two without. Other apartments had two bedrooms.
All apartments were accessed via spiral staircases leading to balconies on each floor.
(I love floorplans - doesn't everybody?)

 

Interior of St Etheldreda's Catholic Church

Henry was Catholic; Clara was Church of England - but in 1894, when he was 25 and she was 30, they were married at St Etheldreda's church, the oldest Catholic church in England, built around 1250.  Clara may have converted to Catholicism, but not necessarily.  A non-Catholic could marry in a Catholic church if she'd had a Christian baptism, learned the ways of the Catholic church and agreed to raise her children as Catholics. The potentially bigger barrier to the marriage was the fact that they were first cousins.  Until fairly recently, the Catholic church didn't like second cousins marrying, never mind first cousins.  So they would have had to get a special dispensation from the local bishop before the marriage could go ahead.

43 Hartham Road - the one on the right
of this group of three

By 1901 they were living in Islington, London, and Henry was a scientific instrument maker.  I haven't found anything more specific about his work, except that in 1919 he applied for a patent for an 'Improved knife and fork for use together in one hand'.  Whatever he did, he apparently made a reasonable amount of money.  He bought a large house in Hartham Road, Islington, and this is where they stayed.  On the 1911 census, Henry described the house as having nine rooms - but someone crossed that out and changed it to six.  I suspect that George stayed with Clara and Henry at this house for a time, when he visited London in 1911 - but that story is for another time.

They had four children - Etheldreda (at last I know where that name came from!), Evelyn, Francis and Stella.  Henry died in 1927, and Clara stayed at the Hartham Road house, often sharing it with other people, including her daughter Evelyn, her widowed sister Lucy, and other people who I assume were lodgers.  Etheldreda and her family lived a couple of bus rides away in North Finchley, and Clara had a close relationship with them.  Francis and his family were nearby too.  Stella had Down Syndrome and lived with her mother until about 1939 - from then on, she lived at Nazareth House, a care home not far away.

Nazareth House - a care home in Hammersmith, London, run by the Sisters of Nazareth

When World War Two broke out, Clara was 75 years old. The 1939 Register, taken in September that year, shows her in Swanage, on the coast of Dorset.  Many people left London around that time, because there was a general fear of London being bombed, and this may be why Clara left.  On the other hand, her daughter Etheldreda's family had planned a holiday in Swanage in August 1939, which they cancelled, because Etheldreda's husband Henry Golton, a senior civil servant, had his leave cancelled due to preparations for war.  Perhaps Clara had intended to join them on that holiday, and in the end, she went alone.

17 Park Road, Swanage.  This may have been a lodging house,
or Clara might have been staying with friends.
Below is the view from in front of the house, which is near the top of a steep hill.

In any case, she  was soon back home in London.  Later on when London came under attack, a couple of houses in Hartham Road were destroyed, and Clara's house was damaged, but not so badly that she had to leave - in fact she was determined to stay put.

Clara saw the war out and carried on until 1950, when at the age of 86 she died of bronchopneumonia, at the French Hospital in Shaftesbury Avenue, London.  She left her money, around £1200, to Evelyn and Francis, and I presume she left the house to Evelyn, who was still living there in 1953.

The French Hospital, Shaftesbury Ave, London.  This building is now a hotel.

Revisiting Mary Ann and John Cockram

Last July, I sketched out what I knew of George's siblings, in this post.  Since then I've uncovered more information about some of them, and although it doesn't shed any light on George himself, I find it all interesting, so I'm writing it down.

Mary Ann Cockram (1847- aft 1911)

I had thought that George's sister Mary Ann never married, but I was wrong.  I recently discovered that in 1894, about six months after her eldest sister Elizabeth died, Mary Ann married Elizabeth's widowed husband, James Taylor.  Because the gap between Elizabeth's death and James' remarriage is relatively small, the devil in me has to wonder if James and Mary Ann had struck up a relationship before Elizabeth died.  Did they, indeed, have something to do with her demise....?  Naw, I've been watching too many cop shows.

Mary Ann was 47 years old at the time of the marriage, and James was 60, so not surprisingly, they had no children.  They lived in Fremington, Devon, not far from other Cockram family members, where James was a market gardener, working for himself and employing at least one other person. I can find them there until 1911, when she was 64 and he was 77 and retired.  I still haven't found a death record for either of them.


John Cockram (1849-1932) and Grace Adams (1849-1893)

Not too long ago I happened to stumble upon the burial record for John Cockram's wife, Grace Adams, just because it was on the same page as that of Elizabeth Cockram Taylor, mentioned above.  Grace was buried at Fremington, where she grew up, although she hadn't lived there for some time.  Her residence at the time of her death in December 1893 was recorded as 'County Asylum, Exminster'.  Well naturally, that sparked my interest.

I went looking for information about the asylum, and learned that it was an ultra modern 'lunatic asylum' when it opened in 1845, and had many amenities, including a ballroom.  In its early years it developed a wonderful reputation, but by the time Grace was admitted, it had plunged into serious overcrowding and staff shortages, depriving patients of individual attention.

The Devon County Lunatic Asylum, which has now been converted to a private housing
estate known as Devington Park

The asylum's patient records are kept in the Devon Archives in Exeter, but are not online.  So I went looking for someone who could go to the Archives on my behalf, and I found Rosaleigh via http://www.familytreeforum.com. She lives in Exeter, and was happy to do some research for me.  Rosaleigh discovered that Grace was admitted to the asylum in October 1893, was described as 'manic' on admission and had been ill for more than a month before that.  She soon deteriorated into incoherence and incontinence, and developed bedsores, an abscess on her jaw and a high fever.  She lapsed into a coma, and died less than two months after she arrived.  The asylum apparently attributed her problems to 'Change of Life', which was the overall heading of her notes.  She was 44 years old, and menopausal when she died.  Rosaleigh looked at records of several other women around the same age, and found that menopause was commonly recorded as the cause of whatever problems they had.

Who knows how long she had been suffering, or what her husband John went through at that time.  They had been living in Wales up until at least two years before Grace died - did they come back to England in hopes of finding some expert help for her?  That didn't work out very well.

Several months after Grace's death, John remarried, and lived the rest of his life in England, continuing his career as a liquor retailer in Devon, near his childhood home, and in Islington, London.  He had no children by either marriage, and died at the age of 83 in 1932, leaving about £400 to his widow, Minnie Jane Hawkridge.  And by the way, when Minnie died in Devon in 1949, she left her money - more than £2500 - to someone called George Arthur Beeby, a retired post office official in Nottingham, more than 200 miles away - who the heck was he?  If only I had time to chase up every interesting little tidbit I find...

There is one more sibling I've been looking at lately, but I'll save her story for another time...

What did George Sound Like?

I've often tried to imagine the sound of George Cockram's voice.  Coming from Devon, he would have had a distinctive west country accent, and apparently, he kept it all his life.  His friend Zachary Hamilton, a journalist who wrote George's obituary, said "to the last, the accents of his native Devonshire still clung to his tongue".  And his daughter Prudence described his voice as having a "soft country burr".

If only I had a recording of George's voice - but I don't, so the best I can do is listen to other men with Devon accents - and that is easier said than done.  The BBC once had a great audio archive of various English dialects online, but all it gives me now is 'error 404'.

But I did find another source - the 'International Dialects of English Archive', which has a few examples of Devon accents.  The one that is probably most like George is a recording of a 49 year old man from Appledore in North Devon, just a little way from where George grew up.  This man spent his whole life in the same general area, unlike George - but it gives me an idea, nonetheless.  You can listen to it here:

In contrast, below is another Devon man, whose accent is nowhere near as strong.  He came from Widecombe in south Devon, and was a BBC radio presenter for 30 years - so he may have deliberately 'toned down' his accent somewhat.  Perhaps this is more like George would have sounded after many years in Canada.  Click on the photo to see the YouTube video.

By the way, Louisa, coming from Cornwall, would have had an accent very similar to George's.  Whether she kept it all her life, I don't know.

George and Louisa in Plymouth

I think I should have called this blog 'Genealogical Distractions' or some such thing, because I seem to spend most of my time climbing around in side branches of the family.  Lately I've been chasing down descendants of Clara Cockram, George's youngest sister, and continuing to pursue John and Grace Cockram.  I'm now waiting on some information about them to come from a very kind person in Devon who's going to hunt up some records for me, and from a couple of newly discovered 3rd cousins, who are looking through their late mother's papers and photos.

Now I really must get back to George!  I still don't know where he was or what he was up to when the 1871 census was taken, but I know he was living in Plymouth in 1875, so that's where we'll go.

At that time, England had been transformed by the Industrial Revolution - even by 1851, when George was born, the census showed the urban population was larger than that of the rural areas. Towns and cities not only offered jobs with higher pay, but promised a varied social life, which appealed particularly to young men and women who found life in a small community oppressive and dull.  No doubt George was one of many optimistic young Devon men drawn to Plymouth by the promise of a decent income and a more interesting life.

An 1852 government report found that the overpriced, overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions in Plymouth were the worst in Europe, except for Warsaw.  The average number of people living in each house in Britain was five, but in Plymouth it was ten. The city then undertook large scale slum clearances, substantial public housing improvements and other amenities such as proper drains and sewers, and horse-drawn trams. More improvements followed, including the Guildhall, Law Courts and Municipal Offices, which were constructed in the 1870s in a French Gothic style, reflecting Plymouth's burgeoning civic pride.

By the time George arrived (probably by train), the city had a population of about 70,000 and a great many attractions. There were theatres, tearooms, hotels, a public library, tradesmen and shops of all descriptions - including over 400 'Victuallers and Beershop-keepers' and about 50 'Brewers and Wine and Spirit Merchants' - and a large seaside park, the Hoe, which is still a popular attraction for locals and visitors.

Top left: the Guildhall (on right of picture) and St Andrews Church Tower c.1875
Top right: Plymouth High Street c.1892, with men in front of the Naval Reserve Inn on the right
Bottom: Barbican Quay c. 1890 -  George and Louisa lived not far from here.
(Images courtesy of Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery)

Advertisements from the Illustrated Handbook to Plymouth, Stonehouse & Devonport, 1879

But city life wasn't all beer and skittles. Urban unskilled and casual workers struggled with low wages, long working hours and irregular incomes, as well as fear of accidents and the dread of slipping into poverty. George may have found himself working in diabolical conditions for very low pay, and wondering if he should have stayed home.  I speculated earlier that he might have got work at the dockyards, perhaps in ship building, or cargo handling. He could as easily have been employed in brewing, soap making, sail making, glass and china making, printing, fishing or any number of other local industries. Whatever he did for a living, he certainly would have been introduced to a very different way of life.

Sometime after 1861, Jane Murphy and her daughters Jane and Louisa had moved to Plymouth from the little Cornish town of Mevagissey where they were all born.  Perhaps Jane was looking for a better life too. Her daughters would have been too young at the time to have a say in the decision.

Mevagissey, Cornwall, c.1890.
(Image courtesy of the Mevagissey Museum)

A 2014 view of Church Street, Mevagissey, where Louisa's mother grew up,
possibly in one of these very buildings.

Jane Sr found work in Plymouth as a laundress, and Jane Jr went to work as a live-in servant in a boarding school. Louisa was probably still going to school. At age 14 in the 1871 census, no occupation, not even 'scholar' was supplied for her.  At that time she and her mother lived at number 4 Notte St, which was a lodging house.  The head of the household was a newsagent, suggesting that perhaps the lodgings were above the shop.  Other residents were an interesting mix - a post office manager, a servant, a labourer, a stable man and a lawyer's clerk.  Today, it's hard to tell whether the building still stands, as the street has changed dramatically.

Buildings in Notte St c.1870, with labourers doing roadwork.
(Image courtesy of Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery)

I don't know how or when Louisa and George met, but it may have been in Notte St. For a time, George lived there too, but whether he was there at the same time as the Murphys, I don't know.   By the time he and Louisa got married, he was living in Notte St, perhaps at the same lodging house, and Louisa and Jane had moved to Lambhay Hill.

Partial map of Plymouth showing places of interest.  The Guildhall wasn't yet built when
this map was made (1856), but I've marked where it would be.  To see the complete map,
click here  (National Library of Scotland)

I wish I could tell you about George and Louisa's courtship, but it remains a mystery.  All I know is that they were married in April 1875 at Holy Trinity Church.  This church, at the corner of Southside Street and Friars Lane, was a large stone edifice, built in 1840 to seat 1000 people. It was badly damaged in an air raid in 1941 and later demolished, and I haven't been able to find any pictures of it before then, except this one of the altar, taken in 1915.

It's impossible to say when George started to entertain the idea of migrating to Canada, but at the time, Canada was actively enticing British migrants to come and open up the west.  This large, young country with a small population desperately needed people from 'the mother country', to clear the land, establish farms and businesses, and help the country grow and develop.  The Canadian government advertised the attractions of Canada all over England, emphasizing that domestic servants and anyone with basic labouring or farming skills would be most welcome.  Reading the pamphlets and posters they produced might have made any downtrodden English labourer believe that Canada was the promised land - and a great many of them got on ships and went to start a new life there.  It's quite likely that it was this opportunity to make a better life for himself  that spurred George to go too - assuming, for the time being at least, that he wasn't running away from anything.

One of many posters and pamphlets circulated in England by the Canadian government. 

Judging by their first child's birthdate, Louisa's pregnancy was probably discovered either just before or just after the wedding.  This must have put a spanner in the works regarding any emigration plans they were making.  I have to assume that the reason George went to Canada on his own in June that year was to allow Louisa to have her first child in the relative comfort of Plymouth, with her mother near, rather than in the unknown wilds of Canada.

What I'm still unable to assume with any confidence is the reason why he boarded the ship as Thomas Smith. Neither do I know if Louisa was even aware that he had done so.  She didn't change her name at that time, and when her child was born in November, she was registered as Clara Cockram, daughter of George Cockram.  But the following year, Louisa and Clara would become Smiths and head to Canada too.
 

Source for Plymouth history info:  Worth, R N, FGS, "History of Plymouth from the Earliest Period to the Present Time", Messrs William Brendon & Son, Plymouth, 1890

Bad Handwriting and No Signature

There I was, idly looking at my timeline for great-granddaddy George's brother John Cockram, when I saw that I had no proof of either of his two marriages.  So I set out to find some, which by the way, is a terribly frowned-upon way to conduct one's family research - just popping around here and there, chasing anything that happens to come to one's attention.  If I was organized and 'serious', I would have put an entry in a 'to do' list to remind myself to follow this up later, maybe never, and meanwhile stay focused on George.  But that's not how I work - genealogy is supposed to be fun, isn't it?  So why not chase up whatever interests me, wherever it may lead?

And guess where this chase led me - right back to George!  At least, I think it did.  I found the original record of John Cockram's first marriage, to Grace Adams in 1870, and it got me all excited!  Marriage records often have clues about people besides the ones getting married, and in this case, it was one of the witnesses to the marriage that rang my bell.  For that witness, ladies and gentlemen, appears to have been The Elusive George himself!  I say 'appears' because I'm not 100% convinced it's him, and that's why I need your help to decipher some really awful handwriting.

Below is the complete record - the one at the bottom of the image.  I've included the other record as well, just so there's more handwriting to draw clues from.  Note that Cockram is spelled Cockrem on this document, and for awhile I wasn't sure this was the right marriage, but I've done some checking against other documents, which I won't bore you with, and I'm very sure that this John Cockrem is in fact John Cockram, George's brother.

John Cockram's marriage in 1870 - click on the images to enlarge

And here's a close up of the most interesting part, the name of the first witness.  What is it?  I'm pretty sure the surname is Cockrem, but what's the first name?

I think the first letter is a G, as it looks very similar to the G in Grace.  If so, the only person this is likely to be is George.  John's other brothers were Thomas, William, Richard, Alfred, Herman and Frederick (gosh, I've got them all memorized!)  Of course, John also had an uncle George Cockram, but isn't it far more likely that John would have his brother as a witness (and probably best man) than his uncle?  George was just two years younger than John, and it's easy to assume they had a close relationship...

But here's the bad news - you'll see that whoever this witness was, he didn't sign his name, he made his mark instead.  Why would George, at nearly 19 years of age, not sign his name?  The last sighting of him before this event was in 1861 when he was a 10 year old 'scholar' according to the census. Surely he learned to write! And I've seen his signature and other handwriting on later documents, such as his own marriage record in 1875, so I know he wasn't illiterate.  Was he a slow learner, or did he have some nefarious reason for not wanting to sign his name?  Once again, George's name throws up a mystery!

George's signature on his 1875 marriage record, at age 24.
 Apparently he wasn't a confident writer, nor a good speller, which suggests
that when he was 18, perhaps he really couldn't write a legible signature.

The good news, if this witness is indeed The Elusive George, is that now I know where he was as a young man.  This marriage took place in Fremington, Devon where George grew up, so it appears he was still living there in 1870 and hadn't run away with the circus or the Royal Marines.  He still eludes me in the 1871 census though. 

Just one more thing - what do you think John's occupation was, according to this marriage record?  In later life, he was a beer bottler, a 'licenced victualler' and the manager of at least one public house.  When he got married he was just under 21 years old and virtually everyone in his family was a farm labourer or domestic servant.  But this word looks sort of like 'grocer' to me.  UPDATE:  On the other hand, maybe it's supposed to say 'gardener'.  I've just found John and Grace living in Wales in 1871, where John was working as a 'gardener/domestic servant'.

Any and all insights into deciphering this handwriting or thoughts on why the witness couldn't or wouldn't sign his name, will be most appreciated.