This week’s blog is a repetition of a previous blog with the addition of a reference to the article in the Gaspesian HerItage Webmagazine that contains an overview of “The Great Upheaval.”
French Canadian and Acadian Family Lineage in Quebec
“In 1755, the British authorities began to dismantle the former Acadian colony by deporting its entire population… unleashing a French-speaking exodus to various regions, including many areas of Québec”.
“At the time of the Deportation, many Acadians made their way into Québec, where they were granted farmlands.”
“It is estimated that today, among Québec’s population, more than a million (or more than 15%) people bear Acadian origins.”
…….
This database focuses on the Historical and Genealogical Societies in Quebec counties and includes books by authors who have written about the various communities.
I have taken advantage of all the extra free time at home over the past year to write a family history book about my father’s ancestors. It has been the perfect pandemic project, but now it is almost time to launch it into the world.
This book brings together the many blog posts I have written about my father’s extended family over the past eight years for my personal family history blog, Writing Up the Ancestors, and for the collaborative blog Genealogy Ensemble. As someone once told me, a blog is a good cousin catcher, and indeed, blogging has allowed me to connect with cousins I never knew I had. Also, I got a lot of the research done and written up in small bites. But the stories about the Hamilton and Forrester families (my paternal grandmother was a Forrester) jump all over the place on the blog; in the book, they are in historical sequence and geographical context.
A book that you can hold in your hands and store on your bookshelf for years also feels more permanent. People read a blog post, then jump to the next shiny object on the Internet. You might only read part of a book, or look at the photos, but you can keep it for a long time and pass it on to the next generation. I’m dedicating this book to my grandchildren, in the hope that one day, maybe 50 years from now, they will sit down and discover all the astonishing things their ancestors risked and achieved.
I have called this book Reinventing Themselves: a History of the Hamilton and Forrester Families. These people reinvented themselves several times. Most male members of the immigrant generation grew up in lowland Scotland where they were weavers, stonemasons, tenant farmers and carpenters. When they landed in Upper Canada around 1830, they had to reinvent themselves as farmers in an unfamiliar climate. Members of the next generation retained most of their Scottish customs and religious beliefs, but moved on to a new landscape as they became grain famers on Canada’s western prairies. Their sons and daughters were the first to give up farming and forge careers in the city.
Working on the Forrester family farm near Emerson, Manitoba, 1913.
Many Canadian pioneer families followed similar paths, so what makes this story special? Part of its value is that it does represent the experiences of many 19th century immigrant families.
Luckily, many accounts of my ancestors’ unique experiences have survived. In a letter to his father back in Scotland, immigrant Robert Hamilton (1789-1875) recounted the family’s voyage across the Atlantic. Fifty years later, his granddaughter Maggie Hamilton (1862-1886) wrote a letter from Saskatoon in which she described baking bread for the government soldiers following the North West Rebellion in 1885. Fast forward another eighty years and Charles Forrester (1889-1984) wrote a book about life on the farm near Emerson, Manitoba, from hauling water for the livestock to singing Scottish ballads at family gatherings.
I used to envy people who were members of various ethnic groups. They seemed so exotic, while my ancestors were pretty boring. But writing this book has helped me appreciate the values these Scots brought with them: their deep sense of community and their competitiveness, their love of books and learning, their love/hate relationships with alcohol, and their strong work ethic.
The book also has its share of surprises, from the discovery of my great-grandmother’s illegitimate birth and the story of brothers who were globe-trotting plant collectors to the death of my father’s twin in the 1918 flu pandemic and my grandparents’ subsequent investigations into psychical phenomena.
The research, writing and editing are done. It’s too late now for changes, although I will always be itching to tweak something. The manuscript and many, many photos are in the hands of a book designer. I’ll let you know soon when and how to get a copy.
Part 1 Historic Forts and Trading Posts of the French Regime in New France and the English Fur Trading Companies 1564 – 1759
It will be followed by Part 2 in Jacques’ next posting. It contains an extensive list of Authors who wrote about the fur trade and the explorers.
Part 3 will follow and it consists of the History of fur trading during the French Regime as seen through the eyes of Authors and Historical societies. It includes a lengthy list of libraries and publishers.
When I say that my grandfather, Thomas McHugh, worked as a cipher, Bletchley Park, MI5, and Russian spies immediately come to mind. He was neither a Russian spy nor did he work as a cipher during the war. His employer was the Bank of Montreal and it was his first job when he came to Canada in 1912.
The decision to immigrate to Canada was not easy for Thomas. He was in his mid-30s and already had seven children, between the ages of one and fifteen. For over 40 years, the jute manufacturers of Dundee, Scotland had been providing employment for his parents, aunts, uncles, siblings, wife, and for him. However, by the early 1900s, he was facing a precarious future for his children.
By the early 1900s, Dundee had suffered a serious decline in the textile industry and more significantly, the jute industry. Jute was imported from India, however, the mill owners realized that it would significantly lower the cost of production to open mills in India to prepare the jute and import the finished product to Scotland. Once mills were established in India, the jute production in the mills in Dundee decreased substantially.1
So when Thomas arrived in Canada, a little ahead of his wife and his children, he was eager and prepared to do any job so that he could. The Bank of Montreal had its headquarters in Montreal, Quebec. In the early 1900s, the bank had significant dealings with Great Britain and there were correspondence and banking instructions back and forth between Canada and Great Britain daily. These instructions were mainly sent by telegraph overnight. There were two reasons for this. Some of these instructions were confidential and it was preferred that they remain so. Overnight instructions reduced the number of people who would have access to them. Another reason was the time difference between Montreal and the United Kingdom. The banks in London and Edinburgh were open for business while Montreal was still asleep.
Thomas McHugh with Pal
Even in those days, the banks were concerned about security, privacy, and confidentiality. The banking instructions and transactions were submitted by telegraph and were encrypted. It was the job of the cipher clerk to decipher them so that the bank staff could then ensure that the instructions were carried out as required.
To be a cipher clerk, one had to be reliable, meticulous, and honest, and ensure the confidentiality of the bank’s business. The cipher clerk used a cipher handbook to decipher the information. Also, the cipher clerk worked overnight, so it was a difficult job for a man with a family.
So while my grandfather, the cipher, did not work in espionage, I still think that his first job in Canada was rather interesting.2
Slavery in British Quebec and Lower Canada is the subject of this database. Various authors have given us insight into slavery in the Montreal area, the Eastern townships and basically what slavery looked like in Lower Canada in the late 1700s
The following quotations are taken fromA Short History of Slavery in Canada by Jean Bellefeuille
“Slavery became a common practice in New France and the Church became the largest slave owner.”
“In fact, the ports are the first places where slaves are put to work.”
“The historian Marcel Trudel has counted 4,092 slaves throughout Canadian history, of which 2,692 were Indians (the favorites of French settlers) and 1,400 Blacks (the favorites of English settlers) owned by approximately 1,400 masters.”.
May Wells and her daughter, Virginia and son, Thomas, my father-in-law. Don’t let the pic deceive you: May did not like boys and she often said so. She grew up in a female dominated family.
She was not your run-of-the mill granny, that’s for sure, my husband’s father’s mother, May
In fact, she was something of a catfish-out-of-water in 1940’s and 50’s Montreal, taking her skinny six foot tall frame for a tromp down Ste Catherine Street, sticking her head into Marshall’s to ask the price of a pretty fabric on window display only to slam the door shut with a “YOU KEEP IT” when she didn’t like the answer.
It didn’t help that she had a very loud, raspy voice with a pronounced Southern drawl that would draw attention anywhere let alone in a francophone city.
One day in 1944 in a pediatrician’s office, May made my mother-in-law shrink down into her chair when she exclaimed in her embarrassingly loud twang,“It’s plain to see, we have the only good-looking child in the room.”
Granny May was a strong-willed southern belle who came of age in Warrenton, Virginia in the Edwardian Era, the age of ‘the new woman.’ New women were brash and often broke the rules so it helped to be born into a wealthy family if one wanted to follow that route. And she was.
May was so proud of her southern heritage that for years she hid the fact she was actually born in the North.
Mary Pinkney Hardy Fair was born in 1880 in Wallingford, Connecticut to Robert J. Fair formerly of Galway, Ireland*1 and Elizabeth Hardy of the Virginia merchant class who grew up on a lavish Norfolk plantation, Riveredge.
Her mother, Elizabeth Mohun Hardy was one of fourteen children with long roots in Norfolk. Virginia and North Carolina. (No surprise, my husband gets this very ‘community’ on his DNA results.)
Elizabeth Mohun Hardy Fair (I assume as we have the original. Norfolk photographer. She looks a lot like her sister Mary Pinkney. Just check on the Net.)
One of Elizabeth’s sisters, Mary Pinkney Hardy, married Arthur MacArthur, a military captain and gave birth to Douglas, the future American general.
Elizabeth and Robert Fair married in Norfolk in 1870 but lived in Massachusetts and then Wallingford where Robert prospered in dry goods.*1 The couple had six children, three girls and three boys. Fair died young in 1885. The eldest son died soon after. Elizabeth moved back to Virginia and lived comfortably as a widow the rest of her life. The boys got Ivy League educations. The girls received a genteel, privileged upbringing, their social life chronicled in numerous society columns.
Thanks to the General Douglas MacArthur connection, May’s Hardy line has been traced by multiple genealogists: it goes back to the mid 1600s in Pembrokeshire, Wales and includes many generations of land-owners as well as Methodist Minister and a Sea-Captain who founded a trading post with the West Indies. *
May’s uncles fought in the Civil War for the South under Robert E. Lee. Two of them refused to attend the MacArthur wedding.
Two of May’s Uncles.
The many Hardy sisters of Norfolk, by all accounts, were tall and willowy, strong-willed and vivacious.
Every MacArthur bio has at least a short paragraph on the attractive Hardy women, but it’s an obscure epistolary volume from 1850 we own that suggests that these traits were inherited from the mother, Margaret Pierce*2
”Mrs. H is somewhat larger than myself; her complexion is a dark brunette; she has jet black eyes and her raven tresses nearly touch the ground. Some say she is a descendant of Pocahontas. I do love a real Southern character it makes one so cordial, generous and impulsive.”
Mary Pinkney Hardy Fair Wells of Westmount, Quebec was certainly impulsive. She tied-the-knot for the first time ‘on a dare.’ Her second marriage was to a handsome Italian whom she left because ‘he couldn’t have children.’
Somewhere, I have Thomas and Mary’s 1917 marriage certificate. The line “publication of banns” is crossed out, so it is likely, as May often hinted, that she didn’t get a proper divorce from one or both of these men.
As an ingenue May was thrown out of New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel for smoking a cigar in the lobby. Still, she was a more practical and mature 31 when she married the thrice-widowed Thomas G. Wells, 49, of Montreal.
When May first set eyes on the affable, much older Thomas Wells in Montreal sometimes prior to or during WWI, as her sister, Elizabeth, had married a Montrealer in 1911.*3 May told her sister, “If he is ever widowed again, call me.” When Thomas’ third wife passed away, May hightailed it up to Canada and made her successful play for “Tommy,” the President of Laurentian Spring Water. (Thomas’ favorite first wife, Maude Walker of Ingersoll, Ontario also had North Carolina roots, I have recently discovered. This fact might have been an icebreaker.)
Thomas recounted to his children the first time he ever noticed May. It was on a boat and she was seated and when she got up “she went up and Up and UP!”
Although Thomas was bringing in a hefty salary, it was May’s large dowry that allowed them to live the high life in Westmount. Tall and skinny, she could really rock the 1920’s flapper styles. Still, May, a typical wife of the era, spent most nights at home while her husband shmoozed at his elite social clubs. She liked it that way. She had servants and a singleton sister, Emily, to keep her company.
That Flapper Style
Later in life, Mary was somewhat frail herself. My mother-in-law said May kept scores of medicinal bottles on her bedside table. Her favourite medicine was by far the bourbon and it was kept this ‘southern comfort’ in a flask by her side at all times.
In the 1920’s the Wells family lived on Chesterfield Street in the dry Westmount section of Montreal where she routinely scandalized her friends by pouring booze into her afternoon tea. She didn’t let American Prohibition get in her way, either. The story goes that when travelling back to America by train with her two girls* in the 1920’s she hid bottles of liquor under their pillows. She also sewed pockets into her petticoat to hold small flasks.
The one time she did get caught, she attempted to bribe the border guard. She got plunked on Ellis Island. Thomas was so angry at her he sent his chauffeur out alone to bail her out.
A flask engraved EHF likely, my husband’s great aunt Emily’s. We have inherited quite a few silver flasks from that family 🙂
After Thomas passed away in 1951 (receiving a note of condolence bordered in black from Mayor Camillien Houde) May moved to an apartment on Coolbrook above Cote Ste Luc, where my husband, as a little boy, often visited her and where she lived until her death in 1967.
And, yes, she even managed to make a splash on that occasion. She passed away on her eldest granddaughter’s wedding day.
Apparently, my father-in-law was ashen-faced as he walked his first-born daughter (that good-looking baby) down the aisle, but no one else at the wedding had been told.
May is buried in her famously all-female family crypt in Norfolk, Virginia. Here’s the pic.
Well, Thomas Hardy Fair, her older brother is buried there, too.
Poor little rich boy: My father-in-law may have missed out on maternal affection but he didn’t lack for material comfort. Besides, his Aunt “OMIE” (Emily) took care of him, even taking him -against the law -to the movies in the late 20’s and early 30’s to a Verdun movie theatre that looked the other way when it came to kids.
1. According to an obit (May 17, 1885) I found online from a New Haven, Connecticut newspaper, Robert Fair, from Fair Hill Galway, Ireland, had got his start as a new immigrant with a cousin, Edward Malley who owned a successful department store in New Haven. The obit also said he ended up as a breeder of fine Jersey cows which makes it sounds as if he was so prosperous, in his early 40’s, he could devote himself to a gentleman’s hobby.
The obit doesn’t say that he first landed in Quebec. Robert’s sister Elizabeth stayed in Quebec and married a Samuel James Bennett, a lumber merchant, of St. Romuauld D’etchemin.
2. The book is Place in the Memory by S.H. de Kroyft New York John F. Thow 1850. It was given to Emily Fair my husband’s great aunt by her Mom. In pencil is written, “I wish my daughter Emily H. Fair to preserve this book carefully as a letter from Oyster Bay speaks of her grandmother and mother, who went for the Water Cure there in 1848.” A page later: “Page 13 speaks of your grandmother.”
On page 13 of the book is written “Tomorrow a lovely family Mr and Mrs Hardy and daughter of Virginia leave for their home and will be much missed in our social circle. Mrs. H is somewhat larger than myself; her complexion is a dark brunette; she has jet black eyes and her raven tresses nearly touch the ground. Some say she is a descendant of Pocahontas or Metoka as her father called her. I do love a real Southern character it makes one so cordial, generous and impulsive. Mrs. Hardy and myself have climbed these hill together, crossed valleys and traversed winding footpaths and waded the brooks, and plunged and bathed together till she almost seems a part of myself.”
This Mrs. Hardy was the former Margaret Pierce, also of the Norfolk merchant class.
3. Robert’s sister stayed in Quebec and married a Samuel James Bennett, a lumber merchant, of St. Romuauld D’etchemin. They had nine children, the eldest of whom, Benson, became President of the Asbestos mine in Thetford Mines and the first Mayor of that city. May and her two sisters often came up North to visit their many cousins, to escape the heat and, apparently,to scout for husbands.
James Fair’s sister’s marriage record on Drouin says that she is from Fair Hill, agreeing with his obit. . The Drouin record also says her father James (married to Bedelia Keyes) is ‘ecurie’ as far as I can decipher. From records online the Fairs were land agents for the Berminghams and Earls of Leitram and Rosshill in Galway. James in 1838, was a land agent for the Provost of Trinity College Dublin. He rented the land from them and sublet it to tenants. They raised potatoes and oats, so the upcoming potato famine couldn’t have been easy on their tenants and maybe that’s why James Fair, my husband’s great grandfather, came to Canada and then the US. Descendants of the Fairs in Galway run the Fairhill House Hotel and have a law firm Fair and Murtagh. Www.landedestates.ie
Notes:
- 1.One MacArthur bio The General’s General, claims that the Hardy’s family were Scottish –and proud of it – and that’s why he fell in love with her. (The Hardy surname is Scottish or Irish. Pierce appears Scottish but, hey, we’re talking way back.) This book claims the Hardy’s dealt in fertilizer so came out of the Civil War relatively unscathed. Most other books say the Hardy’s dealt in cotton. MacArthur’s memoirs seem to leave that detail out. He calls them ____merchants. The Hardy’s had to leave their Riveredge plantation for a time during the Civil War when the Union Army took it over. Of course, they were slave owners.
2. May never took her son, Thomas, on trips. He stayed at home and played hockey on the Westmount rink. She wasn’t a total loss as a mother. She was a crack seamstress and made all over kids and grand kids fancy winter coats with fur trim. (She was scared of the cold Canadian winters.)Thomas wasn’t so keen on the fashion. It made him stand out at the rink.
3. As you can see, most of my stories of May come from my father-in-law, her son, and my mother-in-law. I am sure other family members have other stories that perhaps could put another slant on her personality.
4. My husband’s grandmother referred to Douglas MacArthur as “Dougie”. Watching a newsreel she might say “Dougie’s looking good.” Someone kept a stash of news clippings which I once had. I tossed them. May danced the first dance at his 1903 West Point Graduation Elizabeth the second. May’s dance card was donated to the MacArthur Museum. My husband’s aunt visited Douglas in retirement and she said that he was very bossy. LOL
5. May was embarrassed about being born in the North. She didn’t tell anyone until she absolutely had to. She had an older brother Thomas, who went to Cornell and studied engineering and died a widower, I think, in an Upper East Side apartment off Central Park. (My father in law claimed he was the private secretary to Dupont but I have found nothing to collaborate this.). She also had younger brother,
Charlie, who worked as a doctor for free (the story goes) but she clearly grew up in a comfortable female-run environment. I wrote about sister Elizabeth’s dizzying social life here.
Below: Thomas Hardy Fair, May’s eldest brother. It’s written on the back.
Of the 136 trees on Ancestry with Elizabeth Mohun Hardy Fair and Robert Fair, only two mention this son. This is what happens when you have no children. He liked to hunt in Canada. I have his hunting picture album. (Too many dead animals, but a few pics of women in their voluminous turn of the 20th century ‘white dresses’ posing on the porch of small log hunting shacks.)
Hillary Rodham Clinton, Justin Trudeau, Prince Charles’ wife, Camilla Parker-Bowles, Justin Bieber, Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Ryan Gosling, Celine Dion, and me.
This year (2021) is the 400th Anniversary of the baptism of our common ancestor. Julien Fortin saw the first light of day on February 9th, 1621 in the village of Saint Cosme-de-Vairais in the old province of Perche. Julien’s parents were Marie Lavye and Julien his father, a butcher by trade. 1. & 2.
At the age of seven young Julien’s mother died. The young fellow had a good relationship with his grandfather, Gervais Lavye, the owner of L’Auberge du Cheval Blanc. In 1634 at that inn, Julien, now a lad of thirteen first heard Robert Giffard speak at the request of the French King Louis XIV. Giffard’s mission was to recruit settlers, in particular tradesmen and their families to join him in developing a colony in New France.
It was at this point that maybe a seed was planted in his memory as he listened to the adventures of Giffard, that he too, would someday be able to participate in this endeavour?
L’Auberge -du- Cheval-Blanc
Robert Giffard, proprietor of the Seigneurie of Beaupré went back to New France with a small number of settlers and later, around 1650 he returned to Saint Cosme-de-Vairais with the same mission, to recruit more settlers. Julien, now an adult with a bright future ahead, chose to join the group taking on the challenge of an adventure into the unknown. What lay ahead? Could they possibly imagine?
The enthusiastic families made their way perhaps with a certain degree of skepticism to Dieppe where they boarded a ship for a long three-month arduous, perilous voyage, arriving in Quebec City in late August of 1650.
Young Julien had worked as a butcher and would appear to have saved some money. When he arrived in New France, his savings were sufficient that his first notarial act took place on December 26, 1650 when he purchased a prime lot of waterfront property along the Saint Lawrence River in Ste-Anne de Beaupré. It was the first notarial transaction of more than 85 notarial records prepared during his lifetime.
Over the years he became an astute businessman buying and selling land, often using beaver pelts as payments for these transactions. He soon became known as Julien ‘de Bellefontaine”, a name given when he bought his first property which had a source of fresh spring water.
Marriage contract of Julien and Genevieve
Julien, now in his thirties, settled in his new environment and the time came for him to consider marriage. He chose his bride to be, a young seventeen-year-old, Genevieve Gamache, a ’fille a marier’, a marriageable young woman, who had arrived in New France with the hope of finding a suitable husband. At the time many young women were sponsored. She arrived before King Louis XIVs program of “les filles du roi” or King’s daughters who arrived during the years 1663-1673. These young women sponsored by the King came with the intention of marrying and developing the new colony.
Genevieve came to New France accompanied by her brother, Nicolas Gamache dit Lamarre. A marriage contract was drawn up by Claude Auber and signed on the 22nd of August 1652 in the future home of Toussaint while the celebration of the marriage and blessing took place in the chapel of Saint Joachim de Montmorency in Cape Tourmente on the 11th of November 1652. A festive gathering followed at the home of Louis Gagné, whose name appears on the notarial contract, a friend of Julien’s. Both men came from the same village in France.3.& 6.
It was not long before there was a family celebration, one of great joy. Julien and Genevieve had given birth to a daughter, Barbe. She was the first of twelve children, eight boys and four girls from their union.4. Over the years there were many occasions for family festivities. The twelve children were all healthy at birth.
The fate of six of Julien Fortin and Genevieve Gamache’s children.
Chart prepared by the author.
The above chart indicates the devastation that the epidemics of 1687 and 1703 brought on the Fortin family. Some of the younger children contracted scarlet fever, measles and later in 1703 others were taken by smallpox. Julien, the son, died at the age of 20 in 1687, as did Louis at 16. Around 1681 Jean had also succumbed to an epidemic and in 1703 when another outbreak of smallpox occurred Marguerite, Genevieve, Marie-Anne, and Joseph also lost their battles with these devastating diseases. Along the way Barbe lost her first husband, Pierre also due to an epidemic.
On a positive note, it shows the progeny of Julien and Genevieve. They had a total of 75 grandchildren. Julien certainly upheld his part of the bargain in developing and populating New France.
Despite trials, tribulations and the loss of family members and the constant attacks by the Iroquois, life in the new colony continued to thrive. By 1668, Cape Tourmente with its fertile plains along the St. Lawrence River had become an agricultural hub that provided the settlers with plenty of food.
Julien was a generous, prosperous, and deeply religious man with a strong devotion to Saint Anne. He gave to the churches of Chateau Richer and Sainte Anne. He bestowed a house near the church, and a bake house to be used by the two churches. He donated a monetary gift of 20 sous and 2.1 bushels of wheat to the church. He owned several guns, several beasts and twenty acres of land.
The exact death of Julien Fortin is unknown. Archivists have concluded that he was not present at the second marriage of his daughter, Barbe on the 16th of April 1690. The date of his death appears in a document and that the death occurred at Hotel-Dieu hospital in Quebec City August 10, 1692.
Julien Fortin de Bellefontaine faced the unknown, undaunted by the challenges and adventures that lay before him as he set sail for New France in 1650. He was a man of honour and integrity. As he and his wife were among the early pioneers that survived hardships’ They worked diligently and produced a long prolific line of Fortin descendants in North America. Approximately 90% of the Fortins are related to Julien and Genevieve Fortin.5.
Are you a descendant of Julien Fortin dit Bellefontaine?”
I am a proud to be a descendant of this honorable man and his family.
Louisa Seraphina Fortin, my mother’s mother, my grandmother was a direct descendant of Julien Fortin, my 7th great grandfather.
7.
7.
Note:
There is a distinction between ‘dit’ names and ‘de’ names. “dit” names were given to people by giving them an additional second name to distinguish them from others with the same family name.
So, just who was the mystery man who sent my Gran a postcard in 1915? For many years, I have held in a box of family history memorabilia a small item – a postcard.
Life, (bringing up children, and work), prevented me from finding out more about this postcard before now- sent by a stranger to my Gran who, born in 1900 was just 15 years old. Who was this mystery man, I wondered? Now, in the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have no excuse and plenty of lockdown time.
I had often looked at this flimsy piece of history over the years and wondered… And so, at last, I started my research into Pvt. John Harold Polfrey.
As it happens, all the information I needed was on the postcard that my maternal Gran, Edith Bevan had received 106 years ago.
World War 1 was in its second year and during this ‘War to end all Wars’ citizens, even children, were asked to send to the soldiers at the front gift parcels of random gifts. So, Edith had sent a gift parcel of cigarettes and tobacco to an anonymous soldier serving with the British Expeditionary Force.
In due course, Gran received a reply to her gift. It was written in pencil on a flimsy khaki coloured postcard addressed to:
Miss E. Bevan, 29 Elliot St. Devonport.
No County or Country was added but the county was Devon, in England and on the front of the Post Card, is the Censor’s stamp. The first word is blurred, but I assume it reads ‘READ by the censor. There is no stamp, but it is francked [1] ‘Army Post Office 33’ and the date is 5th Jan 1915.
The message reads: ‘Dear Madam, I have received your gift parcel of cigarettes and tobacco and would like to thank you sincerely. Hoping your New Year will be as happy as you deserve, I beg to remain yours thankfully
Name: Pte. J. Polfrey No. 10089
Regiment (or ship) A Sqdn. ? Hussars? Calvary Brigade
Black dots can be seen on the postcard, and I believe these are the censor blacking out the number of the Hussars and Calvary Brigade, so you would not know where the soldier was serving. After scanning the postcard and editing with the photos, I think the numbers are 4th Hussars and 2nd Cavalry. I thought his name was PALFREY but again, with today’s photo scan software, I was able to read it as POLFREY.
John H. Polfrey was born in Fulham, in the southwest of London, England on the 5th of July, 1894 and enlisted on 20th May 1913. He would have been about 19 years old.
He joined the 2nd Cavalry Depot, 4th Hussars (The Queen’s Own).
The 4th Queen’s Own Hussars was a cavalry regiment in the British Army. First raised in 1685 it saw service for three centuries, including the First World War and the Second World War. The Colonel-in chief was Sir Winston Churchill. The 4th Hussars deployed from Ireland to the Western Front in 1914, remaining there for the entire First World War (1914-18).
They took part in the Retreat from Mons, the First and Second Battles of Ypres (1914 and 1915) and several other engagements. In 1958 the 4th amalgamated with the 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars and became The Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars. [2]
Pvt. John Polfrey would have seen a great deal of action in his young life and was awarded three medals for his services. The 1914-15 Star (or Silver War Badge), The British War Medal, and the Victory Medal These three medals are also known as ‘The Trio’ **
1914-1915 Star (Silver War Badge)
This collection includes records of British soldiers who survived World War I and were discharged from the ranks for honourable reasons of illness or injury. In September 1916 such men were honoured by King George V with the institution of a special award, the Silver War Badge. Also known as the Mons Star, the medal is a bronze star with a red, white and blue ribbon, reflecting the French Tricolore. It was issued to British forces who had served in France or Belgium from 5 August 1914 (the declaration of war) to midnight 22 November 1914 (the end of the First Battle of Ypres). [3] [4]
The British War Medal:
The silver or bronze medal was awarded to officers and men of the British and Imperial Forces. [3]
The Victory Medal:
The British version depicts the winged figure of Victory on the front of the medal and on the back, it says ‘The Great War for Civilisation 1914-1919’. To qualify, an individual had to have entered a theatre of war (an area of active fighting), not just served overseas. Their service number, rank, name and unit were impressed on the rim. [3]
Some men sent home after sickness or injury came under the close scrutiny of the public since many were perceived to be shying away from their duties to the country and were treated with contempt and sometimes violence.
The 1914-1915 Star (Silver War Badge, that Pvt. Polfrey was awarded) was intended to be worn with civilian clothes. It had been the practice of some women in England to send white feathers, a traditional symbol of cowardice within the British Empire, in an attempt to humiliate men, not in uniform. [4]
Pvt. Polfrey was discharged on 11 December 1917 and although I searched, I could not access the reason for his discharge, although receiving the British War Medal meant that he was “discharged from the ranks for honourable reasons of illness or injury”. So, I concluded the records possibly could have been burnt in the London Blitz of WW2.
After the War in the 1939 Register of England and Wales Mr Polfrey was living in Uxbridge, Middlesex, England, (where, coincidentally, I was posted as a Medic to RAF Uxbridge, Uxbridge, Middlesex in the 1960s). His occupation was a Catering Manager.
In addition, on the My Heritage site, there is a family photo of Mr Polfrey, with the caption ‘Pop receiving the OBE with his wife and daughter’ there is no date, but it looks to be the mid-1950’s. I was curious as to what Mr Polfrey had received the Order of the British Empire Medal for, so further searching provided the following information.
“1952 New Year Honours (section Officers {OBE] JohnHaroldPolfrey, lately Catering Manager, Festival of Britain”. [5]
After 14 years of war rationing, which did not end until 4th July 1954, the Festival of Britain opened six years after WW2, on the 4th of May 1951. It celebrated the inventiveness and genius of British scientists and technologists probably in an effort to allow the citizens of Britain to feel that life was going to be better. [6]
What a valuable member of society Mr Polfrey proved to be!
Mr Polfrey died at the age of 92 in May 1986 in Torbay, Devon England, my home county.
Franking, a term used for the right of sending Letters or postal packages free of charge. The word is derived from the French affranchir (“free”). The privilege was claimed by the British House of Commons in 1660 in ‘A bill for erecting and establishing a Post Office,” their demand being that all letters addressed to or sent by members during the session should be carried free. https://www.britannica.com/topic/frankin
Genealogy Ensemble 