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#1
10-09-14, 22:09
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Who Do You Think You Are - Mary Berry 11th Sep
On BBC1 at 9 p.m.
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#2
11-09-14, 21:10
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Episode synopsis - lots of dates, links etc to fill in after I've typed it up...
Mary Berry is 79. She and her husband Paul have been married for nearly 50 years. They had three children, but their son William died in a car accident at the age of 19. Mary grew up on a farm in Bath. Her older brother Roger still lives in Bath, very close to their childhood home. Mary went to see Roger and their younger brother William, who had some old family photographs. Mary's grandmother Annie Rosa Berry nee Suffolk died in 1907 in Nottingham at the age of 36, when Mary's father Alleyne William S Berry was only two. Her parents were William English Suffolk and his wife Eliza Amelia who died in Oct 1885 age 50, according to a memorial card which Mary's brothers showed her. Eliza Amelia's father was Robert Houghton, born in Norwich in 1798. In Norwich trade directories from 1830 to 1868, Robert Houghton is listed as a baker, and then baker and builder, at Ber Street, which was in a very rough part of Norwich. Mary was shown the 1861 census entry listing Robert as a baker employing 3 hands. She was also shown workhouse records stating that Robert Houghton supplied bread to the workhouse and also to paupers receiving "outdoor relief". She went to find out how they used to bake bread in Victorian times. Robert Houghton 1861 census entry on ancestry Mary was shown a report in the Norfolk News dated Feb 10 1855 saying that the Mayor had received a complaint from the city paupers about the poor quality of the bread, but it had been tested by an inspector and found to be good. Then there was a death notice dated 21 Mar 1868, his date of death being the 12th. The death notice stated that he had been clerk of the parish for 34 years. Mary then went on to look at the family of her grandfather, Edward Berry, a Church of England canon. She went to Norfolk Record Office, taking with her a private autobiography written by her father, which said that he knew very little about his grandparents and had only visited their house once. His grandfather Edward Berry sr had been a journeyman printer and ended up as either the foreman or owner of the printing business. Edward Berry sr was born in 1845, and his birth certificate showed his mother's name as Mary Berry but no father's name was given. Mary was shown parish register baptism entries for other children of Mary or Mary Ann Berry: Henry Augustus 15 Jul 1832, Emma 16 Feb 1834, and George Frederick 23 Oct 1836. She was also shown burial entries for Henry who died on the 17th Oct 1832 ("an infant"), and Emma who died on the 31st July age 2. Henry Augustus Berry's baptism in the Archdeacon's Transcripts on FamilySearch Mary was shown Mary's baptism entry from 1808, the daughter of Christopher and Mary Berry. She was shown "Berry's Norwich Directory" from 1810 which was printed by C Berry jun, Dove Lane, and included a listing for Christopher Berry bookseller and printer, Dove Lane. Mary visited the John Jarrold Printing Museum to find out about the Berry family, and was shown an announcement of Christopher Berry's bankruptcy in the Norfolk Chronicle of 16 Nov 1811, and an advertisement from 1812 for the auction of the Berry family's belongings. Apparently Christopher was allowed to keep a printing press and a set of type, and there was an item in the Norfolk Chronicle in Jun 1813 saying that he had published an ode to the "decayed members of the bankruptcy club." Mary was shown baptism entries for the rest of Christopher and Mary's children, all younger than Mary jr: Christopher 1809, Maria, John, Louisa, Augustus, Sarah, Edward, and Eliza. She was then shown a Poor Law Commission record from around 1819 saying that the wife of Christopher Berry the younger and six of her children (the six youngest) were to be received into the workhouse, and the said Christopher Berry was to pay 20 shillings a week for their maintenance, or risk being arrested. A local historian suggested to Mary that a likely explanation for this was that Christopher had left his wife. Mary was shown burial register entries from the parish of St Giles for three of the children: Eliza who died when only a few months old, Augustus age 9 and Edward age 6, all with abode given as St Andrew's Workhouse. Mary then looked at census entries for Mary jr. In 1851 and 1861 she was listed as a Stay Maker, and Edward was listed in 1861 as apprentice to a printer, with George's occupation shown as carpenter. The 1854 trade directory had a listing for Berry, Mary, Pottergate St, in the Stay Makers section. Her death certificate from 1870 showed son Edward as the informant. Mary and her brothers visited the grave of their grandfather Canon E A Berry and his wife Annie Rosa.
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#3
11-09-14, 21:36
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I much preferred this one to last week's. They fitted in so much family history! But I thought the surname Houghton was pronounced Horton, not Howton as they pronounced it all the way through this episode? My other quibble is that they made a lot out of the fact that Mary doesn't seem to have named a son after her father Christopher, but (a) it was quite usual for illegitimate boys to be named after their own fathers, and (b) she didn't name her daughter after her mother, so does that prove that she had fallen out with her mother as well as with her father? I don't think it means anything much.
I would like to know whether they looked through the poor law records to see whether there was any information in there about the father(s) of Mary's children, as the parish would have wanted to know who should be paying for them if she was receiving parish relief.
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#4
11-09-14, 21:49
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I thought it was really interesting and a lot more genealogy based than previous episodes. The pronunciation of Houghton is the way I've hear it pronounced round here (Howton)
__________________
Lynn
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#5
11-09-14, 22:02
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Here is Robert Houghton in 1851, a carpenter employing 4 men:
1851 census on ancestry and also a carpenter in 1841: 1841 census on ancestry
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#6
11-09-14, 22:04
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More interesting than I expected although I did groan with despair when we were shown how to make bread!
So, where was naughty Mary Berry in 1841? You don't suddenly start being a staymaker, you have to be apprenticed and that surely would have been while she was in the workhouse? So she would always have had a trade to fall back on. Also - I thought staymakers made the bones and steels that went into corsets and that corset makers made corsets! Interesting but again, so many tantalising gaps. How did young Edward become a Canon? Was Mary really a staymaker or Something Else? (Ahem). Did Christopher Berry run off with someone else? OC
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#7
11-09-14, 22:36
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FamilySearch has the baptism of an "Elizabeth Grisnam B Berry", daughter of a Mary Berry, 6 Oct 1844 at Norwich, but it doesn't say which parish or link to an image. The film number is bishop's transcripts. So I don't know whether she was another in the same family or not.
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#8
11-09-14, 22:50
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Quote:
Near the bottom of the left hand page: Ward & Fisher Yard, St Andrew Street, Norwich. Mary is 25 with son George 3. Her occupation is down as "Lodger".
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#10
12-09-14, 05:53
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Quote:
I was interested in the contract to supply bread to the workhouse, as one of my g-gs had a similar contract to supply bread to the local jail. But so many unanswered questions!
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