As we wait for the Euro 2020 final between England and Italy, I thought I’d look for stories about the earliest matches between the two countries in the British Library’s newspaper collection.

The first match between the two sides took place in May 1933 in Rome.  The result was a 1-1 draw.  The Sunday Pictorial published this picture ‘received by photo-telephony’ of the England goalkeeper Hibbs punching out the ball.

British Newspaper Archive - With thanks to Reach PLC. Digitised by Findmypast Newspaper Archive Limited. All rights reserved.

In November 1934, the Weekly Dispatch reported that touts were charging £2 2s for tickets for the forthcoming England-Italy match at Highbury when the cheapest official entry fee was 2s.  Touts were expected to ask prices as high as £5 for the best seats just before kick-off.  England won 3-2.

The next match was held in Milan in May 1939, resulting in a 2-2 draw.  The President of the Italian Federation of Football, Lt Gen Giorgio Vaccaro, expressed the belief that the tie would help to cement the friendly relationship between the two countries.

Italy and England played their first fixture after World War II in Turin in May 1948.  The score was 4-0 to England.

The teams played again in November 1949 at White Hart Lane: England won 2-0.  Two boys from City School Lincoln were suspended by their headmaster for taking a day off to attend the match.  Jeffrey Poole, 14, and Peter Wheatley, 13, had gone with a small group of choirboys led by the Rev R F Walters, curate of St Swithin’s Church.  Their parents and the curate believed that the punishment was too harsh.  Jeffrey and Peter had no regrets, showing reporters a treasured souvenir programme and sharing memories of an exciting trip to London.  The boys were allowed to return to school after their parents wrote to the head regretting their action and promising it would not happen again.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
British Newspaper Archive (also available via Findmypast) e.g. Sunday Pictorial (listed under Sunday Mirror) 14 May 1933; Weekly Dispatch 11 November 1934; Sheffield Daily Telegraph 9 May 1939; Torbay Express and South Devon Echo 3 December 1949; Boston Guardian 14 December 1949.

 

Georgiana, the younger daughter of JMW Turner and Sarah Danby, was born in 1811.  She later said that she had been born in Surrey but that may not be correct.  On 18 June 1840, Georgiana married Thomas James Thompson, seven years her junior and described as a chemist, at St Mary Magdalene Church in Bermondsey.  Georgiana’s age is given as 21, the same as her husband’s, but 21 was often routinely recorded to show that they were of full age and could marry without the permission of parents/guardians.  Turner did not attend. Georgiana refused to acknowledge Turner and gave her father’s name as ‘George Danby, deceased’.  No George Danby is recorded amongst John Danby’s relatives.

In the 1841 census the couple were living at 10 Webber Row, Lambeth, near to where Waterloo Station is now, with Thomas’s profession now recorded as a clerk.  In June 1841, Georgiana gave birth to a son, Thomas William Thompson, who was baptised in October the same year.  The Thompsons were living at 24 Goswell Terrace and Thomas senior is, once again, described as a chemist.  Sadly, Thomas William died in November 1842 and was buried in Bermondsey.  Georgiana was already pregnant with another child.

Exterior of Lying-In Hospital Lambeth 2021 - photographs © David Meaden

In February 1843, she was admitted to the Lying-In Hospital, Lambeth, where she died, aged 31, of puerperal fever and was buried at St Mary Magdalene, Bermondsey.  Her child survived and was baptised as Thomas Markham Thompson at St John’s, Waterloo.  His father was now described as a schoolmaster.  Sadly, Thomas Markham died at the age of five months and was buried in Bermondsey.  Like her sister, Evelina, Georgiana was due to receive a bequest from her father’s will but died eight years before him.  This meant that the only direct line of descent from Turner was through Evelina’s children.

Churchyard of St Mary Magdalene, Bermondsey 2021 photograph © David Meaden

There have been various speculative stories about the parentage of Evelina and Georgiana.  One is that Evelina’s real father was JMW’s father, William (‘Old Dad’).  This is usually based on the evidence of the baptismal register, which refers to her father as William Turner.  However, Turner was always known as William, never Joseph, and his father referred to him as ‘Billy’.  Another is that the girls’ real mother was, in fact, Hannah Danby, Sarah’s niece and Turner’s housekeeper.  There is no real evidence for this, and in his will, Turner refers to the girls as the ‘natural daughters of Sarah Danby’.

Over the years there have been others who have claimed to be Turner’s children but Evelina and Georgiana are the only ones that he acknowledged himself.

David Meaden
Independent Researcher

Further reading:
Selby Whittingham, ‘JMW Turner, marriage and morals’, The British Art Journal, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Spring 2015), pp. 119-125
Franny Moyle, The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J.M.W.Turner (London, 2016)
Anthony Bailey, Standing In The Sun – a life of J.M.W.Turner (1997)
Search for JMW Turner papers in the British Library catalogue Explore Archives and Manuscripts 

JMW Turner's Daughters - Part 1 Evelina

Turner’s topographical watercolours

Turner’s restored house in Twickenham has reopened. Check the website for details.

 

Shortly after the musician and glee composer John Danby died, aged 41, on 16 May 1798, his widow Sarah began a relationship with the artist JMW Turner, who was a near neighbour in Covent Garden.  Their daughter, Evelina, probably named after the title character of Fanny Burney’s novel, was baptised at Guestling in Sussex on 19 September 1801.  The register records her as ‘Evelina, daughter of William and Sarah Turner’.  According to the 1861 census, she was born in Hastings.  In 1811, a second daughter, Georgiana, was born.

In the early years of their relationship, Turner lived with Sarah for short periods of time at various addresses, but this was never a permanent arrangement and they never married.  Turner did not spend a great deal of time with his daughters, although some of his friends reported seeing young girls with a family resemblance, from time to time, at his Queen Anne Street house and gallery.  They are also thought to appear in some of his paintings, notably Evelina in 'Frosty Morning' (1813) and both in 'Crossing the Brook' (1815).

JMW Turner, Frosty Morning, 1813, Tate 00492 , digital image © Tate released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

On 31 October 1817, sixteen-year-old Evelina married 28-year-old Joseph Dupuis, a civil servant, at St James’s, Piccadilly, under the name of Evelina Turner.  Her mother, Sarah Danby, was a witness but Turner did not attend.  Joseph Dupuis had a long career in the diplomatic service.  In 1818 he was appointed British Envoy and Consul to Kumasi, part of the kingdom of the Ashanti (now Ghana).  He became regarded as an expert on African affairs, although some of his superiors felt that he had made too many concessions to the Ashanti.  Between 1819 and 1832, Evelina gave birth to seven children, four of whom survived infancy.  In the 1840s the Dupuis family moved to Greece and then back to London in the 1850s.  According to the census records, they were living at 44 Queen Square, Bloomsbury, in 1861 and at 135 Upper Kennington Lane, Lambeth, in 1871.  Their unmarried daughter, Rosalie, lived with them at both addresses.

JMW Turner, Crossing the Brook, 1815, Tate N00497, digital image © Tate released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported) 

Dupuis had incurred heavy debts and, following the death of Turner’s housekeeper Hannah Danby in 1853, he applied, unsuccessfully, to manage Turner’s gallery in Queen Anne Street.  Evelina had been left £50 in Hannah Danby’s will, with the stipulation that it was not to be used to pay her husband’s debts.  She was amongst those who challenged Turner’s will and when it was finally proved in 1856, she received, in addition to £100 a year from the original will, annuities based on £3,333 worth of Turner’s 3% consols.  This was clearly not enough because, in November 1865, Evelina wrote to Jabez Tepper, the solicitor who had represented various Turner cousins, asking for help to ‘alleviate the sorrows which oppress the last lineal descendant of the race of Turner, the surviving daughter of an artist of such repute’.

Dupuis’ debts must have been substantial because when Evelina died of a heart attack in Lambeth in 1874, a few months after her husband, she left an estate of less than £800 to her daughter Rosalie.

David Meaden
Independent Researcher

Further reading:
Selby Whittingham, ‘JMW Turner, marriage and morals’, The British Art Journal, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Spring 2015), pp. 119-125
Franny Moyle, The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J.M.W.Turner (London, 2016)
Anthony Bailey, Standing In The Sun – a life of J.M.W.Turner (1997)
Search for JMW Turner papers in the British Library catalogue Explore Archives and Manuscripts 

JMW Turner's Daughters - Part 2 Georgiana

Turner’s topographical watercolours

Turner’s restored house in Twickenham has reopened. Check the website for details.

 

On 30 November 1814, Truman Wood was convicted at the Old Bailey for stealing from the East India Company 24 lb of paper, value 6s, and 21 lb of tea, value £3.  He was sentenced to be transported for seven years but remained in England on prison hulks.

Prison hulks in Portsmouth Harbour by Ambrose-Louis Garneray circa 1812-1814 © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London 

Truman Wood had worked for the East India Company as a labourer for sixteen years.  His theft of Company goods from the Haydon Square tea warehouse was discovered when an officer searched an old woman in the Commercial Road on 27 October 1814.  Hidden underneath her petticoats were a bag containing a small amount of tea and some India paper.  After questioning her, the officer went with two colleagues to Wood’s home at 3 Trafalgar Square, Stepney.  There they found several jars, caddies and parcels containing tea. together with a quantity of India paper.  They also discovered £100 in notes, four guineas in gold, and some bags of silver.

Wood asked the officers if they could just take the money, paper and tea, and say nothing more about it.  It would be the ruin of him if the matter came to the Company’s ears.  He was taken before a magistrate and claimed that the paper was a perquisite of his job and that he had bought the tea from a man in the Commercial Road.  The Old Bailey jury found Wood guilty of theft.

Petition of Truman Wood to the East India Company 16 August 1816 - British Library IOR/E/1/252 p.21

On 16 August 1816, Wood wrote to the directors of the East India Company from the Portland hulk moored at Langstone Harbour, Portsmouth, expressing his ‘sincere and unfeigned sorrow’ for his crime and begging their forgiveness.  He had always tried to conduct himself with the ‘greatest recititude’ in his warehouse duties and in his service with the Royal East India Volunteers.  Before his lamentable lapse, Wood had never been suspected of an illicit transaction.  He had suffered the 'greatest privations and heartfelt afflictions' during his imprisonment.  His wife Jane and two children were reduced to ‘most poignant distress’, which was aggravated by Jane having ‘a Complaint in her breast’ which prevented her from looking after the family.  Wood asked the directors to recommend him for a free pardon.

Letter from East India Company to Viscount Sidmouth 17 September 1816 British Library IOR/E/1/251 p.509

The Company forwarded the petition to the Home Secretary, Viscount Sidmouth, with a covering letter expressing the hope that Wood might be pardoned.  The directors asked for Wood’s past good character to be taken into consideration, and suggested that the imprisonment he had suffered might be seen as a sufficient warning to others.  They believed that a continuation of his punishment would be the total ruin of his family who had borne the calamity ‘with becoming resignation and propriety’.

The Company’s intervention was not immediately successful. In October 1816, Wood was transferred to the Bellerophon hulk at Woolwich.  However on 10 July 1818 he was granted a free pardon by Sidmouth and released ten days later.

Sadly it appears that Jane did not recover her health.  The burial records of St Dunstan Stepney show a Jane Wood dying of cancer in February 1819.

Wood married widow Ann Blendall in May 1822 in Bethnal Green.  He was buried at Wycliffe Congregational Church in Mile End Old Town in July 1837.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
Petition of Truman Wood - British Library, IOR/E/1/252 pp.21-23, IOR/E/1/251 p.509
Old Bailey Online - Trial of Truman Wood 
Home Office records of Newgate Prison and the hulks – The National Archives via Findmypast
Parish registers for East London via Ancestry and Findmypast

 

When new employees of the East India Company embarked on their first voyage to India to take up their post, they needed to think carefully about what to pack.  By the 1840s this was a well-trodden path for British officials and one company was on hand to provide everything they would need.

`List of Outfit for Writers, Cadets, and Assistant Surgeons, proceeding to India' - British Library Mss Eur F94.

Amongst the collections of India Office Private Papers is a `List of Outfit for Writers, Cadets, and Assistant Surgeons, proceeding to India'.  This was issued between 1839 and 1844 by Grindlay, Christian, & Matthews, agents and bankers to the British Army and business community in India.  The company was founded by Robert Melville Grindlay, a retired Captain in the Bombay Infantry.  Grindlay had plenty of experience of travel with his regiment and had served as Secretary at the Committee of Embarkation at Bombay.  On returning to London he started the agency Leslie & Grindlay in 1828, principally to organise all the arrangements for clients travelling to India.  The agency would have several changes of name, and later gravitate towards banking and financial services.

Grindlay’s list of outfit for East India Company employees travelling to India makes fascinating reading in terms of what someone was expected to equip themselves with.  There is a long list of shirts, collars, waistcoats, drawers, stockings, gloves, jackets and not forgetting the trusty umbrella.  Also night wear, toiletries and tobacco.  When it comes to foot wear, there are boots, walking or dress shoes, shooting shoes, and of course slippers for relaxing in.

Clothing and military accoutrements from `List of Outfit for Writers, Cadets, and Assistant Surgeons, proceeding to India' - British Library Mss Eur F94.

There is, as you would expect, military clothing such as dress coats, frock coats, shell jackets and regimental trousers. Along with the items of uniform are all the necessary adornments, for example caps (full dress or foraging), swords (with waterproof sword bag), belts, sashes, shoulder epaulettes, and Japanned tin cases to keep them in.

Books offered in `List of Outfit for Writers, Cadets, and Assistant Surgeons, proceeding to India' - British Library Mss Eur F94.

A range of reference books relating to India are listed, and various volumes on military matters including Napoleon’s Military Maxims and Infantry Sword Exercise.  There is even a folding bookcase to keep them in.

Saddlery and sundries from `List of Outfit for Writers, Cadets, and Assistant Surgeons, proceeding to India' - British Library Mss Eur F94.

As every traveller knows, it is often the small items which are forgotten, such as candles, candle sticks and snuffers, tin mugs, looking glasses, tools, writing materials, cutlery, tea pot and biscuits, watch and compass.  All could be purchased from Grindlay, along with a range of trunks to keep everything in, engraved with the owner's name on brass plates.

Cabin furniture and bedding from `List of Outfit for Writers, Cadets, and Assistant Surgeons, proceeding to India' - British Library Mss Eur F94.

To ensure a comfortable night’s sleep, a range of beds and bedding was on offer, including a sofa with drawers, a cane sofa to swing as a cot, or an iron or brass camp bedstead, along with blankets, sheets and pillow cases.  While on the move, British officials also required appropriate furniture in order to conduct their business.  To this end, Grindlay offered a variety of chairs (cabin arm chair, folding camp chair or Dover folding chair) and tables (mahogany camp table or swinging tray or table).

John O’Brien
India Office Records

Further Reading:
`List of Outfit for Writers, Cadets, and Assistant Surgeons, proceeding to India', issued c1839-44, by Grindlay, Christian, & Matthews, East India Army Agency, London, shelfmark Mss Eur F94.
Grindlay, Christian, & Matthews, East-India Army and General Agency and East-India Rooms, [London: Grindlay, Christian, & Matthews, 1839] shelfmark: Asia, Pacific & Africa DRT Digital Store T 29729
A history of Grindlays Bank Ltd
Arup K Chatterjee, ‘Robert Melville: The artist, Indophile and imperialist who founded Grindlays Bank’ in Scroll.in   

Advice for ladies in India - equipment on the voyage and clothing for women

 

In 1843 Captain Christopher Simpson Maling of the Bengal Army asked the authorities about the precedence of his wife in Indian society.  Her name had been omitted from the table of precedence.  Jane Wemyss Maling was the daughter of Hon. Leveson Granville Keith Murray of the Madras Civil Service and the granddaughter of the Earl of Dunmore.

The government replied to Captain Maling that it had never interfered to regulate claims based on a statute of precedence in England.  A copy of the correspondence was sent to the East India Company Court of Directors in London.  In July 1844 a despatch to India from the directors stated that it would be perfectly correct for the government in Calcutta to decide the relative rank of ladies based on Royal Warrants and accompanying orders.  The Warrant under which the relative ranks of people in India was to be determined was dated 28 June 1841, and it specifically addressed the rank of ladies having precedence in England.  The directors anticipated that there would be no difficulty in deciding any question that might arise.  Ranks of people not mentioned in the Warrant should be regulated by general custom as decided by the Governor General in Council.

The same question of precedence was raised in 1846 by Hew Drummond Elphinstone Dalrymple, Acting Chief Magistrate and Superintendent of Police at Madras.  His wife Helenora Catherine was the daughter of Major General Sir John Heron Maxwell, Baronet of Springkell, Dumfries.  Dalrymple asked whether the daughter of a baronet was divested of her hereditary place and precedence on arriving in India, or did she fall under the last clauses of the Royal Warrant?  The Government of Fort St George consulted Calcutta and were told that the clause in the Royal Warrant applied.  This stated: ‘All Ladies to take place according to the rank assigned to their respective husbands, with the exception of ladies having precedence in England, who are to take place according to their several ranks, with reference to such precedence, after the wives of the members of council at the presidencies in India’.

Order of Precedence by Royal Warrant 28 June 1841 -  East-India Register and Army List 1846

The order of precedence specified by the Royal Warrant of 1841 was published in the East-India Register and Army List.  At the top of the list was the Governor General, followed by the Deputy Governor of Bengal, and the Governors of Madras, Bombay and Agra.  Then came the chief justices and bishops, followed by the commanders-in-chief; members of the different Councils; judges; and naval military and law officers.  Civilians were divided into six classes, and the military were ranked according to date of commission.  There were also stipulations for the relative rank of naval and medical personnel compared with military officers.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
IOR/F/4/2266 File 115085 Precedence of wives in India 1840s

 

In December 1756, Robert Young joined the East India Company ship Boscawen as a seaman on a voyage to India and China.  His monthly wage was set at £2 5s.  Young received two months’ imprest or advance pay, and five months’ absence money was paid to his ‘attorney’.

'Heaving the lead' - illustration by George Cruikshank from Thomas Dibdin, Songs, naval and national (London, 1841) 

The journal of the Boscawen records that Robert Young died at sea on the afternoon of 18 August 1758 during the passage from Madras to China.  There were unpaid wages to claim, but his family had a problem: Robert Young did not officially exist.

The sailor’s real name was Robert Wood and the explanation behind the adoption of an alias can be found in the probate records held at The National Archives.  Robert wrote his will, using his birth name of Wood, on 16 August 1758, just two days before his death when ‘weak in Body’.  He left everything to his mother Margaret Wood of Warkworth, Northumberland.

The Boscawen arrived back in the Thames in March 1760.  On 21 March 1761, Mary Wood, spinster of St James Westminster, gave evidence to the Prerogative Court of Canterbury.  She stated that she was acting for her mother Margaret Wood, now the wife of Henry Taylor.  Mary understood that Robert had taken on his mother’s maiden name of Young when he joined the Boscawen in case he was pressed by a Royal Navy warship on the homeward bound voyage.  He might then desert with greater safety by reverting to his real name and evading detection.  Several other sailors who had entered the ship with him had taken on aliases for the same reason.

Receipt signed by Mary Wood on 3 April 1761 for the balance of Robert Young’s wages  in the Boscawen IOR/L/MAR/B/572 G(2)

Probate was granted on 28 March 1761 to Mary Wood as attorney of Margaret Taylor.  Mary then applied to the East India Company for the money owed to Robert.  On 3 April 1761 she was paid a balance of £28 3s 9d.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
Journal and pay accounts for the Boscawen 1756-1758 - IOR/L/MAR/B/572C, 572G(1), 572G(2).
Probate of will for Robert Wood, otherwise Young, 28 March 1761 - The National Archives PROB 11/864/155.

 

Following on from our post celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first Women’s FA Cup Final, this post delves back further into the history of the women’s game.

I was surprised to find a newspaper report of a women’s football match at Bath in October 1726.  ‘Yesterday a new and extraordinary Entertainment was set on Foot for the Divertion of our polite Gentry; and what should it be but a Match at Foot-Ball, play’d by six young Women of a Side, at the Bowling Green.’

Report of women’s football match- Ipswich Journal 8 October 1726 British Newspaper Archive

Women’s football featured at the birthday celebrations held in 1790 at Brighton for the Prince of Wales and his brother the Duke of York.  There was a cricket match played by the Duke and ‘many gentlemen of rank and fashion’.  Other amusements included two 11-a-side football matches, one for the inhabitants of Brighton and the other for young women.  Each game had a prize of 5 guineas for the winning team.  There was also a ‘jingle-match’ won by John Baker who dressed up in bells and escaped capture by ten blindfolded people for half an hour.  Baker won a jacket, waistcoat, and gold-laced hat.

Another story which caught my eye was a report of a  football match held at Walton near Wetherby in Yorkshire in 1773.  The married gentlemen of Walton played the bachelors for a prize of 20 guineas.  A fiercely fought contest was waged for over an hour ‘with many falls and broken shinns given on each side’.  The wife of one of the married men was watching her husband being hard-pressed and decided to go to help him.  She was not intimidated by seeing him brought down by the superior strength of his antagonist, but went after the ball and secured victory for her husband’s team.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
British Newspaper Archive (also available via Findmypast)  - Ipswich Journal 8 October 1726; Chester Chronicle 3 September 1790; Leeds Intelligencer 2 March 1773.