Place – Van Cooten Voices

Who is Annie?

rodney — Sun, 02 Apr 2023 23:49:06 +0000

My cousin, David Pitman, allowed me to copy the following postcard that belonged to his mother Elwyn. The postcard is from someone called Annie to Mr. W. Thomas, who was Elwyn’s (and also my father’s) great grandfather.

Front of postcard from Annie to Mr. W. Thomas

Reverse of postcard from Annie to Mr. W. Thomas

I presume the explanation (“Annie is Puppa Thomas’ niece. Puppa Thomas’ house in M’boro was called “Henor” & he lived in Coventry St.”) in blue pen was written by Elwyn.

The original text reads:

My dear Uncle,
Many thanks for postcard received of Black boys. I am sending you a p.c. of part of our Village the house at the top of the picture is our doctors. We live right opposite there hope all are well.
Love from Annie

Mr W. Thomas
C/o G Horsburgh Co
Maryborough
Queensland
Australia

Who is Annie? Where did she live? Where is the picture of? When was it sent?

The address on the front of the card is Coventry Rd. Kingsbury. A closer look at the street image yields the name “Swan Terrace” on the row of houses, a shop sign “Cadbury’s”, and a sign with a white swan on it,

The additional information on the reverse of the card is minimal. The stamp has been removed, and so only a partial postmark remains, which reads “KINGSB” and “TAX” but no date is visible.

Doing a Google search for “UK post card Coventry Rd. Kingsbury.” and looking at the images returned results in the identical image being found at https://www.ourwarwickshire.org.uk/content/catalogue_wow/kingsbury-coventry-road-2, a map location, and a suggested date of 1900-1909. The location is (52.56551891790918, -1.6820562306851514) or https://goo.gl/maps/9au5pQ6DwWGyT8Ss8. Looking at Google Street View the White Swan is still existing, but the rest of Swan Terrace has been demolished.

Google Street View image, Tamworth, Road, Kingsbury, Warwickshire

OpenStreetMap Tamworth, Road, Kingsbury, Warwickshire

Ordnance Survey 25 inch 1892-1914 map Tamworth Road, Kingsbury, Warwickshire

The National Library of Scotland site at https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/ allows current and historical maps to be overlayed. The comparison here shows the current OpenStreetMap map and the Ordnance Survey 25 inch 1892-1914 maps for the same area. Tamworth Road, also labelled Coventry Road, now runs diagonally through where Swan Terrace was, and the hotel has been painted in Tudor style. The doctor’s house still exists, and is more visible in this view as some buildings to the north of the White Swan have been demolished. It’s likely that the house just opposite, where Annie lived, has been demolished, and now forms part of the car park adjacent to the White Swan.

Looking at my family history database I realise that I don’t have any details of the families of William Thomas’s brothers and sisters.

The UK Census 1861 for Little Cowarne, Herefordshire, Wales (PRO Ref: RG9 Piece: 1827 Folio: 50 Page: 8)

Household at Glebe Cottage
Philip Thomas, Head, Mar, M, 43, Labourer, Herefordshire Wool Hope
Elizabeth Thomas, Wife, Mar, F, 38, Dressmaker, Herefordshire Tarrington
Henry Thomas, Son, Un, M, 14, , Herefordshire Wool Hope
Mary Elizabeth Thomas, Daur, Un, F, 11, , Herefordshire Wool Hope
Sarah Thomas, Daur, Un, F, 8, , Herefordshire Wool Hope
William Jas. Thomas, Son, Un, M, 5, , Herefordshire Wool Hope
Philip Thomas, Son, Un, M, 2, , Herefordshire Wool Hope

A further child, Walter, shows up on the 1871 census, but the older children are no longer at home.

1901 census Class: RG13; Piece: 2653; Folio: 52; Page: 9

A quick review of the hints on Ancestry trees shows that Mary Elizabeth Thomas married Charles James at Leominster, Herefordshire on 26 Dec 1870. Their daughter Anne Maria James, born 27 Jan 1876, married Arthur James Wright at Tamworth, Staffordshire. In the 1901 census (Class: RG13; Piece: 2653; Folio: 52; Page: 9) Annie, Arthur, and their infant son Howard are living in Coventry Road, Kingsbury, Warwickshire.

In the 1911 Census the family appears with postal address 3 Church View, Coventry Road, near Tamworth Road, Kingsbury, Warwickshire. It is possible this is the same address, but given that they now have six children, it is possible that they are living in a larger house nearby to their 1901 address. Annie and Arthur are still living in Tamworth Road, Kingsbury in 1939, possibly in the same residence. Annie seems to have died in the October quarter of 1943.

So the postcard depicts Coventry Road, now Tamworth Road, Kingsbury, Warwickshire, and was sent to William Thomas by his niece, Annie Wright (nee James), daughter of William’s sister Mary. It was probably sent between 1900-1910, but possibly later.

Berry House

rodney — Sun, 18 Sep 2022 13:08:02 +0000

In February 2022, my cousin Judy alerted me to a real estate advertisement that she had seen in the local Ipswich newspaper concerning the sale of “Berry House.”

Berry House was built by William Berry, father of Elizabeth Berry, who married John Hughes Van Cooten.

Berry House

A Wikipedia article is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Berry_residence

The Queensland Heritage Register listing is at https://apps.des.qld.gov.au/heritage-register/detail/?id=600570

The photographs from the real estate listing show that the house has been stunningly renovated.

The history contained on the Queensland Heritage Register citation indicates that William Berry arrived in the colony by 1843, but my research indicates that this is unlikely, and suggests that this may be a conflation of two William Berrys, but that’s the subject of a future post.

Where was J. B. Edward’s Jewellers Shop

rodney — Thu, 05 Mar 2020 10:52:15 +0000

If you walk from Alexandra Fountain in Bendigo today, and head down Pall Mall towards the Law Courts, its a little hard to see where J. B. Edwards Jewellery shop at 3 Pall Mall was.

The picture below shows the scene in possibly the 1920s. J. B. Edward’s shop is the third down from the corner.

ALEXANDRA FOUNTAIN, BENDIGO, VIC. [picture]
Rose Stereograph Co [c1920-1954]
http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/f/1cl35st/SLV_VOYAGER1644169

Here’s another photo showing staff outside the shop in 1911.

Creator: W H Robinson Studio Museums Victoria https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/770814

And finally, courtesy of Google streetview, is the scene today:

So it looks like the shop is about the third window from the right, with possibly some original features behind the modern facade, just behind the Aussie Cash logo.

Borderless Empire : Dutch Guiana in the Atlantic World, 1750-1800

rodney — Mon, 10 Feb 2020 11:31:56 +0000

In 2015, Bram Hoonhout, then a PhD student working on the 18th century history of Essequibo and Demerara, alerted me to the existence of references to Hendrik, Jan and Nicolaas van Cooten in the letterbooks of Theodore Barrell, a merchant in Demerara.

He was able to supply images, and my transcription is now available here. The page image is made available with the permission of the New York Historical Society.

Bram has now published his history – “Borderless Empire : Dutch Guiana in the Atlantic World, 1750-1800”. The description at bookdepository.com reads:

Borderless Empire explores the volatile history of Dutch Guiana, in particular the forgotten colonies of Essequibo and Demerara, to provide new perspectives on European empire building in the Atlantic world. Bram Hoonhout argues that imperial expansion was a process of improvisation at the colonial level rather than a project that was centrally orchestrated from the metropolis. Furthermore, he emphasizes that colonial expansion was far more transnational than the oft-used divisions into “national Atlantics” suggest. In so doing, he transcends the framework of the “Dutch Atlantic” by looking at the connections across cultural and imperial boundaries.

The openness of Essequibo and Demerara affected all levels of the colonial society. Instead of counting on metropolitan soldiers, the colonists relied on Amerindian allies, who captured runaway slaves and put down revolts. Instead of waiting for Dutch slavers, the planters bought enslaved Africans from foreign smugglers. Instead of trying to populate the colonies with Dutchmen, the local authorities welcomed adventurers from many different origins. The result was a borderless world in which slavery was contingent on Amerindian support and colonial trade was rooted in illegality. These transactions created a colonial society that was far more Atlantic than Dutch.

Bram’s book has gone straight to my wishlist!

I’ll work through the information in the Theodore Barrell letters in future posts.