Thursday 27th August 2020 - Number 7071

WELCOME TO THE 

 LAWS FAMILY REGISTER

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Lord, help me dig into the past 

and sift the sands of time

that I might find the roots that made

this family tree of mine

Lord, help me trace the ancient roads, 

on which our fathers trod, 

which led them through so many lands, 

to find our present sod.

Lord help me find an ancient book 

or dusty manuscript, 

that's safely hidden now away, 

In some forgotten crypt.

Lord, let it bridge the gap, 

that haunts my soul when I can't find, 

that missing link between some name, 

that ends the same as mine.

Henry Lawes

1595-1662

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A Child of the Twenties

A suburban childhood of the Twenties 

seen from the Nineteen Nineties

by

John Robert Laws FICA 1921-2008

Chapter 18
    

A Child of the Nineteen Twenties 

We spent all the family holidays on that little bit of east coast and going further afield did not arise until I could go off on my bike alone or with a friend. I had already been to scout camps, all on a shoestring. About the same time school journeys were started, only in the holidays of course not in term time as today.  The camps were for boys only. I doubt whether our devoted school staff thought they could cope with the tribulations of a mixed camp. The journeys to foreign parts however were co-ed without any problems.

I recall one school camp at St.Audries Bay, near Watchet in of course wonderful summer weather. Our site was in a field between the coast road and low cliffs above the beach. 

We must have gone to Somerset by coach, an uneventful journey of which I remember nothing except that our kit was moved by horse and cart from the road down a narrow track to the field beside the farm where a line of bell tents had already been erected for us. 

We had the luxury of palliasses which we filled with straw from the tumbledown buildings near the farmhouse and the cooking was done by the school caretaker with a small amount of help from us on a rota basis. A few cows were kept by the farmer and we were able to see the milk he supplied to us hand-milked into the pail.

Behind and above our camp on the other side of the road, rose the warm late summer colours of the Quantock Hills, an almost impenetrable terrain of bracken and bilberries guaranteed to stain one's fingers and lips and scratch one's knees to ribbons. We had time to wander on our own and there were organised trips when we visited Dunster and walked to the top of Dunkery Beacon. 

The timeless stone cottages and ancient butter market of Dunster were already an attraction to visitors but as boys, we were too keen on looking forward to really appreciate the glimpse back into the past that such places are able to give us later in life. 

Exmoor’s wide vistas and stony ground thatched with heather and berries were pure joy, the purples and crimsons of the foliage stretching out through the sunshine to a distant hazy horizon and the world at one's feet.

In our free time, we wandered into the little town of Watchet lying somnolent in the sunshine, seemingly untouched by tourism. There was a corner shop selling sweets and buns, and Cydrax to refuel the inner man for a walk into the hills.  

Watchet was minding its own business around its tiny harbour where cargoes seemed to be black coal in and white china clay out. There must have been a few holidaymakers about however because one day we went by paddle steamer along the coast to Lynmouth where we disembarked in small boats and had a day to explore and wade up the river to Watersmeet. This was decades before the catastrophic flood destroyed the town which had previously stood secure for centuries. 

Nearly everyone who holidayed around Somerset visited Lynmouth but the numbers were small and it was not crowded.

Back at St Audrie's Bay the beach is stony with grey rocks and flat stones ideal for skimming the waves. The most interesting find was that it abounded in fossils of spiral creatures up to a foot across, ammonites I believe, which had been preserved when their nice grey slimy mud was pressed into the rock a few million years back.

Another boys-only school trip took us youth hostelling to the hostel at Millersdale in Derbyshire. There were about fifteen in the group with two of three school stall including ‘Sammy’ Stewart one of the most popular masters. He taught geography and seemed to be a member of nearly all the journeys. 

We walked the hills and dales and went by train to Edale where the station name board said ‘HOPE for Castleton’ though we never saw Castleton as we walked away from Hope over the hills. A visit to the Blue John Mine where blue fluorspar is mined showed us something new in this glowing rock and in an underground trip by boat through a low tunnel which led us to a cave where there is a hefty waterfall from above which went down below us into the depths of that the guide told us was a bottomless pit. At least it never filled up with water.

Continued tomorrow

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Extracted from our Database today

Thursday 27th August 2020

We don't show births after 1920 or marriages after 1940 

(GDPR 2018)

(After these dates apply to the registrar)

FAMILY EVENTS

1655 - Marriage: Thomas HARPER-1816 and Elizabeth LAWES-1815, Norwich             Norfolk England

1805 - Marriage: Jerimiah LAWS-29700 and Susannah BAILEY-22524, Mercer               County Kentucky United States
1805 - Birth: Sallie Chapman  GORDON-48228, (Confederate Hospital)
           Wilks County, North Carolina United States
1810 - Birth: Edward LAWS-23714, Whickham Durham England
1830 - Birth: Thomas Brignell LAWS-7837, (Secretary Copper Mining Co)                       Pimlico Middlesex England
1837 - Baptism: Louisa SEXTON-3360, Horstead Norfolk England
1843 - Marriage: William AKHURST-27522 and Kate LAWS-27523, 
1851 - Marriage: Charles William LAWS-31352 (Merchants Clerk/Ship Agent)                 and Caroline Elizabeth Kett PUNCHER-31353,
           Stepney Middlesex England

1851 - Birth: Cyrus S SITES-11995, (Carpenter)  Rouzerville Pennsylvania USA
1865 - Baptism: Alice Louisa LAWS-3365, (Barmaid) Horstead Norfolk England
1866 - Birth: Walter BLANCHARD-26124, (Sanitary labourer) Immingham                      Lincolnshire England
1872 - Birth: William Stephen LAWES-37108, (Hostler Retired) Andover                         Hampshire England

1876 - Birth: Edward Lucian LAWS-2803,(Army Officer)  Tenby Pembrokeshire             Wales
1880 - Birth: John William LAWS-3722, (Coppersmith's Labourer) Roos East                 Yorkshire England
1882 - Burial: Honor or Anna or Hannah ANDREWS-6998,  (Farm Servant)                    Waverley New South Wales Australia
1883 - Birth: James William LAWS-14890, (ARMY Private 6266)  Isleham                        Cambridgeshire England
1886 - Marriage: James Charles LAWES-47941 (Merchant Seaman)  and                         Catherine CLARK-47384, Newington Surrey England
1891 - Birth: Holman LAWS-22033, 
1892 - Birth: Dulcie Amanda SANSOM-46663, 
1893 - Birth: William Henry LAWES-38100, (Railway Permanent Way Ganger                 GWR)
1893 - Death: William Horace LAWS-35409, Derby Derbyshire England
1897 - Birth: Harold Victor LAWS-15588, (Senior Staff Officer Inland Revenue)               Bedford Bedfordshire England
1898 - Birth: Jeanette COOPER-22151, Chesterfield Derbyshire England
1899 - Birth: Frederick L LAWS-42486, (Milk Roundsman)
1900 - Birth: Alice LAWS-43144, (Married)
1900 - Death: John Joseph  LAWS-6383 (Head Teacher Of Elementary School),                 Portsmouth Hampshire England

1904 - Birth: Marjorie THOMPSON-36884, 
1906 - Marriage: Charles Henry James LAWES-36424 (Motor Engineer)  and                 Harriett Sarah STEPHENS-36425, West Ham Essex England
1906 - Birth: Herbert Ernest LAWS-33071, Willesden Middlesex England
1908 - Birth: Queenie May MATTHEWS-37890,
1909 - Birth: Winifred Agnes LAWS-4744, Orsett Essex England
1911 - Birth: Doris N JEWKES-47888, 
1918 - Birth: Lura Dell ROGERS-45505, Fines Creek, Haywood County 
           North Carolina United States
1929 - Death: Margaret Jane LAWS-7173, (Spinster) Newcastle upon Tyne                       Northumberland England

1932 - Burial: Walter LAWS-5944, (Sailmaker) Great Yarmouth Norfolk England

1936 - Marriage: Lyle Jackson LAWS-25868 and Loretta Edith BRIGHT-25869,
1940 - Death: Treen Hunt LAWES-3105, (Cab Driver & Furniture Dealer)                        Isleworth Middlesex but resided at LAWES-3105,
           Margate Kent England
1948 - Burial: Mary LAWS-11775, Falkner Green Memorial Park, Victoria                       Australia
1953 - Burial: James Horace LAWS-11773, Falkner Green Memorial Park,                       Victoria Australia
1974 - Death: Arthur James Thomas LAWS-31774, (Shop Porter)  Cheshunt                     Hertfordshire England
1982 - Burial: Catherine V LAWS-16244, Long Island New York United States
1985 - Death: Kevin Lee LAWS-16707, 
1996 - Death: Ellen LAWES-14204, 
2007 - Burial: David Thomas LAWS-40672, Centertown, Cole, Missouri 
           United States
2008 - Death: Hilda CLEGG-35145, 
2013 - Death: Robert William LAWES-489,  (Stock Controller) Tauranga
           New Zealand

MORE TOMORROW

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Dear Ancestor,-

Your tombstone stands amongst the rest, neglected and alone

The names and dates are chiselled out on polished marble stone

It reaches out to all who care, it is too late to mourn

You did not know that I exist, you died and I was born

Yet each of us are cells of you, in flesh, in blood, in bone.

Our blood contracts and beats a pulse entirely not our own

Dear Ancestor, 

The place you filled one hundred years ago

Spreads out amongst the ones you left who would have loved you so,

I wonder if you lived and loved, I wonder if you knew

That someday I would find this spot and come to visit you.

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If you are a LAWS or a LAWES researching your family, 

you may be interested in our new 

Facebook Group 

*LAWS FAMILY HISTORY WORLDWIDE & DNA*

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Robert Henry Laws

1828-1881

Captain of the Barque 'Woolhampton' 

my paternal Great Grandfather

Barque 'Woolhampton'

This is Robert Henry's Wife 

Sarah Ann Laws, formerly Fuller

My paternal Great Grandmother

1846-1924

R I P

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Sharon Nicola LAWS

2008 Olympics Cyclist

Environmental adviser for Rio Tinto Zinc 

1974-2017

R I P

The content provided on this site is not guaranteed to be error-free

It is always advised that you consult original records.

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PLEASE NOTE

We have excluded records of living people to protect their privacy (GDPR 2018)
We only show births before 1920, and marriages before 1940.

If you are seeking to find folk after these years you should contact the registrar.

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                      Member of The Guild of One-Name Studies

THE GUILD OF ONE-NAME STUDIES

www.one-name.org

registrar@lawsfamilyregister.org.uk

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With grateful thanks to Simon Knott 

for his permission to reproduce his photographs on this site 

see 

http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk

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