Follow the Bouncing ball

I am really pleased to introduce the first of my guest bloggers, Janice Jeffs. I met Janice several years ago when I had the privilege to introduce her to Fletton, the home of her ancestors. Since then we have explored the emigration of Fletton natives to Canada together. Janice has been a valuable 'critical friend' in my own writing. I hope you enjoy this blog.

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Janice Jeffs is a mathematician who lives in Ottawa. Now retired, she was a university professor in Nova Scotia and a civil servant in the federal government. 

She enjoys solving puzzles and listening to people’s stories and combines these two interests via family history research. She is especially interested in tracing people who emigrated from England to Canada to see how their lives changed over the years.

She holds a PhD in mathematics from Carleton University, an MBA from Université de Sherbrooke and a BSc in engineering from Queen’s University at Kingston.

Follow The Bouncing Ball

Do you ever find yourself thinking of one thing, which leads straight to another and then your thoughts suddenly take a different direction? It’s as if your thoughts are following the bouncing ball in a singalong movie. I have such a bouncing path, linking people from Peterborough to their future lives in Canada and their parent's homes in England.

The first bounce of this path begins in 1912 at the Windsor Ontario border crossing between the United States and Canada. Two young men from Farcet are trying to cross back into Canada after visiting a friend in California. They are denied entry because they don’t have the required $25 each. They are Canadians Fred Weston, who emigrated less than two months before, and Amos Wheatley, who emigrated in 1911.

Before emigrating to Canada, they each lived with their parents in Farcet and worked as brickyard labourers. Fred’s parents George and Emma Weston lived at 4 Curve Terrace in 1911. Amos’s parents Joseph and Mary Ann Wheatly lived at Field Terrace in 1911 (and at 4 The Curve in 1901!).

We know Fred and Amos eventually succeed in crossing the border because a few years later they join the Canadian Expeditionary Forces (CEF) and serve in WWI. But how hard would it have been for them to each come up with $25 back then? If we tried to do a calculation, we would have to consider many factors such as the 1912 exchange rate between the dollar and the pound, whether wages were higher or lower between Canada and England, how to adjust for inflation over more than 100 years, how to account for the pre- and post-war cost of living, etc.

It might be easier to consider what $25 could buy back then. The 1913 Eaton’s department store catalogue is a treasure trove of items for sale in Canada, ranging from clothes and household goods to candy to 5-bedroom houses. But you won’t find any tobacco products because the founder, Timothy Eaton didn’t allow them to be sold in his stores. https://www.digitalkingston.ca/presents-from-the-past/store-catalogues

One item that started at $25 was the Road King Bicycle on page 212. The catalogue promises 'It will be delivered to your nearest station.'

Bicycles were a part of life in Peterborough. As early as 1890, Kelly’s Directory of Northamptonshire lists the Peterborough Bicycle Club, Pavillion Hotel, Park Road, Peterborough, Martin Fred Rowe and George Copley honorable secretaries. Was bicycling only a rich man’s past-time, or would the working man also own a bicycle, for transportation if not for sport? Dr. Sadie McMullon discusses the Peterborough bicycle trade in her thesis. In particular, significant saving would have been needed to purchase a brand-new bicycle in the 1890s. We can surmise that bicycles were both expensive and in demand because by 1902 a trade in secondhand bicycles had developed: the Peterborough Advertiser ran an advertisement for used bicycles in good working order in the £1 to £5 range. These prices must have been affordable because by 1911 Walter Rimes is running a bicycle repair shop from his home and business on Bread Street in New Fletton. Walter’s interests may have been two-fold as his son Albert was a keen cyclist.

The British military valued the benefits of bicycle transportation, creating a Cyclist Battalion in WWI. Herbert Wootton, who spent most of his life in Fletton, was offered a commission in the Cyclist Battalion. One of his tasks while a Lieutenant was to recruit a Reserve Battalion, with his Captain, which they did quickly and with great success, raising five hundred men within a few weeks. Sixty of these men came from Fletton and one of those came via Canada.

This Fletton born Canadian is John Langley Tebbutt, son of John Betts Tebbutt, an alderman and Mayor of Peterborough before WWI. John Betts Tebbutt also ran the Crown Hotel on Bridge End in Fletton.

Son John will see many changes over a short period of time. In 1911 he lives with his parents at the Crown Hotel, assisting with the business. He emigrates in 1912, a clerk bound for Vancouver. By 1913 he has secured a position as a clerk with the Bank of Commerce. In 1915 he joins the Canadian Expeditionary Forces (CEF) on June 25, arrives in England in November, is discharged from the CEF on December 3rd 1915 so he can be appointed to the 1^st Huntingdonshire Cyclists Battalion as a Second Lieutenant. In 1918 he marries Dorothy M Dickens of Peterborough. After the war ends and John is discharged, he and Dorothy stay in England and raise their family in Essex.

All these rapid twists and turns in John’s life bounced a sequence of pictures across my mind: a spinning film reel, then a curtain rising on a musical theatre performance and next a choir singing in harmony. Together these sights and sounds lead me to three more Peterborough men who cross the Atlantic to live in Canada.

First the film reel: Wilfred Gladstone Crane emigrated as a child to Vancouver with his parents around 1911. Wilfred was born in Woodston and his father was brickyard manager Alfred Thomas Crane. When Wilfred marries in 1920, he gives his occupation as ‘Motion Picture Operator’. When he dies in 1990 his daughter lists his occupation as ‘Projectionist’ in ‘Theatre’ so this was his life-long career.

Next the musical theatre performance: Sidney William Clarke was born April 14th 1882 in Peterborough. By 1906 Sidney is a musical instrument dealer and the next year he emigrates to Canada with his wife, child and mother-in-law. In 1911 he is a musician in a theatre in Edmonton, Alberta and by 1917 he is a musician with the Royal Victoria Theatre in British Columbia. Back then this theatre was a venue for operas and other live performances and today it is a National Historic Site of Canada.

https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/dfhd/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=103

It would be interesting to know what instrument or instruments Sidney played, but this is not recorded in the documents I’ve seen. However, after Sidney returns from WWI he leaves the theatre and by 1924 he is working for Customs. Sidney’s career change is timely because the Royal Victoria Theatre becomes a movie theatre in 1930, showing movies with sound tracks which eliminated the need for live musicians.

Sidney’s parents Edmund, a commercial traveller, and Lina (Goodman) Clarke live on Huntly Grove, Peterborough from 1901 until they retire in 1925. At that point they emigrate to Victoria, joining their son Sidney and his family. Today many Canadians retire to Victoria because of its mild climate, beautiful gardens and golf courses but the journey required can’t be compared to what Edmund and Lina would have experienced nearly 100 years ago.

Lastly, the choir singing: Christopher Charles ‘Charlie’ Allen was born in 1890 in Wellingborough to Charles S. and Sarah (Moulding) Allen. His parents move the family to Woodston and by 1911 Charlie is an assistant grocer and his father is a wheelsmith making wheels for railway wagons. In 1912 Charlie emigrates to Canada on the Empress of Britain, setting sail a week after the sinking of the Titanic.

Charlies joins the CEF on May 17th 1916 in British Columbia. After the war he returns to British Columbia and purchases land in the Cariboo region where he lives the life of a pioneer for five years, clearing the land, building a log house and ranching. After that experience, Charlie moved east and settled in Kenora where he lived to the ripe old age of 101. During his lifetime he sang in several choirs, including the Zion Methodist choir in Kenora, in Peterborough, England the Trinity Congregational Choir (in the chapel where he met his wife Florrie) and the Cathedral Voluntary Choir when he was in school.

Charlie’s participation in the Cathedral Voluntary Choir ricochetted my thoughts over to my great-grandfather Thomas William Jeffs. Thomas traded the brickyards of Fletton for the brickyards of Toronto, emigrating in 1907 with his wife Annie (Hubbard) and two sons Reginald and Jack (my grandfather). Family stories say Thomas sang in the Peterborough Cathedral but so far I have not found any evidence to prove the story true (or false). Perhaps Thomas sang in the Cathedral Voluntary Choir when he was at school, just as Charlie Allen did.

It would be interesting to hear more stories from Peterborough about the choirs, the choir members and the places where they sang. And who knows, perhaps these reminiscences will lead to more bouncing balls to follow!

Bibliography

MIGRATION TO FLETTON 1841-1911 An Exploration of Family Migration, the Creation of Community and Social Mobility through Marriage https://leicester.figshare.com/articles/thesis/Migration_to_Fletton_1841-1911_An_Exploration_of_Family_Migration_the_Creation_of_Community_and_Social_Mobility_through_Marriage/10246592

For more information on Walter and Albert Rimes see ‘The Rimes Cup’ Albert Sidney Rimes https://www.flettonparish.co.uk/post/the-rimes-cup-albert-sidney-rimes

For more information on Herbert Wootton and his contributions to Fletton see ‘Captain Herbert Wootton M.B.E. – advocate for Fletton’ https://www.flettonparish.co.uk/post/captain-herbert-wotton-m-b-e-advocate-for-fletton

For more information on Thomas William Jeffs and his family see ‘The Jeffs and Hubbard Family - From Fletton to Toronto in the Early 1900s’ https://www.flettonparish.co.uk/the-jeffs-and-hubbard-family