James William Frederick Bailey
Although I have been researching my family tree for many years now, it had taken me over 10years to get started on making sense of the extensive lists of names, dates, places and occupations I had discovered over the years. Putting the flesh back on to the bones of my ancestors and making their life stories come alive is the captivating and magical part of the whole process, but also it is also a very time consuming one. On reflection, it was poignant that I had taken so long to put this branch of the family history together, as I no longer had anyone left in the family to share it with.
Since my sister died, I was the sole living successor of 3 previous generations of only children, so there was no-one left to share the magic, interest and intrigue that was about to unfold regarding this branch of the family. Part of the joy of researching family history is sharing the revelations and family secrets with other interested family members, but this, sadly, was not to be with regard to this branch of the family. I had to admit, for the first time, I had a strange feeling of isolation; I had no sister, cousin, Aunt or uncle, no matter how distant, on this side of the family to share my excitement with. Hopefully, one day in the future, my children, or even their children might show a keen interest in these writings. Until then, I would just have to suppress the thrill and excitement, as even sharing my enthusiasm with a few good friends does not hold the same magic of sharing intimate family stories with blood relatives.
The search for James Bailey’s parents
My search for this branch of the family started with Gran, my paternal grandmother as she filled me with lots of fanciful and intriguing family stories. So it was the Bailey family that captured my imagination and was the chrysalis to my interest in genealogy. Gran had told me that James Bailey, her father, had lived most of his life believing he was illegitimate, but later in his life, after sending for his birth certificate, found that his mother was actually married. She also told me that James had been brought up by his Aunt and that his mother was a French National who ran a French Finishing School.
This had aroused my curiosity and filled me with a myriad of questions; why was he brought up by his Aunt when his mother was still alive? Why did he think he was illegitimate? How did someone from a relatively poor background have a mother who owned a French Finishing School? My mission was to unravel these stories and attempt to pick through them and separate the facts from fiction and uncover the real truth about the birth of James and his family.
I set off on the trail to find my grandmother’s grandparents, armed only with fanciful family stories and James’ birth certificate. According to this certificate, James was born as James William Frederick Bailey on 21st May 1874 at Orange Grove Court, Abbey Bath, Somerset. His father was named as James Bailey and was a Commercial Traveller by trade. His mother, who registered his birth, was Mary Bailey, formerly Awdry and it seemed that James was not, indeed, illegitimate and so, the quest to find Mary Awdry, his mother, began.
I was about to embark on a voyage that was filled with ups and downs, twists and turns, dead ends, extreme frustration, followed by a rush of excitement and then shortly to be followed by more frustration again. I was unaware that the facts I was about to unravel would lead me through a fanciful world of ancestors that travelled the seven seas to India. I could imagine them striding out amongst much pomp and circumstance on their grand elephants, fraternising with Maharajas and employing punkah wallahs to cool their fevered brows. I had visions of them living in their mansions, with their demanding social lives, filled with an array of balls and garden parties, followed by a never-ending stream of servants to provide for their every whim.
Little did I realise that I would end up meandering through some of the prettiest villages in Wiltshire; or that I would follow an Congregational evangelist as he wandered the bleak Wiltshire downs, struggling through the cold and the wet to preach about the Kingdom of Christ to his flock. Nor did I appreciate that I would eventually cross paths with the Reverend WV Awdry who wrote the Thomas the Tank Engine stories. All this was just a snippet of the delights that I was about to stumble across on my intrepid travels through the mysteries of James WF Bailey’s heritage.
After perusing the problem of James FW’s birth parents, I decided I would send for James Bailey’s birth certificate, then at least I would know who James FW’s grandparents were, as James was either his uncle or his father – or both. When I eventually traced the certificate and received it in the post a few days later, I was stunned. I thought the plot was thick before, but now it was getting thicker by the minute! His father was George Bailey, a labourer and his mother, according to the certificate, was Sarah Bailey, formerly AWDRY. I could not understand it. I sat there staring at the certificate for quite some time trying to get my head round this new revelation. Could this mean that Mary Bailey, formerly Awdry could really be Mary Bailey after all, pretending to be married and using her mother’s maiden name as her own fictitious maiden name? Could it be that James, her brother, was the father as well? Is this why James FW was born in a hotel? I needed to dig deeper into James’ life to find more pieces of this huge jigsaw puzzle, and my next course of action after studying the birth certificate, had to be to find James on the census returns from 1871 onwards to see what he was doing, and where.
The search for James Bailey
James Bailey, the 2nd of 7 children born to George and Sarah Bailey, was born on 2nd July 1846, at The Green, Marlborough, Wiltshire. When searching through the census returns, I was not surprised to find that there were literally thousands of James Bailey’s. Despite this, I could only find one James Bailey of the right age, born in the right place, and he was a French polisher living at Crickgade, in Wiltshire. The biggest problem for me with this James Bailey was the fact that he was already married to a lady called Lucy and had 3 children, James who was 3, George who was 2 and Emma who was 6 months old. I obviously doubted whether I had found the right James Bailey after all, as this would mean that James already had a wife and children before James FW was born. But, when I found James, his 3 year-old son was living with his grandfather, George Bailey at Codford, Wiltshire on the 1881 census, by which time he was 13, only a year younger than Lydia, his father’s youngest sister, and it confirmed without a doubt that this was in fact the right James.
The job of a French Polisher James Bailey, whether he was James FW’s father or not, was definitely a relative, as his sister, Elizabeth Russell and her husband Edwin, brought James FW up. James was a French polisher by trade and his job would have entailed finishing, preparing and treating wood to bring out its’ natural beauty. He would have worked on pieces such as tables and chairs, cupboards, chests of drawers, shop fittings, musical instruments or even on fixed timbers such as staircases, doors or wall fittings.
James would have had to have been a very patient man with a lot of perseverance as his work involved applying several coats of French polish until the desired finish was achieved and it was a very slow and repetitive process. His work would probably have taken place either in a workshop which was probably cramped and full of dust or actually in the home of particular clients. A lot of time would have been spent standing at a workbench or bending over his work, and he would have travelled to clients’ houses to collect and deliver furniture, which involved a lot lifting of heavy furniture.
Who was James FW’s father?
Now I had eliminated James Bailey, Elizabeth Russel’s brother as being James FW’s father, I was now left with the unattainable task of trying to find who his father really was. I scoured the census returns for days in the vain hope of finding another James Bailey that could possibly be James FW’s father, but with the absence of any clues, it was nigh on impossible to confirm or reject any of them. I even tried to look up any men who were called James William Frederick just in case he was given his father’s Christian names and his mother’s sir name, but again, this was pure conjecture and there was nothing that suggested any of these people could be more James FW’s father than any of the others. Unfortunately, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack and more and more likely that James FW’s parentage was going to remain a mystery that I would never be able to confirm one way or another.
James William Frederick Bailey was born on 21st May 1874, at 4, Orange Grove Court, Bath, which was, at the time, a hotel. By the time he was 6, he was living with his aunt Elizabeth and uncle Edwin, who already had a son called William, who was 8 years older than James FW. Elizabeth worked as a dressmaker and Edwin was a bootmakler. William was working as a page for a consulting engineer in Kensington, Chelsea, along with a cook, parlour maid, maid and a housemaid. By 1891, Edwin had died and William was back at home, working as a carpenter, and James FW, his cousin, was a carpenter’s apprentice. They had e couple of boarders living with them, presumably to make a bit of extra income.
Chippenham
Chippenham was first established in a loop of the River Avon and expansion of the town began at the end of the 18th century. A canal was opened in 1810, giving it access to the markets of Bristol and London. This led to an expansion of the cloth industry as coal could be brought in for the new steam factories that were being built. The building of a railway in 1841 and the access it provided to raw materials and markets brought a new range of industries to Chippenham, including dye houses and silk mills but Chippenham was at a disadvantage to towns further south as the extra distance that coal, for the steam engines, had to be transported by canal added 10% to the cost. Cloth production was eventually overtaken by engineering industries then made signalling apparatus, railway wagons, locomotives and bridges and maintained track for several railway companies.
Other industries included the Anglo Swiss Milk Company, later Nestlés, who had a condensed milk factory in the town from 1873 to 1966, Hathaway’s churn factory and Slade’s Brewing and Malting. There was a gun and cartridge factory in one of the old silk mills, a brick and tile works from the mid 19th century to the early 20th century and the Royal Wiltshire Bacon Co Ltd occupied one of the former Brotherhood foundries.
Conclusion
James FW’s birth certificate was looking decidedly more dodgy by the minute. Unless James’ wife had died in the past 2 years, James would have been committing adultery, but then why would he call a second son James, when his first son James was still living? In all probability, it was looking very unlikely that James, Mary’s brother, was in fact James FW’s father after all.
One fact that added to my frustration in this matter was that I could not find either Mary or James Bailey, or any of James’ subsequent family (apart from James, his eldest son), after 1871. Whether this was just a coincidence or not will probably remain a matter of speculation. Perhaps they were both working abroad after this time, James FW certainly seemed to think that his mother worked in France (or was that just one of my Gran’s fanciful tall stories?)
The only facts that I had gathered so far were sparse, but looking at them together may help to speculate what the truth could possibly be:
· Either Mary or James had to be one of his parents, as their eldest sister, Elizabeth Russell, was the Aunt that brought James FW up, confirmed by the 1881 census returns
· James FW had never known his father, he only knew about his mother who did not bring him up and had always believed he was illegitimate, until he read his birth certificate
· James FW’s birth certificate was very unlikely to be true, as James Bailey, named as his father, was already married and already had a son, still living, called James
· Mary and James’ mother’s maiden name was Awdry, giving Mary the possibility of a pseudonym that was directly linked to her own mother
· On James FW’s marriage certificate he named his father as George, probably naming his actual grandfather as being his father, as he had no idea who his real father was
Therefore, after pulling together all these scraps of evidence that had been uncovered so far, the only plausible conclusion I could possibly reach would be to suggest that it was actually Mary Bailey who was James FW’s mother, rather than the supposed Mary Awdry or that James Bailey, her bother, was his father, although this still remains purely conjectural as I have no firm evidence to confirm any of this.
Since my sister died, I was the sole living successor of 3 previous generations of only children, so there was no-one left to share the magic, interest and intrigue that was about to unfold regarding this branch of the family. Part of the joy of researching family history is sharing the revelations and family secrets with other interested family members, but this, sadly, was not to be with regard to this branch of the family. I had to admit, for the first time, I had a strange feeling of isolation; I had no sister, cousin, Aunt or uncle, no matter how distant, on this side of the family to share my excitement with. Hopefully, one day in the future, my children, or even their children might show a keen interest in these writings. Until then, I would just have to suppress the thrill and excitement, as even sharing my enthusiasm with a few good friends does not hold the same magic of sharing intimate family stories with blood relatives.
The search for James Bailey’s parents
My search for this branch of the family started with Gran, my paternal grandmother as she filled me with lots of fanciful and intriguing family stories. So it was the Bailey family that captured my imagination and was the chrysalis to my interest in genealogy. Gran had told me that James Bailey, her father, had lived most of his life believing he was illegitimate, but later in his life, after sending for his birth certificate, found that his mother was actually married. She also told me that James had been brought up by his Aunt and that his mother was a French National who ran a French Finishing School.
This had aroused my curiosity and filled me with a myriad of questions; why was he brought up by his Aunt when his mother was still alive? Why did he think he was illegitimate? How did someone from a relatively poor background have a mother who owned a French Finishing School? My mission was to unravel these stories and attempt to pick through them and separate the facts from fiction and uncover the real truth about the birth of James and his family.
I set off on the trail to find my grandmother’s grandparents, armed only with fanciful family stories and James’ birth certificate. According to this certificate, James was born as James William Frederick Bailey on 21st May 1874 at Orange Grove Court, Abbey Bath, Somerset. His father was named as James Bailey and was a Commercial Traveller by trade. His mother, who registered his birth, was Mary Bailey, formerly Awdry and it seemed that James was not, indeed, illegitimate and so, the quest to find Mary Awdry, his mother, began.
I was about to embark on a voyage that was filled with ups and downs, twists and turns, dead ends, extreme frustration, followed by a rush of excitement and then shortly to be followed by more frustration again. I was unaware that the facts I was about to unravel would lead me through a fanciful world of ancestors that travelled the seven seas to India. I could imagine them striding out amongst much pomp and circumstance on their grand elephants, fraternising with Maharajas and employing punkah wallahs to cool their fevered brows. I had visions of them living in their mansions, with their demanding social lives, filled with an array of balls and garden parties, followed by a never-ending stream of servants to provide for their every whim.
Little did I realise that I would end up meandering through some of the prettiest villages in Wiltshire; or that I would follow an Congregational evangelist as he wandered the bleak Wiltshire downs, struggling through the cold and the wet to preach about the Kingdom of Christ to his flock. Nor did I appreciate that I would eventually cross paths with the Reverend WV Awdry who wrote the Thomas the Tank Engine stories. All this was just a snippet of the delights that I was about to stumble across on my intrepid travels through the mysteries of James WF Bailey’s heritage.
After perusing the problem of James FW’s birth parents, I decided I would send for James Bailey’s birth certificate, then at least I would know who James FW’s grandparents were, as James was either his uncle or his father – or both. When I eventually traced the certificate and received it in the post a few days later, I was stunned. I thought the plot was thick before, but now it was getting thicker by the minute! His father was George Bailey, a labourer and his mother, according to the certificate, was Sarah Bailey, formerly AWDRY. I could not understand it. I sat there staring at the certificate for quite some time trying to get my head round this new revelation. Could this mean that Mary Bailey, formerly Awdry could really be Mary Bailey after all, pretending to be married and using her mother’s maiden name as her own fictitious maiden name? Could it be that James, her brother, was the father as well? Is this why James FW was born in a hotel? I needed to dig deeper into James’ life to find more pieces of this huge jigsaw puzzle, and my next course of action after studying the birth certificate, had to be to find James on the census returns from 1871 onwards to see what he was doing, and where.
The search for James Bailey
James Bailey, the 2nd of 7 children born to George and Sarah Bailey, was born on 2nd July 1846, at The Green, Marlborough, Wiltshire. When searching through the census returns, I was not surprised to find that there were literally thousands of James Bailey’s. Despite this, I could only find one James Bailey of the right age, born in the right place, and he was a French polisher living at Crickgade, in Wiltshire. The biggest problem for me with this James Bailey was the fact that he was already married to a lady called Lucy and had 3 children, James who was 3, George who was 2 and Emma who was 6 months old. I obviously doubted whether I had found the right James Bailey after all, as this would mean that James already had a wife and children before James FW was born. But, when I found James, his 3 year-old son was living with his grandfather, George Bailey at Codford, Wiltshire on the 1881 census, by which time he was 13, only a year younger than Lydia, his father’s youngest sister, and it confirmed without a doubt that this was in fact the right James.
The job of a French Polisher James Bailey, whether he was James FW’s father or not, was definitely a relative, as his sister, Elizabeth Russell and her husband Edwin, brought James FW up. James was a French polisher by trade and his job would have entailed finishing, preparing and treating wood to bring out its’ natural beauty. He would have worked on pieces such as tables and chairs, cupboards, chests of drawers, shop fittings, musical instruments or even on fixed timbers such as staircases, doors or wall fittings.
James would have had to have been a very patient man with a lot of perseverance as his work involved applying several coats of French polish until the desired finish was achieved and it was a very slow and repetitive process. His work would probably have taken place either in a workshop which was probably cramped and full of dust or actually in the home of particular clients. A lot of time would have been spent standing at a workbench or bending over his work, and he would have travelled to clients’ houses to collect and deliver furniture, which involved a lot lifting of heavy furniture.
Who was James FW’s father?
Now I had eliminated James Bailey, Elizabeth Russel’s brother as being James FW’s father, I was now left with the unattainable task of trying to find who his father really was. I scoured the census returns for days in the vain hope of finding another James Bailey that could possibly be James FW’s father, but with the absence of any clues, it was nigh on impossible to confirm or reject any of them. I even tried to look up any men who were called James William Frederick just in case he was given his father’s Christian names and his mother’s sir name, but again, this was pure conjecture and there was nothing that suggested any of these people could be more James FW’s father than any of the others. Unfortunately, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack and more and more likely that James FW’s parentage was going to remain a mystery that I would never be able to confirm one way or another.
James William Frederick Bailey was born on 21st May 1874, at 4, Orange Grove Court, Bath, which was, at the time, a hotel. By the time he was 6, he was living with his aunt Elizabeth and uncle Edwin, who already had a son called William, who was 8 years older than James FW. Elizabeth worked as a dressmaker and Edwin was a bootmakler. William was working as a page for a consulting engineer in Kensington, Chelsea, along with a cook, parlour maid, maid and a housemaid. By 1891, Edwin had died and William was back at home, working as a carpenter, and James FW, his cousin, was a carpenter’s apprentice. They had e couple of boarders living with them, presumably to make a bit of extra income.
Chippenham
Chippenham was first established in a loop of the River Avon and expansion of the town began at the end of the 18th century. A canal was opened in 1810, giving it access to the markets of Bristol and London. This led to an expansion of the cloth industry as coal could be brought in for the new steam factories that were being built. The building of a railway in 1841 and the access it provided to raw materials and markets brought a new range of industries to Chippenham, including dye houses and silk mills but Chippenham was at a disadvantage to towns further south as the extra distance that coal, for the steam engines, had to be transported by canal added 10% to the cost. Cloth production was eventually overtaken by engineering industries then made signalling apparatus, railway wagons, locomotives and bridges and maintained track for several railway companies.
Other industries included the Anglo Swiss Milk Company, later Nestlés, who had a condensed milk factory in the town from 1873 to 1966, Hathaway’s churn factory and Slade’s Brewing and Malting. There was a gun and cartridge factory in one of the old silk mills, a brick and tile works from the mid 19th century to the early 20th century and the Royal Wiltshire Bacon Co Ltd occupied one of the former Brotherhood foundries.
Conclusion
James FW’s birth certificate was looking decidedly more dodgy by the minute. Unless James’ wife had died in the past 2 years, James would have been committing adultery, but then why would he call a second son James, when his first son James was still living? In all probability, it was looking very unlikely that James, Mary’s brother, was in fact James FW’s father after all.
One fact that added to my frustration in this matter was that I could not find either Mary or James Bailey, or any of James’ subsequent family (apart from James, his eldest son), after 1871. Whether this was just a coincidence or not will probably remain a matter of speculation. Perhaps they were both working abroad after this time, James FW certainly seemed to think that his mother worked in France (or was that just one of my Gran’s fanciful tall stories?)
The only facts that I had gathered so far were sparse, but looking at them together may help to speculate what the truth could possibly be:
· Either Mary or James had to be one of his parents, as their eldest sister, Elizabeth Russell, was the Aunt that brought James FW up, confirmed by the 1881 census returns
· James FW had never known his father, he only knew about his mother who did not bring him up and had always believed he was illegitimate, until he read his birth certificate
· James FW’s birth certificate was very unlikely to be true, as James Bailey, named as his father, was already married and already had a son, still living, called James
· Mary and James’ mother’s maiden name was Awdry, giving Mary the possibility of a pseudonym that was directly linked to her own mother
· On James FW’s marriage certificate he named his father as George, probably naming his actual grandfather as being his father, as he had no idea who his real father was
Therefore, after pulling together all these scraps of evidence that had been uncovered so far, the only plausible conclusion I could possibly reach would be to suggest that it was actually Mary Bailey who was James FW’s mother, rather than the supposed Mary Awdry or that James Bailey, her bother, was his father, although this still remains purely conjectural as I have no firm evidence to confirm any of this.