Was this a wrestler? Can you help.

Karen sent this photograph, by W. Harold Cox, of Luton & St Albans. She wrote: I have attached a photograph that has alternately intrigued and amused me ever since I found it amongst piles of junk left in the loft of the first house I bought back in the early 80's. I have just come across it again. The back of the photo which read : PHOTOGRAPH W. HAROLD COX 29 Wellington St., LUTON  .  The Wellington Street address would indicate that the photo dates from circa 1914 when Mr Cox would have been 39-40 years old. It's such a strange photo - who is this chap, is it a self portrait? Why has he adopted such an odd pose? What's he telling us? Why wrinkly underpants and socks!? We'll perhaps never know but maybe somebody in Hertfordshire will recognise him as relative, or was he known as a local wrestler? Can anyone add anything about the picture or the photographer?

Post Cards

Knotted Cousin Marriages & Errors in FindMyPast census returns

Ancestors

Sometime ago I had message from a distant cousin, Joy, our common ancestors being William Burchmore (1765-1841) of Flamstead, and his wife, Hannah Dolling (1770-1826). Filling in details of the links will take some time as it actually means adding yet more cousin marriages to the already very complex Who is Related to Who? family tree. The new key link is William Bates (1798-1865) of St Pauls Walden & Wheathampstead. William Bates' first wife was Mary Cox (1797-1830), daughter of my ancestor William Cox (1760-1802) of Hatfield,  and whose second wife Jane Burchmore (1802-1882) was the daughter of my ancestor William Burchmore (1765-1841).

A Burchmore hair memorial broach

William Bates' daughter Mary Ann Bates (1825/6-) married her cousin Jonathan Cox (1821-1881) of Sandridge, who was a grandson of William Cox (1760-1802) of Hatfield. His son Edmund (1839-????) married Mary Kidman (1842-????) brother of Alfred James Kidman (1831-1875) of Kimpton who married Emma How (1834/5-1916) who was a granddaughter of William Burchmore (1765-1841). His son George Bates (1842-1928) married  first Jane Lines, daughter of Thomas Lines of St Pauls Walden, and later Laura Ann Dear (not part of the cousin network so far). William's daughter Jane Bates (Joy's ancestor) married Henry Alexander Taylor whose first wife was almost certainly the Elizabeth Smith of Sandridge, daughter of Elizabeth Burchmore (1784-1851), daughter of Thomas Burchmore (1760-1816) of Flamstead - who in turn was brother of William Burchmore (1765-1841) and son of my ancestor Thomas Burchmore (1729/30-1806).

Virtually all of the above was gleaned from original unindexed census returns and parish registers in the 1980s - twenty years before any significant computer indexes were available. I am currently checking against modern indexes, including online census returns, to fill in the gaps before drawing up a detailed report - which will undoubtedly reveal more cousin links.

I have only just started - and errors in FindMyPast census returns are coming in thick and fast. Many of the errors suggest no attempts were made to check accurasy but at least they do correct errors if you report them. In the last few days I have corrected a "Petty" to a "Patty", a "Hill" to a "Cox" (an incorrectly applied ditto), and pointed out that the words "Liggars Farmer" are not part of an address, and appear nowhere on the original document!

Tracking Down a WW1 Photographer in St Albans

Advert from Herts Advertiser, April 1907

Post Cards

WW1

In my search for information about how the First World War affected Hertfordshire I have come across several post cards showing wounded soldiers - apparently all taken at Napsbury Military Hospital - and embossed with the words "Ricardo Studios, London Road, St Albans." At last I have found some clues as to who the photographer might have been - as the result of finding a 1907 advert for the studios. It would seem that in about 1907 William Harold Cox moved from Luton and set up the Ricardo Studio in St Albans. However he returned to Luton and a Richard Catcheside seems to have been operating as a photographer from the same address, and apparently continuing to use the name "The Ricardo Studios."  Click on the pictures for full details of what has been discovered.

Wounded Soldiers at Napsbury Hospital - Picture from City of Vancouver Archives

We Will Remember Them

Next year we will all be remembering those who fought, and in some cases died, during the First World War. If you have any post cards with a definite link to the war in Hertfordshire why not let me know - so the people in the pictures can be remembered when we come to the anniversary of the outbreak of the war in August 1914.

Severn Generations on one farm at Sandridge.

This picture is from the Woodland Trust web site. Almost all the fields, and two large wooded areas are part of Heartwood Forest, a major project to restore a large area of fields to native woodland in Hertfordshire. For a mere £15 you can dedicate a tree to be planted in what will be an 850 acre forest. I already have a page about the new forest but three areas in the picture are of particular interest to my ancestors, in addition to most of Heartwood Forest area having been farmed by a relative in Victorian times.

In the top left is a farm (highlighted) with a spinney in front of it and a light coloured field beyond. The Farm is Hammonds Farm which was farmed by my ancestors, William Cox (1760-1802), Thomas Cox (1794-1874), Henry Cox (1826-1882), Jacob Reynolds (1835-1926) and Harry Finch Reynolds (1865-1947). My father Gerald Finch Reynolds (1907-1977) worked on the farm, and helped to plant the spinney (in part I suspect, as cover for foxes) probably around 1930. When he married in 1937 he built a house, Eylotts, on the light coloured field, which had been the poultry farm area of Hammonds Farm. I was born there (well technically in a nursing home in St Albans) but the farm was sold in 1939. So after 7 generations who had lived at least part of their lives on the farm the family moved away from the area.

The small wood highlighted to the right is the site of the former Sandridge Rifle Range, which extended into the fields in front of it - the trees surrounding the butts. The two fields in front are part of Heartwood Forest and when I visited this summer were full of very young trees, although most were still not higher than the grass..

By the track from Sandridge Village towards Hammonds Farm
The newly planted part of Heartwood Forest is on the left, Range Wood is straight ahead.

Because of my connections with the area the village of Sandridge is of particular interest and many of my ancestors are buried in St Leonard's churchyard - containing the grave of my earliest traced Cox ancestor, Jonathan Cox (1688-1750). If I could link him, and the two intervening generations, to Hammonds Farm this would make 10 generations who lived on one farm.

The Cox Graves in Sandridge Churchyard
The engraved top of the brick vault is now virtually unreadable but originally read
Here Lyeth Inter'd Mrs. Eliz. Cox, Wife of Jonathan Cox, Gent. of St Julians in the Parish of St Stephens
who departed this life January 12, 1740, in the 55th year of her age.
Here Lyeth the Body of Jonathan Cox Gent. Husband of the above Elizabeth Cox who died
Decebr. the 31, 1750. Aged Sixty Two
When the above inscription was recorded, in about 1878, a Jonathan Cox, father and son,
 farmed the land which now forms most of Heartwood Forest.
The other alter grave contains William Cox (1760-1802) and many members of his family
 over several generations. Several of the other stones are also relatives

William Harold Cox of Luton & St Albans

Hexton Manor

Last November I posted details of some of the post cards of Hertfordshire produced by W. H. Cox and Jack commented that he had seen some other cards. As a result I decided to look into the biographical background in more detail. The cards I have seen were all produced when he had premises in Castle Street, Luton, in about 1905. In 1908 he married a local girl, daughter of a straw hat manufacturer, and went to live in and work in St Albans, while apparently keeping the business running in Luton. However by 1914 he had returned to Luton to kive - and also to run a studio in Wellington Street, Luton. It would be interesting to know if he published any Hertfordshire cards from his St Albans Studio, or from his later Luton Studio. 

William Harold Cox, Photographer of Luton

 Lilley Rectory

William Harold Cox was a photographer and picture framer of 90 Castle Street, Luton, Bedfordshire, who published post cards of a number of parishes in Hertfordshire which lie close to Luton.  Details are given of five cards so far identified, of Hexton and Lilley, and a publication date of circa 1905 is suggested for all of them.

[In future, when new post cards and early photographs are added to the web site, and the photographers and/or publisheds are identified, information will be added to a "named" web page, to help identify and date other post cards from the same source.]