Old Newspapers and Private Schools - The Bourne Hall Academy Example

Over the last few years the digitization of old newspapers on the British Newspaper Archive has made it far easier to investigate at least some of the private schools whose records do not exist.

In 2012 I was asked about Bourne Hall Academy, at Bushey and came up with an outline history based mainly on trade directories and census returns. About a week ago Cynthia contacted me to say that her relative Henry Hunt Sirkett had been at the school and he was recorded as having passed exams in the Herts Advertiser.

I decided that it would be interesting to use this school as a case study to assess how much extra information was available - particularly in the Herts Mercury (for the early years), the Herts Advertiser from 1855 and later from the Watford Observer. In fact I found so many references that there was no way I could find time to view them all, much less record all the names and events.

I decided to concentrate on the ownership and naming of the school as told in adverts. I discovered that H L Biggs took over Grove House boarding school in January 1844 and moved to Bourne Hall Academy by 1850. From then on there were regular reports in the papers of events such as prize-giving days and cricket matches, and details of students who passed external examinations. (Because to their number I selected three or four such items to examine in detail.) Things seem to have gone well until 1882 when H L Biggs handed over the school to his son H B Biggs, and it would seem that the new headmaster was not a success and in 1884 it appears that some boys who had prepared for some external examinations were not entered.Definitely the number of boys listed as passing external exams in 1888 was lower than one would have expected some ten years earlier. In addition it seems thatsome of the school buildings may have been used teach girls foreign languages.

The exact date that the school closed is uncertain but the furniture was sold off early in 1889, and the landlord put the property on the market a few months later. The bankruptcy hearings were revealling and demonstrate than the young headmaster had failed to learn good bookkeeping while a pupil at the school ...

For full details see Bourne Hall Academy

Current Hertfordshire (and adjacent) papers online at the BNA

Extracted from latest British Newspaper Archive list: 

Barnet Press 13400 pages 1861-1862, 1879-1910
Bedfordshire Mercury 22174 pages 1837-1877, 1879, 1890-1895, 1898-1910, 1912
Bedfordshire Times and Independent 48802 pages 1859-1873, 1887-1888, 1891-1897, 1899-1954
Buckingham Advertiser and Free Press 37450 pages 1854-1855, 1859-1897, 1899-1911, 1913-1955
Bucks Advertiser & Aylesbury News 2294 pages 1860, 1872, 1874, 1890, 1912
Bucks Gazette 4312 pages 1829-1849
Bucks Herald 55362 pages 1833-1851, 1853-1953
Hemel Hempstead Gazette and West Herts Advertiser 3456 pages 1872, 1874-1876, 1879, 1881-1882, 1886, 1891
Hendon & Finchley Times 34728 pages 1878-1940
Hertford Mercury and Reformer 14628 pages 1834-1837, 1840-1889, 1913, 1916-1918, 1939
Hertfordshire Express and General Advertiser 2394 pages 1859-1871
Herts & Cambs Reporter & Royston Crow 12590 pages 1878-1882, 1884-1888, 1890-1898, 1900-1910
Herts Advertiser 16878 pages 1866-1895, 1897-1907
Herts Guardian, Agricultural Journal, and General Advertiser 9882 pages 1852-1867, 1883
Leighton Buzzard Observer and Linslade Gazette 14476 pages 1861, 1863-1904, 1939
Luton News and Bedfordshire Chronicle 5436 pages 1897, 1905-1906, 1917-1919, 1936, 1939, 1950, 1953-1954
Luton Times and Advertiser 15802 pages 1855-1862, 1866-1873, 1875-1880, 1885, 1894-1916
South Bucks Free Press, Wycombe and Maidenhead Journal 2672 pages 1859-1860, 1862, 1865, 1879, 1882
South Bucks Standard 9206 pages 1890-1897, 1899-1910, 1912-1914
Watford Observer 14406 pages 1863-1909

The most recent newspaper to be added is the Bucks Advertiser & Aylesbury News - and I will be watching to see when they add new pages. The paper was founded in 1836 by my great grandfather, John Gibbs and includes good coverage of the Tring area of Hertfordshire. The Births, Marriage and Deaths column often included information on Gibbs relatives  even if they had left Aylesbury many years before.  I am also waiting for some of the later years of the Herts Advertiser to appear - as it was founded by Richard Gibbs - who was John Gibbs' brother. As yet the BNA has not covered the Maidenhead Advertiser - which was founded by another of my ancestors

An Advert for Christmas photographs at St Albans.

Lea Latimer Christmas was a photographer  who moved from Stoke Newington to Watford sometime before the 1911 census, and was still in Watford when war broke out in 1914 - and is of particular interest because of his photographs of soldiers. Towards the end of 1914 or early 1915 he moved to St Albans (with many more wartime photographs). I recently obtained a 1917 copy of the Herts Advertiser and found this advert - showing him at the same address as the earlier post card artist Karaktus.

See some of his war time photographs of soldiers HERE

The Mystery surrounding George Washington Gibbs of Aylesbury, St Albans and Liverpool

The St Albans Clock Tower in 1826
 showing George Washington Gibbs' shop

When Robert Gibbs (1766-1808) died at Aylesbury he left a family of five sons and one daughter. He appointed two trustees, Thomas Dawney and Jasper Jackson, to administer his affairs and as each of the sons became 21 they were set up in business. The first was my great great grandfather, John Gibbs, who became an auctioneer and pawnbroker. The fourth was George Washington Gibbs and shortly after he became 21 he (assisted by his brother John) leased a shop at the bottom of the Clock Tower in St Albans in 1824. This was the beginning of the Gibbs family involvement in the life of St Albans, leading to the publication of the St Albans Times and Herts Advertiser in 1855.

Liverpool Customs House - built 1839

For some reason George left St Albans circa 1830 and the printing business was continued by George's youngest brother, Richard, who later became Mayor of St Albans. George ended up as a landing waiter for the Customs service at Liverpool, where he oversaw the unloading of ships' cargoes. Why did he go there? Had he run into financial difficulties and been bailed out by the family? I am still looking for clues.

Recently Andrew contacted me about another mystery. In the 1841 census George was living in Liverpool with a woman called Elizabeth Gibbs, his two daughter's by his wife Ann (who died in 1838) and an infant Alfred Gibbs. However both Elizabeth and baby Alfred vanish from the records without trace, and neither are mentioned in George's will when he died in 1865.

What appears to have happened is that George has never married Elizabeth Pearson, although the child was registered as Alfred Gibbs, and they split up after the 1841 census. Something then happened to Elizabeth and Alfred Pearson ended up in the workhouse in 1851. He later grew up and raised a family. The key clues to the link between the missing Alfred Gibbs and Alfred Pearson are that Alfred's death in 1912 was registered as Alfred Washington Pearson, and in 1884 he named one of his children Alfred Washington Gibbs Pearson. Excellent circumstantial evidence - but will we ever find any surviving documentary evidence.

Detailed Time Line for G. W. Gibbs

Old Hertfordshire News on British Newspaper Archives

Newspapers

Hertfordshire is currently not very well covered in the British Newspaper Archive (also on FindMyPast) and often you have to hope that Hertfordshire news might be covered just over the boundary in an adjacent county. I was delighted to find that they started on the Watford Observer. I have therefore updated my list of papers that are worth checking for local news, marking updates since my last update on the subject nine months ago with green.

Bedfordshire Times - 1935
Bucks Herald - 1833-51, X, 53-1900, X, 02-09
Cambridge Chronicle - 1813-31, X, 36, X, 48, X, 59, X, 61-2, X, 67, X, 71, X, 75, X, 77
Cambridge Independent - 1839-73, X, 75-92, X, 94-5, X, 98-9, X, 1910, X, 13-20
Chelmsford Chronicle - 1783-91, X, 98, X, 1819, X, 32-7, X, 39-66, X, 68-9, X, 71-83, X, 85-98, X, 1900-50
Essex Newsman - 1870-96, X, 99-1910, X, 12-50
Essex Standard - 1831-44, X, 46-72, X, 75-95, X, 99-1900
Hertford Mercury - 1834-7, X, 40-68
Herts Advertiser - [1925 withdrawn?]
Herts Guardian - 1852-6, X, 59-60, X, 62-65, X, 67
Luton News - 1917-8, X, 50, X, 53-4
Luton Times - 1856-62, X, 66-73, X, 75-80, X, 85, X, 94-1914
Watford Observer - 1863-7, X, 69-70

I have not included Middlesex and London Newspapers.

One easily overlooked factor is that there are missing years and I have therefore highlighted the gap years. I have not indicated places where a year is incomplete.

Anscombe - A Large Department Store in Harpenden

Harpenden

Even an old receipt such as this one can tell a story. It reminded me of a large department store near my home in the 1940s where the salesman put the sales slip (in this case for suspenders costing 1s 3d) in a tube with the customer's payment (in this case half a crown - or 2s 6d). The tube would be clipped to a wire and sent whirring overhead to the cash office - to return with the receipted bill and the change.

So there must have been a similar store in Harpenden - and I decided to investigate. Allen Anscombe (1824-1903) became a draper and milliner in Harpenden in 1855, possibly helped by his father-in-law, Thomas Ashby. In 1869 he moved to larger premises and the business grew substantially, but eventually closed in 1982, The story is given in Anscombe's Department Store, Harpenden, 1855-1982, with some pictures and advertisements.

In researching the store I was delighted to discover there had been an article, with photographs, about the "rapid wire" cash system in an article in the Hertfordshire Countryside, and there is a Cash Railway Website, dedicated to the system which has fascinated me as a child.

The research highlighted one of the limitations of the British Newspaper Archive at the present time. It is almost certain that such a large store would have regularly advertised in the local newspapers - so I might have expected to find many press references. However the archive has no newspapers covering the central area of the county - apart from the Herts Advertiser of 1925. This situation will improve as more papers are put on line - but it is a reminder that if you search the archive you need to check whether the archive contains local papers for the relevant years.

Shooting Match on Sandridge Rifle Range in 1907

from Herts Advertiser, Sept 1907

Old News

I have just posted a lengthy news item reporting on a shooting match between some South African (Boer) War veterans and the St Albans Rifle and Revolver Club. It was held on the comparatively newly built Sandridge Rifle Range - which has earlier been discussed at length under the title Chalk Hill Rifle Range,  Sandridge, First World War. The news article names the teams - and the individual scores at 200, 500 and 600 yards.