The Steward Family From Hethersett

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The Steward Line

The year 1808 saw George III on the British throne with William Cavendish-Bentinck, the Third Duke of Portland, prime minister. It was also the year that the original Covent Garden theatre in London was destroyed by fire. The United States prohibited the importation of slaves from Africa, the Peninsula war was being fought and travel entrepreneur Thomas Cook was born. It was the year that Beethoven wrote his famous fifth and sixth symphonies.

It is also the likely birth year of my great great great grandfather George Steward who was born in  Norwich. George was a baker by trade but interestingly on June 6th, 1841, was living in Ber Street and also had the profession of Inspector of Police. In the 1851 census his address is given as Creak's Buildings and his date of death is given as November 11th, 1866, in Bull Close Road. He died from kidney disease.

Brian David Butcher's history of policing in Norfolk "A Movable Rambling Police" gives a flavour of law and order in the middle of the 19th century when George would have been involved in policing. The County Police Act of 1839 allowed the establishment of a paid police. In 1836 to be sworn in as a policeman applicants had to be aged between 25 and 50 and at least 5ft 6in tall. Regular officers at the time were paid 70p a week and received a coat, greatcoat, hat, cape, belt, truncheon, rattle and handcuffs. The men had to supply their own trousers and five pence a week was taken to cover the cost of clothing.

Policing was divided into three shifts. Officers on the first shift started duty at 6 a.m and patrolled in pairs until 8 a.m, covering only the suburbs. From 8 a.m until finishing duty at 2 p.m they would work alone throughout the City. Those starting at 2 p.m patrolled separately until 11 p.m when they finished duty. Those starting at 11 p.m returned to the suburbs to patrol in pairs until 6 a.m. A police station was established in the Guildhall.

Members of the Force received fees for a wide range of activities such as arrests, finding stolen property and attending court as a witness giving rise to claims of payment through results.

"Whilst there was greater enthusiasm for appointment as an ordinary officer, life was to prove extremely difficult. Heavy drinking and its effects constantly affected officers of all ranks. Long hours had to be worked under conditions of strict discipline. Something of that life can be gathered from a number of rules, dated 1840, which applied to officers at Norwich.

They had to attend the station house at 10 minutes before duty time. If they were not there when the clock struck then there was a fine of 2 1/2p. If they were not there 15 minutes later the there was an automatic suspension until the next watch committee meeting.

The whole time of officers, even off duty, was at the disposal of the watch committee.

A sergeant had the specific duty to see that the men were perfectly sober.

Officers were expected to be civil and attentive; to act with coolness and at the same time with firmness and promptitude.

George was probably about 18 when he married Catharine August. They had seven children - George (born 1827), Henry (born 1828), Margaret (born 1832), Ann (born 1835), Donald (born 1839), Jessie (born 1843) and Charles (born 1846).

Henry was my great great grandfather and on September 16th 1850 he married Mary Ann Vincent in St Augustine's Church, Norwich. Henry's trade was given as tailor/journeymen and we know that he lived in various areas of Norwich including Ber Street, Philidelphia (which I presume is Philidelphia Road), Bull Close Road and Cowgate Street. He died on October 19th, 1906 aged about 78 - a reasonable age for those times. Mary Ann's work is given variously as cotton reeler, "assistant in business", weaver and silk filler.

Henry and Mary Ann Steward had 12 children - six sons and six daughters. They were Henry (born 1850), James (1851), Ann (1856), George (1858), Caroline (1859), Sarah (1860), Elizabeth (1862), Alfred (1866), Mary Anne (1869), Donald (1872), Arthur (1873) and Maria (1876). This means that Mary Ann was producing offspring from the age of 20 to about 46.

Of these children George became my great grandfather and that's where things begin to get interesting.

George was in many ways a rather notorious character. In 1877, aged 18 or 19 he married Hannah Durrant and they had one son - George who was born in 1880. Hannah died, probably in childbirth and George re-married in June 1882 to Sarah Engledow. Together they had five children - William (born in either 1881 or 1883), Sarah (1884), Alice (1888), Arthur (1894) and Horace (1900).

My great grandfather was known as Little Sixer - presumably because of his short stature and the fact he had six children.

The photograph below is of a property in Cowgate just down the road from number 32 and I would suggest similar to the home of my great grandparents, great uncles, aunts and indeed my grandfather.

George (who is pictured below) was was a self-employed shoe maker which is not surprising in a city which was renowned for this trade. The census has him down as "Worker working at home."   

George "Sixer" Steward

A history of Norwich in the 19th century gives some idea of the world that the Stewards would have inhabited:

In 1801 Norwich had a population of 36,000. It was still one of the largest cities in Britain but it soon fell behind as towns in the North and the Midlands mushroomed. Nevertheless Norwich grew during the 19th century and by 1900 it had a population of over 100,000. 

In the early and mid 19th century skilled workers built houses at Heigham and around Vauxhall Street. The middle classes built houses along Thorpe Road. However, like all 19th century towns Norwich was dirty, overcrowded and unsanitary. There were outbreaks of smallpox, typhoid, cholera and dipthaeria during the century.  In 1819 there were 530 deaths from smallpox.

Nevertheless there were many improvements to Norwich in the 19th century. In 1804 a dispensary was opened where the poor could obtain free medicines. In 1806 an act of parliament formed a body of men called the Improvement Commissioners who had powers to pave, clean and light the streets. 

The first police force in Norwich was formed in 1836. As early as the 18th century there was a piped water supply in Norwich - for those who could afford it but the water was impure. In the 1850s the council built a pure water supply. In the 1870s they built a network of sewers. 

After 1877 they began slum clearance. The first public library opened in 1857. Chapelfield was opened as a public park in 1852. Mousehold Heath opened as a park in 1886. The Castle museum opened in 1894. The Royal Arcade was built in 1899. In 1844 Norwich was connected to Yarmouth by train. From 1849 it was connected to London. The Roman Catholic Cathedral in Norwich was built in 1884.

During the 19th century wool weaving and silk weaving rapidly declined. However, leather working boomed. So did brewing (note that in the 1901 census William Steward was listed as a brewer's labourer). Norwich became famous for boot and shoe making. In the late 19th century an engineering industry grew up in Norwich and flourished. There was also a mustard making industry.  

George married Sarah Engledow, who was six years his junior, in June 1882 when Sarah would have been just 18 years old. They went onto have five children - three boys and two girls. I have no birth date for William, but Sarah was born in 1884 and died in 1973, Alice was born in 1888 and Horace in 1900. My grandfather Arthur Steward was born in 1894.

There has been a suggestion that George's second marriage was undertaken to give him a wife to look after his children. Certainly his behaviour might suggest this, but the fact he had additional children might suggest otherwise. Perhaps it was  a marriage of convenience.

In the 1901 census, George's wife is listed as Sarah Steward who was aged 37 (and therefore seven years younger than her husband). Like George, her birthplace is given as Norwich, Norfolk, but her employment status is "undefined" although it is likely that she was a tailoress.  

The eldest son George by his first wife was aged 20 in the census and his employment is given simply as "worker."

Next in line was William, aged 18 who is noted as a Brewer's Labourer. Sarah D. Steward was 17 and described as a "Boot Twiner."

Next comes 13-year-old Alice, followed by Arthur, aged seven and finally Horace, aged 1. My grandfather was therefore born in 1894. Alice married Elijah Ribbons who was head gardener at a holiday camp at Hemsby. They had one son. Horace  married Hilda Watling who was born in 1896. They had twin daughters named Betty and Barbara. Horace subsequently died of Bright's Disease. I have been given a great amount of help in this area by Steven Dann of Norwich who is Betty's son. Steven contacted me through the excellent Genes Re-united web site to say that his mother married Bramwell Dann and he was born in 1954. He subsequently married Judith Atterton and had two children - Nicholas Dann (born 1978) and Eleanor Dann (born 1980). Eleanor married Ian Neave and they have a son Jamie Neave (born in 2000). And so the family tree begins to grow with new branches.

My understanding is also that Betty's twin sister Barbara had two daughters - Roz and Patricia. Patricia is now Patricia Cameron and I believe that she is undertaking her own family research.

By all accounts Great Grandfather "Sixer" Steward made Japanese style shoes from his own home and drank considerable amounts. His family were often forced to go begging for soup in order to survive. I have been told that it was common for him to finish an assignment and then "disappear" drinking for days, only to return home when the next job became available. Strangely his long suffering wife was a member of the Salvation Army and this in itself would have been a great source of domestic strife due to her abstinence. One comment I have received surrounds one of his disappearances and a report back that he was "caught one night entertaining the old trollops in the Magdalen Street area of Norwich." Magdalen Street would only be a few minutes walk from the area in which he lived.

When Sixer got drunk he would be abusive to his wife who has been described as a "wonderful woman." Every Christmas Eve Sixer would take off for the local hostelries whilst Sarah entertained her Salvation Army friends with a sausage and onion supper. Goodness knows what happened when Great Grandfather Steward arrived home rolling drunk in the midst of a party of people who were in all probability tee-total.

Through the ages, boot and shoemaking became ever more important to Norwich. Modern day excavations at Whitefriars Bridge revealed fragments of soles, uppers and triangular off-cuts of leather, clearly the waste from shoemaking, dating from the 10th and 11th century. By the mid 18th century, Norwich was a prosperous textile manufacturing city providing footwear for a large surrounding area.

As the textile industry dropped off, footwear took over. The streets around Whitefriars and Cowgate would have been constantly busy with people, often children, carrying boots and shoes in various states of completion back and forth.

Machines for sewing uppers were introduced into Norwich in about 1856 and stouter machines for sewing the uppers to the soles were introduced about 1870.

The National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives was established in 1874 to cater for workers in the new industry and in 1897 there was a strike to gain the minimum wage, a 54 hour week and constraint on the part of the employers in the employment of cheap boy labour. The strike lasted for 34 weeks and resulted in the workers returning to work for very little gain.

The use of outworkers (and I believe my descendents to be in this area) provided the manufacturers with an infinitely variable workforce. The workers were not employed permanently and could be taken on or laid off at will.

As more machinery was introduced and the need for direct quality control increased, manufacturers employed outworkers less and less and this caused great distress. By 1910 the balance of shoemaking was undertaken in factories rather than from outsource.

On looking at a map of Norwich I notice that Cowgate adjoins a small back street that is named Steward Street. At first I thought this might have been named after Sixer as he was a well-known tradesman in the area. But there were many people with the surname Steward working in this area. Further research has shown that there are places in Norwich named after either a Steward or a Stewardson.

Steward's Court and Yard ran from number 130-132 George's Street but went out of existence sometime between 1935 and 1941. An 1877 directory lists it as the works of G. F. Steward, boot and shoe manufacturer.

Then there was a Steward's Yard on the south side of Bull Close which was lost between 1883 and 1890. The directory lists it being used by George Steward, a baker,

To put the time of my great-grandfather's birth into some kind of national and international context, the year before his birth, 1857, was the year Afghanistan became independent, James Buchanan was inaugurated as the 15th President of the United States of America, Garibaldi was attempting to unify Italy. George Borrow wrote Romany Rye, Joseph Conrad was born, Thomas Hughes wrote Tom Brown's Schooldays and Anthony Trollope wrote Barchester Towers. In London, the National Portrait Gallery was opened, the Victoria and Albert Museum was opened as the Museum of Ornamental Art and the Science Museum in South Kensington started its life. Edward Elgar and Robert Baden-Powell were born and Louis Pasteur proved that fermentation was caused by living organisms. There was a financial and economic crisis throughout Europe caused by speculation in United States railroad shares.

The year of his birth, 1858, saw Lord Derby become Prime Minister and Britain proclaim peace in India. It was the year that Theodore Roosevelt was born and Saint Bernadette is reputed to have seen her vision of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes. Puccini was born and Ottawa became the capital of Canada.  

The watercolour above shows Cowgate, Norwich, in 1867 and was painted by renowned local artist Henry Ninham (1793-1874) The original is on display in Norwich Castle Museum.

I should imagine that the young George Steward would have been blissfully unaware of any of these developments which were helping to modernise the world, although there is some suggestion at the time that revolution was a topic of conversation as will be shown in an excerpt from a book below.

A visit to my local library uncovered a volume entitled "One Journey" by Bert Steward. Written in 1981, it details his life growing up in the Cowgate area of Norwich and his subsequent survival of the trenches of the First World War and his success as a farmer on the Norfolk-Suffolk border.

I have at present been unable to ascertain whether Bert is a direct relative of mine, but it would seem quite likely as he grew up in the same area of Norwich which today boasts the Puppet Theatre amongst other things.

The book does have an interesting few paragraphs about growing up in that area of the city. Bert was born in 1897. He lists his great grandfather as James Steward, a weaver. "Like many 19th-century Norwich citizens he worked in his own home, using an upstairs room, sitting on a stool pedalling away at his loom."

"The talk was of revolution. He (James Steward) was a Chartist. Near his loom hung a big picture of Feargus O'Connor, the Chartist leader. The Chartists believed that elections for parliament should not be decided as they were then, by a limited franchise and beer and bribery, but by a secret ballot and one man one vote."

Bert Steward goes on to talk about the life of his father, Arthur (another close name link with my own family here), and his two brothers - George and John, and their school Days at the Norman School in Cowgate Street. They were entitled to attend this establishment under the terms of the will of an ancestor Alderman John Norman who was Mayor of Norwich in 1714.

"Joseph Benjamin Brown was the headmaster, and the first errand my father was given was to shop to buy a big bundle of canes. These Mr Brown used generously, particularly on his two sons, but also on the Steward brothers. They benefited, learning more than the three Rs, the eldest becoming a headmaster himself, brother John being apprenticed to a Norwich carpenter, and my father, when 14, leaving according to the school records to help his father."

"His own father needed some help. The making of boots and shoes was taking the place of weaving in Norwich industry, and George Feargus Steward was one of the first of the small manufacturers round about 1860.

"In Colegate Street, where the 14-year-old was helping his father, there was also Tillyard and Howlett, later Howlett and White and then the Norvic Shoe Company, so there was competition right on the doorstep."  

Before moving on to my grandfather and his marriage I must return a few generations to see what happened to the Steward line. At the present time I have no information on what happened to the seven children of George Steward and Catharine August apart from Henry Steward and Mary Ann Vincent.

As I have already said they had 12 children. My direct line is through George Steward and Sarah Engledow. Of the other 11 children I have only been able to trace two strands. Henry Vincent married Maria (I have no surname) and they had five children - Maria (born 1877), Henry (1878), Elizabeth (1880), Alice (1883) and James H (1888).

Arthur Steward married Elizabeth Kelf and they had four children - Arthur William (1893-1961), Donald John (1895-1973), Alfred (born 1896) and Wilfred Charles (born 1898). Arthur's turned out to be a tragically short life as he was killed in a road accident in September 1900 at the age of just 26. Elizabeth re-married to George Lambert in 1901.

Arthur's death was recorded in the Norwich Mercury Newspaper under the heading "Norwich Man's Shocking Death - Killed on the road at Thorpe Returning from Yarmouth Races" in the following terms.

With regards to the four children of Arthur  Steward and Elizabeth Kelf I have the following facts. Donald John Steward married Florence Alice Smith and they had three daughters - Kathleen (born 1921), Edna (1925) and Joyce (1926). Alfred Steward married Harriet Eleanor Harper but I don't have any details of children. Wilfred Charles died when he was just four months old.

The line from Arthur William is extremely interesting. He was born in 1893 and died in 1961. In May 1918 he married Alice Harriet Tuttle and they had three children - Doris Evelyne (born 1920), Elsie May (1921) and Marjorie Beatrice (1922).

Doris Evelyne married John Durrant on May 17th 1945 in Park Lane, Norwich (possibly in the Methodist Church). They had four children - Christine who was born in Norwich in 1947, Maralyn (1948), JoAnne (1950) and John Marvin (1957). Maralyn, JoAnne and John were born after Doris and John moved to the Salt Lake City area of Utah in the USA. John died on May 3rd, 1985, but Doris is still alive and living in Utah.

Christine has been married three times and has a total of seven children of which three are triplets. They are James Daniel Alva (born 17th January 1967 in Salt Lake City), Deanna Christine Brklacich (nee Alva born 9th April 1968 in Salt Lake City), Margaret Anne Cook (nee Alva born 4th April 1978 in Salt Lake City), Matthew Vincent Alva (born 28th December, 1979 in Salt Lake City), Alisyn Joy Thompson (nee Alva born 28th December 1979 in Salt Lake City), Jonathan David Alva (born 28th December 1979 in Salt Lake City) and Christian Lee Herman (born 10th February 1987 in Murray, Utah. In turn these people have a number of children that I will list at some time in the future. 

Elsie May Steward married Alfred Shailer and they have a son - David. Marjorie Beatrice married Edgar Ernest Fraser and they had three children.

More details to be added

The Payne Line                                          

 My paternal grandmother's maiden name was PAYNE and I am greatly indebted to Ian Baker who has provided me with much of what follows on this side of my family.

George H Payne was born in about 1860, probably to Henry Payne and Eliza Charlotte Drake who had married in 1852. Henry Payne died in 1864 and in the 1871 census Eliza is living in Northumberland Street in the Heigham area of Norwich. She is a 49-year-old widowed Laundress and has five unmarried children living with her. Elizabeth is an 18-year-old Laundress, Mary Ann a 16-year-old Laundress with Honor, 14, Eliza, 12, and George,9, all scholars and all born in Norwich. 

In 1881 the same family group is living at 118, Northumberland Street. Eliza Payne is described as a 59-year-old widow and Laundress, George, 20, is a Labourer at Heigham Lime Works and probably a lime burner, Elizabeth, 28, and Eliza, 22, are Laundresses and Mary Ann, 25, and Honor, 24, are Willow Box Makers.

George Payne was later to marry Elizabeth Barrett. Elizabeth was born in Mulbarton in about 1854. In the 1871 census she is a 17-year-old general servant to Ann L. Palmer, a widow, in the village of Mulbarton. Early in 1879 Elizabeth married Zachariah Gowing who also lived in Mulbarton. Zachariah was a shoemaker and the son of Samuel Gowing, a shoemaker, and his wife Mary.

Zachariah died, aged 25, towards the end of 1879 after less than a year of marriage, leaving Elizabeth a pregnant widow. By the time of the 1881 census, Elizabeth Gowing (nee Barrett) has a one year old daughter, Mary E. Gowing, and is living with her parents John and Eliza Barrett on Norwich Road, Mulbarton. Next door is the family of Samuel and Mary Gowing, the parents of her deceased husband Zachariah. By now Samuel Gowing, 51, is an established figure in the village, being a Master Shoemaker and the Parish Clerk. It is likely that the homes were somewhere around the village pond.

In 1884 the widowed Elizabeth Gowing married Lime Burner George Payne, who was some five years her junior. They set up home in the Heigham area of Norwich and by the time of the 1891 census they were living at 86, Northumberland Street and had three children - Kate H, 6, Ethel, 3, and Ellen M (Nellie), 16 months. All had been born in Norwich.

Mary E. Gowing, Elizabeth's daughter from her first marriage, stayed in Mulbarton with her grandmother Eliza Barrett and was there in 1891. She has not been found in the 1901 census, but appears to have married late in 1901 (possibly either to Sidney Bellchambers or Ernest George Brighton).

George's mother Eliza in 1891 was living at 59, Northumberland Street, aged 69, with daughters Elizabeth, Mary A, Honor and Eliza. All five of them are shown as Laundress. Eliza died in 1895, aged 73.

In the 1901 census George Payne and Elizabeth are living at 66, Northumberland Street, Heigham and have four daughters at home - Ethel, 13, Ellen M, 11, Florence M (my grandmother), 7, and Anna E, 5. George, aged 40, is now a Labourer-Scavenger. Kate Payne, aged 16, was a domestic servant in the household of Richard Burrow at 130, Queen's Road, Norwich. Northumberland Street still exists as a narrow area just off the main Dereham Road in Norwich and about 20 minutes' walk from the city centre.

The term Labourer-Scavenger has intrigued me and I have been able to find out very little about it. At first I thought it would be the equivalent of a modern day refuse collector, but now have the feeling that it may have been less grand. A scavenger may well have had something to do with the collection of excrement from the road! Again as with the Steward side of the family, it seemed that George Payne more than enjoyed his drink and also frittered his money away on booze. He apparently kept some ducks and one Christmas asked his family to look after them whilst he went out on a bender. When he returned he found the family had lost the birds and so went into a drunken rage which included throwing his entire family out onto the streets in the pouring rain. George's nickname was Camster. I still have to ascertain why! Apparently Great Grandfather Payne felt women had only two functions in life - sex and providing food!

It is difficult to ascertain information on my grandmother's sisters, but I have gained one or two snippets which still need verification. It is thought that Kate Payne married a man by the name of Barner who worked with horses and they had three daughters. Ethel married a man by the name of Bob Wilkes who worked on the estate of Lord Roberts at Cockley Cley in West Norfolk.

Florence Payne married Arthur Steward and they became my paternal grandparents. Looking back I can still remember my grandmothers sisters Ethel, Nellie and Annie. I particularly remember Ethel who lived in a converted railway carriage in the west of Norfolk, which I always thought to be great fun.

Indeed in my own personal diary entry for Monday, January 1st, 1973 I note:

"Got up at 10.15 a.m, had breakfast and checked the car ready to take Ethel back to Boughton. Set off at about 11 a.m and after a slow journey reached the destination at 12.30 p.m. Had dinner and set off for home at about 2 p.m. The return journey was much faster and took just over and hour."

Unfortunately I didn't record anything about the conversations or anything else that took place on that day. I also remember coming across the sisters at the wedding of my cousin Jennifer Nobbs to Raymond Ollason a number of years previous to this. I can also remember that one of the sisters (and I can't remember which one) died in my grandmothers house whilst staying there.

The records would put my grandmother's date of birth at about 1894 and she lived to be just a few  months short of what would have been her 100th birthday. Towards the end of her life she lived in a home in Links Close in Hellesdon and refused to admit to being nearly 100, taking a few years off her age whenever possible.

Florence Payne met and married Arthur Steward and they lived at 122 Reepham Road, Hellesdon, which is about three miles out of Norwich in the North Norfolk direction. Today Hellesdon is a thriving suburb of Norwich, but in the early days of their marriage it would have been a much quieter place. Previously Florence had been employed as a laundress in Norwich Waterworks.

At one time my grandfather Arthur Steward was employed by Caleys Chocolate Factory. He was made redundant and moved to Hellesdon where he rented a bungalow from the local squire. Presumably this was 122 Reepham Road. He also rented a grocery store opposite and this is likely to be 154 Reepham Road where I was born. During the First World War my grandfather served with the Red Cross in the medical corps and was stationed in Holland where, presumably, he treated injured soldiers returning from battle. He was also in a forces band.

My grandfather would deliver goods around Hellesdon and as far afield as Horsford on his bike. During the war he had a nervous breakdown which necessitated my father returning from the second world war to look after the shop. Later my grandfather also ran a dairy in Reepham Road. Today this is a travel agency.

Florence and Arthur had two children - Vera (my aunt) and Arthur (my father) who was born in 1920. Both are still alive and still living in Hellesdon.  

Vera Steward married Jack Nobbs and had one daughter Jennifer (my cousin). Jennifer in turn married Raymond Ollason and they had one son - Andrew.

In many ways I feel lucky to be alive. My immediate descendants both come from second marriages with death bringing a premature stop to their first marriages. 

                                        The Sandall Line

On my maternal side I have also had some success in my research. As outlined below my maternal grandmother was Selina Maud Dew (nee Sandall). Using the 1901 census I tracked her down to an address at 4, Wells Street, Great Yarmouth. At the time of the census she was nine-years-old which would put her year of birth at around 1892. Her parents were Henry Ward Sandall (aged 36 - date of birth probably 1865). He is described as a "house painter." His wife Margaret is listed as 34 years of age. Her maiden name appears to have been Edmonds and she and Henry were married in St Nicholas Church at Great Yarmouth on July 8th, 1888. Margaret Edmonds home in the 1881 census is given as 105 George Street and her father is named as John Edmonds who was born in 1837 and whose occupation is given as a fisherman.

The remainder of the household consisted of John (aged 10), Selina (aged 9), Earnest (aged 7) and Henry (aged 3). All were born at Great Yarmouth.  

The Dew Line

My maternal grandfather was Frank Owen Dew. His name is interesting in that the Owen was passed to me as my middle name and subsequently to my eldest son as his middle name.

In the 1901 census Frank Dew lived at 118, King Street, Great Yarmouth and was 11 years of age. I was having considerable problems tracking down this side of the family until a chance contact via the Genes Re-united site which introduced me to another distant relative.

Denise Burton listed amongst her relatives a Frank Dew who was born in Great Yarmouth in 1890. This co-incided with the name and birth date of my own grandfather and it soon became obvious that myself and Denise shared the same family tree. Closer investigation establishes that we have the same great great grandfather William Dew who married Suzanna Yaxley. They had seven children, the youngest of whom was my great grandfather Francis Dew.

Francis was born in Great Yarmouth in 1856 and was married twice. The first was to Caroline Harper Bowles and together they had a daughter - Laura Dew. It is believed that Caroline died and Francis married Maria Stone and they had a son Frank who became my grandfather. Francis' occupation was greengrocer and a number of descendants along the Dew family line seem to have followed this profession.

With the help of Art Mitchell from Virginia (another branch of the Sandall dynasty), I have been able to establish that my Great Grandfather Henry had a brother and three sisters. Elizabeth, a dressmaker, was born in 1853, Alice, a waiter in a tap room, was born in 1855, Charles, a gas fitter's labourer, was born in 1860, and Selina Eliza was born in 1861. It is interesting to note that Henry and Margaret went on to name one of their children (my grandmother) Selina. This Charles married Sarah Jane Davey in St Nicholas Church, Great Yarmouth on 25th February, 1882. Henry is also likely to have had another sister Selina who died as an infant in 1858. It is likely that Selina Eliza was named after this dead infant.

Selina is not a common name, but it is one that seems to run through many generations of the Great Yarmouth Sandall family. Elizabeth, Alice, Charles, Selina and Henry appear to have been the children of Charles and Elizabeth Sandall who were both born in 1825. Charles appears to have been the licensee at the Sir John Franklin Tavern at 56, Nelson Road, Great Yarmouth.

Further research shows that this tavern closed in 1904 when the "licence was given up in consideration of a new licence being granted for the Salisbury Arms in Cobholm." Cobholm is another area of Great Yarmouth. In the 1901 census there is a Charles Sandall listed for Great Yarmouth, aged 76, and described as a retired mariner. It is likely that on relinquishing the pub, Charles went to sea. It is also quite likely that the sea was his original vocation. A document listing ships in ports in County Durham in 1881 lists a Charles Sandall, aged 56, as a mate on the vessel Flora.

I recently visited Great Yarmouth and found that the former Sir John Franklin Tavern has now been split into two houses or flats. The outside of the building has been painted in what can only be described as burnt orange. Interestingly you can still see the bolts where the tavern sigh would have hung.

I have established that my paternal grandfather was born in 1894. This would make him 58 or 59 when I was born in 1952. My father was born in 1920 and so my grandfather would have been about 25 when he was born. My grandfather was a painter and decorator by trade but at one time also owned a dairy and a considerable parcel of land at the back of his bungalow in Reepham Road in Hellesdon. He later sold this land to a builder by the name of Southgate who developed a number of properties on the land off Meadow Way including the Meadow Way Chapel..

Somewhere along the line my grandfather pulled his finances around after a difficult start with his father's drinking.

Likewise my paternal grandmother came from a working class Norfolk family.

On my maternal side my grandmother Selina Maud Sandall married Frank Owen Dew. They had two daughters - one of whom died as an infant. The second was to become my mother. She married my father on Boxing Day (year unknown).  

The Steward Line Present Generation

I married Anne Burton on 24th July, 1976 in Knottingley, West Yorkshire, and our sons Christopher Owen Steward and Matthew David Steward were born on 24th February, 1982 and 10th January, 1984 respectively. Today Chris is a secondary PE teacher, living in Eastbourne, Sussex, and Matt is a police officer in Norwich. Chris is engaged and will marry Lynne Phillips on August 15th this year

Birthdates of people featured on these pages so far are as follows (along with their relationship to me): The relatives are listed in birth date order. Below that is the start of a compendium of names and information on people who have turned up in my family tree to date.