A South African Ramble

 This week I am at a loss for choosing a topic to write about.  When I look up writer's block the advice is to just sit down and write, no matter what comes out.  The very act of producing words can help.

We are now in June and every week I have written a blog as I said I would as a new years resolution to get me writing.  I am ashamed to admit that I haven't written any of my book on Emily Hobhouse for a while which gets me thinking on why I am writing it in the first place.  When I started writing hardly anyone had heard of Emily Hobhouse and when I discovered her in the early 2000's I wanted everyone to know about our Cornish humanitarian, philanthropist and her work improving conditions in the British Concentration Camps in the Boer War and also her part in the feeding of thousands of children after WW1.

This month it is one hundred years since her death and The Story of Emily is commemorating this next Saturday, I am looking forward to going.  Especially as favourite local punk folk group Black Friday will be playing.

My x2 Great Grandfather Thomas Ashley is listed in the book British Settlers in Natal 1824-1857 Volume 1, by Shelagh O'Byrne Spencer.  

In it she says he joined the Royal Navy in 1841, but naval records of this date are very rare and I am stuck in finding out what part of England he came from.  I think I am almost there though.  Recently I have discovered a woman called Ruth Ashley, a servant who gave birth to three sons in Bath.  I have studied many many Thomas Ashleys born in England around that time, most have popped up again near to where they were born in future census's and lived their lives out in England.  But Ruth's boys seem different.  

Because they were 'base born' the father was not on the baptism records but, and this is interesting,  her first two boys William and George Ashley, have the name Sperring as their second name, so I did a random search for a male Sperring in Bath as a desperate feel in the dark, to find the father of Ruths boys.  A Thomas Sperring popped up in Bath and I delved a bit deeper and discovered his last will and testament.  In it he makes provisions for his legitimate children and ALSO he says he wants to bequeath five pounds a year to William and George Ashley, children of Ruth Ashley for their upkeep and also the unborn child of Ruth Ashley, made pregnant by himself and if the child lives to also bequeath five pounds a year to that child as well, until the boys come of age. 

Part of Thomas Sperring’s last will & testament

 

Ruth did in fact have another child and she called him Thomas,  he was born in 1827.  

Thomas Sperring died age 60 in 1830, so that was when our Thomas was 3 and then Ruth died in 1834 at the young age of 33 so Thomas was 7 and found himself without parents.  Then the trail goes cold.  So in my mind this could be my x2 Great Grandfather who joined the navy as a young boy when he was 13, this is about the age where boys were sent out to work.  All this of course happened before the first proper census in 1841 and will take some more work before I can categorically confirm that this is the correct trail.  Being without family it would also be a reason for Thomas settling in South Africa.  

I looked up the history of The Fawn, the ship Thomas Ashley was assigned to and I am quite proud of the fact that during his time in the Navy he was instrumental in hunting down and capturing slave ships.

Thomas died in Pietermarizberg in 1870, he was married and had five children.  Thomas is the only person in my South African ancestry that came from England, the rest were all  Afrikaaners, many were in the concentration camps.  So if it wasn't for Emily, I and my family may not have existed.  My Great Grandparents were Brits, Muller, and Van Zyl.  My search is ongoing but through the Brits side, I have traced my ancestors back to Charlemagne.