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dead by Emma, but not by his relatives in Australia. Perhaps letters went missing. In any event,
his sister Jane, who provided the information for that death certificate and who emigrated in
April 1854, must have known or believed her brother was alive when she sailed from England.
If he had died before this, the reference in the death certificate many years iater would surety
have said - 'William, dead'.
A possible scenario, based partly on the fact that the man Emma married in December 1856
was a saiior, John Doubting (he was 31 and she 32), could read something like what follows.
William Robert became a ship's carpenter at the outbreak of the Crimean War in March 1854;
perhaps he worked in the Bristol dockyards beforehand. We remember that his Hillsbridge
neighbours in 1841-42, when he was 13 and 14, were a shipwright and a ship's master. Either
that, or he joined the army or navy. Whether as a soldier, sailor or shipwright, let us suppose he
sailed with the allied armies to the Black Sea. Russia had declared war on Turkey, and the
British and French were anxious to protect Turkey and their own interests against Russian
expansion towards the Mediterranean Sea. The allies had mustered their forces at Varna on the
Bulgarian coast of the Black Sea. But these were ferried by ship to Eupatoria, after a cholera
epidemic swept through the French and British camps. The aim of the allies was to capture
Sebastopol, and after the battle of Alma in September 1814, the Russian stronghold was
beseiged. The fatal charge of the Light Brigade happened that October; the siege of Sebastopol
lasted nearly a year. During the winter hundreds of British soldiers died through disease, lack of
proper clothing and food - partly because storms wrecked the transport ships bringing
necessary supplies.
William Robert may have been on one of these ships, or he may have died of cholera or some
other disease in a Black Sea port.
The Crimean War ended with the Treaty of Paris early in 1856. Hostilities had cost Britain
some 25,000 lives and led to a reappraisal of so-called modem warfare, methods of nursing,
medical supplies and equipment. Income tax was raised to 1s 2d because of the war, but
reduced over the next ten years to 7d.
Returning ships, soldiers and seamen brought back news of the many deaths. It is perhaps
significant that Emma remarried a sailor. Could he not have been the one who brought her the
news of William's death? She did not in
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fact remarry until December 1856 ~ nine months after the official end of the war and over a
year since the surrender of Sebastopoi.
By the time of Emma's remarriage, only Mary Ann, William Robert's eldest sister, was still in
England, and she was in London, where she had been, since her marriage, for 11 years. All of
the rest of William Robert's family were in Australia, the last to leave being his sister Jane, who
emigrated in April 1854.
Perhaps he was never declared dead, but 'missing', thus allowing Emma and Jane (on receiving
a letter from Emma) to draw their own conciusions: Emma to marry again, believing he was as
good as dead; and Jane to go on thinking that her dear brother (there was a year and a half
between them) would one day reappear. On the other hand, Emma may never have written to
any of the Honeycombes. Perhaps she didn't care for them. Or perhaps she moved away from
Bristol after her second marriage, leaving no forwarding address. And William Robert's family in
Australia were never told, never knew for sure, what happened to him. Nor do we.
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