 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
grandfather, Samuel, who would be 21 in October 1849.
The common ancestor of both familes was the Matthew Honeycombe who lived and died in St
Cleer and had two surviving sons, John and Jonathan, the former being the progenitor of my
line, which had moved, via William the sawyer, from Liskeard to Plymouth.
Nothing illustrates the mobility of familes more than the movement of this family away from its
ancestral village, beginning with William the sawyer's father. He, another William, was born in St
Cleer (1750); William the sawyer in Liskeard (1786); Samuel in Devonport (1828); Henry, my
grandfather, in Gravesend (1861); my father, Gordon Samuel in Edinburgh (1898); and finally
the author, Gordon, in Karachi, British India (1936). Notable is the fact that each generation
over a period of 200 years was bom not only in a different place but further away every time.
1849 was also notable for both families in that Samuel and William the stonemason both chose
to leave Plymouth about the same time, enhancing not only their social expectations but also
those of their descendants.
Samuel left, it seems, after his mother died in a cholera epidemic, and because a girl became
pregnant by him. His mother, Dorothy, died on 2 October 1849, a month or so before Elizabeth
Frayne knew she was expecting Samuel's child, who was born in June 1850 and christened
Ellen. Her birth certificate names Samuel Honeycombe as the father and gives his occupation as
a
carpenter. Perhaps he worked in the dockyard with his father and older brother, both sawyers:
certainly they were all living in Fore Street in 1849, the busy thoroughfare leading to the
dockyard. Perhaps Sarnue! would not marry Miss Frayne and there was a family row, the more
bitter following his mother's death. His obituary in the Gravesend and Dartford Reporter (1911)
says: 'He was apprenticed in the dockyard, afterwards joining the navy, and during his naval
service he travelled round the world and took part in the Crimean War.1 At the end of the war
he settled at Gravesend in Kent, about as far from Plymouth eastwards that he could get. There
he became a local worthy, honoured as the Surveyor and Inspector of Nuisances for the
Northfleet Borough Council in Kent.
Although naval records do not substantiate the statement that 21-year-ofd Samuel joined the
navy - his name does not appear as crew on any ship that saiied from Plymouth nor on any
Crimean ship - he may have changed his name. He may indeed have emigrated, temporarily.
The fact remains that he left Plymouth (in 1850 probably and possibly by sea) about the time
that William the stonemason emigrated from there, both thereby completely altering the direction
of their lives and the social milieu and opportunities of their children and their children's children.
I like to think that in 1849 or early the following year, the two Honeycombe families met by
chance - probabiy in a smoky, crowded pub. It is not impossible, as William the sawyer and his
sons were employed in the dockyard and were then living in Fore Street. Besides, he and his
family had lived in Devonport for about 40 years, and with a name like theirs would have been
locally quite well known.
Whatever brought William the stonemason to Plymouth, we know that he sailed from there in
February 1850. If he was there in 1849, his departure may have been influenced by the cholera
epidemic that put an end to Dorothy Honeycombe's life.
Cholera was the scourge of the nineteenth century, as bubonic plague had been in earlier
centuries. Over 53,000 people died of cholera in the epidemic that swept through England in
1849. In Bristol, in a four month period, over 400 people died; in Liverpool that autumn cholera
 |