Since the web site has become established we have started to receive emails from many places. With that thought in mind, many of you visitors may remember names from the past, I will add the mails to this web site. See if you remember any of the names mentioned.
You may find that many seem incomplete but I can assure you that I have followed each one as far as I can. If you see any issue that you would like to pursue, let me know.
Below are contacts from
Elaine Seymour nee' Mills. Bob Steele. Elsie Robinson. Mick Bowen.
Mary Noonan. Elizabeth Rummins. Suzie Best. Jean Horton. Taia de Burca
Hello Richard,
I have been in contact with a while ago, regarding trying to find information on my late Father Ernest Henry Mills. You did mention to me then about getting a web page going, and today, I see that you have achieved this. Well done !! I am hoping that you could include a message to the visitors for me please.
My grandparents lived at 327 Long Acre during the 1920's. Their name was Mills, the mother being Norah, a Lancashire Lass, the father being Edward ( Ted ). was a road sweeper for the council. They had five children, all though not in birth order, Ted, Ernest ( my late father ) Rene, Mary and Bob. There was a grocers near their house, Ted Haines. And further down the hill was a sweetshop which was owned by a family, whose surname began with 'C'. I know that my father went to St. Josephs, as did the rest of the siblings. I'm hoping that someone can further my knowledge on this please, no matter how small. Photographs would be a great help. Many Thanks
Elaine Seymour nee' MILLS.
My email address is colin.seymour7@ntlworld.com
What a wonderful web site you have created. I discovered the site through the Birmingham web ring.
I have just about read everything on there and what prompted me to do that, considering that I did not attend St Joseph’s School or church?
I lived directly across the road from the church gate in Long Acre.
If you look closely at the photo of the Methodist Church there are three houses on the right and then there is an entry next to Newton’s factory. I lived up the entry at house number 10. My parents lived there from 1928 when they were married. Grandmother was already living there. My 3 brothers and sister and I were born there.
We went to St Clements School in High Park St. I had an aunt and cousin who attended St Josephs.
The stories from your past pupils brought back many memories. Collins the grocer and also the old lady that had the greengrocer’s shop next to the Mitre Pub. The swimming baths and the trip to the Brookvale playing ground on the double- decker bus.
I am researching my family history and did you know that Johnny Wright’s sports ground next to the school once had houses on it! It was called “Garden Walk”. My Great-grandparents lived there in 1881.
We often used the churchyard as a short cut to Thimble Mill Lane when we were going down to Aston and many a time we were chased off by the Priest. I am talking 1945 to1954.
I visited Long Acre in 2002 and was surprised at how small the area and churchyard was.
I have book marked your site and will visit it often to read further news and updates.
Regards
Bob Steele in Adelaide
26 May 2005
As a result of providing Bob with some further information I received the following mail:-
2) Hi Richard
Thank you for the prompt reply.
I have been into the Heartlands web site and feasted my eyes on all the photographs.
I also read all the messages on the "guest book". One of the messages is from a person that lived next door to my cousin in 1966. I have been trying to contact my cousin for along time. I have sent an email to see if he has any information of my cousin.
There is also a report of my grandmother being run over right opposite the Church gate in Long Acre.
I have just remembered that on some Sundays the Salvation Army Band used to march along Long Acre. I could hear them coming and when I rushed down to the street they had stopped playing until they had passed the churchyard. I was very disappointed.
Bob also sent me a copy of the newspaper item relating to his Grandmothers accident.
Birmingham Mail - Thursday October 7th 1937 page 11
WIDOW'S ROAD DEATH
Knocked down by lorry at Nechells
A verdict of "Accidental death" was returned at a Birmingham inquest
today on Rose Hobday (aged 67) a widow of 10/126 Long Acre, Nechells who died in
the General Hospital last Saturday from injuries received when she was knocked
down by an eight-wheeled motor lorry near her home on the same day.
Alice Steele, a daughter, said that her mother's sight was good but she was
slightly deaf.
William Evans, the driver of the lorry, said that he was coming from Nechells
towards the city. The first he saw of the woman was about six feet from the kerb
when he was three or four yards from her. She was just level with his near
wheels. He swerved to his right, blew the horn and applied the brakes, but the
near side wing struck her. When the woman saw the lorry she ran right into its
path.
Witness could not explain how after the accident the police measured tyre marks
on the road extending to 53 feet.
The driver's mate said that there was a stationary motor car on their
near side and the woman seemed to come from behind it.
A police witness said that after the accident, the lorry was placed
diagonally across the road with the front over on its wrong side. The
only other vehicle there when witness arrived was the police ambulance.
A very sad memory but Bob gave me permission to use it.
The following is another email I have received. It is presented as received.
3) MY NAME WAS ELSIE ROBINSON
I WAS BORN 1928 I STARTED SCHOOL AT ST JOSEPHS IN 1933 WHEN I WAS 5.
I THINK MISS DOBBIN WAS MY FIRST TEACHER OR MISS GRUNDY
I REMEMBER SISTER ALFREDA MISS MAGUIRE IN THE INFANTS
IN THE JUNIORS AND SENIORS I REMEMBER MISS WHITE MISS LIVINGSTONE
AND SISTER MARGARET AND FATHER COTTON
MY MOTHER WAS BORN IN 1900 AND SHE ATTENDED ST JOSEPHS
SHE USED TO TELL US ABOUT MOTHER DUNSTAN HOW SHE USED TO GET THEM BY THE EAR.
I USED TO RUN FOR THE SCHOOL TEAM WE PRACTISED AT WHAT IS NOW SALFORD PARK , AND WHEN WE GOT TO THE FINALS WE HAD TO GO TO CAPE HILL THE M&B’s GROUND AT SMETHWICK
THERE WERE SIX OF US ROBINSONS
NORAH BORN1921 DIED DEC1904
HORACE1922
MARION1926
ELSIE1928
HENRY KNOWN AS HARRY1930
STAN1935 DIED1965
YOU HAVE A PHOTO OF STAN WHEN THEY WON THE TABLE TENNIS AND ALSO A PHOTO OF HIM WITH THE FOOTBALL TEAM 1948
ALSO HARRY KNOWS THE POWELL'S
WINNIE AND TERRY BAKER AND MICHAEL AND KENNY JORDON WHERE OUR COUSINS THEY ALL WENT TO ST JOSEPHS
WINNIE WENT TO LIVE IN CANADA ABOUT 20 YEARS AGO
AND TERRY DIED IN 1988.
I WENT TO SCHOOL WITH DOREEN HAYES, JEAN HARRIS, JOAN DUNN
AND PAULINE SMITH. I WAS EVACUATED WITH MY SISTER MARION AND COUSIN WINNIE BAKER TO SMISBY NR. ASHBY BUT WE WHERE ONLY THERE 10 DAYS
MY YOUNGER BROTHER HARRY WAS EVACUATED TO HARTSHORNE HE STAYED
ABOUT 6 MONTHS
WHEN WE CAME BACK WE HAD TO GO TO SCHOOL TO HOUSES IN CHURCH RD
4) Hello Mr. Scott
I was interested to see the grave listings for St Joseph's church. I was baptised there living in Taylor Street at that time!
I note grave 162 holds Elizabeth/Mary/Joseph and Winifred Rigby they could be my ancestors. Elizabeth and Joseph Rigby could be my GT. GT grand parents? They were bookkeepers and lived in Great Russell Street in 1881. They were born in Warrington Lancashire.
Do you have information or would the church hold it?
Regards,
Mick Bowen.
I have pointed Mick in the appropriate direction. I have not been made aware if he obtained the information he required.
5) Richard,
I saw the school photo in the Short History of Nechells.
Mary Rosalie Morris is the 2nd girl from left on the front row. I don't know anyone else on the photo. Also attached is a page from her English exercise book.
Mary Rosalie Morris, my mom.
Mary Rosalie Morris, born 22nd March 1921. Died Sept 2001.
Married Joseph John Banks 11th August 1945 St Joseph's
Mary's Father: Henry P Morris
Mary's Mother: Ann Elizabeth Morris nee BONNER. (Known as Nance)
Also married at St Joseph's.
Mary's Grandparents George and Ellen Bonner and Uncle Fred buried at St Joseph's.
Mary also had two cousins who attended St Joseph's school. Dorothy and Margaret Dickinson.
I think the Bonner's had a long association with St Joseph's, which I hope to discover when researching the parish records.
Do you know if any school records are kept please?
Another mail
6) I have only briefly looked at your website (which my sister - Catherine O'Flynn had emailed to me), and will spend longer looking at it when I have more time, but the memories it has evoked have driven me to drop you this short note.
I joined St Joseph's in the Sept before I was 5 in 1963. I went into Mrs. Sammons class. I then - I think - had Miss Ball but I could be mistaken. I had Miss Ball at some stage in the infants and I remember to this day her mantra "can't is an idle word, and idle people use it"! However, by far my favorite infant teacher was Miss Martin who was a delight. At the age of 7 I thought she was the prettiest, cleverest and kindest person I had ever met .Other teachers I remember from my time there are Miss Scally, Miss Bonham, Miss McCulloch (another great teacher who however put me off The Hobbit to this day by trying to get me to read it when I was 8!) Mr. Bushell did music, Miss Bradley was Junior 1. There was a needlework teacher with whom we made felt and blanket stitch teddies and purses. There was a glamorous young Irish teacher whose name escapes me- long smooth blond hair - Miss Stack?
There was also a Miss O'Byrne (Joan) with whom my mother became great friends and for whom my sister was bridesmaid when she married Don Heathfield in about 1968? A teacher I did not have but who was legendary was Mrs. Smyth. I was never there when Mr. Whittle was head either, although he will know our family.
My family had moved to Nechells in July 1963 as my father had taken over what had been Mr. Jordan's newsagents on Nechells Park Road - just by the bus stop opposite the hair dressers and the Jewel Box jewellers. We lived above the shop and from my second floor bedroom window I would look at the comings and goings in the shops opposite. As well as the hairdressers and the jewellers, there were barbers and also bookies.
My father was called Donal O'Flynn and he ran the shop until his death in 1986. There were 5 kids when we moved in Emer, Oongah, me, Frances and Nicholas. In 1970, my younger sister Catherine was born.
My mother Ellen was just that when we first moved to Nechells - a full time mother. However, she had trained as a teacher at Newbold Revell after attending St Paul's Grammar School and had taught at St Chad's secondary school before having a family.
With slum clearance in the mid-sixties, our customers dwindled away and Mom was asked by I think Fr Timlin if she would do some part time hours at the school, so she began working 10-12 helping with remedial reading. At that time I was in the juniors and my brother Nicholas and sister Frances were in the infants.
At lunch time I would walk from the junior building down to the church (where with my friends at break, we would huddle in one of the corners because it must have been the wall outside the boiler and it was always warm). I would wait there for Nicholas and Frances to walk up and join me. Frances always dutifully did so, but Nicholas at 5 or 6 would get to the top of the hill, and then run down again several times before I managed to get him to walk with us up the path to the little door and out onto Long Acre. We would then walk towards the little staff door and wait for Mom. We would all then walk up railway terrace, past the White Hart pub and right on Nechells Park Road to the shop, and so home. Then we'd walk back again after lunch.
By the time Catherine was born, my mom was working full time at St Josephs. Between 5 teenagers, a baby, a full time job and the shop life took its toll. I have two children and no longer work and cannot imagine how she coped for as long as she did.
My Dad died in 1986, and then in 1993 Mom died also having moved to Erdington after Dad had died - I guess she had stopped coping by then.
Both of my sisters and I, live in Solihull. Catherine lives in Spain. Nicholas lives in Tunbridge Wells and Oonagh in Muswell Hill. We're all graduates and have good careers and nice lives. Except Catherine, we all have children of our own whose lives couldn't be more different from those of the St Josephs alumni. When I tell my children of how we lived and how little we had, they cannot believe it, and yet we were one of the luckier families. However, I am grateful for the years we spent there and very interested in your site.
Kind regards,
Mary Noonan
I received a contact about Sr. Margaret. Sadly I can’t find the suppliers full details. The message was as follows:
Richard,
This is not so much about what happened to her after she moved, but more of our relationship, if you are interested.
She first saw me sitting on the doorstep of my grandparent’s tobacconist shop at 320 Nechells Park Road, a pre-school child.
She got to talking to my grandmother and found out that my father, a lapsed Catholic, was dying of cancer. She went round to see him and got a priest to see him and administer the Last Rites. She then persuaded my mother and grandmother to send me to St. Joseph's instead of Eliot Street, my mother's old school.
It was she who took me personally to the Municipal Bank at Nechells Green to open my first bank account.
When I passed the 11+, my grandmother was not inclined to let me go to St.Paul's, citing the distance, the bus fares and the cost of school uniform. A meeting was arranged between Sr. Margaret and my grandmother (both strong minded women) at the Convent in Nechells Park Road and Sr. Margaret prevailed again.
We travelled together to Ireland when I was 13, she going to stay at her convent, me to my relatives. We always kept in touch; she visited us in Coleshill and played football with the children. In later years I asked her why she had taken so much interest in me, and she replied that I had been instrumental in helping her send my father to heaven!
She died in March 1968.
Sheila
7) Dear Richard (I hope the R stands for Richard as the Guest Book implies),
I was passed your web site details as I am interested in locating some relatives whom I believe were buried in the St Joseph’s Nechells grave ground according to family stories.
I have had a brief fiddle with the information which you have added to the site – congratulations it is well done and informative. I have not yet had any success with the information on the Local History sections of the Links as the system seemed to be having a few hiccups this morning when I tried to go to things such as information from Aston area – but I will try that again later.
I see you invite people to contact you re the names of persons listed in the Nechells Burial Ground. One of my husband’s forebears was a Frances Franklin who first married a Thomas Hateley and then a Joseph Rigby after Thomas’s death. Sadly Frances RIGBY then died on 17th November 1868. I believe the Frances Rigby (1003) might be the same person. Oddly a son of Frances (George Rigby) died a day after Frances on the 18th November 1868 but was not on the list of names – or would he have been buried with his mother as he only lived to be 5 days old. Incidentally I have a photograph of a portrait of Frances Rigby , formerly Hateley nee Franklin if this is the same lady. I would be happy forward you a copy should it prove to be.
Joseph Rigby, Frances’s second husband, was the son of a Joseph Rigby, pin maker. I believe Joseph, the elder, was married to Winifred so I wondered if the Joseph, Winifred, Mary and Elizabeth Rigby (listed as 162) were also connected to Frances and Joseph Rigby.
If you can provide me with details of the burials of 162 and 1003 I would be most appreciative. Again, I know a little more of the family associations should they be the people I believe them to be and I would be happy to forward this information on to you as well.
Thank you for your assistance,
Regards
Elizabeth Rummins
Perth, Western Australia.
8) Hi Richard
We went to see Sister Attracta Saturday at the convent. She is starting to forget as she did not know us this time her memory comes and goes now; still I suppose that is to be expected with her age. She is well otherwise and was watching the Royal wedding, she did say a lot of people had visited her, I told her I was 50 last month.
She said someone told her once a woman, twice a child, which means you start off as a child then a woman and then a child again. How true! I bought her a Birthday cake and some flowers and a card with a 90th bookmark attached! She really loved them. Well I thought I would let you know how she is and thanks again for your help with her birthday.
Colette
Sr. Attracta for those who do not remember, she was at St Vincent’s School, Vauxhall for many years during the 1950’+60’s. She currently lives in retirement at The Selly Park Convent, Birmingham.
July 2007
Sadly Sr. Attracta passed away in 2006. A number of former St. Vincent's pupils attended the ceremony at Selly Park Convent, as did I.
9) I have been tracing the Italian side of my family [my fathers mother] and read about Phyllis Arnold on your pages, Phyllis is my fathers cousin and he used to live at their nan's lodging house at 40 Bartholomew St, he later moved to 14 Bart's St. with his father and mother Annie [nee farina] Phyllis’s aunt. I wonder if you have any address or contact information for Phyllis or her family, it would help a lot if you did. The last address I had for Phyllis was Bracebridge ST, Gravelly Hill. Thank you. John Wassall
As more messages are received I will add to this page. I hope many of you will remember the writer and wish to contact them.
More contacts that we have made
The following emails have been received. Whilst they are not from former pupils,
they go to show how far away our information is now travelling.
Hi there,
I am writing from New Zealand. I am researching my family tree, and my mother's
family who were the Whitehouses from Birmingham in England. I note with interest
the postcards you say are lent from Eric Whitehouse, Local History Page whom
I would imagine to be a family relative of mine. I would love if you would pass
on my message to him and his family, in the hopes they may be able to fill me in
on our family history in England. My ancestors were Abel and Matilda Whitehouse
(nee Craddock), who sailed on the John Duncan in 1863, to New Zealand. They are
my great, great grandparents. I would love any information on my family, either
from them or from anyone else in the area that may have any history of them and
their lives in Birmingham, pre 1863. With many thanks,
Suzie Best
After contacting Suzie, I received the following reply:
Richard, thank you for being so helpful!
In New Zealand we do not have such good records as they do in England (I have
heard). We are also a relatively new country, just reaching our 150yr
anniversary of settling by the English. I have viewed both of the Death
Certificates of my Great, Great Grandparents whom I made the initial inquiry
about, both are shockingly short of details and in some instances even totally
wrong.
Abel Whitehouse has his father listed as Thomas Whitehouse, his wife Matilda has
her father listed as Edward Craddock, both of them have their mothers as
unknown, and neither of them even have their date of birth, although both of
them are listed as being born in Birmingham.
My G/G/Grandfather's burial place was even the wrong cemetery, and I had the joy
of finally finding him some 300kms away, buried next to his beloved wife, after
scouring 12,000 graves in the cemetery where he was reported on his death
certificate to be buried! The most helpful piece of information gathered from
the gravestones I photographed, being their ages at death. Abel, was said to be
69 and died in 1888, Matilda was said to be 83 and died in 1906.
They sailed from Gravesend on 10-10-1863 on the John Duncan, with 9 children.
Even the shipping records here are dodgy, one of them doesn't report one of the
children ever arriving, another reports an extra child! Now you see why it is so
difficult to do this search, especially when I have had no contacts in England.
I looked up the costs of getting searches done over there professionally, but
the cost was far too prohibitive, our dollar only buys one third of your pound
for a start.
I spoke to an elderly relative before she died, who recalls being told about
family members being involved in Cobbling in the Nechell's area, of course that
may have only meant Whitehouses in general rather than our branch of the family,
but I had to look it up on the web, which is why I found your site and saw the
postcards from Eric. I had a shock when you said that about Eric's family
coming from there too.
When they settled here, of course they had to clear bush and become
self-sufficient farmers - not what they were expecting. The Whitehouses who
settled here are actually quite famous in NZ, which is why it has been easier to
do the genealogy here, there is even a book written on the area they settled in,
and a museum there too with a lot of history on them. But, it’s all NZ stuff and
no-one seems to know a lot about them before they left England.
It might be just chance, about what my Great Aunt said remembering the area they
were from, but you never know. It is not a very common name here; we are all
related as they were the only Whitehouses to emigrate to NZ. I am presuming that
there is a possibility that the English families are all related somehow too, or
did a lot of different people take up that name there. Hope I have not 'talked'
too much, I really appreciate what you are doing, thank you so much.
Suzie
I attempted to advertise the above request via Local radio and press. No response was received. However Dave Haynes, one of our members and a very keen family tree investigator, took up the enquiry. To date he has made a number of findings about the family which has proved most useful to Suzie. It does seem however they were not related to Eric as first thought.
The following Request was also received from a Jean Horton:
don't know if you will be able to help, my grandparents managed a public house in Nechells during the late 1930's until about 1948 app it was called The New Inns it was I presume demolished during the 1950's I am trying to discover the location & wondered if you had any information. My grandfather's name was Thomas Ivor Bourne & my Grandmother was Eleanor Vivian Bourne.
Thanking you in anticipation
As I could not at that stage take the matter any further I contacted Eric Hill at the Heartlands Historical Society, who always seems to know where to look. He very soon identified the location of the premises. And the following was sent to Jean:
1943 Thomas Ivor Bourne was indeed Licensee of the New Inns at 342 Nechells Park Road.
Jean was very pleased with the result and has let us have 2 photographs of her relatives. One of which is displayed later in this newsletter. (Page 10.) Both of which, I have shared with Eric, in appreciation for his help.
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Thomas & Eleanor Bourne both inside and outside New Inns, Nechells Park Road. c1943
Dear Mr. Scott,
I have been searching for more than twenty years for any record of the death of Ellen Elisa Hardenberg around 1918 without any success until a friend found your website and to my delight, there she was! So I do hope you won't mind my contacting you.
Our family has a couple of mysteries. My father was reared with another boy slightly older than he by Mrs Hardenberg until she died when he was placed in the Sisters of Mercy orphanage in Bodmin. The other boy was Ellen's grand-son, Frank Harry Davis who died at the Good Hope Hospital, Sutton Coldfield aged 83 in 1986. He was a retired Monsignor and had lived at 47 Prestwick Road.
Ellen Hardengerg's sister was a nun possibly at the school there, her name was Ann Lavinia Cockson (born 1839) and I was wondering if it were possible that she and Frank may also be buried in the same cemetery.
Can you tell me if it is likely that records from the orphanage would be held in Birmingham or from the school where Ellen's sister taught? Our family would really like to find out something more about our father and it seems likely that Birmingham may hold a couple of keys for us.
I had already booked to come to England (from Australia) in mid October and would love to visit to research a little further and perhaps meet somebody who may have been Frank's friend.
I apologise for burdening you with all this in one email.
Kind regards,
Taia de Burca
NSW 2758
Australia
In respect of this story, Dave Haynes, one of our members has taken it on himself to make enquiries into the back ground of this family. When Taia comes to this country in October, I am sure that she will be amazed at what he has found. I will include his findings on this page after she has been made aware.
Taia visited this country as promised. It will suffice if I now add the letter I have received from her after her return to Australia.
A Search from Australian
This story began almost a century ago when my father was born in London to Catherine (Marion or Mary) Bennett on 6th April, 1911. He was given the names Bernard Brandon Rupert Erc de Burca and when he was a couple of years old, he was taken by Mrs. Ellen Hardenberg to rear and educate. He was with her for some five or six years before going to the Sisters of Mercy in Bodmin. During this time she was also caring for her two grandsons, Charles and Frank Davis, following the untimely death of her daughter, Gertrude.
While we have our father’s birth certificate, my two brothers and I have never been able to trace his family. This was important for us, to give us some feeling of family. Growing up in Australia, we had no contact or sense of connection with an extended family as our friends did. The search then began to establish whether or not we may have been related to Mrs. Hardenberg’s family as my father used to call her “Grandma”. I had already planned to travel to the U.K. in October this year to see what I could find, so the search was stepped up.
My neighbour, Paula Clay, is able to find almost anything on the internet and soon discovered the site of the St. Joseph’s Reunion Group with the link to gravestones in St. Joseph’s Cemetery where Ellen Hardenberg was buried. This began a series of emails to Richard Scott who has been an enormous help. Richard enlisted the help of David Haynes, who then set about researching the family.
Journey to Birmingham
After only a little difficulty navigating Birmingham’s traffic, I arrived at St. Joseph’s on the afternoon of Friday, 12th October, 2007 with my cousin (on our mothers’ side) Kevin and his wife Pauline to a very warm welcoming committee, which included Richard, Dave and Father Gerry.
To say what Dave found was amazing would be an understatement, he may even be a greater sleuth than my neighbour, Paula! He found census records back to 1851 of Ellen Hardenberg’s family, records of her marriage and that of her family. He took a series of photographs including the house where she had lived, her headstone very close to the entrance to St. Joseph’s Church and also that of her sister Ann Lavinia Cockson, who had been a Sister at St. Mary’s Convent and died there at the age of 86.
It would seem from all of Dave’s in depth research, we could now say that we are not related to Ellen Hardenberg or the Cockson family from Cobridge in Staffordshire; however what I did find was so very much more that a blood relationship.
In caring for my father during the early years of his life, this lady been very influential in his development, for giving him the values, the ethics, those important qualities, which formed the basis on which, his whole character was built. My brothers and I were in turn reared by him within a similar framework, so this lady was far more important and influential in our lives than was any blood related “grandma”!
This was the realisation, which struck me so powerfully when Father Gerry led me to the grave of this lady. The overwhelming feelings I had at that moment when I stood before her resting place are almost impossible to describe and I am eternally grateful for the gentle words spoken to me at that time by Father Gerry. Thank you Father Gerry.
Ellen’s Grandson
The second part of my search was to find someone who may have known Frank during his many years in Birmingham. He was Ellen Hardenberg’s younger grandson who had taken on the role of “big brother” to my father during the years he was with them. The closeness they felt was such that when I was born, I was named after him. They spent much time together, particularly when they were living in East Harptree, Somerset, going for long walks or cycling for hours around the countryside. These were very fond memories for my father.
Their friendship continued throughout their lives; losing contact for periods and then re-connecting. My father planned to make a trip to the U.K. in 1985, the year he died. I contacted Frank at that time to tell him of my father’s passing, and their friendship is evident in the extract from the letter I received in reply. “I was greatly looking forward to seeing Brendan again this year. It was strange that he looked like me, that many times people asked me, when they saw his photograph on my mantlepiece, whether he was my brother.” My father also had a framed photo of Frank by his bed.
Frank was Monsignor Harry Frank Davis, and it was Father Gerry who was able to tell me something of the person he was. Frank was well known and respected in and around Birmingham so I won’t even attempt to describe this wonderful man. Maybe to touch on the fact that during the war he would travel to the prisoner of war camp in Colchester to help close to 80 German P.O.W.s to continue their training for the ministry. I would not be surprised if he did much of this teaching in their own language, as when they were boys, their Grandmother would have them speaking a different language each day of the week. I wonder if she ever though how useful that may be later in his life!
Next Day
With Dave Haynes as our guide, the following day we saw the house where Ellen Hardenberg had died in 1923. The house was just around the corner from St. Mary’s Convent where we were privileged to be taken on a tour by Sister Barbara. This was a real honour. As well as hearing much of the history of the Sisters and the extraordinary beautiful building, we saw the grave of her sister, De Salles (Ann Lavinia) Cockson.
My father had a photograph of a painting of Ellen Hardenberg and we had never known who the artist was; Sister Barbara was able to tell us that it was painted by her daughter, Frank’s mother, Frances Gertrude Davis in about 1895 at a time when she was quite a well known artist and had exhibited in England and Ireland on several occasions. (See copy below) We also saw three more of her beautiful works of art.
While we were with Sister Barbara, she indicated that the archives for the orphanage in Bodmin were held at St. Mary’s. Although they may not be able to shed any light on my father’s story, there was still that possibility.
So many pieces of the jigsaw have now dropped neatly into place for us.
(After the visit to Sr. Barbara, we were able to take Taia to new Oscott Cemetery where she was able to view the grave of Monsignor Davis. It was again a very moving experience. It is worthy of note, that both the Convent and the College at New Oscott were the work of the famous architect, Pugin, as of course was the chancel at St Joseph's. Richard)
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all of the people who made my journey to Birmingham such a deeply moving experience. Especially to Dave for all his many hours of research, to Father Gerry for being there with his kind words when they were needed, to Sister Barbara for her help and for her guided tour of St. Mary’s convent and to Richard who made it all happen.
Taia Frances de Burca
Bernard Brandon Rupert Erc de Burca
Ellen Hardenburg
Dave Haynes showing Taia the result of his enquiries.
At Ellen Elisa Hardenberg 's Grave at St Joseph's Church.
From l-r Richard Scott, Taia, her cousin Kevin, Dave Haynes and Fr. Gerry McArdle.
I do not intend to close this story as, who knows, there may be more to come.
