The Cairlich

                                            Mary Anne Hirst 1862-1949 with her mother 'Miriam' Cannon 1826- 

 

More On Mary Ann Cannon

            Mary Ann Cannon   c1862-1949

Born circa 1862  and according to 1911 census she was born in Ballymote, Sligo.  She died aged 87 from Senile Myocarditis on 16th May 1949 in Barton Pedwardine near Sleaford, Lincolnshire.  I contacted the local history centre at Sligo to search for her birth and this is their reply:

We carried out some research on your behalf to ascertain if we have the baptismal record of a Mary Ann Cannon born circa 1862/64 in Ballymote, Co. Sligo. Unfortunately, this search yielded a negative result. 
Whilst researching the above we uncovered two children with the surname Cannon born 1860 & 1864 in the neighbouring parish of Aghanagh. These two children had a mother’s first name recorded as Maria (variant of Mary). As we do not have your ancestor’s father’s name or her mother’s maiden name, we cannot say if these children were the siblings of Mary Ann Cannon.

To ascertain whether the two Cannon children located in our files are relevant to your enquiry, we would require Mary Ann’s parents’ names. With this parental information we could also search for Mary Ann’s parents’ marriage and listings for her father in land records. Mary Ann’s church and civil marriage record, death record or newspaper obituary may have listed her parents’ names.

The next record to be found is:

Banns of Marriage to a William Hurst at the Parish Church, Oldham in 1885.  MFPR 1789)  However, no marriage can be found either in Catholic or C of E records for in 1885 and 1886.  A local researcher offered this explanation:

1881 census

Looking at the 1891 census, it is clear that William is quite a bit older than Mary Ann and I wondered if he had possibly been married previously.    I found who I believe to William in 1881 where he is living in lodging and records himself as a widower:  8 Church Street, Oldham  William Hurst Aged 36 Lodger, Cotton Operative, Oldham.

1871 census - going back ten years I believe that the following is William and his "first" wife.  RG10/4095 folio 89 page 4
Court no 2, Fairbottom Street, Oldham

William Hirst Husband 25 Piecer born Oldham
Ann Hirst Wife 24 born Ireland
Margaret Ann Hirst Daughter 10 months born Oldham
John William Hirst Son 10 months Oldham

Banns were also read for a marriage between Ann Duke and William Hurst in 1869 at the same Parish Church but they appear not to have married either.  Ann Duke later went on to marry Charles Stewart in 1876.


1891 census

Mary Ann Hi(u)rst is living with William Hirst and children - for which you have the details.

1901 census they are living in Felsham with William Cook(e)

1911 census they are living at Top Farm, Offord Darcy, Huntingdonshire

The following meticulously researched piece is published courtesy of Vanessa Hannington, Raymond family historian and gifted genealogist...

Joseph "Harris" Raymond's Antiques and Furniture Shops

Joseph Raymond Solomon occupied these shops in Cheltenham over a 10 year period between 1933 and 1943. Prior to living and working in Cheltenham, he was in Brighton. He moved all over the South of England, details of which can be read about elsewhere on this site.

1933 - 1934

230 High Street Cheltenham - Antique Dealer

changed number to 427, not found

1935

217 High Street Cheltenham – Furniture Dealer

changed number to 399 ,see picture below:

the shop is the one with the blue doors

now a kebab shop:

218 High Street Cheltenham –

changed to 220A in 1955

changed to 403 in 1955, no longer exists

1936

217 High Street (see changes above)

1939

290 High Street Cheltenham –Furniture Dealer

changed to 359 in 1957,now a new building

Previous owner:

Mr Greenwood –Draper 1938

Later owned by Thomas E Coole – Draper 1940

1940 -46/7 Joseph

1948 -59 Ted (son)

272 High Street Cheltenham – Furniture Dealer

Changed to 392 in 1957, now no longer a shop

Previous owner:

Mr Far –Grocer 1938

Reginald Cummings – Grocer 1939

1942-44 Joseph

1944-4? P J Raymond (brother or son)

281 High Street Cheltenham – Furniture Dealer

changed to 374 in 1957.

Previous owners:

281 Percy Watson –furniture dealer 1939

281a Harry A Meadows –hair dresser 1940

281a Mrs P J Smith – hair dresser 1941/2/3

Now a guitar shop.

1943

275 High Street Cheltenham - furniture dealer

changed to 274a in 1955

changed to 386 in 1957, couldn’t find.

Joseph Harris Raymond's Shops

The following piece appears with the kind permission and thanks to Vanessa Hannington...

Joseph H Solomon's Cheltenham Antiques Shop in the War Years...

72 High Street Cheltenham Gloucestershire

 Joseph (Solomon) Raymond owner 1939-43

Then:

Now 

                                               

Events at 272 High Street

This was taken during the second world war in Cheltenham,a bomb landed near and some of the windows to Josephs shop were damaged.As he was selling Furniture and Antiques he used some of his paintings to board up the windows.That's Joseph in the photo and you may be able to see part of a dog going into the shop door,it's an Alsatian dog that was called Cella (or Sella -don't know the spelling).

This photo was published in a local newspaper at the time,a son of a garage owner that Joseph had his cars repaired at was serving in Africa and had seen the article as someone had sent him the newspaper as a memory from home,he recognised 'Mr Raymond and his shop' and mentioned the newspaper article to his father (the Garage owner) in a letter.The Garage Owner told Joseph who made inquiries with the newspaper and he was sent a copy of the photo.Joseph had no idea that anyone had taken a picture of him that day,it's strange to think that we would not have known of its existence if it hadn't been sent to Africa.

Apparently he use to buy the pictures and sell the frames to a gold dealer who would burn the frames down to get the goldleaf  that the frames were painted with.

272 High Street Today

This picture was found on the internet 272 is the building behind the fire engine,it is on the High Street with the Shakespeare Pub further up which would be the correct location.

History of 272

Kellys Directories for Cheltenham:

1938 Mr Far Grocer

1939 Mr Reginald Cummings Grocer

1940 Mr Joseph Raymond Furniture Dealer

1941 Mr Joseph H Raymond Furniture Dealer

1942 Mr Joseph H Raymond Furniture Dealer see ad

1943 Mr Joseph H Raymond Furniture Dealer see ad

1945 Mr Joseph H Raymond Furniture Dealer

59. Mr Ted Raymond continued to run the stop as a

Second Hand Furniture Store

In 1957 the number was changed to 392 due to changes in Road layout and additional shops along the High Street.Ted later run the shop next door.

Here are some photos of 272 (now 392) taken July 2009-07-09

Photo shows Burton Street in foreground

Seen from High Street

Burton Street looking to High Street

Joseph "Harris" Solomon later known as Joseph "Henry" Raymond

The following piece appears courtesy of Raymond family history researcher and highly skilled genealogist Vanessa Hannington:

Joseph H (Horace / Harris / Harry / Henry) Solomon later Raymond, circa 1911. Picture courtesy of Nick and Nina Klein.

An alternative picture of the young Joseph 'Harris' Solomon  circa 1911, aged about 30. A similar picture of greater clarity  is view above. Two of his families both had a slightly different version of what appears to be the same picture for all these years, not knowing of the existence of the other alternative photograph. Each portraits gives a different character aspect of the man.

"...I never knew my Grandfather Joseph but of course can tell you what he was like from what my Mum has told me.

He was very clever,knew a lot about a lot of things.He was as you know an Antique dealer but also knew a lot about herbalism and my Mum can remember him making up Beachams type pills and smelling salts and selling them door to door where he would then pick up the odd antique along the way.He was a great story teller and a bit of a joker too.He was kind and gentle but his was the final word,the children would not have dared talk back to him and had to behave correctly but he spent alot of time with the family.Unusually for the time he would do certain things in the kitchen like making faggots,bubble and squeak and large bowls of finely chopped salad which he called 'Russian Salad'

22 Meeting House Lane, Central brighton, Joseph 'Harris' Raymond's home and business circa 1918, and birthplace of his third daughter, the second by his wife Mary Agnes (Nee Hirst), Blanche Mary Dorothy Raymond, later Blanche Klein, wife of Max.

He liked to tinker with cars and they always had a car.

He would take in any stray animals,loved dogs and also had cats and even a goat at one time.At various times he had Bull terriers ,Alsations,a Bull Mastiff and an Airedale.

Wilton House on Landsdown Road, Cheltenham, home of Joseph Raymond  and his family between 1937 and 1939. Francis O Raymond was born at this house.At one stage A moat ran around the house. Vanessa's mum Doris' bedroom was situated at the corner, 2^nd floor of windows. The windows on both sides were in her room (one is obscured by the tree).

He would help anyone out,often people would knock on the door asking for food or begging for money ,he would find a small job around the shops or house fro them to do and then would either give them food or pay them for their work.He was well respected by fellow business men.

Joseph 'Harry' Raymond in later years, circa late 1940's.

He never married my Grandmother (Elsie Knight) although the children were unaware of this till after his death.There was a large age gap between them 27 years.They had 10 children but they are Barbara, Evelyn Doris (known as Doris-my Mum),James known as Jim, Ronald known as Ron (no longer alive),Celia (no longer alive),Pamela known as Pam,Francis (boy ,died at 6 months),Juliet Victoria known as Vicky,Jaqueline known as Jackie and Paul (died 3 months).

They moved a lot,Isle of Wight ,Brighton ,Southsea and nearby areas like Emsworth ,Chichester and Fareham later Ipswich and Bedford and Kingston then a long spell at Cheltenham, then they moved back to Portsmouth and surrounding areas where they stayed till his death.

He was a massive figure head in the family and still is."

Vanessa Hannington wrote about Richmond Buildings online in 2009...

"...I have just found out from the Kellys directory that my grandfather lived at No. 8 Richmond Buildings in 1930. He was a furniture dealer (probably second hand) and would have lived there with my grandmother, Elsie, and their two young daughters and possibly their son who would have been a baby at the time. I don't expect there is anyone reading this who would remember him. The photos and stories are fascinating, it sounds like it was a great place..."

By Vanessa Hannington (20/07/2009)

Richmond buildings, Brighton during the 1930's. The block of houses and shops was situated off the present-day Richmond Parade.  The street was condemned in 1958.

 It was the home and work premises of Joseph Harris Solomon during the 1930;s, and also the address of his parents James and Harriet Solomon (nee Harwood / Horwood) up to 1924 when Harriet died in February, at 250 Elm Grove – the Brighton Workhouse.

 James had died two years previously in January 1922 of .Arteris Sclerosis and Gangrene of both feet, while Harriet perished from Sarcoma of the Antrium  and Cardiac Failure.

From Eire to Eternity

From what my mother tells me, and her mother before her, there were two Marys, Cannon and Hirst. Our maternal family line originally came from Ireland. Hence the blonde hair and blue eyes that appear on the female side...
Our Irish lineage can be traced back to the town of Ballantine, in the County of Mayo. That is where Mary Ann Hirst (nee Cannon) was born about 1861. Who her father was is not yet known, nor is her mothers maiden name.

Mary Ann Hirst (nee Cannon) with her mother, circa 1890s

Young Mary Cannon came to Oldham, Lancashire, an industrial town teaming with huge smelly, soot blackened cotton mills probably around 1880 or at least at the end of the 1870's. This pattern of migration and settlement was common among many an Irish immigrant. She was living and working there by the time of the 1881 UK census. She had friends or family with the Carden family at 5 Skelhorn Street, Oldham. She was just a young woman of 20, and responsible for her 14 year old sister (or cousin) Ann who also most likely made the journey from West Ireland and across the Irish Sea to Lancashire, with her, likely landing at Liverpool. They were recorded as visitors at Skelhorn Street on the evening of the 1881 census.

A decade later she was then "hitched up" and residing at number 9 Back Dickinson Street, Oldham (Above Town). When I went there on a fact finding mission back in August 2010 there was no trace of the house or street, and it appears from the map that the area is now industrial units. There is still a Dickinson Street though.

Mary married what appears to be a local man, William James Hirst, whose family were likely from a small village just on the moors above the town, at Saddleworth, heading back into the Pennines. It is possible the couple met at work, in the cotton mill. Mary was a "cardroom operative". There are several men and boys of his name around Oldham at this time. There is also a James William Hirst, born 1862 in Oldham. There is however a William HURST, born about 1847, aged 44 at the time of the 1891 UK census. He was living in the Parish of St James. He was wed to Mary Ann Hurst. They had at this time three children, all 5 or under, Elizabeth A Hurst, 5, William Hurst, 2, and our ancestor Mary A Hurst, 3/12, ie 3-4 months. William, her husband worked as a "Cotton cardroom jobber". It is likely Mary was illerate , judging by the "mark" of X
on her daugters, Mary Agnes' birth certificate on 8th January 1891, my great grandmother, below.

Mary Agnes Hirst later Raymond, circa 1912.

When Mary was about 10, by 1901 her mother had moved about 215 miles down south, to the rural village of Felsham, in the agricultural heartlands of Suffolk, where many-a-Christmas turkey is bred! By now Mary Cannon had become Mrs William Cooke. Little Mary was still a Cannon though. The story goes that Mary's first husband died, and she remarried, this is what my uncle David Austin of Sydney, Australia had to say on it "the groom story is this...Mary's mother Mary Cannon was married to a rich man or squire or whatever who fell off his horse and broke his neck, and the mother ended up marrying the groom, who brought up my grandmother...It doesn't make sense because if you think about it the widow and groom
would have inherited, and the fact is that Mary Hirst my grandmother was dirt poor".

David feels this story was told to make a little girl's loss of her father, either through death or divorce a more cushioned blow, easing her suffering. A William Hirst did die in Oldham between 1891 and 1901 from an accident in a cotton mill when a machine strap broke and fatally smashed into his chest area, killing him three days later, so this could be her father.
But maybe there was money, and it was squandered by the man she would next get together with, William Cooke?
Nothing is known of Mary's sister Elizabeth (Ann?) or brother William. Nor is ought known about their Aunty Ann, six years Mary Ann's junior.

According to my uncle David, Mary Cooke lived to be ripe old age, into the 1940's. Perhaps she is the same Mary Cooke who died in Brighton, Sussex, aged 87 in 1940? (Source: Ancestry.co.uk).

Hirst (lesser Hurst) is an extremely common name in in the Pennine region, Lancashire and Yorkshire, particularly the "West Riding", a division of West Yorkshire). There was an East Riding and a North Riding. But no South Riding. A "Riding" long ago "Thriding" was an large area of land divided into three parts.

And so it came to be that Mary Hirst moved yet again. This time it is unsure exactly where, By 1911, at 20 she was living in Southampton, and married to Joseph "Harris" Raymond formerly Solomon. Joe is a very interesting character with an extremely colourful life, having had three different families, and a total of 17 children (at least two of which did nor survive infancy). That however is another story altogether...



Joe Solomon married Mary Hirst at the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Teddington in 1912, my Grandmama was born however a couple of years prior to this unusually late wedding, on 27th November 1909, at Maidstone in Kent. Her father was a medical herbalist, possibly a travelling Edwardian "Quack Showman" and later became a successful antiques dealer, having a shop in Brighton, at 22 Meeting House Lane, in the now fashionable Lanes area of the town. He once sat Grandmama in a large chair, when she was a little girl, telling her that King Henry VIII had sat in the very same chair. How he knew this is unknown! Maybe this was the kind of patter used to sell furniture in those far off days. Joseph and Mary (very biblical) would go on to have three boys. Joe (Joseph Harry) born 9th August 1911 in Bournemouth Hampshire, died 30th October 1989 The Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton. Percy (John Percival) born 5th December 1915 in Kingston, Surrey, died of Mycardial Infection and Carcinoma of Broncus, on 28th May 1986, at 25 Lambert Drive, Shurdington, Gloucestershire. Ted (Edward McDonald) was born in 1916 possibly in Scotland, hence the unusual middle name. He died in 1967, and never married. Very little is known of his life, though it is believed now that he had a son.

The youngest of their children was a girl, Blanche Mary Dorothy who was born on 2nd January 1918 at the family home above her fathers antiques business at 22 Meeting House Lane, Brighton, Sussex. She would marry Max Klein on 20th January 1938 in London. The couple lived in a nice new modern house in Stanmore, which Mary, her mother would visit from time to time. The couple had 5 sons., though the first, David, would die tragically in infancy, in 1939. Each of the brothers had a family of their own.

Mary Hirst died in 1951 at Royal Sussex Hospital, Brighton of heart failure (Essential hypertension and haemachromatosis) having the attack while on a train coming back from seeing her family in London.

She lived her last years at 29, Gloucester Street, near to Brighton Station. She lived with an old Boer War veteran called Steve Jinks, who has been described by one family source as 'a super old bloke'. He gave one of Mary's grandsons his old war medals. Steve was a master house painter by trade. It is believed his wife had been called Harriet, and was originally from Boston in Lincolnshire.

The rest as we know is history and the start of our present lineages...

                                             Mary Agnes Hirst later Raymond, circa 1912.


                                                   Joseph "Harris" Raymond (formerly Solomon)