The Shaws of Midnapore- Part 1 ©
By R. Neil Brown
Families
Samuel William Shaw ("William") was born in the Town of Wandsworth, Surrey, England, on November 24, 1840. He was given a rigorous education and became fluent in French and German. His father was Maltman William Stevens Shaw (1814 - 1872), a coal merchant and lighterman (operator of flat bottomed barges) in London. His mother was Julia Emily Turner (September 20, 1816 - 1903). His parents had two children: Samuel William Shaw and Emily Ann Lockett Shaw (who would marry her cousin James Phillips).
Helen Maria York ("Helen"), was born in London, Middlesex, England on August 13, 1846, the youngest of five children of a prominent civil engineer and construction contractor John Oliver York and his wife Helen Kinnaird. Helen Maria York was a small, delicate, woman, who had blonde hair in her youth. Her early education was in a French Convent, France being where her father lived for some time doing business in the construction industry. There she became fluent in the French language. She was also a talented amateur painter and did needlework.
Courtship and Marriage
Both William and Helen belonged to the Established Church, the Church of England, and were from well to do families. They had a difficult courtship; their marriage being opposed by both families on the grounds of their young age and to William’s relative lack of financial means. After he met Helen, William began to keep a diary, which was written in a code with strange characters. The first entry was simply “Met”. Helen was evidently staying with the Shaw family overnight as the second entry in William’s diary on Sunday, January 19, 1862, reads in code: “The first kiss (in the bedroom at night)”. The next day, January 20, 1862 the diary states: “Mother, sister Emily, Helen and I went to Covent Garden.” William wasted no time in getting to the point as that day, his diary read: “I told Helen I loved her and Helen told me she loved me or rather I asked her “If she loved me?” she answered “yes”. We then agreed that our love should last (“FOR EVER”).”
On January 22, 1862, William’s diary reveals that they began to make secret plans to elope. It stated, in code, “Helen and I sat up half an hour later than the rest during which time we arranged our marriage day.” On the 30th of January 1862 they had a party at the Shaw house, at which time William and Helen talked to William’s father, persuading him to agree to their engagement; but at the same time his father advised them to wait a few years before marriage. They were determined to get married and agreed to tell her father (Mr. York) when he would be home the next week. On Monday, February 3, 1862 the diary says, “Mr. York arrived-told him Helen left our house.” The next entry in the diary was February 16, 1862 when it relates that William met Helen at Waterloo Station and took her to the Shaw house
There were no further entries in the diary, but despite the discouragement of parents for the courtship, they carried on an active, almost daily, correspondence over the following months and summer, and fall and some of William’s florid, passionate and eloquent love letters, cherished by Helen until she died, have survived to this day. A typical letter dated November 21, 1862 began: “My dearest & forever most fondly loved Helen” arranging their next rendezvous and ended with the flourish: “In great haste & with my whole love and forever .. Yours affectionately very very lovingly and with an intense devotion…Samuel William Shaw.” The letters told of their parents continuing opposition to an early marriage, maintaining that they should wait a few years; William’s father telling him that Helen would be an old woman by the time she reached 30; and that he couldn’t get married until he could afford a decent place to take a bride and asked: “Does he want to have her spending the rest of her life peeling potatoes and minding babies?” The letters from William to Helen lament the fact that they cannot be alone together. William began to mount arguments against his own father’s opposition on grounds of Helen’s tender age of 15 years; he complained to Helen: does his father (Maltman Shaw) know that in 10 of every one hundred marriages the brides are 16 to 17 years old?; does he know that all Jewish women marry at sixteen and they live longer than most people?.
The heated romance of William and Helen continued through all of 1862, with much correspondence and them meeting whenever possible, but their courtship was met with increasing restrictions by the parents. They were allowed meetings such as at Exhibitions of Art but visiting privileges at Helen’s parents’ home were reduced from three to two nights a week and William was not allowed to stay later than 9:00 pm. On Sundays he could come to tea at the York house from 4:00 to 5:00 pm. Mrs. York was opposed to their love affair and was almost always present at their meetings. Helen’s father returned to London for Christmas, 1862, but evidently a last appeal for his support for their marriage failed.
To circumvent their parents’ opposition, William, together with Helen, formed plans for marriage. These culminated in a plan whereby he arranged for lodging for them for two weeks at Watford, then about 12 miles distant from London. By establishing residence as a qualification, he was able to get the parish priest to publish the marriage banns necessary to obviate the necessity for parental consent. William paid for two weeks rent in the flat at Watford and evidently went to the flat a few times each week, but never to sleep there, which would make his parents suspicious. William visited the church at Watford to make arrangements for the marriage bans to be called and was pleased to find that they could be published three days in succession: on Saturday, January 4; Sunday, January 5; and Monday, January 6, 1863. By having the marriage bans read on three successive days, in accordance with Canon Law, if no one was opposed, they could be married on Tuesday, January 7, 1863
Helen had been invited to attend at the Shaw residence to see the New Year of 1863 in, at which time they discussed their plans. The final arrangements for the getaway were then set out in a letter which William sent to Helen:
“If you accept the invitation to our house, the affair will be easy. We can be married the next day. If you are not allowed to come, we must take the matter into our own hands. I will be at the Top of Your terrace in Bayswater Road on Thursday, January 9, 1863 with a very fast horse at 7:45 am. At 8:00 you can leave your house. (I will be there ¼ of an hour before in case it is more convenient to you to leave then.) We drive to Euston Square where we arrive at 8:20 and we arrange that a special train take us there and back (which will be waiting) for us so that we arrive at our destination by 9:00am. We are then married and back at 10:15. We can then go back to your house together or separately as you may decide and with whatever excuses we may decide on. It is worth the stake we play for, for once we are married, we do not care for anyone’s scoldings or annoyances, for if you are even in the slightest way harshly treated, we would at once live together. We could very well manage for now I have very nearly five hundred pounds a year, and if I wished for more I have very little doubt that I could procure it. We must start rain or fine, no matter what the weather”.
After confirming that no one in Watford Parish had objected to their marriage at the reading of the marriage banns, a short final note was sent by William to Helen: it read simply: “All is arranged at Watford. - S.W. Shaw”
On Thursday, January 9, 1863, Helen and William were married in the parish church at Watford, when he was 21 and she was 16 years old, without parental consent. They returned to London by train and each went to their respective homes to break the news to their parents; which was not done until the wedding was announced on January 15, 1863 in the local newspaper.
Family Life in England
One can only speculate how their respective families must have reacted to the fait accompli of the marriage, but the marriage and their family flourished, and children were soon arriving with frequency, the first of these being a daughter Helen Alice Julia, born on November 15, 1863 at Stanstead, Kent. A second child Agnes Egerie Louise was born on June 13, 1866 at Newtown, Kent. A third child, Edward William Oliver was born on October 18, 1867 at Bromley Kent, but sadly died two days after birth. The family moved to Maidstone, in Kent for an extended period of years, at a residence called Bower Hill House, where four more children were born: Evelyn Flora Lida, born May 10, 1869; Hugh Kinnaird Hunter, born August 18, 1872; Maltman William Stevens, born June 4, 1874; and Elphie Mable Idalie, born May 10, 1875. In 1872, William’s father died and he inherited his father’s coal business.
Sometime between May 1875, when Elphie was born, and July 1878 when Henry Kinnaird Turner was born, the family moved to a residence called Eastgate House, located in Rochester St. Nicholas, Kent, a short distance east of London. At this address, their last home in England, before leaving for Canada, they had two more children: Henry Kinnaird Turner, born July 29, 1878; and John Oliver York, born May 24, 1880. The home is still standing and at various times was used as a Ladies School, the City of Rochester Museum and later the Charles Dickens Museum. It is an elegant large three level red brick home, which derived its name from its location next to the east gate of the old wall of Rochester. In 1881 the British Census shows that William and Helen, their eight children and two domestic servants were living in the house; William's occupation was shown on the census as a "Coal Factor" (coal merchant). An extract from “Notes on the Rochester Museum” by Edwin Harries, published in 1928 is as follows: “Sometime between the years 1870 and 1880 Eastgate House ceased to be a Ladies School, (I cannot fix the exact date…Mrs. Knighton was the last lady to carry on the school. Eastgate House then became a private residence. Mr. Shaw, a wholesale coal merchant lived there. He cut the building about a good deal, by installing electric light, which he made on the premises, and other so-called improvements”.
As noted above, we can better pin the date of their move to Eastgate House down due to the recorded birthplaces of Elphie and Henry Kinnaird.
In England, Helen reportedly suffered from extended periods of ill health, which may have been partly due to the rigours of repeated pregnancies and child birth in those days when medicine was not as well developed as in present times and some of their grandchildren speculated that the change of climate to benefit Helen’s health was a contributing reason for the family’s decision to emigrate to Canada.
In the years following his marriage to Helen, William followed his father in conducting a successful business as a coal merchant operating under the name “Shaw and Company, Coal Exporters” with its head office in London and branches in Newcastle on Tyne and West Hartlepool. William was also skilled as a chemist (what we would now call a pharmacist) and in the young science of photography. He read scientific books and journals voraciously, with a particular interest in electricity, and telegraphy and telephony, and he maintained a subscription to Scientific American after moving to Canada and up until the time of his death. A few of his reference books and bound volumes of Scientific American remain in the author’s collection.
. The Journey to Canada
During their time at Eastgate House, they made plans to emigrate to Canada. The family made extensive preparations for their new life, some of the children learning skills, such as cobblery (shoemaking), garment making, shooting, and trade skills like weaving which were part of the woolen mill industry. They gathered many provisions in preparation for the sea voyage to Canada, including apparatus and machinery for a complete woolen mill and many personal effects, including tents, bedding, furniture, clothing, china, silverware, yard goods and sewing machine, medicine, food, photography supplies, a large supply of chemicals and medicines, dental instruments, cobblers’ tools and leather, chess boards, a library of books and magazines, 16 guns, and kegs of gunpowder.
At the time they left for Canada, they were accompanied by their eight surviving children. Another, Irene would be born in the New World. They departed England in early Spring of 1883, the family of 10 being accompanied by a hired man, Dick Lloyd and a cousin Les Turner. After crossing the North Atlantic by ship in 14 days, their first land fall in Canada was Gros Isle in the St. Lawrence River near Quebec City, a federal immigration centre, where they were required to stay in quarantine, due to the fact that William was opposed to the practice of vaccination, for diseases like Smallpox. They then continued by ship, arriving in Montreal in May 1883, where they were visited by Oliver York, Helen’s brother. From Montreal they boarded the train for Western Canada. As the transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway still had not completed the route around the north of Lake Superior (it later would run a steam ship along Superior connecting the eastern part of the rail line with the western), they travelled through Chicago, Illinois and north to Winnipeg, the Canadian gateway to the West.
In Winnipeg, they remained about 10 days and took on many of the provisions for the journey and to establish their lives in the vast, largely unsettled frontier of Canada's North West Territories. They purchased four teams of oxen, four wagons and carts, harnesses, several milk cows, chickens and geese, grain, farm implements, a wood stove and food sufficient to last for the next two years.
Across the Prairie to Fish Creek
They boarded the west bound train, together with all their baggage and journeyed to the end of the C.P.R. line, which was Siding #11, near present day Swift Current, Saskatchewan. The woolen mill machinery was left in Winnipeg, to be shipped later, when the rail line was completed.
After unloading their goods and livestock down a makeshift ramp made from telegraph poles and railroad ties, they packed the wagons and carts and set off westward on a rough, unimproved and dusty trail across the prairie, covering 10-15 miles a day. Helen and the children rode and slept in one of the wagons which was covered with a prairies schooner type canvas. Aside from occasional meetings with railway survey crews they were alone in the wilderness. They encountered no Indians and no buffalo during the journey, but at one point in the journey, many of their belongings were strewn across the prairie by a sudden dust storm. They all must have wondered about their decision to leave the lush green Garden County of Kent in England for the desert (and largely deserted) landscape of the short grass prairie and it was during this journey that Helen took the scissors and cut off her long flowing locks; there was little time for hair care in this new life.
After about a month on the trail, the family arrived in the small settlement of Fort Calgary, where a North West Mounted Police Post was located along with a small but rapidly growing community, consisting of a Hudson Bay post, an I.G. Baker store, a few log cabins, and numerous tents and teepees, all of whose residents were anxiously awaiting the arrival in a few months of the railway line.
At this juncture, William discussed his plans with a Sergeant of the Mounted Police, who suggested that he take a day to walk south to Fish Creek, where an Irish settler, John Glenn had settled and worked up a farming operation on the banks of the creek, from which he diverted irrigation water. William walked the 10 miles or so to Fish Creek, which stream was much larger in those days (the watershed not having been destroyed) and which was then in full flood. He managed to wade across the stream and found a warm greeting from Mr. Glenn, who was raising abundant crops of cabbages and root vegetables such as potatoes, carrots and turnips. Mr. Glenn told him that the soil was good, and that there was "plenty of land" and an abundant supply of water for the planned woolen mill and he would be glad of having neighbours.
Thus, the decision was made to settle on the banks of Fish Creek, south of Calgary, and after a delay of some days while the family waited their turn to transport their belongings and livestock across the Bow River on the newly constructed C.P.R. ferry, the family arrived on the banks of Fish Creek, in what is presently Fish Creek Provincial Park, in the City of Calgary.
