Thomas Andrews (1844-1921)

THOMAS ANDREWS (1844-1921) was born in the City of Armagh on 9 February 1844, the son of Jeremiah and Martha Andrews. He was baptized ten weeks later, on 20 April 1844 at St Patrick's Cathedral in Armagh. His father died when he was only a year old, and his mother was given the post of matron of Armagh's County Infirmary. However, she resigned a year later for unknown reasons.

When Thomas was 10 his mother remarried, to John Bell of Lurgangreen. This was a sizeable farm just south of Dundalk, Co. Louth. His stepfather was a man of liberal views, who was evicted as tenant and bankrupted in 1862, when Thomas was 18.

Thomas was educated privately, perhaps by visiting tutors. We do not know much about his early career. However, we know that at in the 1860s he secured a job at the County Antrim bridewell. This had been established in Crumlin Road, Belfast in the 1840s, and was Belfast's main prison. It had opened in 1846, when the first 106 inmates walked from Carrickfergus Prison in chains. At the beginning of 1869, Thomas was clerk to the Gaol in Crumlin Road,

In the first half of 1869, Thomas successfully applied for the post of chief warder of Waterford Gaol. The half-yearly report of the Board of Superintendence delivered to the Summer Assizes states: Since last report some change has taken place in the staff of the gaol, viz: the late chief warder Mr Pierse Butler, resigned, and Mr Thomas Andrews, the clerk of Belfast gaol, had been appointed on probation by your board to the vacant office.

Waterford Gaol was at Ballybricken, to the west of the city centre. It was Waterford's main gaol until it was abandoned in 1939.

Thomas was living in Barker Street, Waterford, in 1870, which ran below the high walls of Ballybricken Prison, We know this because on 10 June he appeared before Waterford Petty Sessions charged by Assistant Constable John Ryan "for having, on the 8th June 1870, at Barker Street, in said Borough, a Dog in his possession without a License." The magistrates fined him one penny, with one shilling costs, and ordered him to take out a licence. He duly took out a dog licence, for a white male poodle. Dog licences had been introduced in 1865, and had to be renewed in March. It is not clear whether Thomas had just acquired the dog or whether he had moved with the poodle from Belfast.

It is very likely that he was the Thomas Andrews who was secretary of the Waterford Young Men's Christian Association in 1873. At their half-yearly meeting in May of that year, he was responsible for the previous year's report and statement of accounts. A report in the Waterford Chronicle of 3 February 1871 records his reading from "Lady of Provence" at their Penny Readings the previous night. On a slightly seedier note, a complaint at Waterford Petty Sessions against Michael Keogh of Gaol Street was "for having, on the 6th February 1871, at Barket Street. in said borough, committed a malicious injury to complainant's Hall door by cutting & defacing it, and did also some time previously break a pane of Glass, his propety, value for about 5/-. Mr Keogh failed to enter an appearance.

We know that he joined the Waterford Masonic Lodge in 1872, and in 1874 he is recorded as an accountant, living at 10 Barker Street.

On 10 February 1874, after five years in Waterford, Thomas married Annie Sidwell Watts at Monksland parish church. The witnesses were Samuel Henry Perry and a name transcribed as Gio Gordania (probably Giovanni Giodanich). (Samuel was some seven years younger than Thomas. His father William had been an overseer at Waterford Gaol and a police constable. Samuel himself married a year later and moved to Liverpool, where he became a successful provision merchant. He was also prominent as Colonel of the 9th Liverpool King's Regiment, and served as deputy lieutenant of Lancashire. Giovanni Giodanich was born at Lussin in Austria (now Lošinj in Croatia) in 1842. He was a ship broker and shipping agent at Knockhouse, on the outskirts of Waterford. He died at the end of 1876 at the age of 34.) The notice in the Waterford Chronicle for Wednesday 11 February reads: On the 10th inst at Bonmahon (sic) Church, County Waterford, by the Rev. Mr. Cooper, Mr. Thomas Andrews of Waterford to Annie Sidwell, third daughter of Mr. J. Watts, of Bonmahon. (Alfred William Francis Cooper was curate of Stradbally from 1873 to 1877. He was in his twenties.)

The Watts family had come to Ireland in the 1830s. They farmed at Bonmahon and owned the shop there. Despite the initial in the Chronicle, Annie's parents were Richard and Jane Watts. Annie was probably born in 1850.

By the end of 1874, Thomas was describing himself as Deputy Governor of Waterford Gaol. According to a book of Cork biographies dating from around 1910, he was appointed to the post "by competition". In Harvey's Directory for 1877, his profession is listed as "Deputy Governor of Gaols". The government directory, however, describes him only as "Chief Warder and Accountant" between 1879 and 1885, and Slater's Directory for 1881 describes him as "Clerk and Chief Warder".

According to the Valuation List, Thomas occupied 17 Barker Street from 1873 to 1882. Harvey's Directory for 1877 confirms this, as does the Dog Licence register. Number 17 was a smaller house than number 10 (which was occupied by James Pryde, an engineer). However, from 1880, he is also listed as the occupier of 10 Bridge Street, and his younger children were born there, so it is likely that the growing family made a move necessary.

The house, which included the usual office and yard, belonged to Waterford Corporation, and had a rateable value of £17. In the year that Thomas and his family moved in, it was described by the valuation officer as "a little improved". Thomas bought the freehold in 1886, the year of his departure for Kilmainham, and in 1889 rented the property out to a Margaret Breen, who, with a brief interval from 1900 to 1909, when an Ann Murphy was tenant, remained there until 1917. James and Margaret Quinlan moved in, staying until 1948. The house remained in the hands of the Andrews family up until 1963, when it was finally sold to Martin Walsh, who converted it into four flats.

(The white poodle continued to be licensed up until 1883, after the move to Bridge Street. Unlike other entries, the entry for 1882 refers to Thomas as "T W Andrews, Esq".)

The General Prisons Board was established in 1877, and took over administration of the 38 county prisons, 96 bridewells and four convict prisons in Ireland. This led to a centralized system of appointments and inspection. There was correspondence from the Governor of Waterford Prison to the Board in 1878, shortly after this, seeking permission for the Chief Warder to live out.

On 1 May 1885, Waterford's Governor forwarded a letter from Thomas applying for the Deputy Governorship of Kilmainham, which had become vacant. (He had made an unsuccessful earlier application for a governorship in August 1878.) After confidential police reports had been gathered, Thomas was appointed three weeks later. The Waterford News of 12 June 1885 records his promotion.
PROMOTION - We are informed that Mr Thomas Andrews, who has been deputy governor of our gaol for a number of years past, is about to be promoted to a higher position, and will shortly leave Waterford. During his lengthened stay in this city, Mr Andrews has made many friends who will learn with pleasure of his deserved promotion.

Certainly by 1886, Thomas took up the Deputy Governorship of the prison at Kilmainham, in Dublin, and was there from 1886 to the end of 1887. His daughter Clara remembered taking walks round nearby Phoenix Park in the company of a policeman "owing to the political nature of the prisoners." (The Phoenix Park Murders - the assassination of Lord Cavendish, Irish Secretary, and his deputy - had occurred on 6 May 1882.)

From December 1887 to 1 February 1888, he was acting as deputy-governor of Tullamore Gaol. William O'Brien, M.P., and John Mandeville, two Nationalists imprisoned under the 1887 Crimes ("Coercion") Act in the aftermath of the Mitchelstown Massacre, were notable prisoners, "subjected to cruel treatment by Balfour's Tullamore gaolers, exceeding in savagery all acts in the remotest ages of barbarism", in the words of the Rathkeale branch of the National League. O'Brien and Mandeville were released on 20 January 1888. Mandeville died, aged 38, on 7 July, as a result, it was claimed, of his treatment in prison, which had included being kept naked in his cell for refusing to wear prison clothing. There was an inquest which confirmed the allegations. During this, the visiting physician at Tullamore, Dr Ridley, committed suicide in Sheriff's Royal Hotel, Fermoy on 20 July 1888. Thomas was in the room underneath at the time, and Dr M'Cabe of the Prisons Board, Captain Featherstone, Governor of Tullamore, Mr Goodbody, J.P., the Visiting Justice at Tullamore and Mr Morphy, who represented the Prisons Board at the Mandeville inquest, were also present. (Thomas also gave evidence at the inquest into Dr Ridley's death the next month.)

In February 1888, Thomas was appointed to his first full governorship, at Downpatrick Gaol. This was a Third-Class governorship. Shortly after this, under circumstances which were related to the 1888 Special Commission (the Parnell Commission), he was transferred to a second-class governorship at Clonmel in County Tipperary. His service here began on 5 January 1889, at a salary of £250 per annum, increasing by £10 annually until it reached £300. He also received free quarters, water and medical attention. His appointment at Clonmel led to a further confrontation with the M.P., William O'Brien.

O'Brien had escaped from a court hearing at Carrick-on-Suir on 24 January 1889. He had disguised himself and made his way to England, where he addressed a Liberal party meeting on the 28th. He was promptly arrested, and hurriedly transported to Clonmel gaol. Here he again refused to put on prison clothes, and a scuffle ensued. (The Manchester Guardian commented : To carry out this rule against a prisoner of Mr O’Briens’s type and character is either a piece of administrative stupidity of the first water or a down right malignity.) A Parliamentary Report was subsequently called for, and Thomas and the warders were exonerated. O'Brien had said that the only brutality was that of the law itself - the prison staff had merely been doing their duty.

In his evidence to the enquiry, Thomas declared: "I receive threatening letters almost daily. They threatened me with murder and abused me. I have not been outside the prison, except on two occasions to the church and twice to the bank, which is quite close. I was cautioned by police not to go out without protection, and I preferred to remain inside."

Another of Thomas' tasks in 1889 was to give evidence at a meeting of the Special Commission in London. His term of probation at Clonmel ended on 20 July 1889, three days after a satisfactory report from Inspector Joyce, Chief Inspector of Irish Prisons. A question asked in Parliament in 1890 gives a small insight into conditions in Clonmel.

A notice in the Waterford News of 9 January 1892 records Thomas' further promotion.
GOVERNOR ANDREWS: We are happy to hear that Mr Thomas Andrews, who was well known and respected in Waterford for many years as an officer of Waterford Jail - and latterly Governor of Clonmel Jail - has just been appointed governor of Kilmainham Prison. This is about the very best appointment of the kind in Ireland. It is rather a strange coincidence that when the late Mr Parnell and Mr Wm O'Brien were prisoners in Kilmainham, Mr Andrews was an officer in said prison, and constantly in attendance on both gentlemen. He was also there the very morning that the greatly lamented Mr Parnell was discharged.

(Charles Parnell, however, was in Kilmainham from October 1881 to 2 May 1882. He had died, aged 45, in October 1891.)

As a preliminary to this, Thomas had been promoted to First Class governorship (on 8 December 1891), and the appointment to Kilmainham was made on 26 December 1891. He continued to be paid a second-class governor's salary, with an additional allowance of £50. He moved to Kilmainham on 1 January 1892, immediately taking a fortnight's leave, presumably so that the family could move from Clonmel.

This appointment was, however, short-lived. On 13 July 1892, Thomas was offered the governorship of Cork Male Prison. (The governor there, Major Roberts, had finally resigned because of loss of vision (though after a series of allegations involving under-age girls).) Thomas replied the next day, accepting the post. It is unclear whether the move was at his request - there is no correspondence on file about this. The £50 special allowance was relinquished, and the salary was raised to that of a First Class Governor: £320 a year. Governor McManus of Tralee replaced Thomas at Kilmainham.

On 20 July 1892, the family of eleven moved to Cork. The prison was in Western Road. On Census Night, 1 April 1901, Thomas and Annie, now 57 and 47, were living with their children Henry, Clara, Emily, Edwin, Martha, Isabella, Sarah and Arthur. The family also had a 36-year-old servant, Maggie Mahoney, Catholic and illiterate. On that night, the prison had 13 warders resident, and 142 inmates, in for a range of crimes from larceny, forgery and wounding, to 'insubordination in workhouse', child neglect, naval offences and abetting truancy.

Thomas remained Governor of Cork Prison for eighteen years. The family lived in "a fine house within the prison wall, with a lovely garden." Under the 1909 Prisons Act, he sought to remain as governor after his 65th birthday on grounds of "good behaviour", but was turned down. On 19 February 1910 his superannuation terms were settled, and on 1 March he was asked to hand over the prison to "Mr McGann" from Kilmainham. He finally retired on 7 March 1910, and was made a Justice of the Peace for the county borough of Cork.

A newspaper article of the time, headed "Cork Male Prison - Retirement of the Governor" reads:
The retirement of Mr Thomas Andrews, Governor of the Cork Male Prison, after a service of 18 years, was marked by the presentation to him yesterday of a silver salver by the officers and staff who had served under him - many of them for most of that period. A man with a wide knowledge of human nature, he had sympathetic feelings for those in trouble, and displayed it in the discharge of his onerous and, at times, difficult duties, a character in which kindness and amiability were not the least distinguishing features.
The regret which the officers and the staff felt at the severance of his connection with them was suitably expressed yesterday when they all assembled in the Boardroom of the Prison to bid their chief farewell. Brigade-Surgeon Moriarty, the medical officers of the Prison, and the chaplains - the Rev Father O'Toole, Rev Canon Nicholson, and Rev M M'Keown - were present, and spoke in terms of praise of Mr Andrews' good qualities as Governor - firm but kind - and, as a man, considerate for all those placed under his authority. Other officers spoke in similar terms, and assured Mr Andrews of their best wishes for a long and happy life in his retirement. They then presented him with a handsome silver salver, bearing a suitable inscription. Mr Andrews suitably replied.
The vacant post will be filled by Mr M'Gann, lately Governor of Kilmainham Prison.

An article in the Waterford News of 10 June 1910 recounts his application for a pension to Waterford City Council.
Applications were read from Mr Thomas Andrews, formerly Governor of Waterford Prison, applying for payment by the Council of their portion of the pension awarded to him in respect of the time he served in Waterford.
Mayor - Are we bound to pay these?
Law Adviser - I think they are compulsory.
Referred back to Finance and Law Committee.

The following year, the Waterford pension was commuted by the General Prisons Board to a lump sum.

Thomas and Annie went to live at Sunday's Well, at 1 Home Ville, 90 Sunday's Well Road, calling his home Sidwell House. The house had eight rooms. The lease had cost £390. (The origin of Annie's middle name Sidwell is obscure.) In 1911, Edwin and Isabella were living at home, and the servant was Lizzie Crowley, 28, a Catholic.

Thomas and Annie lived at Sidwell House until their deaths. (The Valuation List records Thomas as occupier from 1911 to 1934 (sic), after which Bella Andrews is recorded.) Family friends, the Hilsers lived next door at number 91, the central of the three houses that made up Home Ville. They had moved in a year before Thomas. Henry Hilser was a jeweller, and Amelie, his wife, was German. They had five daughters, Rita, Amy, Mary, Elsie and Ursula. (The occupier of the third property, interestingly, was a Joseph Andrews, who is recorded as occupier from 1915 to 1951. A Joseph Andrews, Catholic, a 65-year-old single commercial traveller, born in County Derry, was living at 85 Sunday's Well Road in 1911.)

Thomas joined Masonic Lodge No. 32 in Waterford in 1872. He got his Entered Apprentice Degree on 7 August 1872, his Fellow Craft Degree on 11 September 1872 and his Master Mason Degree on 26 November 1872. He was Worshipful Master of the Lodge in 1876. He took part in Lodge activities at Clonmel (Lodge 44), presumably while he was there between 1889 and 1891. He formally joined Lodge No. 3, Cork, on 2 October 1897. He achieved the position of Provincial Grand Officer for South East Ireland. A photograph from 21 October 1910 shows him in the middle of the front row at a gathering of various branches of the Masonic Order at Waterford. He was also a governor of the Masonic Girls' School in Ballsbridge, Dublin, for over thirty years. (There was also a James Wilson Andrews, who joined Lodge 32 in 1874.)

One can gain an impression of Thomas' political views from an interview he gave to the Weekly Freeman's Journal of 24 January 1914 after his election defeat as an independant candidate in the city council elections. He was categorized as a "protestant Home Ruler" who had been defeated because of religious intolerance, but maintained that he was primarily standing on an independent platform. On being asked if he had ever declared himself a Home Ruler, he replied, "As far as I am concerned, I don't give twopence halfpenny whether we get Home Rule or not. What I want is to have the country decide..."

Thomas died on 7 October 1921 at the Bon Secours Convent Hospital in Western Road, Cork, close to the prison where he had worked for so long. He was buried at St Finbarr's Cemetery.

His wife, Annie Sidwell Andrews, lived on until 17 March 1930. When she died, Edwin inherited her billiard table and gramophone, Martha her American organ, Clara her shares in the Provincial Bank and the Midland and South Western Railway, Sarah further shares, Emily £20, and Bella, who had lived with her, inherited the residue.

Thomas and Annie Andrews had eleven children, of whom nine survived childhood:

1 MARTHA JANE ANDREWS (1874-1875) was born in Barker Street, Waterford on 28 December 1874. She died in infancy .

2 HENRY ANDREWS (1876-1944) was born in Waterford on 4 May 1876. He joined the Royal Munster Fusiliers, and was promoted to Second Lieutenant on 2 March 1900 and transferred to the Lancashire Fusiliers on 21 April. He was serving in the Lancashire Fusiliers in 1901, when he held the rank of Lieutenant. Henry married Ethel Dewey Gribble at Liskeard in the third quarter of 1903. (She had been born at Ulverston on 18 November 1876.) They arrived in New York, possibly for their honeymoon, on the SS Cedric, leaving Queenstown on 23 October 1903, and stayed with a friend, John E Cummins from Waterford, at 31 East 17th Street. (John had emigrated the previous year, heading for Grand Rapids.) Henry described himself as an accountant.

The couple lived at Trago, St Pinnock, near Liskeard until about 1907. Then they moved north, presumably to join Henry's brother, Arthur (or did Arthur go directly from Cork to join them on Tyneside?) In 1911 and 1912, the family were at 240 Chillingham Road, Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne. Like Arthur, Henry described himself as an "artificial teeth manufacturer".

They moved to Ilfracombe, Devonshire. At the time of his brother, Arthur's, death, he was at Northfield Road, Ilfracombe. Like his brother Eddie, he qualified as a dentist under the Dentists Act 1921 by dint of having practised for five of the seven preceding years, registering on 9 August 1922. His practice was at Park View, 6a Northfield Road, Ilfracombe until 1930, when he moved to 2 Bath Place, Ilfracombe. He was recorded there in street directories until 1941, presumably when he retired, although he maintained his registration as a dentist until his death. He died at Bath Place on 18 February 1944, leaving £1753/3/-. Ethel survived him, dying on 31 December 1953.

He and Ethel had five children, of whom two died in infancy.

2.1 HORACE HENRY ANDREWS (1906-1968). He was born at Trago, St Pinnock, near Liskeard in the second quarter of 1906. In 1931 he was still living at home with his parents. He had a hotel and was a theatre manager, perhaps in the north west of the Isle of Man. He suffered from diabetes. He married Lilian Silverman at Bedford in the third quarter of 1942. The couple had one daughter.

His wife left him. Shortly after this, he did not turn up for work one morning and was found, having had a stroke. He recovered, however, and his sisters fetched him back to Ilfracombe, where he lived for some years until he died.

2.2 NORAH ALICE ANDREWS (1908-1982), born at Heaton, Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 8 April 1908. She taught dancing and crafts. In 1939 she was living at home and working in a fancy goods shop. She died suddenly at Ilfracombe on 21 August 1982, aged 74.

2.3 JACK T ANDREWS (1914-1915), born in the last quarter of 1914 at Ilfracombe. He died in the third quarter of 1915.

2.4 BARBARA ANDREWS (1916-1992?), born on 30 January 1916 at Ilfracombe. She taught music, and lived at 2 Bath Place, Ilfracombe.

3 CLARA ANDREWS (1877-1955) was born on 18 May 1877 at Barker Street, Waterford. (Martha Andrews, her grandmother, was the informant.) She was 15 when she moved with the family to Cork. She was working for the firm of Guy and Co. as a photograph retoucher at the time of the 1901 Census. This was how she came to meet Walter Charles Corin, a professional photographer with the same firm. (Another connection was that Walter, like Clara's father, was an active freemason.) Walter was some four years older than Clara. She married him at St Fin Barre's Cathedral in Cork on 2 September 1902. At the end of 1905 they moved to England, going first to Sale, Cheshire, and then in April 1907 to Cranleigh, Surrey, where Walter opened his own photographic studio. Clara Corin was widowed in 1934. She lived on in Cranleigh with her daughter and, after 1941, her grandson. They moved away in 1945, however, and around 1951, poor health compelled her to move to a nursing home in Salisbury: the Little Manor, Milford. Clara died at her daughter's house, 3 Cambridge Road, Salisbury, on 4 May 1955 and was buried two days later in the Corin family plot at Cranleigh.

Clara and Walter Corin had a daughter:

3.1 ENID AILEEN CORIN (1906-1999), born in Sale on 14 February 1906. She spent her childhood in Cranleigh. She followed in her father's footsteps as a photographer, working in Cranleigh and Salisbury. She married William Alan Dodsworth at Kensington on 5 September 1949. She gave up professional photography after her marriage. She had moved to Salisbury in 1946, living at 80 Heath Road, 3 (later 7) Cambridge Road, and latterly in sheltered accommodation at 6 Homesarum House, Wilton Road. She died in Maristow Nursing Home, Bourne Avenue, Salisbury on 9 September 1999.

During the war, Enid met George Forbes Davie and had a son:

3.1.1 HECTOR CORYN MARK DAVIE (b.1941), who is the author of these notes.

4 EMILY ANDREWS (1879-1978) was born in Waterford on 19 March 1879. In 1901 she was working in Cork as a draper's assistant. She married Percival James Foster at St Fin Barre's Cathedral in Cork on 24 April 1905. He had been born in Wellingborough, Northants, on 23 September 1880, the son of Charles Frederick Foster, a boot manufacturer, and his wife Ann née Clayson. He was living with his mother at Northsyde, North Street, Wellingborough. Percy worked in the family shoe firm. They had met in Cork, and it is said Emily was disowned by her family for marrying an Englishman. (She was staying with her sister Clara in Sale, Cheshire, when Clara's daughter, Enid, was born in February 1906.)

P.J. and Emily set up house at 179 Knox Road, Wellingborough. However, the shoe firm suffered a misfortune. The couple came to the United States in 1910 to join Emily's brother, Thomas. P.J. arrived on 2 June on the SS Teutonic from Southampton. His height was recorded as 6'0", with dark complexion, dark hair and blue eyes. Emilie arrived from Liverpool on 17 August 1910 on the SS Carmania with the two children, who were three and two years old. (The spelling Emilie seems to have originated before the family moved to the United States.) Her height was recorded as 5'4", with dark complexion, dark hair and blue eyes. They came to join Emilie's brother, Thomas, at 500 South 10th Street, Minneapolis, Minnesota, staying there for a couple of years. The family were still in Hennepin County, Minnesota, in 1920. P.J. was a salesman in the tractor and car business, working for Kissel Cars. His work took him all over the country. He and Emilie moved to Iowa for a while. They all settled in Narberth, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the 1920's and raised the family. In 1930, they were at 466 Brookhurst Avenue, Lower Merion, Montgomery, Pennsylvania. As the story goes, P.J. went on business to Chicago and Emilie sold the house and furniture and took the children to Develon, Wisconsin for the summer.

When the children married, P.J. and Emilie separated. Emilie lived on Yale Avenue, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania during the 1950's, and worked as a nanny for years, especially taking care of babies. She later worked as manager of the Gibbons Nursing Home in Swarthmore. She was musical and played a banjo and the piano.

P.J. lived with his son Jack and his family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a few years until Jack died. Then P.J. worked in a Dairy Laboratory in Philadelphia for years. He tested the dairy products in restaurants and always had bacteria growing in the refrigerator. He had his own apartment in Locust Street, Philadelphia. When he retired he lived with his daughter Shiela at 110 Chestnut Avenue, Narberth, Pennsylvania, and so did Emilie for a while in Narberth. P.J. died on 15 May 1969 in his sleep in a nursing home in Havertown, Pennsylvania.

Emilie celebrated her hundredth birthday in 1978 (sic). At that time, she was living in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, with her granddaughter Evie. She died on 8 November 1978, "aged 101".

P.J. and Emily's children were:

4.1 SHEILAH MARY FOSTER (1907-1990). She was born at 179 Knox Road, Wellingborough on 18 March 1907 and baptized on 11 June. In 1930 she was working as a bookkeeper for a gas and electric company and living at home. She married firstly Harold Conners. In 1940, they were at 825 Clifford Ave, Haverford, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Harold described himself as a clerk in an electric company, with a comfortable income of $1860 per annum. They separated early in the 1940's, and Sheila went to live with a friend, Henry E Metcalf, whom she subsequently married. Henry died on 2 September 1986. Sheila was living in Devon, Pennsylvania, in 1989, with her daughter-in-law. She died on 3 July 1990.

4.1.1 JOHN H CONNERS (1934-), known as Jack, born on 28 December 1934. He worked for a steel company. He was living in New Jersey in 1978, and was still there, at 13 Shelburne St., Burlington, in 2001. He married and had four children. He later divorced, and remarried. His wife, Renata, is from Germany.

4.1.2 EVELYN F CONNERS (1938-) (known as Evie), born on 4 July 1938. She grew up in Narberth. She married Frank Connelly. Frank was in the U.S. Air Force, and at some stage the family spent two years in England. Frank died of cancer in his mid-30's. Later she lived with Leonard J Coopersmith, a widower. Her grandmother was living with her in 1978 at 238 Lenape Drive, Berwyn, Pennsylvania 19312-1849 ((610) 647 6142). Frank and Evelyn had a daughter and an adopted son:

4.1.2.1 SHEILA CONNELLY (1964-), born in 1964. She was studying in Paris in 1985. In 2001 she was living in Boston.

4.1.2.2 MICHAEL CONNELLY (19??-). He was adopted when Evie and Frank were living in England. He graduated from High School in 1989. Mike is an artist and an accomplished potter.

4.1.3 DAVID M METCALF (19??-). He was the son of Sheila and Henry Metcalf. He was living in Narberth in 1978, but was in Reedy, West Virginia in 2001.

4.2 JOHN CLAYSON FOSTER (1908-1941), known as Jack, was born in Wellingborough on 5 July 1908. He moved to the United States with his parents in 1910. In 1929, he was activities director of Camp Delmont, a scout camp in Pennsylavania. In 1930 he was working as a teacher in a private school and living at home. He became a Boy Scout Executive Director, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He married Mary Ford Child on 5 October 1935 at Swarthmore Presbyterian Church.

Mary was born in Newark, N.J. on 6 November 1912. She was the oldest of four children. She was raised in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and summered on Martha's Vineyard Island, Massachusetts. She graduated from Boston University in the School of Religious Education and received her Masters Degree from Cornell University in New York state in Personnel and Guidance.

Jack died in unfortunate circumstances on 4 March 1941 in Wilmington, Delaware. He was buried in Wilmington.

After Jack's death, Mary had numerous interesting positions. She worked in a school for deliquent girls, did disaster work for the American Red Cross, was Assistant Dean of a college, Resident Director for a dorm in several universities including Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka, Alaska. She worked in the inner city in Philadelphia and Reading, Pennsylvania, in the field of Administration and Social Services.

Mary gave up her last job to care for her mother (for about 17 years until her death at 102½ years).

Mary loved gardening, sailing, photography, traveling, writing letters and being in the out-of-doors. She helped sponsor many different children through the Foster Parent Plan. Mary also loved to volunteer. She served as a short-term missionary in Peru, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Austria and with the Wycliffe Bible Translators' office in California. She also volunteered at several International Retreat Centres, such as Fellowship Farm and Pendle Hill in Pennsylvania, a Refugee Center in Georgia and Scarritt Bennett Conference Center in Nashville, Tennessee. Her last volunteer job was Director of the Historical Library at the Menaul School in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Mary was living at her mother's old house at 622 Wilkie Street, Dunedin, Florida in the 1980's, and spending time also in Martha's Vineyard, with a house in Vineyard Haven. In the spring of 1994 she was diagnosed with bladder cancer which had invaded the liver. She received chemotherapy at Abbott Northwestern Hospital and was declared in remission in November 1994. In June 1995, she got pneumonia and it was discovered that cancer had returned to the liver. She died in Abbott Northwestern Hospital, Minneapolis, on 26 July 1995.

Jack and Mary Foster had a daughter:

4.2.1 PAMELA ANNE FOSTER (1937-), born at Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, on 6 August 1937. Pam taught for 38 years, 32 of them with St Paul, Minnesota Public Schools, teaching the physically handicapped, and won a Thanks to Teachers Award in 1989. She retired in June 1997, and lives in Richfield, Minnesota and at Three Island Lake, Marcell.

5 THOMAS ANDREWS (1880-1954), known as Tom, was born at 10 Bridge Street, Waterford on 12 March 1880. He was not at home on Census Day 1901. In 1906 he was living in Liverpool. In 1907 he migrated to the United States.

In 1910, he was living at 10th Street South, Minneapolis, working as a reporter at the Minneapolis Tribune. On Wednesday, 22 February 1911, Thomas married Margaret Verone McCarthy at St Patrick's Catholic Church in Lanesboro, Minnesota.

Margaret was two years younger than Thomas and had been born in Lanesboro. She had been living in Minneapolis for the previous seven years and working as a stenographer. Her father, Owen McCarthy, had been born in Cork in 1841. Her mother, Elizabeth, née Russell, had been born in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1847. They had married in 1866. Margaret was one of ten children. Her brother Charles was Tom's best man at the wedding.

It is interesting that Tom's sister and brother-in-law, Emily and P.J., do not feature in the list of guests, although the couple had come out to Minneapolis the previous year.

After their marriage, and a honeymoon in Chicago, the couple returned on 1 April and settled at Curtis Court Apartments in Minneapolis. According to the report of the wedding, Thomas was a real estate agent in Minneapolis. They were still in Minneapolis when Margaret's mother died in 1921, but by the time of her father's death in 1928, they had moved to Chicago. Using his newspaper experience, Thomas worked for a Chicago newspaper in advertising and as a salesman in an advertising agency. In 1940, his declared income was $2600 per annum, well above the average earnings of $1000. In 1930 and 1940, he and Margaret were living in a rented apartment at 306-5033 Winthrop Avenue, Chicago. The couple are said to have become rich.

Thomas died on 12 March 1954 in Chicago, and was buried at Lanesboro, Minnesota. In 1955, Margaret moved to Phoenix, Arizona, to join her sisters Mary, Rose and Elizabeth. She died there on 15 October 1960, aged 79. The couple had no children.

6 EDWIN GEORGE ANDREWS (1881-1932), known as Eddie, was born at 10 Bridge Street, Waterford on 25 March 1881. In 1901 he was a dentist's assistant, and after a time he qualified as a dentist, and practised in Cork, living at home.

During the First World War he served as a sergeant in the Royal Arny Medical Corps, with service number 33006. In 1921, he described himself on his marriage certificate as a dental mechanic. Like his brother Henry, he qualified as a dentist under the Dentists Act 1921 by dint of having practised for five of the seven preceding years, registering on 28 April 1922. His registered address was 10 Patrick Street, Cork. He married a cousin, Violet Watts at Monksland Church on 11 January 1921.

Edwin continued to appear in the registers of the British Dental Association until 1929. Violet also died giving birth to a child on 20 July 1924 (the death was only registered in 1933). Eddie died of an acute aneurism at Sidwell House on 19 February 1932. His sister Isabella was the informant of his death.

7 MARTHA ANDREWS (1882-19??) was born in Waterford on 18 May 1882. She married the Reverend George Ronaldson Cuming Olden at Shandon, Cork on 28 April 1910.

He had been born in Dublin on 12 July 1884, but on Census Night 1901 was with his grandmother, Mary Olden, in Dyke Parade, Cork. His father was Robert Olden, a government clerk, later a postmaster, and he was a grandnephew of the antiquarian, the Revd Dr Thomas Olden, DD, MRIA. He had graduated from Trinity College, Dublin in 1906, and trained for the Church of Ireland ministry. He had been made deacon in 1909, and in 1910 was serving a curacy at Ballinderry, Antrim, in the diocese of Connor and living at Ballyscolly.

Ronald became a minor canon of Belfast Cathedral in 1915. In October 1924, he was appointed to St Mark's, Ballysillan, where he later became rector. On 10 May 1930, Ronald was installed as rector of St Columba's, Knock Columbkille in Belfast. He was very musical, and had organized and conducted concerts from an early age. His particular interest, apart from Gilbert and Sullivan, was Irish hymn tunes, about which he published a book. He also wrote occasional articles and poems, often under the pseudonym of "Arnold Donel". He later became a canon of Belfast Cathedral and was Archdeacon of Down from 1946 to 1950.

The family visited England regularly, and a photograph album, preserved in the Representative Church Library in Dublin, contains snapshots taken on visits by them to Martha's sister, Clara, in Cranleigh in the 1930s. They retired in 1949, living in Rostrevor. Canon George Olden died in 1982, aged 97.

The Oldens had two children:

7.1 ISABEL OLGA OLDEN (1913-1994). She was born in Belfast on 21 August 1913 and brought up there. Like her father, she was musical, and at one stage played the organ at Trinity Church, Belfast. She married Norman Greeves (who had been born on 12 September 1905) at her father's church, St Columba's, Knock, on 28 November 1940. He was a textile agent. They had four sons and a daughter. The family lived at Greystone, 6 Victoria Road, Holywood, County Down. Norman died at the Ulster Hospital, Dundonald, on 22 November 1986 of duodenal ulceration and cardiogenic shock, and Isabel herself died on 12 February 1994. Their children were:

7.1.1 BRENDAN RONALDSON GREEVES (b. 194?).

7.1.2 COLIN MALCOMSON GREEVES (b. 1943), born on 3 September 1943. He married Dorothy Christine McQuilkin on 30 September 1949 at Ballywillan Presbyterian Church, near Coleraine. She had been born in Larne on 2 May 1944. He is a General Practitioner in Antrim. He and Dorothy have issue:

7.1.2.1 PAUL DEREK GREEVES (b.1970), born on 22 October 1970. He is a property developer in Northern Ireland.

7.1.2.2 MARTIN JOHN GREEVES (b.1972), born on 10 October 1972. He gained a BA in Industrial Design and Technolgoy from Loughborough University in 1994. He is a brand designer, and worked on brands such as Imperial Leather, Cadbury, Cuprinol and Dove. In 2006 he founded Shaft Skinz, a company that makes decorative protection for golf club shafts (for which he pitched on Dragon's Den). He sold this in 2012.

He is married. His wife, Catherine, is a financial consultant. The family lived in Dromore, Co. Down, before moving in 2014 to Tunbridge Wells.

7.1.2.3 GILLIAN VICTORIA GREEVES (b.1976), born on 4 October 1976. She married Francis Graham Thompson at Antrim 2nd (High Street) Presbyterian Church on 2 December 2000.

7.1.3 BARBARA PATRICIA GREEVES (b. 1948), born on 24 July 1948. She married James Robert Boyd Kane, a GP, at St Columba's, Knock, on 17 January 1970. They have three children:

7.1.3.1 JENNIFER CLAIRE KANE (b. 1972), born on 25 September 1972.

7.1.3.2 CHRISTINE CAROLINE KANE (b. 1975), born on 4 February 1975.

7.1.3.3 MICHAEL BOYD KANE (b. 1977), born on 12 February 1977.

7.1.4 MICHAEL DEREK GREEVES (1946-1970). He was born on 1 February 1946 and died on 22 June 1970.

7.1.5 ROGER MACGREGOR OLDEN GREEVES (b. 1952), born on 28 July 1952. In 1986 he was at 34 Cloverhill Street, Drumahoe, Londonderry.

7.2 AIDAN RONALD CUMMING OLDEN (1917-2000) was born in Belfast on 25 January 1917. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin, graduating in 1938. He attended theological studies, and served a curacy at St Mary's, Newry, from February 1940. He was ordained priest in Down Cathedral in 1941, and served as Dean's Vicar of St Anne's Cathedral, Belfast and as succentor of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin before his marriage. He married Eithne Esther Elizabeth Bayne Forsythe at Tartaraghan Presbyterian Church (in Craigavon) on 29 December 1942. Eithne's father, John Forsythe, who conducted the ceremony, was the minister at Tartaraghan, and Eithne herself lived in the Manse. She was a teacher. The witnesses at the wedding were Robert Henry Cecil Conyngham, Margaret B McConnall, and Aidan's father, Ronald. Aidan served in Newry, Belfast, Dublin and Ennisken, before becoming rector of Kingsmount, Co. Cavan. While he was here he was appointed a canon of Meath Cathedral. Part of his ministry also involved broadcasting for Radio Telefis Eireann.

In 1960 he became Rector of Kells, living at the Rectory, Kells, Co. Meath until his retirement in 1992. During his time at Kells he became diocesan representative prebend at St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and in 1967, Rural Dean of Clonard and Trim. After his retirement in 1992 he lived at Balreask New, Navan, Co. Meath. He died on 22 December 2000.

Eithne died in 2003.

8 SARAH ANN ANDREWS (1883-1954), born at 10 Bridge Street, Waterford on 9 June 1883, was artistic by nature.

Like her sisters Emily, Martha and Isabella, she attended the infants' class at Inchicore National school in Dublin in 1892, before moving to Cork. In Cork, she attended St Mary Shandon National School, entering the Third Form in 1893, leaving in September 1894, rejoining in August 1897 and leaving on 8 June 1901. Her marks, other than in Grammar and Singing, were generally good.

She does not appear in the 1911 census in Ireland, England or Wales. She taught Art in Eire, and later moved to a job in Belfast designing traycloths. Later still she moved back to Cork. She was a close companion to her sister Clara. After Bella's death in 1948, she continued to live in the house at Sunday's Well Road until her death from cancer at the age of 70 on 17 April 1954. Her funeral was at St Mary Shandon on the 19th. She is buried with her parents at St Finbarr's Cemetery, Cork. The house passed to a Terence O'Keefe.

9 ISABELLA ANDREWS (1885-1948), born in Waterford on 1 January 1885, was known as Bella. Her birth was announced in the Waterford News of 2 January 1885. On the 1st instant, at No. 10 Bridge-street, Waterford, the wife of Mr Thomas Andrews of a daughter." She remained single, and taught needlework.

Bella was 36 when her father died. She stayed on at home and looked after her mother. She inherited the house at Sunday's Well from her mother and lived on there alone. He sister Sarah later joined her. She died on 17 August 1948, and is buried with her parents in St Finbarr's Cemetery, Cork.

10 ARTHUR JAMES ANDREWS (1889-1921), born in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary on 2 November 1889, was the youngest child. He also became a dentist, and practised at Wallsend and Newcastle-upon-Tyne in Northumberland. He was boarding in an upstairs flat at 132 Woodbine Avenue, Wallsend on Tyne, in April 1911, and working on his own account, like his brother Henry, as a "maker of artificial teeth." He described himself in directories as a dentist, reverting to "artificial teeth maker" in 1921, the year of his death, when more stringent regulations for dentists were introduced. His dental surgery was at 29 High Street East, Wallsend.

He married Eleanor Susan Castle (known as Nellie) at St Mark's, Byker, Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 24 September 1912. He gave his address as 29 High St East, Wallsend.

Eleanor had been born on 21 June 1889. She was working as a shop assistant in her father, William Castle's, tobacconist's shop at 95 Shields Road.

From 1913 onwards, Arthur lived at 137 Heaton Park Road, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He died there at the age of 31, on 4 April 1921, of measles, which he contracted from his daughter Dorothy, complicated by acute pneumonia. He was buried two days later. His estate was valued at £2368. Nellie was his executrix.

After Arthur's death, Nellie lived at some stage with her sister Ruth. Nellie had to sell the family home in Heaton and moved to a pair of flats at 5 and 5a Rockcliffe Avenue, Whitley Bay, where she lived for the rest of her life. She lived to the age of 87, dying on 13 September 1976.

Arthur and Nellie had issue:

10.1 DOROTHY SIDWELL ANDREWS (1913-1921), born at Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 24 April 1913 and baptized on 21 May at Byker. She died of measles on 23 March 1921, aged seven, and was buried at Byker and Heaton Cemetery two days later. (Her father died eleven days after her from the same infection.)

10.2 RONALD WILLIAM ANDREWS (1915-2004), known as Ronnie, was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 23 February 1915 and baptized at Byker on 24 March. He was a grocer, and in 1939 and 1946 was living with his mother at 5 Rockcliffe Avenue, Whitley Bay. He married a 28-year-old widow, Mary Rutherford, née Morgan, known as Mollie, at St George's, Cullercoats, on 1 July 1946. He liked to spend his winters in Spain. He died in Kettering in December 2004. They had one son:

10.2.1 RONALD M ANDREWS (1952-). He lives in Northamptonshire. He has two children.

10.3 MARJORIE ANDREWS (1916-19??), known as Twinkie, born on 7 March 1916 and baptized on 5 April at Byker. In 1939, she was living with her brother Ronnie and her mother, and was an assistant in a hosiery shop. She married Leonard Thompson at Tynemouth in the third quarter of 1940. She died in her fifties, and had one son.

10.3.1 GEORGE WILLIAM THOMPSON (1949-), known as Billy, born in the third quarter of 1949. He has issue.

10.4 NELLIE ANDREWS (1917-2014), known as Betty, born on 16 December 1917 and baptized at Byker on 30 January 1918. She was registered and baptized as Nellie. Later, she lived in Ashford, Kent, and also at Flat 1, 28 Park Road, Exmouth, Devon. She was at 8 William Street, Penrith, Cumbria, in 1992, and in 2011 was in Greengarth, a nursing home in Bridge Lane, Penrith. Enid Dodsworth knew her as Betty Anderson. She died in December 2014. She had a daughter:

10.4.1 GILLIAN ANDERSON (1945?-), born Gillian Andrews in the Tynemouth registration district on 16 August 1945. She was living at Sockbridge House, near Penrith, Cumbria between 1992 and 2004.

10.5 ARTHUR JAMES ANDREWS (1921-1972), known as Jimmy, was born in the Newcastle registration district on 10 February 1921 and baptized at Byker on 9 March, a few weeks before his father's death. In 1939 he was living with his mother and other siblings at 5 Rockcliffe Avenue, Whitley Bay.

Jimmy started to train as a shipwright, but this did not become his career. From his army enlistment on 26 July 1940 when he was 19, his profession was given as grocer’s assistant, possibly in Heaton. His complexion was described as fresh, with blue eyes, brown hair, and he stood 5' 6” tall. He worked in Newcastle as an ironmonger's warehouseman. He served in the Far East during the Second World War, and was awarded a Burma Star. He married Elsie Wesson (born on 25 August 1919) on 12 June 1948 at St Paul's Church, Whitley Bay. He died on 30 March 1972 in Preston Hospital, North Shields. Elsie died on 10 July 2007. Arthur and Elsie had three children.

10.5.1 ARTHUR JAMES ANDREWS (b.1949), born on 19 June 1949. He lives in West Monkseaton, Whitley Bay, with his partner, Tina.

10.5.2 MICHAEL STEPHEN ANDREWS (b.1954), born on 12 March 1952. He has two children:

10.5.2.1 MARTIN ANDREWS (b. 1981), born on 26 December 1981.

10.5.2.2 LUCY ANDREWS (b. 1987), born on 30 April 1987.

10.5.3 MOIRA ANDREWS (b.1954), born on 5 January 1954.


This page was last modified on 30 May 2023 by Hector Davie.
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