George Daniel Tompson and Alice Oldfield

St Andrew's Church, Whittlesey
cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Tiger - geograph.org.uk/p/924937

In 1908, George Daniel Tompson (22), only surviving son of Dan Tompson and his 2nd wife, Sarah Jane Baker - making George my half-great-grand-uncle - sailed from Liverpool to New York on the Lusitania, although in 1910 he was back in Whittlesey for his marriage in the parish of Whittlesey St Andrew, to Alice Oldfield, daughter of George Oldfield (1847-1913), former Licenced Victualler and Blacksmith and Caroline Hemmaway (m. 1868) of East Delph, Whittlesey. Pubs in East Delph were the Anchor and The Three Fishes with the Hare and Hounds on the corner of Bassenhally Road. Records don't show which George Oldfield kept, but in 1881, he's not at the Hare and Hounds, nor The Three Fishes, as those have different occupiers listed.

George Oldfield's parents were George Oldfield and Mary Haddon. In 1851, Mary is listed as having been born in Yaxley, then Huntingdonshire. This family connection may well explain why George Daniel's three younger sisters were living in Yaxley in 1939 after they returned to the UK from Canada.

George Daniel Tompson left Liverpool on 7 March 1908 and arrived in New York, to Ellis Island, on 13 March 1908. It appears from the passenger manifest that the 22 year old bricklayer's intended destination had been Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. However, there's a line through his name, so was he refused entry to the United States perhaps? Quite when, how and why he ended up in Toronto, Canada instead I've yet to discover, if I ever do.

House on the right 133 Morrison Avenue, Toronto, Canada

After their marriage in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire on 29 Mar 1910, in 1911, George, with wife Alice, were back in Canada, where, on 25 Apr 1911, Alice gave birth to a stillborn son at 133 Morrison Avenue, Toronto, Canada. 

On the 1911 Canadian Census on 1 Jun 1911, living at 133 Morrison Avenue, Toronto, were George Tompson (27), Alice Tompson (32), Richard Oldfield (26), Walter Oldfield (22), Charles Oldfield (19), William Tinkler (26) and Fred Tinkler (26), the last two being boarders. Richard, Walter and Charles Oldfield were all Alice's younger brothers. Richard and Walter were Bricklayers Labourers and Charles a labourer. They hadn't been in Canada long, as they had been listed on the 1911 United Kingdom census on 2 Apr 1911 in their father's household. Pure speculation, of course, but it would make sense that, having arrived in Toronto around 1908, George Daniel acquired the plot in Earlscourt and built the house at number 133 Morrison Avenue in the intervening years before going back to England to claim his wife once he'd prepared a home for them. The workforce of brickies' labourers turns up a year later and they build the house at 131 Morrison Avenue ready for Dad to move into in 1912. Possibly, maybe.

George and Alice go on to have at least five children: 

1. Daniel George Tompson born 23 May 1912 at 133 Morrison Avenue
2. Ruth Tompson born 1915 (d. 2008)
3. Richard Tompson born 1919
4. Charles Gordon Tompson born 1919
5. Walter Tompson born 1921

On the 1921 Canadian Census, George Daniel Tompson (36) is listed as living at 124 Hatherley Road, Toronto with wife Alice (41), Daniel George Tompson (9), Ruth Tompson (6), Richard and Charles Gordon Tompson both 2, were they twins? And Walter Tompson, 2 months. 

124 Hatherley Road, Toronto

George Daniel Tompson was still listed at 124 Hatherley Road, in the Toronto Centennial City Directory in 1934. His son, Daniel George, was listed in that directory as a teacher at a York Public School. In 1938, Daniel George Tompson married Dorothy Adeline Bryant, who died in 2009, at the ripe old age of 96. There aren't many Canadian records I can access online to research this branch further, but it seems obvious there will be family still in Canada.

Con Colleano and Winifred Constance Stanley Trevail

Winifred Constance Stanley Trevail and Con Colleano

My 2nd cousin, twice removed, Winifred Constance Stanley Trevail, daughter of Herbert Fleming Trevail and Alice Maud Stanley Blazey was the wife of - IMDB is the only source to list a date for their marriage as 10 July 1926 - Con Colleano (Cornelius Sullivan), who was the most famous and highest paid "swashbuckling circus performer with matinee idol looks" of his time, known as “The Australian Wizard of the Wire”. A member of the Circus Hall of Fame, Con Colleano is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the first person to prefect the forward somersault on the tight wire.

"Winnie Trevail began appearing on the stage in Sydney as a child [...]" (Er no, before that in New Zealand). "Mrs. Winnie Colleano (neé Trevail) was herself a well known Australian Vaudeville Soubrette", dancer and trapeze artist.

Con Colleano on a slack-wire, circa 1920

Con Colleano, born Cornelius Sullivan, on 26 Dec 1899 in Lismore, New South Wales, was of Aboriginal, Anglo-Irish and West Indian descent and adopted a Spanish persona and a costume of a ‘toreador’ or bullfighter. 

Colleano’s Indigenous heritage was unknown to his fans – which included one of history’s most infamous racists - "Few people are aware of the fact that in the 1930’s, Adolf Hitler issued an Aboriginal Australian tightrope walker with a German passport so he could come and go as he pleased."

Trevail abandoned her own career in 1924 to travel with her husband.

Passenger lists reveal that Cornelius Sullivan and Winifred C. S. Trevail left Southampton, England on 13 Sep 1924, on the RMS Berengaria (former SS Imperator), The first Cunard "Queen". This was their first trip to the US, so their port of arrival was the infamous Ellis Island, New York. Various sources tell us that, in 1924, Con made his debut at the New York Hippodrome before returning to the circus with Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

There's also record of Cornelius and Winifred C Sullivan Colleano travelling from Southampton to New York, on the Berengaria, on 24 Feb 1937. 

On 7 Jan 1938, Cornelius and Winifred (Sullivan) Colleano, left Sydney, bound for California, on the luxury ocean liner, SS Mariposa (1931).

On 8 Sep 1939, Cornelius and Winifred Sullivan, listed as British, board the Italian ocean liner, SS Rex, leaving Genoa, bound for New York.

These, I'm sure are just the tip of a globe-trotting iceberg, but it was finding these records of voyages that led me to discover more of their story.

The former Albion Hotel (pub) at Forbes, New South Wales, Sheba, CC BY-SA 2.0

"Sadly Con and Winnie ultimately lost all their money indulging in a luxurious lifestyle, giving it away to friends and making a disastrous investment in a pub in outback Australia in the 1950s (what were they thinking?)." 

Con died, in Miami, on 13 Nov 1973, after which Winnie returned to Australia, where she died, in Sydney, in January 1986. They had no children.

Con Colleano home movie: circus preparations (1928)

Were they really married? Who cares?

IMDB is the only place to list a supposed date, but not place, for their marriage. I've [so far] been unable find a record of a marriage anywhere in the world, which, of course, doesn't mean there wasn't one. However, in all the articles I've read about the couple, including Con's obituary, not once is the date and place of their marriage ever mentioned, which I find strange. 

On the other hand, I did find a record of a marriage of a Winifred C Trevail, in Victoria, Australia, in 1919 to a Leonard Mendoza. It would take $20 AUS to obtain the certificate to see if there are enough clues to tell whether this is the same Winifred C Trevail or not, but several things occur to me: Just how many people named Winifred C Trevail are there likely to be? One source claims that Winnie met Con, in Melbourne, which of course is in Victoria, when she was 22. Not hard to imagine she may have been there when she was 19. Someone with the surname Mendoza even sounds like her "type". Who knows? 

I'm much amused by self-aggrandising family stories, but this one probably takes the biscuit - although no surprise perhaps among theatrical types. In several articles, it mentions that Winnie "claimed descent from the Earls of Derby" and it appears that the source of that quote is her own brother, Eric, so it may well have been a story perpetuated in the family. A claim doesn't make it true though! And through which side would that be, I wonder? The line we share to the 'illegitimate born' former dyer who downgraded to labourer in Norfolk, or the bankrupted tenant farmer in Cornwall? Lovely people, I'm sure, but Earls or any other type of nobs they were not!

Sources (many of these links contain images):

1. Con Colleano From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2. “The Australian Wizard of the Wire”
3. AUSTRALIAN VARIETY THEATRE ARCHIVE
4. Inducted into the Ring of Fame: 1992
5. Meet the true circus wonders
6. Con Colleano: Australia's 'Wizard of the Wire'
7. Con Colleano: Wizard of the Wire
8. Colleano, Con (Cornelius) (1899–1973)
9. Circus pays homage to wire wizard
10. Interview with Eric Trevail, brother of Winnie Colleano
11. The Aboriginal tightrope walker who duped Hitler & Mussolini

Videos:

1. Con Colleano rehearsing his tight wire act at his home, circa 1939
2. COLLEANO, CON, Australia's tightwire wizard (USA, c.1929)
3. COLLEANO, CON, a life commemorated, (Australia, 2005)
4. COLLEANO, CON, mini-doco of tightwire artist (Australia, 1994)
5. Con Colleano home movie: circus preparations (1928)

Further reading: The wizard of the wire : the story of Con Colleano