Inherited Craziness
A place to share all the nuts found on my family tree

Showing posts with label Lusitania. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lusitania. Show all posts

Monday 7 August 2023

Albert Stone and Agnes Jones

Tiverton : King's Crescent
cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Lewis Clarke - geograph.org.uk/p/3053842
On Bert's Marines record, Agnes' address is given as King's Crescent, Tiverton.

Albert Stone (Bert), son of Charles Stone and Emma Middleton and brother of Charley Stone, married Agnes Jones (Daisy), daughter of David Jones and Laura Elizabeth White and sister of Ellen Stone (née Jones), married, on 7 Aug 1926 at the Anglican Church of Saint Matthew, which was in Clarence Place, opposite the former Royal Naval Hospital at East Stonehouse, in Plymouth. 
As you may have deduced, the two brothers married two sisters.

On 27 July 1914, at the age of 14½, Albert Stone enlisted as a Bugler in the Royal Marines and from 7 Dec 1914 until 29 May 1917, was assigned to his first ship, HMS Hilary (1914), a former passenger steamship, converted to an armed merchant cruiser for service during the First World War. She was commissioned into the Royal Navy at Liverpool on 6 Dec 1914 and patrolled between the British Isles and the Denmark Strait, often in the area between the Outer Hebrides and Faroe Islands and also to the Shetland Islands. 

On 25 May 1917, HMS Hilary was torpedoed and sunk west of the Shetlands, by German submarine, SM U-88, captained by Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger. Schwieger was infamous for sinking RMS Lusitania two years earlier, an event Agnes (Daisy) remembered as a child, living in Queenstown (Cobh), Ireland, where both survivors and dead were brought ashore. 

Bert was one of the survivors in the seven lifeboats from HMS Hilary, picked up by the naval drifter Maggie Bruce or the destroyer HMS Sarpedon.

After that, Bert was transferred to Plymouth Division and was at Deal from Sep 17 to Apr 18, becoming a Private in Dec 17, shortly before he was 18.

From 25 June 1919 to 21 Aug 1919, Bert embarked on HMS Cornwall (1902), presumably for her return journey from Bermuda to Devonport.

In Oct-Nov of that year, he was at HMS Impregnable training establishment (at that point the former HMS Black Prince (1861) in Devonport. And then at the HMS Vivid shore establishment from Dec 1919 until Dec 1920. 

His subsequent excursions were with: 

Bert, who had been promoted to Corporal in July 1927, was discharged at the end of his second period of engagement in Jan 1939. But, on 27 Sep 1939, he was back for service during World War II, until 1 Jan 1942.

They had two sons, Albert Henry Stone (1927-1999) and one living.

In 1939, Albert Stone, Postman, wife Agnes, son Albert H (Harry) and two other occupants were living at 9 Falconhurst Road, Birmingham.

Albert Stone died in 1974. Agnes died in 2000.

Wednesday 24 May 2023

Joseph Kritzer and Sarah Sophia Tompson

St Wilfrid's, Chelsea

Sarah Sophia Tompson, eldest surviving daughter of Dan Tompson and his second wife, Sarah Jane Baker married Joseph Kritzer, son of Wilhelm Kritzer and Flora Gleichaufon 24 May 1905 in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire. 

Their daughter, Mary Amalie Kritzer was born on 21 Feb 1906, but she was not the couple's first child. On the census for the household of Sarah's parents, Dan and Sarah Jane Tompson, in 1911, there appeared a 'mystery' grandchild listed as William Charles Kritzer (7) (although his surname was originally mis-transcribed at Findmypast as Roizen, which added much to the confusion in tracking him down), who it says, was born in 1904 'At Sea'. 

The boy was born, actually in 1903, aboard the SS Kaiser Wilhelm II at Lat 40.45N/Long 56.52W, off the coast of North America. Launched at Stettin, Germany (now Szczecin, Poland), on 12 Aug 1902, the SS Kaiser Wilhelm II made regular trips between Germany and New York City. 

Baptised, William Karl Tompson, on 9 Dec 1903, at the church of St Matthew, Stepney, on the baptism record, his mother is listed just as Daisy (as she appears to have called herself), with their abode listed as 3 Monteagle Street, Stepney - which had been the address given by her half-sister (my great-grandmother), Eliza Louisa, at the time of her marriage to Job Sweeney some 10 years earlier. (Birth and baptism information was provided to me by Christine Miller of the wonderfully named, GIN AND GENEALOGY.)

In 1911, Joseph Kritzer (33), was butler to architect, Henry Louis Florence at 9 Prince's Gate, Knightsbridge, London. In that household also was a Rosina Christie employed as a housemaid. She was listed as single, but her year of birth agrees with that of Sarah Sophia - 1876 - born in Whitechapel. (Sarah Sophia's birth was registered in Mile End Old Town, which is next door, both in Stepney. Sarah Sophia is referred to as Mrs J Christie in her father's obituary, and both of Joseph and Sarah's children later use Christie as an Anglicized version of Kritzer.) Therefore, I'm inclined to believe this is Sarah using this assumed name to hide the fact that she was married to Joseph, which was more than likely verboten for servants. Sarah Sophia / Daisy Tompson / Kritzer / Christie isn't anywhere else in 1911.

At that same time, their daughter, Mary Amalia Kritzer (5) was listed as an 'Inmate' at St Wilfrid's Convent School in Cale Street, Chelsea.

On 18 Oct 1912, listed as Willie Thompson (8), their son sailed to Montreal from Liverpool aboard the SS Corsican with his grandmother, Sarah Jane, and his aunt Ivy. On the 1921 Census of Canada, Willie Christie (18) was living at 131 Morrison Avenue, Toronto, still with his grandparents. At Ancestry, there's a note on the 1921 entry suggesting he should be Critzer. 

In 1931, William Critzer (sic) (28) Sheet metal worker and wife Bertha Lilian Critzer (27) were Lodgers at 98 Nairn, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

As she had married a German, Sarah Sophia had become German and would have been subject to the restrictions of the Aliens Restriction Act 1914: As the law was at this time, British-born women who had married foreign nationals (who had not naturalised) acquired their husband’s nationality. Many British born women therefore found themselves to be enemy aliens during the war. Except in a very few cases women were not interned. [Source]

In 1921, listed as a Molly Kritzer (15), was an Inmate at St Edwards Residential College, Totteridge, Middlesex (St Edward's School for Roman Catholic Girls), along with her cousin, Flora Kritzer (15).

Joseph Kritzer is not listed in England in 1921. Nor is Sarah Sophia.

In 1939 'Daisy' S S Kritzer, Housekeeper, still listed as married, was living at 1 Pemry Villas, Elm Grove Road, Cobham, Surrey. Head of the household was her widowed sister, Mabel Grace Stedman and living with them was Daisy's niece, Mabel's daughter, Laura May Martin, born in 1920. Also in the household was a Gerald O Weston, a mechanic and lorry driver, born 1920, who may have been a lodger. Still no sign of Joseph. Sarah Sophia Kritzer, then of 2 Ashford Cottages, Tilt Road, Cobham, Surrey, again listed as wife of Joseph Kritzer, died, aged 68, on 20 Feb 1945. She left £595 13s (worth £25,849 in 2020) to her daughter, Mary Amelia Melhuish, married woman.

Other than those last records in 1939 and 1945 relating to Sarah alluding to Joseph Kritzer still being alive - where she's described as married and as his wife - there's no further sign of him in Britain and no trace of a record even of his death. Unlike his brother Karl, Joseph did not become naturalised British. Their sister, Amalia, will have escaped detention, being a woman. However, initial enquiries suggest that Joseph Kritzer (37) - as he would have been in 1914 - was interned at the Knockaloe Internment Camp Isle of Man during WWI. As "former enemy aliens were to be deported, unless granted a licence to remain", was he perhaps returned to Germany after the war? 

UPDATE: I've now received confirmation that Joseph Kritzer (37), was indeed interned at Knockaloe Internment Camp Isle of Man. "Joseph was interned as part of the mass internment of registered Enemy Alien men aged between 17 and 55 following the sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915." 

Joseph’s Prisoner of War Information Bureau (POWIB) Index Card (available from the ICRC website), shows that he was interned on 31 Jul 1915. We still don't know when he was released or what happened to him later, although all the pointers seem to be towards him being repatriated to Germany. 

Their potential lie (albeit possibly necessary for their employment), hiding their marriage, in 1911, will have created the predicament that Joseph and Sarah will not have been able to demonstrate that they had lived together in a genuine relationship prior to the war. This may well have prevented Joseph from obtaining permission to return to the UK upon his release.

There are many questions that still need to be answered.