Garibaldi biscuits and other morsels

The last two certificates that Ruth Ward sent me were the marriage certificate of Jane Ann Swindells  and John William Chadderton in 1882, together with the birth certificate of her son Garibaldi in 1886.

Garibaldi Chadderton

Garibaldi Chadderton had been named after his uncle Garibaldi Chadderton who had been born in 1861. He in his turn was undoubtedly named after the famous Italian general Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882) who had just won a famous campaign in the unification of Italy.

Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1866

This campaign, and his earlier campaigns for the republicans in Italy had made Garibaldi a hero to many of the working class throughout Europe. (For more information see Wikipedia).

Garibaldi Chadderton was brought up in Oldham, Lancashire and married Deborah Hyde in 1908 in Oldham and had one son John William in Oldham before emigrating to New Zealand where he and Deborah had two more sons, Joseph and William.

(Garibaldi may have arrived aboard the Tainui on the 25th of April 1912 where a Geo. Chadderton, Iron Moulder, 25 is listed amongst the passengers.).

I do not know the date when Garibaldi enlisted but by 1917 he was listed with the New Zealand Army Reserve.

Garibaldi Chadderton (courtesy of Rick Chadderton)

He was recalled to service to Burnham military camp during the influenza epidemic to help on the isolation wards but contracted the disease himself and died on the 1st of December 1918 in Christchurch. He was 32 years old - less than half the age achieved  by Giuseppe Garibaldi whose example had given him his name (and the name of the Garibaldi biscuit which was first manufactured by Peak Freans in 1861)

A couple of Garibaldi biscuits.

Jane Ann Swindells

Jane Ann Swindells had married John William Chadderton on the fourth of February 1882 at Coldhurst Parish Church, Oldham, Lancashire.

The copy of  Jane Ann Swindells marriage certificate

She was an illegitimate daughter as shown by her naming Emily Swindells in the space provided for the father's name and forename.

The address on the marriage certificate is the same as for herself in the 1881 census, living in Oldham with the sister-in-law of her step father Charles Matthews.

According to a family story
"At Age 16 years she is reported to have walked the 10 miles from Bramhall to Oldham for work. She stayed with her Aunty in Oldham (related through the Matthews who were the family that her Mother had married) and then married my ancestor John William Chadderton there.

Their marriage took place during their lunch-hour and then they returned to their various places of work thereafter. That sounds like a tough life.

(Actually she would have been living in Heaton Norris, not Bramhall, but the ten miles would be about right)

Jane Ann developed a thriving second hand goods business. Her husband died quite young (in 1907) so this provided for the family until her death in 1930. However, she was know for her generosity and "forgiveness" of the debts of those less fortunate from time to time.

Her own birth certificate names her as the daughter of Emma Swindells, born on the 24th of January 1862 at  9 Longshut[...] Stockport Jane Ann mother Emma Swindells registered ... March 1862.

Emily (Emma) Swindells

9, Longshut Lane is where Emma was living with her parents, Thomas and Jemima Swindells at the 1861 census. She was 18 and no doubt wrapped up in her affair that was to lead to Jane Ann's birth ten month's later . Emily married Charles Harrison Matthews in 1865 and they went on to have five children before Emily's death on the 11th of November 1883 in Heaton Norris, Stockport. 

N.B. Heaton Norris was in the Borough of Stockport which spread across the River Mersey. The centre of Stockport is on the south side of the river and in Cheshire. Heaton Norris is on the north side of the river and in Lancashire. The Mersey actually flows under the modern shopping precinct in the centre of Stockport.

Neither any baptism nor birth registration has been found for Emma. Though civil birth registration commenced on the first of July 1837 it was not compulsory until 1875. Baptism is of course voluntary (as far as the parents are concerned, not for the baby!). If both the ages in the censuses and Emily's age at death are correct then Emily would have been born between November 1842 and March 1843.

Thomas Swindells and Jemima Pott and Phoebe Haughton (née Moore)

Stockport from the west in 1819, the year of Thomas's birth

Thomas Swindells was born about 1815 in Bram(h)all, Cheshire according to the 1851 and 1861 censuses but in 1819/20 according to the 1871 census and his death registration.  He married Jemima Pott on the second of January 1837 at St Mary's Church, Cheadle. Thomas was a silk weaver in the 1841 census but silk weaving in Stockport  was in decline and in 1842 'work has never been so slack' and wages so low'. Thomas responded by becoming an agricultural labourer.

Thomas and Jemima had three daughters - Elizabeth born about 1835, Jane born 1839 but died 1842 and Emily, born about 1842/3.

Jemima died on the 12th of August 1868 and the next year Thomas married Phoebe Haughton, a widow with a teenage son. Thomas died before the 1881 census and his death is almost certainly the one registered in 1878 at the age of 59. 

At his second marriage he had named his father as 'John' and Thomas is very probably the Thomas, son of John and Mary Swindells born on the 10th of March and baptised on the 10th of May 1819 at the Hatherlow Congregation Church. Bramhall was quite a widespread township but did not have its own church or chapel. The chapel of St Chad's at Chadkirk was the nearest Established Church but for the non-conformist there was the  Unitarian Chapel at Dean Row or the Congregational Chapel at Hatherlow. The trip to the chapel would have been about two to three miles depending on where in Bramhall the Swindells lived.

It is interesting that Thomas appears to have overstated his age by five years during his marriage to Jemima. If I have his birth/baptism correct then he would have been still 17 when he married while Jemima would have been 22 or 23.

More about the Swindell Surname