Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

Here is a teaser which I have not been able to solve but offer to anyone with time to spare.

Thomas Morris was born in 1859 and baptised at Eastham, Wirral, son of Robert Morris and Elsie Mary.
1861 census: with family at Shaw Street, Liverpool.
1871: scholar, with an aunt at Edinburgh.
1881: mining engineer, with widowed mother and family at Birkdale.
1883: married at Christ Church, Southport to Teresa Sorge [transcribed by Lancs BMD as ‘Gorge’, and correction offered to them].
1887: press: Thomas Morris (Rose Bridge Colliery, Wigan) chaired a meeting about the formation of a National Association of Colliery Managers.
1888: colliery manager, on daughter’s baptism entry.
1889: press: ‘Mr Thomas Morris, manager of the Rose Bridge Colliery at Ince, has just left England for a short cruise in the Mediterranean for the purpose of recruiting his health.’
1891: mining engineer, living at Wigan with wife and two children. Another daughter, Lilian McQueen Morris, had lived only a few weeks.

1901: no sign of Thomas or his wife in census. One son, Thomas T., is at Sculcoates, East Yorks. Another, Ian, is with his grandmother and aunt at Birkdale. Daughter Annie, b. 1886 has not been found, but is with her mother in 1911.
1911: Teresa is at Woodford Green, Essex, widowed.

The sons both served in WW1. Ian was killed at Gallipoli in 1915 and CWGC has this in the entry as ‘additional information’: Son of the late Thomas Morris, M.E., of Wigan, and Mrs. Morris, of The Chestnuts, Woodford, Essex. Educated at Hampton Lodge, Chester; Bebington College, Cheshire; Woodford College, Essex, and in France.

1. What happened to Thomas? I have scoured possible deaths, neewspapers and probates with no success.
2. What happened to Teresa?

[Thomas was probably a nephew of the owner of Rose Bridge Colliery, J.G. Morris.]

Many thanks for any clues or suggestions.
Daggers

At the moment just a note from the Lancaster Gazette 25 November 1893 that
"The once famous Rose Bridge Collieries will not be opened again ...."
This was following the end of the coal strike.

Per the 1911 census, the youngest Ian Russell Campbell Morris aged 17 was born approx 1894 in Southport.

This death appears to be the correct birth date,


Deaths Sep 1927

Morris Teresa 68 W.Derby 8b 244

The given address for son Thomas's 1919 marriage was Derby Park, Rock Ferry, they may have moved back after the war?

Is this death worth checking out? son being there in 1901,


Thomas Morris
Estimated birth
abt 1860
Registration Year
1900
Quarter
Jan-Feb-Mar
Age at Death:
40
Registration district
Sculcoates

Many thanks all round - I hope the bait would be taken.
There are at least two very good leads there which I shall follow up, even lashing out on a cert or two I think!
D

An obvious reason never to go by other people's trees. Out of curiosity I browsed to see if anybody had the tree on Ancestry and sure enough there is Thomas Tuckniss Morris, parents Thomas and Teresa, but giving his death as Jun Q 1948, Prescot. If I was a gambling girl I would think that he actually died in Devon in 1975, so which of us is right?

He does seem to have travelled to New York in 1934, if you don't have access to the New York Passenger Lists let me know.

This Ancestry tree has accepted the transcription of the youngest son as "Jan Russell Campbell Morris" rather than Ian, however he has him down as a "half brother" with an unknown father. Does this give any clue?

Another tree has father Thomas marrying a Teresa Tuckniss! no evidence of a marriage of course.

I have challenged the Tuckniss marriage and the author of that tree admitted that it was guesswork!!!
I agree that the Devon death is the right one. I shall have a look for the Atlantic crossing.

The 'Jan' version of Ian is new to me so I'll have a look.

D

daggers wrote: The 'Jan' version of Ian is new to me so I'll have a look.

Ignore it, just the transcript on the 1911 census, even the birth reg says Ian.

The Devon death has a Probate to match it, unfortunately one of the newer ones that doesn't give a great deal of info but at least it gives where he was living.

Is this Teresa in 1901 living in Oxton?

https://familysearch.org/search/record/ ... id=1888129

Alison

I think you may have cracked it with your find of Teresa. She was with her three living children in 1891 and 1911, and had moved from Wigan to Essex at some time between. Her two sons have turned up at different places in the 1901 census, but I have not found her daughter Annie, who was born at Wigan in 1886. There are two possibles I found, both in domestic service, without enough to clinch it but both giving Liverpool as place of birth.

Searching direct on both Ancestry and FMP failed to bring up the Oxton result, but your link via familysearch did the trick. Thanks very much for helping.

Daggers

Daggers,

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/ss ... h=20181529

As Ancy have transcribed Morris as MErris, I am not surprised it did not come up for me! I should have left the 'exact' unticked.
Thanks, Bert
D

Bert, you have scored another bullseye!
I have just received the death cert for Thomas Morris who died at Sculcoates in Jan 1900. The age and occupation (colliery engineer) match his details.
The sad part is that he took his own life - the first I have come across in my extended family in 40 + years of research.
It is not surprising that his own family was spread about among other relatives.
My thanks again.
Daggers

Good result, however, sad.

That is sad, glad I haven't come across any in my family so far.

Wondered whether there might have been something in the newspapers but I couldn't find anything.