Ancestry

What is the purpose of your visit to the United Kingdom? Asked the Official holding her passport

Conducting research?

‘Are you academic associated with a University?’

‘No, we are undertaking personal research on our ancestry’ responded Alice

How long are you visit and where would you stay in London?

‘We hope to be here for the next three months and may cross over to France during this time.' 

Alice took out her wallet and produced a number of documents that provided all details of her booking and credit card and further details from her sister Jane.

The official stamped their passports, as they were leaving he said.

‘Don’t forget your book’, and as he hold it up a photograph fell out. It was a photograph of a painting her grandaunt have given them as reference.

‘Nice lady she looks like you’ said the official.

‘Thanks, said Janet as she took the photo and placed it into the inside of her book on Benjamin Franklyn, by Walter Isaacson, and move forward.

‘Do you think she looks like me?’ Janet asked me

‘No, she looks like Aunt Lorna when she was young.’

It was a cold Friday in mid-March and after settling in our accommodation we went out to check the great city of London. We visited the Buckingham area and being too tired they went home and slept well. Following morning Saturday, they sat at breakfast deciding what they were going to do.

They had an appointment on the following Monday with a friend of someone in the family that was a retired university professor and have offered to help us with our research.

 ‘Why don’t we go to Halstead and see if we can find something about Sarah there. That is where she was born according to our records.’ Suggested Janet

We checked where Halstead was on the map, made some inquiries and took the train trip from London to Halstead in Sussex. It was only about half an hour by train. And soon they were in a typical English village. We walked up Market Hill, inspected the Church of Saint Andrews and wandered about the river and for a while join the walking tour of the Broaks Woods.

I am hungry said Janet’ shall we try to find something to eat. We found a bakery and we ordered some food and sat there looking at our papers and wondering if they should have contacted the church and find out about records when someone across our table asked if they needed some information about the town.

‘No, we just wanted to see if we could find about birth records’.

Ha! You have to make some appointments to see records. What years are you looking about?’ Said the old lady and came over to our table and sat with us.    

‘1749’ we responded

‘Well, this is a time of change. The eighteen century is an exciting time for England. Look, the Hanoverian king’s period represents the ascendency of the British Empire. It is a time when the government was able to raise taxes and loans to support aggressive military policies and the superiority of the Royal Navy. A time where England established herself as the leading great power and London as its capital was the most influential city in the world. It is a period of rapid migration; from the land to London and later to the industrial cities. ... It is the dawn of the industrial revolution that encouraged people’s movement from the land to the industrial towns. And there is a great movement of people everywhere within the Empire.

Why did people leave, a place like this, a nice country village? We asked

‘Well, the farmers adopted a number of new methods. One of the most important was the use of land that in previous years had been left fallow, by introducing crops of turnips and clover that became renowned for improving soil fertility. Then there were innovations on implements, some we borrowed from the Chinese and the Dutch. In addition, there was better land management practices, the controversial removal of common lands allowed for the use of the land in a more orderly manner and to adopt better farming practices. The results were better crop yields and the new practices created a surplus of labour.’

‘We are not very far from London but in those days it was far. But the continuous improvements to road and canals at the time made transport of agricultural products and livestock easier to London where there was a constant demand for food.’

‘In England there were, no internal barriers or tolls preventing the movements of goods or people.’ She continued

It was getting late and after some pleasantries, we left our newfound English friend, thank for all the information and promised that if they have time to come back they will ask for her in the Bakery.

‘Well, we knew that she was in London, because she had some papers allegedly belonging to Benjamin Franklin, and we knew that Franklin reside in London for many years.' Said Janet

‘And I am glad to find out that she could have easily have gone to London. If she was rich it would not have been a problem but if she was poor there were opportunities for her to go.’ I said feeling that we were already establishing something about this Sarah.    

Sunday we had a full day visiting Westminster Abbey, The Houses of Parliament, Piccadilly, Buckingham Palace, and Trafalgar Square and eventually have dinner in a Pub next to the Thames.

On the way back to our accommodation we got lost, we forgot that London is not a modern design city and its streets are not set in parallels and squares, but there it is full of twists and turns. We found ourselves in a place called Queen’s gates Mews which gave us a taste of old London Town, with cobblestones narrow streets and hanging flower baskets.

On Monday at nine-thirty, we met our host and expert on the period we wanted to explore.

‘What have impressed you the most in London?’ he asked

‘Everything’ said Janet

‘I was delighted last night we got a bit lost and found ourselves in Queens Gate Mews, beautiful!’ Was my response

‘Oh, yes the back streets and mews were lanes at the back of grand houses to accommodate horses and the servants living quarters and often where artisan and other service workers resided.’

‘Let’s study your lady. She was born in 1749 she was in London in 1775, she was twenty-six. Was she with her parents?

‘No, we don’t know’ was our response

Not married?

'No, she married in North Carolina in 1779'

‘What we want to find out is who was she? Said our host

Was she a servant? Did she have a patron to sponsor her? He continued

‘We don’t know’ I said

‘She could only be independent if she had an income under the terms of a trust. Otherwise, the only way a woman could be independent in those days was if she was a widow because she would inherit whatever was her husband in most circumstances.’ 

‘She had some relationship or somehow was in contact with Benjamin Franklin’ we insisted.

What does Benjamin Franklin do in London? The longest period Franklin was in London was from 1765 to 1775 and that will coincide with the period when Sarah could have resided in London when she was young. 

‘Yes, she was in Philadelphia in 1785 ’. I said

‘Let me see her portrait’ asked our host

She had a cheerful and warm expression, an oval face with light eyes, and her hair was light and not dressed in any particular style and lacking adorn. Her neck did not show jewels, only a section of her bodice and clothing was shown.  

Our host deducted that she may have been in an accommodated position but certainly not rich or nobility.

'You have already established that she was not a servant at any of Franklin friends.'

‘It could be that she was a servant of some acquiesces of Franklin’.

She is young, well presented, I envisage her dressed in a relatively modest and appropriate skirt, a bodice and a hair cup as was the fashion of the time.

 ‘Let’s get a feeling of London at the time.’ Said our host.

 ‘Let me draw a picture of London for you. During the eighteenth century, the population of London increased from about half a million in its early part to one million by the end of the century. You could find people from every corner of the Empire, from the Americas, Canada, to India and the Far East and Africa.   

With the increased population, obviously, there was a demand for accommodation. And this is a time of great real estate developments, to use our current terms. Amongst the once farming and rural areas a frenzy of building construction erupted.’  He continued.

‘I hope you are not getting bore by our lack of knowledge.’ Said Janet.

‘No, no. You have heard of the great fire of London in 1666. The fire left the city in ruins. There were three parts to London in those early days that still have some vestiges left. The parts were the city of London as such the Court of Westminster and Saint James and the Southwark or developments south of the river.’

‘The first aspect of London during this period is the construction activity. Mayfair is the most impressive example. It is within the city of Westminster and framed by Oxford Street, Regent Street and Piccadilly and Park Lane and some of the most significant developments to name a few would be Biltmore House, St George Hanover Square, Albemarle Street.’

‘After the Act of the Union of 1707 the Scots came down to London in masses and Georgian London was a Scottish city, though they often attracted hostility and one of the greatest architects of the era was the Scotsman James Gibbs, of whom his best know work would be St Martin in the Fields.

Richard Boyle another great architect of the era but he was Anglo Irish and responsible for the Burlington House in Mayfair.’

I fancy your lady in this part of London because the Southwark was not an attractive place, the increased population had created a need for cheap housing and a number of developments were taken by unscrupulous men and incidents of housing collapsing were not unusual. The streets were dirty horses droppings and even human waste was found as one walked in the streets. If you have read Oliver Twist or other stories of the time in London you understand this stage of affairs in that part of London. It was also the brothel area and Turnill Street in Clerkenwell was notorious.  

Parliament kept enacting legislation to improve conditions in London, such as the London Paving and Lightning Act and others to improve conditions but did not always in practice extended to the Southwark. 

London is at this time the centre of world trade, trade with the Americas, with the Far East, the variety and merchandises you could purchase in London was incredible. Sugar, tobacco, rice, tea. In the docks you could find, Chinese Indians, and African sailors and the permanent residents in parts of the city were as diverse, and included large communities of Irish, Huguenots and Jewish.

'But let me concentrate on your lady. Her name is Sarah Lamb? Just Lamb, Lambert? Lambeth?

‘We think that she had some relation with Franklin because in the family there is a belief that she held or had some papers belonging to Franklin.’ You have photocopies of those papers with you, and they seem to be notes, they are not dated and have no signature.

Yes, not very promising’ said my host

‘Can she read?’

‘We believe that she did’ we responded  

'Because the other significant aspect of London during this period was the amount of literature produced, the printing press encourage a number of periodicals newspapers and an array of pamphlets. And there was an increase in literacy in those days.

‘Let go to a Coffee House’ he continued

We thought that we were going somewhere and started to get up.

Here, he said taking a map and other papers copies of pictures or drawing or lithographs of the time.

‘London in those days was full of Coffee houses.’ He said to our surprise.

Were they getting coffee from Brazil? Asked my sister

‘No, no, from Turkey, the first coffee house in London was established by a Turk.’

Coffee Houses were centres of reunion, places where, business, was conducted and politics and trade were discussed. Gossip, satire and moralizing tales were also topics. Newspapers and pamphlets were free with the costs of admission. Coffee houses may have their own libraries with anything from the latest news from the colonies to current scandals.

Coffee houses had their particular clientele. Doctors, Inventors and practically most occupations had a Coffee House where to pursue their interests. Tom Coffee House was a meeting venue for bankers. Stockbrokers favoured Garraways and Jonathan Coffee Houses. The Latin Coffee House by St Paul was the favourite place of publishers. Probably the most famous was Lloyd’s Coffee House the centre of trading merchants, sailors and Insurance. 

Was Sarah working at a coffee house? Possibly

Was Franklin visiting Coffee Houses? Absolutely yes!

‘We all know about Franklin participation in the declaration of independence. But he was here in England for a long time.’

‘No doubt you are aware that Franklin he came as a colonial agent of the Pennsylvania Assembly. His mission was to complain about the political influence of the Penn family who held all the unsettled land of the colony and enjoyed the prerogative to overturn legislation from the elected Assembly'.

‘Yes’ I said we also know him as a scientist, inventor printer… a man of the Enlightenment. He invented a rod to prevent lightning from hitting buildings as a result of his kite experiment proving that that lightning was electricity.

‘Yes’ we continue ‘we know he invented bifocal; glasses, charted the Gulf Stream, invented a clean-burning stove, proposed theories on the contagiousness of the common cold. It would be an educated guess to suggest that he would frequent any of those Coffee Houses that specialized in any such interest. Politics and pursuing the Colonist cause would have been another reason for him visiting Coffee houses.

Would he be an attractive person, I don’t know but he like intelligent women, so his correspondence with various females indicates.  

The Handwriting is a clue that those writing are his. The content though is not clear enough to confirm they are his.

Our guest then stopped to look at the photocopies of the papers that allegedly were writing of Franklin, he stopped and went white looked at us and uttered something like yes, yes

We looked at him in disbelieve

‘What’ we asked

Our host was ecstatic, he was delighted he was nearly jumping, he took his glasses off, he wiped his face, he was delighted.

‘These are notes on Edmonds Burke’s famous speech in Parliament On Conciliation with America.

We were to meet again the next morning.

But before we left our accommodation to meet him, we received a call from home, it suggested that we return immediately as travelling was expected to be subjected to many restrictions in view of the event of Covid 19.

‘We left London disappointed but we now fancy that our Sarah may have been an assistant in a Coffee House, she might have mixed with great people of the age and possibly pick up the papers where Benjamin Franklin had scratched notes on a speech that because it was disregarded by the British Parliament at the time resulted in the Declaration of American Independence.