Cataloguing Project – Seasonal Update

My cataloguing project started earlier this year has been progressing. With thousands of Thomas Bowrey’s manuscripts to work on, it will some time before it is completed so new volunteers will continue to be welcomed. Meanwhile, there may be people who can switch off completely whilst they transcribe but, like many of you I suspect, my brain is always looking for familiar names and I thought I would share with you some interesting ones I have noticed.

The following all had some connection with one of the East India Companies in 1706:

• Grinling Gibbons – the woodcarver who worked on St Paul’s Cathedral and other prestigious projects
• Hans Sloane – whose collection formed the basis of the British Museum
• Thomas Guy – who founded Guy’s Hospital
• And finally, if you ever wanted to know Santa’s surname, St Nicholas Watts

Wishing you a wonderful Christmas and a very happy 2022.

Bowry Family Papers in Birmingham – An Update

31 July 2020 seems an age ago. In terms of how the World has changed in that time it was. One of the things that I have missed most during the pandemic has been visiting archives. It is not simply the joy of research but the single-minded peace of it. With dehumidifiers roaring away in my study for weeks, the peace of an archive has been even more alluring.

Thus, it was with huge joy that I was finally able to schedule a visit to the Wolfson Centre for Archival Research at the Library of Birmingham this week. You may recall that I discovered some more Bowry family papers there shortly after the end of our first lockdown:  https://captainthomasbowrey.wordpress.com/2020/07/31/bowry-family-papers-in-birmingham/ Archives were still closed and vaccination was still in the future.

On Wednesday, I waiting eagerly for the library to open. I was well prepared, clutching my two proofs of identity, having made my application for one of the new archive cards online in advance. My table had already been allocated and the folder containing the batch of documents was sitting waiting.

First, though, I asked if there was any information about the acquisition of the papers in addition to what was available in the online catalogue. I really should have guessed. Similarly to the Essex papers, there was less information than is usual about the Bowry Family Papers. They did not even have a record of when they were acquired.

The folder held just six items: three small pieces of paper [tha largest less that A5 size], a folded paper with a tiny seal attached by tape and two roughly A5-sized booklets [one bound traditionally and one stitched] without covers.

I started with item six, the paper relating to the bill of lading. It had been signed by Bowrey but most of the signature was missing. The corner had been torn off. Whoever catalogued the item is unlikely to have recognised the signature unless they were as familiar with it as I am. The remaining item appeared to be in a much earlier had that I did not recognised as Philip Gardiner’s. [Gardiner was Bowrey’s father-in-law and the only person in Bowrey’s known circle who wrote with a similar, difficult to read archaic hand.] Item one, the copy of lectures by Master Wyet in the Statute of Merton in the stitched booklet, was dated 1565. The remaining items could have been of a similar date. Regrettably, the commonplace book did not yield any of the clues to its origin I had hoped.

Although items one to five may have been connected to Thomas Bowrey’s family, there was nothing beyond the catalogue entry to suggest this. The most likely explanation for the source of these manuscripts is John Humphreys, the president of the Birmingham Archaeological Society at the time the Bowrey papers were discovered in the attic at Cleeve Prior. He was the person who identified the original owner of the papers and may have retained one document. Perhaps, after his death, the bill of lading was discovered with five other unrelated documents and passed to a suitable repository, eventually ending up at the Wolfson Centre.

It would have been wonderful to have made an exciting find that added to my understanding of Thomas Bowrey’s family but it was not to be. Am I disappointed? No. It was just so nice to be back in an archive again. The [relatively] new Library of Birmingham was impressive, and I can tick off returning to public transport again after so long.

Are you up for a 17th & 18th-century adventure? Looking For Volunteers

I am looking for volunteers for a 17^th & 18^th-century adventure.

I have written many times on this blog about my hope to catalogue all the names included in the papers of Captain Thomas Bowrey. I have also mentioned how I found it impossible to apply myself to this task during lockdown. I have realised that I need help and reached out through Family Tree magazine.

Are you up for a 17th & 17th-century adventure? – Family Tree (family-tree.co.uk)

The project has started. This morning, I had the first introductory Zoom meeting with a volunteer from Australia but I am still hoping there may be more volunteers.

If you would like to take part, please get in tough through my contacts page. Contact – . (wordpress.com)

Stalking Yourself and Your Book

OK, admit it, you have Googled yourself at least once, haven’t you?

If you have had a book published, I am sure that you have Googled that as well. I admit it. I have done both as well as regularly checking Amazon to seen if I have sold one recently. It is disappointing to see how quickly second-hand copies of your book can be found for sale on other websites.

What I had not thought to do previously is check Jeopardy of Every Wind on WorldCat, the World’s largest network of library content and services I used to track down the only surviving copy of the second edition of Thomas Hyde’s Four Gospels in Malay said to have been produced by Thomas Bowrey.  I did check this morning, and I am so impressed to see the distinguished libraries that have a copy:

• University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies
• National University of Singapore
• Askews and Holts Library Services Ltd Preston
• Universitätsbibliothek Marburg Germany
• Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg, Zentralbibliothek Frankfurt Germany
• West Virginia University at Parkersburg
• National Library Board, Singapore

I understand why SOAS and the Singapore libraries have copies, but it is still gratifying. Germany was not a surprise. I received considerable interest from there before publication.

According to their website [Askews And Holts Library Services], Askews and Holts provides:

a wide range of solutions to Public, School and Academic Libraries and other businesses both in the U.K. and overseas, including shelf ready processing, supplier selection services, bibliographic content, multi-media material, eBooks, promotional support and market leading web technology. 

The most surprising is the West Virginia University at Parkersburg, a community college that boasts as being one of the most affordable. I am so glad that I did not use the description of Virginia as the fag end of the world from one of Bowrey’s correspondents.

The Joy of Writing Returns

One of my original objectives for this blog, one that I have not fully met, was to document the experience of becoming an author. It is about time I said a little more on the subject.

Those of you who have followed this blog from the beginning will know that I had no idea how to write a biography when I first decided to write Thomas Bowrey’s. If you had asked me at the time what form it would take, I probably would have described a worthy, dissertation-style book. This led to my early attempts being described by my husband as boring. Frankly, if it was boring to write, it was likely to be boring for my reader.

Luckily, I discovered Gill Blanchard’s Writing Your Family History classes. I grew to await each new lesson with excitement. I found that I was enjoying writing and, hopefully, this improved what I wrote. But what no one tells you is that the final stages of getting a book published is not so much fun. Once you have written that final word, the real working of checking, responding to edits, proof reading and indexing starts. You no longer love what you have written. There are passages you know by heart. Yet I have been told that my book needed little editing. It could have been worse? In parallel with this, I was writing promotional talks and articles. Again, this felt more like a chore than fun.

Perhaps the actual publication would have been more exciting it we were not in lockdown at the time. Much of our life since last March may have been digital, some people have even had digital parties, but posting on YouTube cannot be compared with sharing an occasion with real people, face-to-face. As lockdown loomed and then restrictions continued, one-by-one scheduled talks were cancelled. I no longer felt I wanted to write yet was cajoled into producing a paper on Thomas’ links with Borneo despite there being little direct evidence of this. Would I ever want to write again?

Throughout this I have continued my involvement with the writing support group formed of those graduating from Gill’s courses. Late last year we held our first virtual writing workshop. This week we held our second. This time I have no specific objective. There is no pressure, just the simple pleasure of putting a story onto paper. The joy of writing has returned.

17th Century Miserable Christmases

If you believe Christmas 2020 has been ruined perhaps you should spare a thought for our ancestors and others in other parts of the World now.

Thomas Bowrey may have been too young to understand but his first Christmas, aged three months, was one where many were simply hoping that there next would be better. The Restoration was still some months away. In 1644 an ordinance had been issues that abolished the feast of Christmas. Even a special Christmas church service was illegal. Shops and markets were required to stay open by law. Soldiers patrolled the streets of London ensuring that the rules were followed. With the possibility of the return of the king in the air, many were surely thinking 1660 would be better than the one they were experiencing and Thomas’ second Christmas was a joyous one.

Not so Christmas 1683. In the lead up to the holy day, Thomas had been battling with his shipbuilder to get the Borneo Merchant completed on schedule. Eventually, it was. We know this because on Christmas Day cargo was being loaded onto it in Fort St George. Thomas was unable to enjoy his success. The contracts signed by those freighting goods on his ship included the clause that the ship was to be commanded by Captain Thomas Bowrey or, in the case of his death which God forbid, by Robert Masfen.

Thomas spent the Christmas seriously ill with what was almost certainly malaria. In the middle of a pandemic, it is easy to forget that, according the to the Bill and Belinda Gates Foundation:

Malaria exacts a massive toll on human health and imposes a heavy social and economic burden in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, An estimated 219 million people suffered from the disease in 2017 and about 435,000 died. [These are greatly reduced number compared with last century.] More than 90 percent of the deaths were in Africa, and over 60 percent were among children under 5.

Still think that your 2020 Christmas has been ruined? So far the official total number of cases of COVID-19 is only just over a third of the likely number of cases of malaria this year. I accept that there have been in the region of four times the number of deaths from our current corona virus than likely malaria deaths this year but malaria will likely stay with those who have caught it for the rest of their lives and then may eventually kill them. It appears that Long COVID may be relatively short term although, of course, we cannot know at this stage.

Our plans may not be what we had hoped for but, if the Grinch has ruined Christmas, you can still have a very special day and be grateful that you can enjoy it in good health and realistic hope for a better one in 2021.

Singapore Writers Festival

The Singapore Writers Festival is now underway and Jeopardy of Every Wind: The Biography of Captain Thomas Bowrey is featured in their Hot of the Press section: https://swfbooks.com/pages/fresh-jeopardy-of-every-wind

Needless to say, this year’s festival and its book store are digital – very far from the romantic dream of flying out to Singapore to do book signings in the tropics. Rather anyone visiting is to be subjected to a cringe-worthy video of me complete with mispronunciation of Malay words. I did try hard to get it right but, like much else on the Internet, it seems that there are duff pronunciation guides as well – and I found them.

The self-video I recorded took a couple of days to get as right as I could get it but I picked up a few new skills on the way. My publisher put the rest together and chose the subject matter. I cannot claim responsibility for that. Both of us would have liked to include more but we had a strict time limit.

I would say “enjoy!” but I think I would rather you did not watch. You have been warned.

Third Time Lucky

In January this year I was scheduled to talk to the Peterborough & District FHS but there was a mix-up about the venue and it never happened. It was not a great day. Two days earlier my car had broken down [coincidentally in Peterborough] and was still in the garage waiting for parts. I had travelled by train, in heavy rain, and intended to return home the same way. Unfortunately, there was severe disruption on the railways that evening and my train became a dreaded replacement bus service. Even that was not smooth and we spent nearly an hours, in the rain, waiting for the bus but I did, eventually, arrive home safely.

It was not my last pre-coronavirus outing but was fresh enough in my memory for me to occasionally think that at least lockdown meant no such journeys.

All my remaining talks planned for the first half of 2020 were cancelled because of the pandemic. More recently, as COVID-19 persisted, the remaining talks I had scheduled were abandoned. One of those talks was to be to the Peterborough society. However, it was rearranged for yesterday evening on Zoom. The first Zoom meeting for them – and the first for me where I was to contribute.

With so many human and technical elements involved and my history with the society, the potential for success was not promising. During the afternoon my laptop took it upon itself to update its operating system and my broadband started to grind very slowly. I had my tablet as a back-up but, at times, I could do nothing on that either. Still, I had already recorded my presentation and sent a copy to the organiser so there was back-up but it was not looking great.

However, in the end, the update completely with more than an hour to spare and the broadband speed picked up again [probably in consequence] and the evening went well. Turn out was good with many members clearly happy to see friend for the first time in many months. It seems that Zoom meetings are likely to become a permanent fixture for many family hstory societies. Face-to-face meeting provide welcome social contact but online meeting enable members from further afield to take part. In the New Norm the two formats are likely to continue side-by-side.

Oh, yes, my talk? I spoke about the papers of Thomas Bowrey as a case study in how private papers can be used in family history research.

Jeopardy of Every Wind & COVID19 – Update

Back in March, my husband and I thought that we had adopted a realistic view of the pandemic. Unlike many, we though the precautions were likely to last much longer than a “couple of weeks”. However as things progressed, even we thought that we could move around relatively freely during August and September. We booked a trip to Eastbourne. We would have been there now. We are not. We have underlying health conditions such that we know that we would not respond well should we catch the virus and cancelled our plans. Yet again, it seems that we were just a little ahead of the curve and regulations have been tightened again.

One of the consequences has been that family history, and other, societies that were about to consider restarting their meetings have reversed plan. They are now starting to reassess their options. Some small societies have been struggling. They have had to find ways of maintaining members interests and sense of belonging. The organiser of a relatively new family history group has been producing a newsletter ever ten days. In my view, this is a mammoth task for one individual so I have produced a number of articles for her.

Other societies are moving to online talks using Zoom or other means. I have one provisional booking for this year and my one booking for 2021 is likely to be converted to a Zoom meeting.

Back in May, my UK book launch at the London Metropolitan Archives had to be postponed. They only reopened to the public last week. It will be a long time before my “book launch” can be reorganised and, by then, it will need to be repurposed. Back at the beginning of this year, my publisher thought that Jeopardy of Every Wind may have launched in Asia first. I even hoped that I may be able good in person. In the end, that did not happen but my book was one of the relatively few to be released into a locked down world and I have had some wonderful comments sent to me. [Although, that my publisher would prefer that they had posted reviews online.]

This week he emailed me saying:

COVID is causing havoc with book releases and publishers are desperately worried they might be releasing books into a void. The UK distributor has stock though, so whenever you do hold a UK Zoom meeting do mention that the book is available to order from all bookstores.

I will add that, if any of my followers have not yet purchased a copy, Amazon are currently selling Jeopardy at a discount.

The positive news is that Jeopardy of Every Wind will now be getting its Asia launch at the  at the [virtual] Singapore Writers Festival 2020 taking place between 30 October and 8 November. I shall be there, also virtually. Another positive is that many more people should be able to attend than in a more normal world. Perhaps I will see you there.