Family Tree
The family of William James Hill and Jane Ainsley
Children of Jane and William James Hill. Inscribed "With Christmas Greetings 1912"
Mary, Nell, Fred
Harry
Jack, Jim
Jane Ainsley (42-6 on William C Ainsley's Family Tree) married William James Hill in 1903, only one month before she gave birth to their first child, and we have always been told that the family moved to the north east of England to find work and that William James Hill was one of the workforce employed to build Crimdon Railway Viaduct which opened in 19051. However this would have been relatively short-lived employment and in the 1911 census he is recorded as a miner. At this time the mines were booming and were by far the biggest employers in the area.
Blackhall Colliery was opened in 1909 but did not start to produce coal until 19142. In the 1911 census WJ Hill is recorded as being a colliery sinker which fits perfectly - he would have been occupied in the work of sinking the shafts to enable the coal seams to be reached. At this time they had five children and the census records them as living in a two room house 30 Second Street, Blackhalls Colliery, Castle Eden, Durham - it's hard to imagine how they managed. In the schedules a kitchen would count as a room but the houses on Second Street are all two bedroom terraces so maybe there was an error filling in the form.
William and Jane went on to have seven more children later moving to Ninth Street and East Street in Blackhall, still only two bedroom houses. From Harry's (42-9) service papers we know that the Hill family were at 41 New 9th St, Black Halls Colliery, Castle Eden in 1918. They were living in 16 East Street when my father, Robert Ainsley, was born. Fred was the only child born in Bilsdale at Bridge End Cottage, Eller Bridge - all the other children were born in the north east.
| William James Hill ch 01-05-1881 d 24-01 1943 m 18-07-1903 Jane Ainsley (42-6) ch 13-01-1884 d 1926 |
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| Fred b 18-08-1903 d 25-01-1992 m 1932 Amy Cass |
Hannah Mary b 28-01-1905 d 1982 m 1929 Thomas H Foster |
John (Jack) b 01-01-1907 d 18-12-1989 m 1928 Annie A (Millie) Barrow |
William James (Jim) b 31-10-1908 d 17-09-1988 m 1932 Kate Elizabeth Hamilton |
Margaret Ellen (Nell) b 09-11-1910 d ---10-1991 m 1931 Norman Bentham | Harry b 18-01-1912 d 04-05-1993 m 1937 Freda Beswick |
Eva Charity b 19-06-1913 d 06-04-1985 |
Thomas Stephen b 1915 d ---03-1929 |
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| Jean b 1916 d 1917 aged 1 yr |
Elsie Ann b 1918 d ---04-1932 |
Dorothy Jane b 17-01-1920 d 24-12-1974 m |
Edith May b 1921 d 1921 |
Bessie Marjorie Annie b 28-06-1922 d 14-09-1996 |
Joseph Alan b 1924 d 1925 aged 1 yr |
Robert Ainsley b 12-02-1925 d 17-02-2007 m 22-09-1951 Roma Muriel Budden |
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William James Hill husband of Jane née AinsleyMy dad remembered his father as a very hard man and did not really like talking about him. None of his memories were good: how his father forced him to go down the pit at the age of thirteen even though his Uncle Steve (Ainsley - his mother's brother) had wanted to take him as a blacksmith's apprentice, which was what dad wanted, how he made him drown unwanted kittens. Nan was their father's favourite and had fonder memories of him - bizarrely the one she mentioned was of him putting the bed legs into cans of water to stop insects (I think - maybe it was mice) climbing up them! Some of my older cousins remember W J Hill and none of them have a good word to say about him - in most he seemed to inspire fear.
My mum looks on anxiously at the christening of their first child as the Hill women take over, as usual!
Robert, Jack, Fred
Roma, Dorrie, Nan, ?
Eva, Millie, Amy
Nell
I don't remember much about the elder members of this family. The men were all coal miners. Mining was a reserved occupation during the Second World War, though my father tried hard to enlist he was sent back home!
None of them moved away from the north east, staying very close to where they - apart from Fred - were born. Fred, Amy and their four children lived in Blackhall Rocks very close to Eva, Nan and Dorrie. When I met him he seemed to be a mild man, fond of his garden.
I remember Mary as being very thin but not much else about her. She and Tommy had three children.
Jack married a lovely woman in Millie - she was a very jolly person who worked in a chocolate factory and I vividly remember receiving a huge box of chocolates one year for my birthday. Their house was very cosy, a coal fire in the front room grate in front of which Jack would have his bath each time he came home from a shift at the pit in the days before pit-head showers and domestic bathrooms were installed. He mended clocks and watches - somewhere a cuckoo clock of ours languishes. When I was due to be born my elder sister got something stuck up her nose and my mum took her to Jack who gave her a pinch of snuff - certainly did the trick - and I arrived early! They had two sons.
Jim and Kit on holiday
Jim, I think, was dad's favourite. He suffered badly from emphysema in later life. He joined the Royal Navy in 1927 and served for twelve years until May 1939 on HMS Hermes, Malcolm, Valiant, Cambrian, Ramillies, Brilliant, Hussar, Skipjack and Saltash. On the 3rd May 1939 he was released to shore, continuous service expired, and on the following day enrolled in the Royal Fleet Reserve. On 31st July 1939 he was mobilised for war service and he continued on HMS Emerald, Effingham, Victory, Alecto, Evolution, Ellison, Hannibal and Odyssey - periods aboard ship were interspersed with time at HMS Pembroke which was a Royal Navy Barracks at Chatham. On 6th November 1945 he was released Class "A" and then re-enrolled into the Royal Fleet Reserve. In the navy he began as a Stoker 2nd Class in 1927, promoted Stoker 1st Class March 1928, Acting Leading Stoker September 1935, Leading Stoker September 1936, Acting Stoker Petty Officer September 1940 and finally Stoker Petty Officer September 1941. He and Kitty had no children. On his death certificate his occupation is given as "Fitter (retired)". My dad wrote some recollections of him:
Joined the Royal Navy when 18. Hitched a lift on a lorry to Newcastle, he, Jack Darwin and "Tucker" Sullivan. The lorry took off, Jack Darwin failed to get on, became a miner. Jim signed on for 12 yrs service and three reserve. Served 12 yrs after round the world, China and Japan for three years stint without home leave. Became an engineer at the North Steel Works Hartlepool 1939. War broke out 1939, he was called up within days. Was sunk twice, once off Tobermory on a submarine supply ship by a Heinkel bomber (Tucker Sullivan went down on the HMS Hood, biggest blow to the Navy in the War). Jim was on HMS Effingham, she was a cruiser going to supply the army in Norway. She hit a submerged reef in a fiord and sank in 20 minutes, without loss of life.
(Jim) was in the Italian campaign a lot longer than he bargained for. While supplying troops and provisions Jim was part of the sailors conducting this operation when on landing the ship suddenly pulled up anchor - German submarine was reported in the area. He and a few others were attached to the army until further orders. Jim was given a motor bike and the job of a courier. He was one of the first men to enter the Fiat car factory, he said it was quite an experience, brand new jeeps were standing ready to be driven off, and they were!! Served under the army for some considerable time, until night bombers were heard, all vehicles were pulled over to one side of the road except one Yank who left his jeep in the middle in pitch black darkness. Jim hit the jeep and had a severe injury to his face. He was invalided out of the navy and was given a job with the armed forces as a quartermaster in the European campaign.
When he was demobbed his job was waiting for him and he settled down. His wife Kitty was overjoyed, a rather shy woman, they were very well suited to each other.
Jim was the brother I liked most, of course he always brought home some gifts and looked very splendid in his uniform, he was a lovely bloke.
Norman Bentham outside the prefab home where he and Nell lived
Nell was another very thin sister. Her husband Norman was killed in a motorcycle accident. I can remember as a child visiting her with my mum - she lived in a prefab for a while - one of the "temporary" houses erected with prefabricated walls after the second world war and which remained for decades. They had two sons.
Freda
Harry was always very smart with fine moustaches, good fun and fond of a drink. He had a fine singing voice - so had my dad and I can still see them singing together at family gatherings. He was clever enough to go to the Grammar School but his family couldn't afford the uniform. His wife Freda was another lovely woman. At Christmas and New Year various family members would give parties and the food at Freda's was always more interesting - that was where I first came across stuffed olives. She worked in a hotel so no doubt was exposed to some of the finer things in life there. She died of leukaemia. They had one son.
I think having to look after her younger siblings when her mother died made Eva somewhat bitter (though her elder sisters Mary and Nell must have also taken some responsibility until they left to marry in 1929 and 1931 respectively). Mum does not have very fond memories of that period of her life when she first moved to the north - initially she and dad had to live with Eva, Nan and Dorrie until they got their own home after the birth of their first child. She was a southern girl who had to grow up fast. If their mother Jane had been alive I think she would have sympathised with her, she herself having come to the north east of England from a quite different environment. Dad had to return to the mines as this was pretty much the only employment on offer and he hated it.
These three sisters lived together for most of their lives - Nan in particular was very much dominated by Eva. Dorrie - or Jane as she later wanted to be called - married and escaped but developed rheumatoid arthritis and spent her final years in a Sunderland hospital. My mother visited her frequently. Eva was a geriatric nurse at Hartlepool General Hospital - this was the same hospital where Alan Colpitts Ainsley became so eminent. She and Nan never married and I think Eva was jealous of my mum and her happy, close family. As children we girls would spend weekends with the sisters - having to share a room with Eva was not great - she snored horrendously! But I enjoyed the shopping trips with Nan on Saturday, and roast chicken for Sunday dinner - chicken was a luxury then, in the days before factory farming. Though very strongly influenced by Eva, Nan was not shy and retiring - she very efficiently supervised the cleaning staff at the General Hospital at Hartlepool before these services were contracted out. She was devastated when Eva died. She behaved very divisively in her will, though.
Dorrie was another of the siblings who dressed well - she seemed to spend most Saturdays shopping. She was terrified of thunderstorms and would hide in a cupboard under the stairs. Her house was always immaculate - so much so that you were worried about disturbing things or even sitting comfortably! She had no children.
Harry, Eva, Nan and Dorrie holidayed in Europe at a time when it was becoming more popular each year to go abroad. Harry's main interest was the bars - like my dad he enjoyed talking to people - with the sisters determined to get a good tan on the beach. Freda wasn't too keen as she couldn't really take the sun.
Thomas Stephen and Elsie Ann died very young - we were told they had some kind of disease which prevented them from getting through puberty but what this could be I don't know.
Robert and Roma shortly before they were marriedMy dad was the youngest and never knew his mother as she died the year after he was born. He was effectively brought up by Eva. I don't think he cared too much for his sisters, Nell and Mary in any case were so much older. He looked up to Harry but loved best his brother Jim. He was forced by his father to work in the pit but hated it - one time a steel hawser snapped and badly gashed his ear and he had a blue-black scar for the rest of his life. As soon as he could he left to work on building houses, becoming a plasterer and tiler and eventually a master of all kinds of building skills. He retrained at one point as a welder. He was very good with his hands and made lots of bits of furniture: cupboards, headboards and the usual bookshelves.
He loved the sea and sea fishing - also fishing in Scottish lochs, though not in rivers. He used to go very early out to sea with his mates. For most of his life he had an allotment where he grew fruit, vegetables and flowers - he was a champion leek-grower! He made a mean curry, leaving the kitchen a total mess, and loved to go out with mum and friends on a Saturday evening and also on Sunday morning with his mates for a drink before dinner - this was when he was at his happiest, just before he went out, whistling and singing as he got ready. He loved going to Spain and quickly made friends there. In fact he could make friends anywhere - he knew the people of my elder sister's village better than she did!
He was a good water colour artist, which he developed more when he retired - we all have paintings of his and mum has lots. Usually they were rural subjects and he did several of Durham cathedral.
A Scottish scene, Robert Ainsley Hill
He married Roma when she was only 19. She was a tailoress in Leamington Spa at the time, dad was working there, and I think she must have got quite a shock coming to a coal mining community in the north east to a large family whose women wanted to run everything. They had four children and family was the most important thing to both of them. Parties at our house were the best, everyone joined in, no standing on ceremony, children were, of course, allowed and everyone had a good time. At bonfire night mum made leek and cheese pie and lots of other good things and everyone brought fireworks - we had so many they were often lighting them by the dozen late into the evening.
When dad died we scattered his ashes on a blustery sunny day in the fields at the foot of the moors behind Spout House in Bilsdale.
References
- The Durham Coastal Footpath through the District of Easington [PDF]
- Website of the Durham Mining Museum - Blackhall Colliery www.dmm.org.uk/colliery/b006.htm
Last updated September 2013