View Full Version : Who Do You Think You Are - Patrick Stewart 29th Aug
kiterunner
29-08-12, 09:05
This evening at 9 p.m. on BBC1. A Shakespearean actor best known for playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek The Next Generation!
I thought this was quite interesting - the production team constantly keepng the subject in the dark:
http://www.tvchoicemagazine.co.uk/interviewextra/patrick-stewart-who-do-you-think-you-are
I suppose that makes for better drama? I don't mean that in a derogatory way - I almost always enjoy the programme - but it makes for better viewing. It's the same when we make our discoveries really
The bit about not knowing where he was travelling to surprised me a bit as generally after some discovery or other is made the 'star' of the show says "so it looks as if I'll need to go to XYZ now" and then you see them on the train/plane etc - I never had the impression they didn't know where they were going. Maybe thy have to go back to film the links afterwards?
Thanks for the link Merry... sounds like another emotional rollercoaster ;(
He's a fine actor... I'm looking forward to seeing this one :)
Olde Crone
29-08-12, 20:39
Oh dear. I'm struggling to stay interested. It's a history lesson.
OC
WendyPusey
29-08-12, 21:02
I found it very interesting. OK not much on family history but interesting all the same.
kiterunner
29-08-12, 21:13
Episode Synopsis
Sir Patrick Stewart was born in 1940 in Mirfield, Yorkshire. He lives in London and Oxfordshire. The episode focussed on the story of his father, Alfred Stewart who died in 1980.
Patrick's mother was Gladys Barrowclough and he had two older brothers, Geoffrey and Trevor. Patrick had heard that his father joined the army before Geoffrey's birth, and that his parents didn't get married until Geoffrey was about 8 years old.
Patrick visited the Imperial War Museum in London where a researcher showed him Alfred's military records. It turned out that Alfred joined the army in February 1925, soon after Geoffrey's birth (28th Jan 1925) and that he married Gladys in 1933. He was a Lance Corporal in the Regimental Police. After a 7 year term in the army he returned to civilian life but when WW2 started, he joined a territorial battalion of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI).
The KOYLI were sent to France in 1940 to join the British Expeditionary Force and build a transport network. Patrick visited the town library in Abbeville, Picardy, to find out more about this. The KOYLI arrived at Abbeville just as it was being bombed by the Germans and they had to retreat. They didn't leave France from Dunkirk, but from Cherbourg, being among the last Allied troops to leave France.
Patrick was given a newspaper cutting from the local Mirfield newspaper about Sergeant Alfred Stewart's return from France, which stated that he had been promoted to Sergeant at the front and that he was suffering from shell shock.
Alfred had been promoted to Sergeant Major by 1942, and in 1943 he volunteered to join the Parachute Regiment at the age of 38. In August 1944 he took part in Operation Dragoon in the South of France. Patrick met a 92-year-old man called Dick Hargreaves who served with Alfred and heard that they had protected the Allied HQ in a village, which Patrick then visited.
In 1945 Alfred was appointed Acting Regimental Sergeant Major of the 2nd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment. The Regiment had lost a lot of troops at Arnhem and Alfred helped to rebuild the Regiment.
Patrick's eldest brother Geoffrey always suspected that Alfred wasn't his real father. Patrick visited the Registry of Deeds and looked at records of the Dewsbury Petty Sessions from the 15th of May 1925 which showed that Gladys Barrowclough brought a bastardy application against Alfred Steward. There was a document which showed that Alfred appeard in court and acknowledged the child, and was ordered to pay 10s per week until the child was 16 years old. So it seems that Alfred was indeed Geoffrey's father.
Patrick then met the Vice Chair of the charity Combat Stress to find out about shell shock and its connection to domestic violence, and then went to see his brother Trevor in Mirfield to share his findings with him.
As usual, I'm not in charge of the remote, so probably won't see it until tomorrow!
Margaret in Burton
29-08-12, 21:28
Oh dear. I'm struggling to stay interested. It's a history lesson.
OC
Me too. Kept falling asleep. A history lesson and a lecture on post traumatic stress.
I struggled to stay awake, I found it really boring.
Sue at the seaside
29-08-12, 21:40
As usual, I'm not in charge of the remote, so probably won't see it until tomorrow!
Likewise!
kiterunner
29-08-12, 21:43
They didn't even mention that Geoffrey's birth was re-registered after his parents' marriage, which might have been of interest to family historians.
Me too. Kept falling asleep. A history lesson and a lecture on post traumatic stress.
Isn't history what family history is all about? If you don't understand the events surrounding the decisions our dead ancestors made, even ones as closely connected as one's father, by knowing some of the social history also of the time, then personally I don't see the point in doing any family research at all. Its not just about collecting names, places, and dates.
I enjoyed it. Just because it focused on his father didn't make it boring at all. He had a violent father he didn't even see up to 5-years-old... and by looking at archives and the history of the time helped him to understand and accept him as a fellow human being.
Isn't history what family history is all about? If you don't understand the events surrounding the decisions our dead ancestors made, even ones as closely connected as one's father, by knowing some of the social history also of the time, then personally I don't see the point in doing any family research at all. Its not just about collecting names, places, and dates.
Yes but..... it got , shall we say, a little tedious?
As it was all it covered, just the generation pre Patrick.
I enjoyed it. Just because it focused on his father didn't make it boring at all. He had a violent father he didn't even see up to 5-years-old... and by looking at archives and the history of the time helped him to understand and accept him as a fellow human being.
I think they could have covered it as well, in less time though.
I'd like to have known where his mother came from too , and about his grandparents.
It DID help Patrick understand what made his father tick, but it didn't add a lot to what makes him who he is.
Olde Crone
30-08-12, 07:39
I wandered off long before the end, popped back once or twice to see if it had improved...not impressed.
Yes, history is important but this was a history lesson about the war. We could, as serious researchers, have found out all that background anyway, common to many other men, not just his father.
I felt this programme was more about Patrick coming to terms with his father. Interesting and compelling for HIM - but of little interest to anyone else - a bit like looking at someone else's holiday snaps! I really did not feel this was family history.
OC
I didn't feel very enthusiastic about this programme when I read the review in the Radio Times and didn't watch as my Mum is staying with me and we saw a dvd of "The King's Speech" instead.
After reading your reports I don't think I'll bother with seeing it on catch-up.
The husband felt he was watching a WW2 documentary on Military History, not WDYTYA - tend to agree.
Alfred was clearly a troubled man guilty of domestic violence. By concentrating purely on his military service, we learnt nothing about Alfred's earlier life and whether that, too, affected him. Where was he born? Who were his parents? Did Alfred's father serve in WW1? If the family were not from Mirfield, what brought them there? Was it mining? Gladys's father, Freedom Barrowclough, worked in the coal industry.
The husband felt he was watching a WW2 documentary on Military History, not WDYTYA - tend to agree.
Alfred was clearly a troubled man guilty of domestic violence. By concentrating purely on his military service, we learnt nothing about Alfred's earlier life and whether that, too, affected him. Where was he born? Who were his parents? Did Alfred's father serve in WW1? If the family were not from Mirfield, what brought them there? Was it mining? Gladys's father, Freedom Barrowclough, worked in the coal industry.
I still haven't watched the program, but if Alfred is the one from South Shields, his father isn't at home in 1911, nor 1901 or 1891 and I don't have time to try and work out who he was right now. Was at home enough to have 10 children though!
This must be the parents as Jane says married 30 years in 1911 and at least one child has middle name Cossom:
Marriages Mar 1881
COSSOM Jane Tynemouth 10b 301
STEWART James Irvine Tynemouth 10b 301
kiterunner
30-08-12, 09:05
Here is the unseen footage, but again, it's about what life would have been like for his father in the army:
http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/footage/13789
I suppose the researcher looked at dad's upbringing, but couldn't see anything to warrant a mention in the programme. Perhaps they should at least have devoted a couple of minutes to it, if only to say they had found nothing of consequence. I suppose the programme isn't supposed to be teaching you to do your own tree, just telling the interesting part of someone elses.
Just been reading a Daily Telegraph article from 2007 about PS written by Nick Barrett, as well as a few other interviews in newspapers. Again quite a bit is abt his father, inc much of what was aired last night. Before WW2, Alfred worked as a labourer and post man. He was sober during the week, but could become violent after drinking at the weekend. Alf was also a committed trade unionist and Labour supporter. PS's first memories of elections were aged 6 when he was left outside a polling station.
However, the DT feature does reveal more about Gladys's family. She was a textile weaver and came from a family of miners, Methodists, involved with the WMCs.
It also states that PS spent much of his childhood in Jarrow. His grandfather was named William Stewart who at some point worked as a stage carpenter.
kiterunner
30-08-12, 09:38
They said at the beginning that you had to be quite an intimidating kind of person to serve in the regimental police and that seemed to fit with his personality as his sons knew him, but of course he was in the regimental police long before his WW2 experiences. I suppose it just makes me think that we don't know whether he was just the same before WW2 or if it really did change him as they were suggesting in the programme.
Oh, so the one b in South Shields wasn't the right one then!
kiterunner
30-08-12, 12:27
There are a couple of Alfred Stewarts born in Scotland in 1905 and one age 5-6 on the 1911 Scottish census, in Renfrewshire, with a William in the same household. There isn't much information about the Stewart side of the family in the Nick Barrett article, so I don't know whether Alfred came from Scotland:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1435150/Family-detective.html
As I'd neither seen the program or read anything about Alfred I made the mistake of not thinking about him possibly being a Scot. His date of death in England (another assumption by me!) tied in with a birth in Shields, which is where I went wrong! lol
*slinks back under stone*
I'm not sure the programme was the right place for this. The subject matter, ie. an account of one man's career in the Regimental police. Difficult to tell, but he certainly in his photos looked a 'hard' man - tightlipped and never smiling and I'd guess a strict disciplinarian... all I kept thinking was Gawd help those poor soldiers who came up against him (Reminiscent of Mackay in Porridge.:) A dour Scot!
Would have lightened it a bit if they'd told us something of his background, was his own father much the same, so that's where he got the personality. I certainly didn't think 'the war changed him' from what we saw.
And what of Patrick's mother - what a bad time she must have had, let alone the children :rolleyes: Not a happy home life by all accounts.
But a rather too 'personal' sop to a well-known actor and not a lot to do with family history in general.
In the article I linked to towards the start of this thread Patrick said he was hoping to learn more about one of his grandfathers, so I wonder if he was disappointed with how the programme went?
Dug up a few more clues looking at other interviews, etc.
D Tel 12/1/2007 quote: 'My father was born near Jarrow.'
Wikipedia on Jarrow: PS 'spent most of his childhood in Jarrow'.
A message board comment said that in a talk he'd given he stated that his dad came from Hebburn.
I'm sure in the show he said that his mother never left Mirfield. So were the three boys brought up by grandparents?
The family in South Shields could still be the correct one. The grandfather who was a theatre carpenter may have been his maternal grandfather.
Also another posting I saw stated that his grandfather (not specified which) was a Jarrow marcher. However, there are no Cossoms or Stewarts in the list of marchers. Mind you, some were meant to go on the march but were ill.
Ddi they mention if Alfred had a middle name? I picked the death reg from looking at the marriage which had no middle name. The death reg gave a dob of end of March 1905 which is what led me to the Shields birth. It's too much for me to look as I'm on my phone and in the car (not driving, but wobbly!)
Also another posting I saw stated that his grandfather (not specified which) was a Jarrow marcher.
James Irvine Stewart died in the late 1920s, so perhaps it was the other grandfather who was a Jarrow marcher? (unless James is the wrong family, but your last couple of posts have made me think perhaps I had the right people all along (by luck, rather than by proper judgement!)
Did they mention if Alfred had a middle name?
Don't recall them mentioning a middle name.
Also have double-checked the 2007 DT article and it did say that the grandfather was named William Stewart.
Also Patrick named his eldest son Daniel Freedom Stewart after his maternal grandfather.
Also have double-checked the 2007 DT article and it did say that the grandfather was named William Stewart.
Interesting as that means the Shields one is wrong, and yet:
D Tel 12/1/2007 quote: 'My father was born near Jarrow.'
South Shields and Jarrow are nextdoor to each other!
I'm not entirely sure why I keep wanting to persevere with this! Maybe I should actually watch the programme! lol Might get the chance this evening.
Lots of people in Jarrow claim to have had a relative in the Jarrow marches! Hebburn where PS says his father was born in in South Shields registration district. The reference to William is from the DT article. Poss his materal grandmother remarried?
When your watching freeze the screen and see if you can read any of the documents!
Will do!! lol
The reference to William is from the DT article. Poss his materal grandmother remarried?
Quite a co-incidence, though these things do happen!
I should get to watch it at about 8pm and will have my trigger finger over the pause button :):):) Watch this space after 9pm.............
WendyPusey
30-08-12, 17:13
Not sure if this is of any help.
There is an Alfred Leslie Stewart 1902 Barrow in Furness, Lancashire on 1911 with parenst William Stewart and Agnes Ann (nee Parker).
http://search.ancestry.co.uk/iexec?htx=View&r=5538&dbid=2352&iid=RG14_25691_0269_03&fn=William+Horace&ln=Stewart&st=r&ssrc=&pid=30776433
Alfred died in 1980 in Barking & Dagenham, London.
William is a Painter.
Thanks Wendy. I'll see if I can spot anything on ay docs they show after I've had my meal!
I didn't think I was going to find it interesting but as the programme progressed I found it more engaging and very moving. For some of us family history *is* about learning about our more recent family as well as going further back and I think it was good that this episode showed this different aspect to family history. It showed viewers that there can be a wealth of information available on our parents/ grandparents lives if we're lucky. I've read a few comments about it being more historical than genealogical but I think the former is very important in understanding the latter.
Alfred Stewart....(apologies to KiteRunner as much of this is probably in her synopsis)
Died 1980
Joined army 13th Feb 1925
Son Geoffrey b 28th Jan 1925
Did a seven year term in the army
Married Gladys 1933
He rejoined the army (the KOYLI) at the beginning of WW2 aged 34. Battalion was raised "right at the start of the war".
Promoted to Sergeant 1941
Promoted to Sergeant Major 1942
Joined the Paras 1943 aged 38
Promoted to (Acting) Regimental Sergeant Major, 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment Jan 1945
So, it does seem that he should have been born about 1905 and the Dewsbury death in 1980 seems the only sensible one and is the same one I looked at before, dob 25th March 1905. I've now seen the posts stating Patrick believed his father to be from Hebburn whiich is three miles from where Alfred, son of James Irvine Stewart and Jane Cossom were living in 1911. Al very curious that this William Stewart, stage carpenter gets a mention in The Telegraph.
I quite enjoyed the program, though it didn't really fit with the usual WDYTYA? concept (was this the only episode not to include a blue graphic family tree, because they didn't need one?!). I felt it particularly when Patrick said his ambition and that of his father came from the same genepool - made me want to know about who had come before. I still think they should have given a couple of minutes to the general background of Alfred's family - I wondered if anything in his background influenced his not marrying Gladys when she became pregnant and yet not vanishing without trace altogether.
I thought Patrick's reactions to what he discovered were delightfully untheatrical and his brother Trevor was lovely. They and their father all looked very alike too.
Olde Crone
30-08-12, 20:57
Asa
But I felt that we learned very little about the man himself, we just had his military career. There was no attempt to supply any personal information about him. For all we know he may have been a right nasty bit of work before he was ever involved in war or a military career - lots of men are.
OC
kiterunner
30-08-12, 22:05
I thought Patrick's reactions to what he discovered were delightfully untheatrical and his brother Trevor was lovely. They and their father all looked very alike too.
Yes, I was hoping all the way through that his brother would appear in the programme as I remember seeing an interesting interview with him once before. I can't think what programme that was on.
OC, he may well have been a nasty bit of work but that would have been a really disappointing ending for Patrick Stewart lol
Sounds like he was a nasty piece of work... but least he understands him more than he did before.
I have to say that I extremely enjoyed Wednesday's episode! As a rule, I tend to enjoy the episodes that focus purely on one or two people far less than the more wide-ranging ones, and I don't have any particular interest in military history.
That being said ... I think this was an episode where the attitude and the presence of the 'star' makes all the difference. There was none of Greg Wallace's instant judging of character and none of Samantha Janus' (I was a huge Game On fan - can't get used to her being Womack!) heart-on-sleeve. He handlied what he found out with professionalism and dignity. At times he was truly struck by the events his father had survived, and you could see the emotion riding high under the surface.
As has been said previously in this thread, not a single one of our ancestors or families exist in a vaccuum. You have to understand the context in which they lived their lives otherwise those lives have no meaning and become simply names and dates and places. Granted, there are always people who seem to leave less of a trace than others - the ones who simply get on with life, are born, marry, have children baptised and buried and then are then buried themselves. It doesn't make them more or less worthy of respect or consideration than a flashy character. After all, history is only written by the survivors - and we're all products of that survival. It might be through keeping under the parapet rather than out-and-out biting struggles, but our ancestors didn't die of smallpox or cholera, didn't starve to death when their world turned upside down, made the journey, found a life-partner, all the rest of it. And all of that has to be reconciled and put into meaning.
Programmes like this week's show that there is always more to know of someone that is often simply presented to your face, and I think its a valuable lesson to carry with us whatever generation we're researching.
Sorry - that turned out to be a bit of a rant!!
kiterunner
31-08-12, 09:54
I particularly loved the bits where someone would present Patrick Stewart with a document and ask him to read it out. I know it's a cliche, but I would happily listen to him reading out the telephone directory!
I particularly loved the bits where someone would present Patrick Stewart with a document and ask him to read it out. I know it's a cliche, but I would happily listen to him reading out the telephone directory!
Its almost like he's a classically trained actor .... :d
lol You two!!
I thought it was very interesting to hear his brother speaking - his accent was pretty soft and their voices were very similar, I thought. (and this having HAD to listen to the pub scene several times as my children kept interupting! :rolleyes:)
I often wonder how far wide of the mark we may be when looking at the lives of our ancestors ......I still haven't got over a few years ago a newly discovered 96-year-old cousin cheerfully telling me one of my direct line ancestors used to touch up young women when he was an old man!!! (not her, apparently!). I still don't quite know what to do with this information in my own head, as it doesn't fit into the picture I had built up of this person. There are others still alive who remember him, but no one else has ever said anything similar. Apparently, it was "known to everyone who knew him" ;( Sadly, the cousin is no longer with us now, so I can't ask anything further.......
Patrick Stewart's middle name is Hewes. I wonder where that came from? I can't find it as a name in his mother's side of the family.
That reminds me of a conversation I had with my Dad's cousin, who told me that my grandmother had told him all about the facts of life and had a rather colourful sex life... I remember her as a sweet old lady with a blue rinse, who knitted clothes for my dollies... Sadly he too has passed away.
Meat on bones, that's what it is. Much more fascinating then hatching, matching and dispatching on our trees... :cool:
Meat on bones, that's what it is. Much more fascinating then hatching, matching and dispatching on our trees... :cool:
lol Rachel! I'm still building my time machine!
Make room for a seat in there for me... ;)
No problem Rachel!
Patrick Stewart's middle name is Hewes. I wonder where that came from? I can't find it as a name in his mother's side of the family.
Where did you see that, Shona? It's not on his birth reg or first marriage. I wondered if it's a name he added himself?
EDIT - I just googled and see it's on quite a few sites!
Meat on bones, that's what it is. Much more fascinating then hatching, matching and dispatching on our trees... :cool:
I run a series of genealogy workshops (started with a colleague of mine who is no longer at the company, unfortunately!) and every week I say the same thing! I think its now become my stock catchphrase! :D
(Time machine for me, too, please! I'm still trying to find out the father of one my multiple-great-grandfathers who bore his father's surname despite him dying over 11 months before his birth! Best guess? His single brother ... Birth certificate is suitably mute on the subject!)
kiterunner
31-08-12, 13:54
Where did you see that, Shona? It's not on his birth reg or first marriage. I wondered if it's a name he added himself?
EDIT - I just googled and see it's on quite a few sites!
I once heard a nugget of Baby Spice (Emma Bunton)'s family history on the radio which was obviously a load of rubbish and you would be amazed how far it has spread across the internet! (I should add that the radio presenters got it off the internet without checking; they didn't make it up themselves).
http://www.skeptive.com/statements/4154
So I would be interested to hear if anyone manages to work out whether Patrick Stewart has ever actually used the middle name "Hewes"!
So I would be interested to hear if anyone manages to work out whether Patrick Stewart has ever actually used the middle name "Hewes"!
Or whether he ever had a grandfather called William Stewart, stage carpenter! :confused:
Numerous sources have his full name as Patrick Hewes Stewart. The following are usually accurate.
The IMdb - film database:
'Mini Biography
Patrick Hewes Stewart was born in Mirfield, Yorkshire, England. He was a member of various local drama groups from about age 12....'
Also National Portrait Gallery. Here's the ref:
'Sir Patrick Hewes Stewart
by Nadav Kander
archival pigment print, September 2008
17 5/8 in. x 14 7/8 in. (448 mm x 378 mm) image size
Given by Nadav Kander, 2008
Photographs Collection'
www.biography.com
'Early Life
Actor, writer, director, and producer. Born Patrick Hewes Stewart on July 13, 1940, in Mirfield, England...'
The only reference I saw to grandfather William Stewart, stage carpenter, was in the Daily Telegraph.
Yes, I saw those, but am surprised they say that that when it doesn't seem to be his birth name or name at marriage.
maggie_4_7
31-08-12, 19:51
I didn't think it was boring at all I enjoyed this program however it probably would have been best suited to 'What my father did in the War'
If they were going to concentrate on one man they should have looked at his life in it's entirety i.e. his parents and his life before the relationship with Patrick's mother and his army career all of those components could have had an influence on his character and personality even more so than his experience in the War.
I thought Patrick Stewart came across as a very nice and forgiving man.
kiterunner
01-09-12, 16:10
When his knighthood was listed in the London Gazette, it just said "Patrick Stewart", so if he does have a middle name, he acquired it since the end of 2009!
http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/59282/supplements/1
I loved the programme and liked the idea of just concentrating on one ancestor for a change. It gave the programme more depth for me and I wasn't forever trying to recall what had already been said.
And I could listen to him all day.
He does have a beautiful voice... and after listening to his brother, you could tell what bits of it had been classically trained! :d
it just be his professional name as actor when they join equity cannot have a name someone else has
And i love this show too as it showed a story i had never heard before
kiterunner
05-09-12, 17:18
He has never been listed as Patrick Hewes Stewart in any credits that I have ever seen, Tinkerbe. And I have watched every episode of Star Trek The Next Generation, some many times over!
maggie_4_7
08-09-12, 07:24
When you join Equity if someone else has the same name you have to do something to distinguish yourself from the other person that may mean adding a middle name or changing your name entirely - adding a middle name is more sensible then you can use your own name without the added middle name if you change it entirely you have to use that name in credits not your real name.
This is perhaps why there is a discrepancy on his middle name.
Of course maybe there is another entirely different reason.
Edited to say: Although it seems Equity discourages people to just add a middle name! Maybe he just added himself when someone died of that name that he was close to I have known that happen before.
Perhaps it's a name he added for personal reasons at some point, but it's neither his Equity name nor his birth name are those are both just 'Patrick Stewart'. I see one website states the middle name appears in his Debrett's entry in 2007. I would like to know if that is correct. Pity they didn't mention which Debrett's work that was - presumably this one: Debrett's People of Today
maggie_4_7
12-09-12, 18:05
Was it said in the program that Patrick's oldest brother was dead because if yes I missed it? I noticed at the end when talking with his middle brother there was no mention of the older brother and the feeling the older brother had about his parentage.
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