View Full Version : John Claud Hamilton - weighing up the possibilities
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Just in case you have been off the planet in the last week or two and don't know about my OH's grandfather, JC Hamilton, then a very short résumé:
DOB 29th April 1895 Cork City, Ireland (from merchant navy papers - no birth cert traced)
Nothing on 1901 or 1911 Irish censuses
JCH joined the British Army in May 1915
After WW1 he was in the merchant navy
Father's name unknown as they disowned each other in 1919. JCH says father is a Scotchman (sic) in 1919 letter (I said 1917 before, which was wrong!).
JCH was supposed to have two sisters, Kathleen and Eileen (or Aileen)
He was supposed to have a Norwegian grandmother
His father was supposed to have once been the harbourmaster at Dundee
He once asked his daughter if she would have rather been called O'Something? (she couldn't remember O'What, and at the time he asked she just felt irritated by his little cryptic questions)
JCH (of no fixed abode) died in 1962 in Hammersmith Hospital. He and his wife had been legally separated for about five years or more. His daughter left his body to medical science, and afterwards he had a RC funeral, which the family knew nothing about, so presumably they knew he was RC from medical records.
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I have been looking at the Irish census records and to cut a long story short, I have found a John Claud O'Flynn whose birth was registered in Q2 1897 (so, right Q but two years late) in Cork District. His parents were Denis Joseph O'Flynn (RC) and Emily Sherwood Grey (Church of Ireland). This John Claud is with his parents in 1901 and 1911 and I have tried unsuccessfully, to discount him by finding an Irish marriage and or death for him before 1958 (the end of the online records), but have not found anything.
His father was not a Scot and was a tailor which doesn't sound much like a harbour master to me! I have found the names of JC O'Flynn's grandparents and the paternal ones both sound very Irish (Daniel O'Flynn and Ellen Murphy) and the maternal ones don't sound very Norwegian (Isaac Grey and Isabella Sherwood). Oh and he had a brother, Raymond Ashley and a sister Mary Ivy, neither of whom are Kathleen and Eileen!
So, I suppose I should get the birth cert and see if his dob was 29th April?
I am posting this on the offchance somone else can see a reason why John Claud O'Flynn can't be John Claud Hamilton.
samesizedfeet
05-06-10, 15:01
Well - the only things that match with everything your previously thought you knew about him are the first names and the birthplace.
Although I'm a great believer that if it feels right in your gut then it's worth pursuing.
The online Irish records are in my experience not complete, btw. I spent several days in Dublin recording all the BMD for the surname Dormer since registration began and I'd say about 25% don't appear anywhere online. Same for baptisms - I have all the Dormers in Castlecomer and the number that you can find online is nowhere near the number I have.
The online Irish records are in my experience not complete, btw.
Bother!
I've done things like look at every family in Cork with a Head b in Scotland in 1901/1911 and checked the names of the children and if they have a son of the right age (any name) and haven't found one family that even vaguely fits with the other blurb, so wonder if he just liked to make stuff up!?
kiterunner
05-06-10, 15:48
I take it there's no info on next of kin in the merchant navy papers?
I take it there's no info on next of kin in the merchant navy papers?
No but I don't know that we have all his papers, Kate. The ones we got came from Southampton RO (from memory) and I don't think they cover the start of his service. I will have to ask OH and he's not here at the mo.
Trouble is, most likely his wife would have been his nok unless they managed to get a different name in the gap between him leaving the army and getting married. Don't forget, he didn't own up to having a father when he married and had cut himself off completely from his family by then.
What would I do if I got the birth cert and the date was right? That could be a co-incidence........Or would I then have to accept all the stories were rubbish?
kiterunner
05-06-10, 18:25
Have you checked around to see if anyone has John Claud O'Flynn in their tree?
Olde Crone
05-06-10, 18:48
If you got the BC and the date of birth was the same, I think that would take it out of the realms of possibility and into the realms of probability, lol - still not proof, but given the circumstances, a compelling shove forward into the front ranks.
On the other hand, if the date of birth is different, that doesn't actually rule him out as wrong......
OC
Exactly, OC :(
Kate, I did look on Ancestry, but haven't been able to access GR for some weeks now (just get an error message). I've not looked anywhere else yet.
Our internet connection has been off since yesterday late afternoon. I have been given a ten minute window to get online before everything gets turned off to try and rectify the fault, so if you never see me again you know why!
kiterunner
06-06-10, 11:08
*crosses fingers*
There is someone on GR who has a John O'Flynn born 1898 in their tree but there is no birthplace given. But it doesn't look as if they have the rest of John Claud O'Flynn's family in their tree, so probably not the same John.
I'm back!! That was a very srange computer-free day!
Thanks for looking at GR. I am getting OH to get a copy of the birth cert, as otherwise I shall keep thinking about this family!
Cert ordered - not sure whether to cross everything or not.
Uncle John
09-06-10, 09:05
Cert ordered - not sure whether to cross everything or not.
A cheque, perhaps?
Cert arrived and there's no correlation between this John Claud's dob and the one we have for John Claud Hamilton, so I think it's back to the drawing board.
Trouble is, I have no idea what to do next......................
Dundee library/Archives for anything on harbourmasters?
Which regiment was John Claud in, in WW1? Do you know his rank and number?
Hi Ann :)
I have been to Dundee archives office and also spoken with the people who hold the harbourmasters archives in Dundee and none of these avenues have turned up anything.
I have also examined the trees of Dundee harbourmasters and any Norwegian women in Scotland on the censuses, also to no avail!
He was a driver or gunner in the RFA in WW1, army number 56967. He was never posted abroad though and spent most of his time in army camps in Wiltshire and Sussex (from memory). He was awarded various medals which were withdrawn when they realised he hadn't been in any theatre of war. He joined up 12th May 1915 (don't know where - his army record doesn't appear to have survived).
Sounds as though you've exhausted Dundee and the Norwegians, then!
I see from his medal card that he got the SWB. The roll (at Kew) would give his dates of service but I don't suppose that helps.
There are a couple of PIN files (WW1 medical files) on the TNA Catalogue for J Hamilton. No way of knowing whether for the right man (and of couse, it's a very common name) without looking at them. One gives the illness as Nephritis - don't suppose you know the reason for the SWB? Happy to look at it if you think it could be him.
During his many years in the merchant navy after WW1 he regularly suffered with bronchitis and this is also what he died from. OH isn't aware of him having anyother ongoing problem, so nephritis seems unlikely. We have letters written when he was in the hospital during WW1, but he doesn't say why he was there. :rolleyes:
Any records at the hospital? (assuming you know which one)
Oh, I don't know!! :eek: I'd need to go back through his letters again to check what addresses he gave (didn't always put one!). If I remember correctly one was an army hospital, so I guess a temporary place, so unlikely to be records unless the army have kept anything.
I'll have a look at the letters.
I've been looking at his letters again.
Dec 1918 to Jan 1919 address Larkhill camp, Durrington (in Wiltshire)
Up to March 1919 Ipswich
25th March 1919 writes from parents home in Cork
There's an undated letter describing how he took himself from the Larkhill barracks to the Ashurst War Hospital, Littlemore, Oxon via Dorchester (completely the wrong direction) and Southampton by train, where he popped in on his future mother-in-law. Doesn't sound exactly ill, but pretty depressed - keeps talking about finishing things etc, but could mean anything really.
12th Sept 1919 Ashurst War Hospital, Littlemore, Oxon. He can't be that ill as he talks of getting a late pass to go out and learning typing (the letter is typed) and shorthand.
There's an undated letter Piershill barracks, Edinburgh, the rest of the undated ones are either Ipswich of Durrington (Larkhill) and there are a couple of letters with no address at all.
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I've googled Ashhurst War Hospital and found these nuggets:
Ashurst War Hospital, Littlemoor. Formerly the Oxford County Asylum, it included a 580 bed specialist neurological section, opened in 1918.
Or:
The wounded were also accommodated in the Oxford Town hall, in Somerville College (whose normal occupants spent the war as guests of Oriel College) and in the Littlemore Hospital which was temporarily renamed as the Ashurst War Hospital.
So, were they looking after soldiers with mental health problems, or any soldier? I wouldn't have thought a man who hadn't even made it to France would make it into a War Hospital because of a mental health issue, considering what some men suffered at the front.
What do you think?
Also a book called "Traumatic pasts: history, psychiatry, and trauma in the modern age, 1870-1930" says it got some of it's data from: The Ashurst War Hospital Admissions and Discharge records 1918 - 1922, Oxford District Health Authority Archive, Oxford. I wonder if those still exist? Trouble is, I dount they will say "this man says his real name is Joe Bloggs - Is he suffering with delusions?"
*sigh*
There's this for the Littlemore Hospital
Admission & Discharge
1846 - 1977
Records are here
: http://www.oxfordshirehealtharchives.nhs.uk
Only help though would be mention of next of kin, I suppose
It would be interesting to find out why he was in the hospital too!
Watch this space!!
Thanks Ann - I had looked for that page unsuccessfully. :o
Had a bit of spare time at Kew today so I looked at the J Hamilton Nephritis file - not him.
There was another file too for a J Hamilton re WW1 service although the file was indexed as 1937. Not him either!
Oooh, that's very kind of you, Ann - thanks very much. He is very illusive! lol
I will try to get his hospital record, for interest sake if nothing else.
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