The Loaring
Family Tree spreads its branches… Like most families, as the years go by, the branches of the family spread out. The latest contributor is Jill Russell who lives in Wiltshire. She is the granddaughter of Kate Loaring, who was born in 1906. Kate Loaring was the fourth child of Alfred Loaring and his wife Alice (nee Newberry).The family tree produced by Maurice Loaring shows that Alfred was one of the three sons of Thomas and Mary Loaring. Jill, now in her mid-eighties (2023) and partially
disabled, has written her own account of her memories-actual and
received- of her own family, as they relate to the Loaring branch. They
provide a fascinating account of how branches of families valued their
links and their roots, in a time when communications were not easy. No
internet, no telephones-just letters and postcards for most people-and
the very occasional telegram, which would have been relatively
expensive; opportunities to travel were limited and time consuming. |
George &
Jill Russell, photographed in 2007 |
Now widowed, Jill has two sons and a daughter:
Alan, Brian and Janet
Alan was born 1960, and now retired from the Metropolitan Police. Brian
was born 1965 and runs the
farm. Daughter Janet,
born1968, is a bookkeeper for a property developer.
Alan and his wife Dawn have twin sons, both skilled mechanics. Brian has
a stepdaughter. Janet and Greg have two sons, the elder working for
Amazon in Tokyo; the younger
is an airline pilot. |
The memories of Jill Russell The eldest
son of Alfred Loaring and Alice nee Newberry was named
Tom -perhaps after his grandfather?
He became a blacksmith and is said to have worked in American
Gold Rush( as a child I was given an illustrated post card that he gave
his mother, which she posted to my Gran to tell her he had come home
safely ). Unfortunately, it has been lost. Tom married
Olive Scammell of Tisbury in Wiltshire. He was employed as a blacksmith
at the Pyt House Estate nearby. Tom also had water divining skills and I
remember him demonstrating these skills on
my parents lawn at Poole in the nineteen forties.
All I know of his family is that Wilfred Loaring was Tom's son. We used to visit him and his wife - Auntie Dolly- at Wareham. His daughter Winifred married and had a daughter who lived near Tisbury. Alfred’s next child was Elizabeth, sadly she died at age 14 .
Kate, the next daughter, went
into service becoming a parlour maid probably in Parkstone, where she
met Walter Palmer, who she married June 1905. Walter worked
as a fitter at the Gasworks. They lived in a rented terraced house that
they called ‘Winsham’ for some 50 years! They frequently visited
Winsham. Walter was my
Granddad, and he often spoke about
Tommy Ackland*( landlord at the Old
King’s Arms) and the
Northcombes*.
Alfred Loaring's second son was John Newberry Loaring. He became a baker in Wednesfield (nr Wolverhampton) married and had two children, Leslie and May. Both died young.
Alfred’s widow-he had died in1909- Alice suffered a
tragic death in 1919; she died from burns resulting from her bedclothes
catching light from an adjacent candle. She was living in Winsham at the
time. A newspaper account of the incident told of two soldiers, just
returned from the WW1, who heard her cries for help, but were too late
to save her.
I have just remembered about Kate’s younger sister Sarah born 1883, who was my great aunt and my mother’s aunt . I always knew her as Mrs Woodley She lived in Worcester with three children, Harry, Rose(who was treated as delicate)sent me at least one postal order for birthdays, and Kitty. My mother
married Leslie Matthews in 1932 he was from a
long family line of fishermen living in Poole. l was their only
child and was born in 1937.
We moved to west Dorset after the war, so I grew up around the
border with Somerset and joined Crewkerne YFC. In 1960 I
married George Russell from the Golden Lion at Thorncombe.
His grandmother Jane White lived at Axe Cottage when a young
single woman. One of her sons,
James White*, is named on the World War I
memorial at Winsham. Both our grandmothers came from Winsham!
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