October 1996:
The Secretary of Haverhill Branch of Suffolk Family History Society, Maureen Strugnell, showed me a family tree
drawn up by Commander Walter Strugnell (W. Hawkes-Strugnell after marriage) which includes:
| |
James Strugnell
b. 1747, d. 20 Mar 1796
in India Office, Lieut. R.N.
m. c. 1790
Elizabeth Baker
b. 1758, d. 11 Apr 1842
at Southwark, London
 |
|
|
James Alabaster
Strugnell
b. c. 1782
d. 18 Feb 1807
Lieut. R.N. |
William Baker
Strugnell
b. 27 Jan 1785
d. 2 Jun 1850
Lieut. R.N. |
Henry Strugnell
b. 21 Sep 1793
d. 12 Mar 1814
Lieut. R.N. |
Thos. Pye Bennett
Strugnell
b. 2 Aug 1795
d. 19 Nov 1858
Master Mariner |
Calling their eldest son James Alabaster must have had a significance: it is hardly a name that is pulled out of the air!
Presumably it was a family name.........any ideas?
Paul Alabaster (IIA) 25th October 1996:
I have been talking to a Jeweller in Bristol - Andrew Alabaster, Compton Bishop, Somerset; Grandfather, Henry. Also
Aunt, Mrs Tilling. It might be worth getting in touch..........Henry, I believe, was quite an artist. Perhaps I should not
have set another hare running!!
I contacted Andrew: he too turns out to fit into Branch IIA, sharing James the publican as a gt gt grandfather with
Paul! Andrew's aunt, "Mrs Tilling" has now joined the Society. I was delighted to realise that she and Dorothy
Gould are actually second cousins; Dorothy's grandfather, Alfred William being the older brother of Henry, the
artist! LH
Dorothy Gould (IIA) December 1996:
(Dorothy had sent extra money with her subs as a possible donation, and I had replied that she her subs were now
paid in advance for the next four years...........)
Thank you for the thought that I'll be here in four years and still able to read your newsletter. At my age I don't even
buy green bananas! Life is uncertain, so I eat my dessert first!
Robin Alabaster (WofW) November 1996:
On 1st November, at the Guildhall, Hadleigh, the marriage took place of our eldest son, Nicholas, to Susan Markey.
John Stammers Alabaster (I) 6th December 1996:
We celebrated our 70th Anniversaries at home with a grand gathering of the family this summer, grand-children and
their numerous cousins included. It really was a wonderful way to keep in touch. This was followed in the Autumn by a
wedding of my niece Anne where the party was ever larger: David played some cello pieces during the signing, and I
had the temerity to accompany him on the piano!
December 1996:
One of my mother's pupils made a note and phoned to say that a primary school from Banbury, Oxon. had been
singing carols on Capital Radio, and that either the teacher or the pianist was an Alabaster!
Joan Watts nee Alabaster (IIIB) Christmas Card 1996:
I have another little granddaughter - Emma Jane - born 2nd July. Three little girls now!
Pauline and Brian Alabaster (WofW) December 1996:
Half a year gone already, it took the first 3 months for Brian to make a copy, now 3 months for me to get round to
posting it. The copy is un-edited - warts an' all.
Herewith was a video of the events of the 1996 Alabaster Gathering, sent all the way from Australia. My mother and I
thoroughly enjoyed watching it, all the way through!!!!
Shirley Rowe (IIA) December 1996:
Our granddaughter, Stephanie, weighed in at 8 lb on 3rd December 1996.
Molly Duffy (IIC) Christmas 1996:
.......Another busy year with the addition of our first grandson, Aidan Connor Duffy.
Beryl Neumann (IIA) 30th January 1997:
I was fairly busy during the latter part of last year putting together most of the material I have on the Alabaster
Family. This I handed in to the Society of Australian Genealogists at the end of November....... They have assured me
that these records will survive flood, fire and earthquake.
Tony Springall (IIA) March 1997:
Another entry for your Alabaster descendants records: my middle son Jeremy (Colin) married Louise Taylor at Sutton
Coldfield Baptist Church, Warwickshire last Saturday. Fantastic day & weather great.
The gradual indexing of the 1881 census for the whole of England and Wales has resulted in more and more pieces of
the jig-saw fitting together. With the aid of the index for Essex we found that at the beginning of April 1881, when the
census was taken, David Alabaster aged 11 and his brother, John, aged 9 were in the Bethnal Green Workhouse and
School, in Leyton, Essex.
In Chronicle Number Five I wrote, "Research does give some indication of the reason" (they were in the workhouse).
"David and John were the sons of David Alabaster and his wife Annie, nee Aaron (IIIB). Their father, David, had died
in 1877, at the age of 33, apparently leaving Annie with four young children; Ann 10, David 8, John 6 and Mary Ann
six months. Annie, herself, died, aged 35 during the first quarter of 1881, leaving the children as orphans. Presumably,
Mary Ann was not in the Workhouse: she was certainly living with the sister and brother-in-law of her mother ten
years later, at the age of 14, on the 1891 census, and they may have taken her in immediately. It is good to be able to
report that both David and John appear to have survived the Workhouse and went on to marry in 1898 and 1899
respectively."
In April 1996, following publication of that Chronicle, I received a letter from Bryan Alabaster, the grandson of John
who was aged 9 in 1881.
"I enclose a photocopy which refers to John Alabaster leaving 'The Institution`. There is no date on it but the bible
from which it was taken was found amongst my Aunt's possessions following her death last month. My Aunt was
Winifred Emily Alabaster the daughter of John and had she lived she would have been 90 years old this June."
Now that the 1881 census for London and Middlesex has been indexed, we can see what did happen to the two girls,
Ann and Mary Ann, sisters to David and John.
280 Old Ford Road, Bethnal Green
Aron Aron
(sic) |
Head |
Unm |
22 |
Clerk |
bn Bethnal
Green |
Jane " |
Sister |
" |
18 |
|
" |
Henry " |
Brother |
|
15 |
Upholsterer`s
Apprentice |
" |
Annie
Alabaster |
Niece |
|
13 |
|
" |
Mary Ann
Alabaster |
Niece |
|
4 |
|
" |
This does complete the picture. Their mother's brother was only 22 years old himself and one can imagine the decision
to take in the girls but accepting that the boys would have to cope in the Workhouse.
How families had to hang together in those days, and obviously did when needed. Ten years later in 1891, Mary Ann
was living with another of her mother's sisters, Rebecca Stockwell, and her family at 401 Bethnal Green Road.
by Laraine Hake
During the Spring of 1996, my mother told me that an acquaintance of hers had mentioned that she had a
long-standing friend named "Bea Alabaster". I searched my Alabaster database but could locate nobody suitably
named, presumably Beatrice, either born or married to an Alabaster. I was pleased, therefore, when sometime later I
received a telephone call from Bea, born Beryl, Alabaster. We spoke for a while and I asked her for what details she
knew of her Alabaster grandfather in order to locate her on the overall tree. I was rendered almost speechless
(almost) when I realised that her grandfather, George, was the brother of my grandmother, Adeline, and that Bea and
I share great grandparents, Thomas and Cordelia Alabaster, and are thus second cousins. I think that I was actually
rendered speechless when she mentioned a memory of a Family Bible belonging to Thomas and Cordelia, and that she
had a photocopy of four hand-written pages from this Bible in her possession...............!
With a Christmas card, Bea enclosed a copy of these pages, -- pages which have really given me some insight into the
lives of my immediate Alabaster ancestors and an idea of life and death in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
 I knew that my great
grandmother, Cordelia Victoria
(nee Jolly), had had several
babies and that some had died
young, not an uncommon
situation at this time, but until
these pages arrived, I had not
realised the full story, nor
empathised and recognised the
suffering that was part of the
life of many of our forebears.
Included in the births shown on
these pages is that of my
grandmother, Adeline Bertha
Alabaster, born January 30th
1881, and that of Bea's
grandfather, George Alabaster,
born May 27th 1876. Other
names I recognised but several
I did not; Gilbert Stephen
Alabaster had died during
World War I and Ada Victoria
had died in her teens, but what
about Harold John, Alfred Ernest, Elizabeth Jane and the others who had died as babies. Of the fifteen births, seven
had died before the age of ten years, five of these before their first birthdays.
The more I studied the details on the pages, the more I became interested and involved in finding out the background
to their lives, hence the several pages that follow this!
An Alabaster Family in Bethnal Green
in the Latter Half of the Nineteenth Century.
by Laraine Hake
 The character of an area such as
Bethnal Green, where the family
of Thomas and Cordelia
Alabaster lived until 1883, must
have changed dramatically as the
nineteenth century grew older.
Thomas's grandparents, Charles
Henry and Sarah Alabaster, nee
Mead, had moved to Bethnal
Green from Shoreditch in about
1830. Sarah's father, Thomas
Blewett Mead had died in 1830
in Fyfield, Essex, leaving "unto
my daughter Sarah Alabaster all
those my five freehold
messuages Nos 10, 11, 12, 13
and 14 Coventry street, Bethnal
Green ............... and also all
those my three messuages Nos.
5, 6, and 7 in Cross Street, Three
Colt Lane, Bethnal
Green..........". An indenture
dated as early as 15th August
1809, shows Thomas Blewett Mead involved in the lease and release of property bounded by Abington Street,
Parliament Street and Bethnal Green Road.1 Judging by maps of that period, this part of Bethnal Green must have
been well to the east of the metropolis of London, bordering on open countryside.
Descendants of Thomas Blewett Mead
Thomas Blewett MEAD b 1773, d 9 February 1830
+ Sarah LEE b 1774, d 22 December 1845
|____Sarah MEAD b 2 March 1798 Christopher Alley, Shoreditch, d November 1857
|.........+ Charles Henry ALABASTER b 3 January 1797 King Street, Shoreditch,
| | d 18 October 1861 14 Coventry street, Bethnal Green
|.........|____Mary Ann ALABASTER b 26 June 1824 Clifton Street, Shoreditch
|.........|.........+ William James MANSFIELD
|.........|..................Geoffrey MANSFIELD
|.........|..................Margaret EVANS (nee Mansfield)
|.........|..................Brian MANSFIELD
|.........|..................Andrew CLARK
|.........|____Thomas ALABASTER b 7 February 1828 Shoreditch, d 11 October 1889 19 Paradise Row, Bethnal Green
|.........|.........+ Sarah Letitia LAWRENCE b 24 March 1823 Helions Bumpstead, Essex,
| | | d 20 March 1868 10 Coventry Street, Bethnal Green
|.........|.........|____Thomas ALABASTER b17 June 1853 6 Bartholomew Place, Bethnal Green,
| | | d 12 December 1924 208 Fleeming Road, Walthamstow, E17
|.........|.........|.........+ Cordelia Victoria JOLLY b 3 October 1852 22 Bedford Street, Stepney,
| | | d 17 August 1939 208 Fleeming Road, Walthamstow
|.........|.........|....................Alfred ORAM
|.........|.........|....................Leslie ORAM
|.........|.........|....................Sylvia GOOD (nee Chapman)
|.........|.........|....................Barry ORAM
|.........|.........|....................Michael ORAM
|.........|.........|....................Laraine HAKE (nee Oram)
|.........|.........|....................Janine HOWLE (nee Oram)
|.........|.........|____Edwin ALABASTER b 31 July 1855 5 Cross Street, Bethnal Green, d June 1932 West Ham
|.........|.........|____Catherine ALABASTER b June 1857 Bethnal Green
|.........|.........|____Sarah ALABASTER b 28 June 1859 10 Cross Street, Bethnal Green, d 12 April 1940
|.........|..................+ William Lake RICHARDS b 1856
|.........|..............................Anthony SPRINGALL
|.........|____Robert ALABASTER b 28 July 1835 Bethnal Green, d 12 December 1864
|.........|........+Harriet HARRIS b 1828, d 17 Frbruary 1908 Hackney
|.........|..................Norman ALABASTER
|.........|..................Philip ALABASTER
|.........|..................Beryl NEUMANN (nee Young)
|.........|____others
|____others
Thomas's father, Thomas, was born in Shoreditch in 1827, so must have moved to 14 Coventry Street, Bethnal Green
with his parents when he was about three years old. He married Sarah Letitia Lawrence in 1852 in St Philips Church,
Bethnal Green. Sarah was a real country girl, having been born in Helions Bumpstead, on the Essex/Suffolk border in
1823 where her father farmed. Her family had moved to Bethnal Green in the late 1830s where her father became a
Hackney Carriage Driver. In 1852, at the time of her marriage, she was living in 10 Cross Street. Within this small
area of streets, Thomas and Sarah Letitia had and raised their family. The 1861 census shows Thomas and Sarah
Letitia with their family, including Thomas aged 7, later to marry Cordelia, at 10 Coventry Street. At numbers 13 and
14 Coventry Street lived other Alabasters, including Charles Henry, now a widower aged 64 with three unmarried
daughters at number 14, and his son Charles with his wife and various nephews and nieces at number 13.
The 1871 census finds Thomas, aged 17, a dock messenger, living with his mother's brother, George Lawrence in
Wellington Row, Bethnal Green, his mother, Sarah Letitia having died in 1868.  He married Cordelia Victoria Jolly,
daughter of George Jolly, an
ironmonger, and Jane nee
Davidson, at Hackney Parish
Church on 11th May 1873.
Left: Bethnal Green 1819
Thomas and Cordelia lived at
various addresses, but all within
the same small area of Bethnal
Green. Their first child, Emily
Augusta was born in Suffolk
Street, a continuation to the south
of Coventry Street, in April 1874,
then from 1875 until early 1881 the
family lived at 3 Abingdon Street.
On the 1881 census, that is 4th
April 1881, they were at 105
Willmott Street and then at 20 Pitt
Street by 1883. How the family
must have seen a change in that area of Bethnal Green between the time early in the century, when Thomas's great
grandfather, Thomas Blewet Mead, became involved with property in this part of Bethnal Green and the 1880s. On
Charles Booths Descriptive Map of London Poverty 18892, Abingdon Street and Willmott Street are shown as "mixed
- some comfortable, others poor", whilst Pitt Street is given as "poor 18/- to 21/- a week for a moderate family".
Infant mortality was high at the end of the nineteenth century, the worst year on record being 1899 when 163 out of
every 1,000 babies died before they reached the age of one year.3 Presumably this statistic is an average over the
whole country; how much worse was it in the now urban areas, like Bethnal Green, than the rural country?
 By 1883 the first seven of the babies whose lives were
recorded in the Bible had been born, and my assumption
was that many of them had lived but a short time and that
this was a typical family of the times and area. However,
plotting the births and deaths on a graph threw up a
different possible interpretation of events. I realised that
by June 1883, seven babies had indeed been born; one
daughter, Elizabeth Jane, born in 1875, had only lived for
two weeks, but the cause of her death was given as Spina
Bifida which makes an early death no great surprise, but
in June of 1883 the remaining family of six children were
alive and, probably, well. Emily, the eldest was nine years
old, George was seven, Cordelia six, Alfred was three,
Adeline two and Walter, the baby just four months old. It
would appear likely, then, that their lives began to fall
apart.
On 23rd June 1883, Walter Ambrose, the baby of this
family of six children, died. The death certificate records
the cause of death as "Violent. Shock. Scalds. Accidental"
An inquest was held four days later on 27th June. Just one
month later, Alfred Ernest, aged three years and eight
months, died. This time the cause of death was "Stomatitis. Exhaustion." In less than five weeks the family of six
children had become a family of four.
Right: Bethnal Green 1862
Thomas was thirty years old at this time. He had lived within a small area of Bethnal Green all of his life, but the
following year, 8th April 1884, when another daughter, Florence Gertrude Alabaster was born her birth was not
registered in East London at all, but south of the River Thames, in St Olave, Southwark.  Thomas and Cordelia
appear to have moved, with
their remaining family, to a
completely "foreign" part of
London. It is easy to believe
that the tragedy of losing two
sons in such a short time had
spurred the family to move
away from their origins and
attempt to rebuild their lives in
a different area. Thomas was
employed as a Colonial
Sampler, presumably based at
the London docks, so his place
of work would have remained
unchanged.
Another son, Sidney Herbert,
was born on 1st February, 1886,
as recorded in the Bible. Once
again, his birth appears to have
taken place in South London. In
1887 the family were living at 4
Cromwell Buildings, Southwark. At the turn of the year Emily would have been twelve, George ten, Cordelia eight,
Adeline six, Florence two, and baby Sidney just coming up to his first birthday. On 8th January, Cordelia Catherine,
died of Cerebra Spinal Meningitis Conda. The informant was Thomas Alabaster, father, present at the death. Infant
mortality might have been a fact of life at this time, but a child of eight was not an infant. How terribly sad for the
family, for the parents and the other children.
Adeline Bertha, my grandmother, was six years old then. How must she have felt at the death of her sister. Years
later, in 1903, Adeline named her first daughter Cordelia. I had assumed it was after her mother, but I wonder now
whether it was her sister she was remembering. Sadly, little Cordelia Oram was also to die before her first birthday.
By the end of that year, 1887, when Horace Edmund was born, the family had moved again, this time to the very
outskirts of London, actually Leyton, Essex.
Five more children were born between 1888 and 1893. Of these Harold John died at three months, Victor Augustus at
six months and Christopher Davidson at two months of age. I wonder if Thomas and Cordelia became hardened to
these events, or whether each one continued to hurt as much as the first. Ada Victoria, the youngest daughter, lived
until 1911 when she was seventeen. Then she died of Hodgkins disease, an ailment which now has a 90% recovery
rate. Gilbert Stephen, the youngest surviving son, died at the age of twenty-seven, on 5th April 1918 in France during
World War One.
So by the end of 1918, after fifteen births, only six of the children were living. I have been told that Horace Edmund
emigrated to Canada before the Great War, although I have no further information on this. The five remaining each
lived to a ripe old age; I just wonder what effect these early experiences had, if any, on their later lives.
The family of Thomas and Cordelia Victoria Alabaster
Thomas ALABASTER b 17 June 1853 Bethnal Green, d 12 December 1924 Walthamstow London E17, m 11 May
1873,
+ Cordelia Victoria JOLLY, b 3 October 1852 Stepney, d 17 August 1939 Walthamstow E17
|____Emily Augusta, b 30 April 1874, d 15 August 1956 age 76
|____Elizabeth Jane, b 22 June 1875, d 6 July 1875 age 2 weeks - spina bifida
|____George, b 27 May 1876, d 6 September 1957, age 81
|.........+ Fanny
|____Cordelia Catherine, b 27 April 1878, d 8 January 1887 age 8 - cerebra spinal meningitis conda
|____Alfred Ernest, b 24 November 1879, d 25 July 1883 age 3 yrs 8 months - stomatitis exhaustion
|____Adeline Bertha, b 30 January 1881, d 21 June 1960 age 79
|.........+ Ernest George Gillingham ORAM, b 11 February 1874, d 1939
|____Walter Ambrose, b 23 February 1883, d 23 June 1883, age 4 months - violent shock, scalds, accidental
|____Florence Gertrude, b 8 April 1884, d 1961 age 77
|.........+ Philip SMITH
|____Sidney Herbert, b 1 February 1886, d 7 October 1966 age 80
|.........+ Daisy Florence LEWIS, d June 1937 Dartford
|.........+ Christina Hill JONES
|____Horace Edmund, b 3 December 1887, went to Canada pre-1914
|____Harold John, b 9 December 1888, d 26 May 1889 age 5 months - tabes mesenterica (TB)
|____Victor Augustus, b 9 January 1890, d 31 July 1890 age 6 months - tabes mesenterica (TB)
|____Gilbert Stephen, b 27 March 1891, d 5 April 1918 age 27 in France serving with the 6th Battalion,
Northamptonshire Regiment
|.........+ Ruth Mary LEWIS
|____Christopher Davidson, b 12 May 1892, d 1 August 1892 age 2 months - broncho-pneumonia
|____Ada Victoria b 20 November 1893, d 31 July 1911 age 17 - Hodgkins disease
My own Nana, Adeline Bertha, must have been aware, at the time, of the deaths of eight of her siblings. She had eight
children herself. Her first son was named Ernest, after her husband, but the first daughter was Cordelia. There
followed four more daughters and then two sons. The first of these boys she named Alfred Henry; could this have been
in memory of her brother, Alfred Ernest? Her youngest baby was my father, Leslie Victor. He was born in 1919, so
perhaps the "Victor" was a reflection of the end of the war, or perhaps it was a memory of Victor Augustus.
Tracing a family history can take you right back to hundreds of years ago, as we have been very aware at the
Gatherings in Hadleigh, but this Bible and the research that has ensued, has made me even more aware of my
ancestors as real people; thinking and breathing and loving and hurting, just like us. I do hope they experienced
happiness, just like us too.
References:
Tower Hamlets Local History Library
- Charles Booths's Descriptive Map of London Poverty, 1889, pub.130 London Topographical Society, reprinted 1984
- Medicine & Health Through Time, Dawson & Coulson, pub John Murray(Publishers) Ltd
And there's more.........................!
The discovery of the existence of these pages from a Bible and the information they contained had another effect;
they produced reminiscences on the part of both my father, Leslie Victor Oram and my uncle, Alfred Henry Oram.
Uncle Alf's childhood memory that follows - he would have been about eight years old and my father aged four -
encapsulates a memory of living history and reflects a little of the later lives of two of those surviving babies, Adeline
Bertha and Sidney Herbert whose births were recorded in a Bible just about one hundred years ago.
As we go to print, I have just managed to discover the details of the inquest into the death of Walter Ambrose, aged 4 months, in 1883. I will
complete the story by describing these in Chronicle Number Nine.
To go there directly, click here.
by Alf Oram
One of my most vivid memories of the Alabaster family is when my Mother, who was an Alabaster by birth, got a
message to say her brother was going to visit us. Just think "Uncle Sid" was going to visit Walthamstow.
I guess the year would have been around 1923. Now Uncle Sid, being a master builder, was a rich man: we were told
he built many houses in Bexleyheath, Kent. Our family was poor, we lived in Ickworth Park Road, Walthamstow. The
house was situated next door to a garage which blanked off one end of the road. This garage was used as a parking
space for about a dozen heavy lorries which transported meat from Smithfield Market to local butchers.
However, there was panic stations when the letter arrived to say that Uncle Sid was to visit us. My father, being an
ex-Naval man, was very smart and he wasn't going to let the side down. Even when visiting the local pub, he would
wear his bowler hat and there would always be a flower in his buttonhole. If a flower was not available in the garden,
he would pinch one from someone's front garden on the way. So, the order of the day was "everything shipshape". Out
came the bucket and mop, a pail of water was thrown over the floor and father, with his trousers rolled up, began to
demonstrate how they washed the decks aboard ship. All rat holes in the front garden were to be filled. I think at times
we could boast the largest rats in Walthamstow, without a doubt they were well fed: often large portions of meat were
deposited on the garage floor when the lorries were cleaned out but before the cleaners could sweep the floor, the rats
would beat them to it.
The great day came: my brother Les and I, with our hair tidy and boots polished, waited patiently for Uncle Sid to
arrive. What transport would he use? Pony and trap, or perhaps a motor cycle and sidecar. We soon found out for
about 11am a "chugg-chugg" could be heard and amid a cloud of smoke Uncle Sid's car turned into our road. There he
was driving a bright red machine. I think it was called a Swift, built around 1920. It was an open-top vehicle. It had a
large brass radiator, a brass oil lamp each side of the windscreen and one big carbide head lamp perched in front.
Anyway, up the road the "ole girl" puffed, and there was "Uncle Sid", with peaked hat, driving gloves, goggles, the
lot, hanging on to the steering wheel like grim death. Beside him was Auntie, looking prim and proper, ready to tackle
the London to Brighton Rally.
While the visit was going on, my brother and I made it our business to guard the car; none of the kids from our road
was going to touch our Uncle's car. However with the visit over, out came Aunt and Uncle followed by my smiling
parents, then he did was brother Les and I had hoped, he put his hand in his pocket and produced two coins - a shilling
each. Imagine, a whole shilling! That was twelve weeks` pocket money. We were millionaires!!! I don't know how my
parents got on, but I noticed Dad sported two "Button Holes" when he visited the pub later.
So with handshakes all round, Uncle and Aunt boarded this car, Auntie with her hat at a rakish angle, Uncle with his
goggles hanging round his neck, they were ready to depart. With the engine cranked and a gear selected, then with a
few coughs, the old car began to move slowly backwards, ready to make the turn to the open road and the long trip to
Bexleyheath. As the smoke died down and our rich relations disappeared from sight, I am sure we all thought, "Don't
make it too long before you visit again, Uncle Sid!"
Alf Oram (IIA)
My Introduction to the Alabaster Society
by Ian Alabaster
1996 was a pleasant but most unusual year for me. Starting the year from the perspective of genealogy, I did have a
collection of old birth, wedding and death certificates for my family but being 61, and the patriarch of my little branch
of Alabasters, my two sons and their children made up, for me, the whole Alabaster world. My grandparents, on both
sides, had cut or been cut off from their respective relatives and all other close relatives were deceased. All I knew
was that the relatives had lived in the east end of London, Bethnal Green area.
This cosy little world was shattered when I decided to join the internet and received an e-mail telling me about the
Alabaster Society, and telling me about Hadleigh. Masses of photocopies and earlier copies of the Alabaster
Chronicles followed, and I just could not wait to visit Hadleigh, which I presumed to be a little village.
I immediately made plans to visit and booked accommodation in the town. Laraine contacted me and invited me to a
Fork Supper being held by the Friends of Hadleigh Guildhall in connection with the restoration work and said that it
might offer a chance to look over parts of the Guildhall not always available to the general public. Well, it took me just
the time to reach for the telephone to confirm that I would be there.
I left early from my home on the Isle of Wight and travelled up through Essex via Colchester, which by its very nature
began to make me think of ancient ancestors catching a mail-coach for Hadleigh just down the road. I envisaged the
pot-holed track that there would have been with the coach bouncing up and down. I was not really ready for the quite
large market town in which I discovered myself. I found my accommodation where I was well looked after, and
discovered that the other guest there was from Essex University and was studying Guildhalls. I visited St Mary's
church, which was close by, to see the Alabaster brasses that Laraine had told me about and to see the Guildhall and
Deanery from outside. The feeling of walking where my past relatives had gone before was, as Dame Edna says,
"quite spooky". I stood there in the beautiful sunshine in another dimension, seeing figures in cloaks and puritan hats
going about their business; it was so peaceful and serene. I really romanced about things, albeit that the reality of
those time was likely quite harsh.
That evening I met Laraine for the first time at the Fork Supper in the Guildhall and saw the documents that are still
being interpreted and met a lot of people, ending up with a lot of souvenirs of the occasion, plus a good buffet which I
enjoyed. I was amazed at the size and stature of the building.
The next day I had been invited to join in a tour of the Guildhall being made by the Essex University study group, and
you can believe that I was the first person there. It was, of course, a lecture tour and we saw all over the building.
After clambering over parts still being renovated, I saw the priest hole on the second floor. I was shown how the
building had been adapted over the years and was totally enthralled by the whole experience. I then saw the gardens
and the fountain.
I purchased a copy of "Hadleigh through the Ages" by W.A.B. Jones, which I read that evening at my lodgings, and
realised how the Alabasters had had an influence on the town and its surroundings. I also realised what tough times
they had lived through. I decided there and then I should return for a much longer stay when I could also visit some of
the local places that W.A.B. Jones had mentioned.
I began by saying what a good year 1996 was, to find out that I have so many relatives in different branches is
wonderful to somebody who was brought up with only a spinster aunt as a relative. I am sorry that I missed the
Alabaster Gathering at Hadleigh, but will be there the next time, rest assured.
Ian Alabaster (WofW)
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