Facebook post #056 (Feb 2021)
Last week we were in 1871, and left John Traviss Squire boarding in Sheffield, a 15-year-old solicitor’s articled clerk. At the time, his 16-year-old future wife Harriet Green was at home with her iron founder father William (post 53) five miles north on Ecclesfield Common.
John and Harriet married in 1880 and shortly afterwards moved to Birdhurst Road, Wandsworth, where they still lived in 1891. From here, John would have commuted by rail to Waterloo (the line was extended in 1854), walked over the old Waterloo Bridge, and turned right along the Thames. This was the amazing new Victoria Embankment, which provided modern sewerage, so John would have been spared the Great Stink (see post 44), and his way would have been lit by Britain’s first electric street lighting.
He worked as an Assistant Solicitor for the Inland Revenue – Income tax had been introduced in 1842. I imagine the sight of Somerset house would have impressed our John from Barnsley every day, as it did me when I finally visited last year.
Somerset House also held all England’s birth, marriage and death records since the start of registration in 1837. I was surprised to discover that John had taken a pioneering interest in these records, and had undertaken a local study of Wandsworth, and particularly of Huguenots (for reason unknown). His work is still being used as a source: I even found it cited in Wikipedia.
John liked a pint – actually a quart! I cleaned up his old tankard a few years ago, gradually making out the words chiselled on the base. The first word around the base was “Duke”, which looked promising… Then, eventually, I worked out that it said ‘Duke of York, Cheapside, Barnsley’! There are pictures online of this pub being knocked down… Across the middle, it says ‘Cricketers, Kingston’. More luck this time: I was able to take a pint here from John’s tankard a few years ago.
John also played the violin – Uncle Eddie Squire once sent me a picture. Some of his books survive, including a music book (pic) and some learned tomes, such as a Pope with the plea to ‘Return Duly with the corners of the leaves NOT TURNED DOWN’, a doodled Byron, a Voltaire in French, and sundry battered Latin tomes.
John died in 1894, aged 39. Update: Christopher Squire has shared the rumour that he was found dead in a railway carriage on return from a work assignment in York. A sad pre-echo of my grandad’s end… or could there have been foul play? But we have an update!
For several years he had held an appointment at Somerset House. Last week he was on business in Bolton and Wakefield, and being unwell, came to Barnsley. Typhoid developed, and he was removed to the hospital, where he died.
Leeds Mercury 15 Nov 1894
As is often the way, less is known of Gt-Gt Gran Harriet. It can’t have been easy as a young widow. In 1901 and 1911, she was in Kingston upon Thames with her surviving children. Kingston is named after the King’s Stone, the coronation stone of King Æthelstan (post 54) and others.
Given his tankard’s inscription, perhaps John moved there late in his short life. My Grandad John, the couple’s grandson John (post 51) was born there.
Harriet died in 1941, nearly 50 years after John’s passing, having lived through WWI, and the WWII blitz when 447 bombs dropped on Kingston. Extended widowhood was sadly normal for the Squires: both his grandfathers were outlived by decades by their widows, as were his son, Alfred E Squire and grandson, John Squire.