Who do you think you are?

My father came to stay for several days over the Christmas holiday and he was keen to take another look round the peninsula and the places where our ancestors lived and worked. And maybe do a little research too.

Having a quick look around Upnor High Street

With the BBC’s recent adaptation of Great Expectations, and its desolate scenes of the marshes, spurring our imaginations about how our ancestors might have lived, St. James’ Church in Cooling was the obvious place to start the tour. It’s always good to take in the views from the Church and imagine how different things would have looked in Dickens’ time, before the sea defences changed the landscape so much.

In Lower Stoke we took time to look at the building site that was, until a few years ago, the location of The Ship pub. The pub was run, from 1889 to 1901, by my great great grandfather Henry Spencer - one of my father’s favourite ancestors. I think it might have something to do with their shared experience in the victualling trade.

All the talk and memories of running pubs made my father keen to have his photo taken in front of one - so we opted for The Nags Head (opposite where The Ship once stood). The Nags Head is known for having played host to the famous painter and satirist William Hogarth, back in 1732. Hogarth stayed here, as part of a 5-day tour of Kent with four friends, before reaching the Isle of Grain (where he stayed another night) and then headed on to the Isle of Sheppey.

We then went up the road to Upper Stoke, to pay our respects at the grave of Henry Spencer (he of The Ship), which is in the graveyard of the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. We also took a look at a gravestone which evokes thoughts about a time of great tragedy in our family’s history.

The ‘Watson children’ gravestone, nestled beneath the tree my father is pictured standing by, soberly lists the names of six children (all of whom would have been my father’s great uncles and aunts had they lived), who died in the space of a few short years between 1871 and 1882. The children were aged between 1 and 19, and there was also a baby just a few weeks old.

We then had a look inside the Church itself, where my father chatted to one of the church volunteers, who asked him his family name. Without prompting, he asked if we were related to an ‘old boy of Stoke’, who went by the nickname of ‘Stumpy’ Watson. My father almost passed out at the mention of ‘Stumpy’, as we have been researching him for a while with little success. We don’t know whether we are definitely connected, but have been trying to find out more about him. He was clearly a well known chap.

I then took a quick photo of my father outside The White Horse pub, also in Upper Stoke. His grandfather ran this pub very briefly from November 1904 to January 1907. The tale behind such a short tenure will have to keep for another time!

The last stop of the day, before heading back home for a cuppa in Hoo, was the Isle of Grain and the Coastal Park. I showed him some of the things improved by the work of volunteers over the past year or so.

Another really useful day out on the peninsula!
 

Who was 'Stumpy' Watson?

I recently re-read 'Hoo's Who' by Kathy Evans and Douglas Marsh. This book contains memories of local people and provides an insight into how life used to be on the Hoo Peninsula. There are two references to a 'Stumpy Watson'. The first is by Frank Hammond, whose uncle was a blacksmith in Lower Stoke. The second by Pauline Plewis, who was a school secretary at Stoke Primary.

Talking about helping his uncle Albert at the Forge in Lower Stoke, Frank Hammond states "I used to pump the flue and the old boy, little old Stumpy Watson, used to sit and watch me. All the old boys used to sit there (in the forge) if they couldn't get into the Ship Inn or if they couldn't afford a drink."

 

Pauline Plewis also talks about the village characters. "They had all sorts of nicknames and I used to hear older villagers talking about these weird people, including Stumpy Watson, who had a wooden leg. Stumpy used to play the drums in a little band they got-up for a fete. They would form outside the Nags Head and march along and up by the Methodist Church, but Stumpy would go the other way because he couldn't see over the drum."

These memories paint an intriguing picture of Stumpy Watson. And who was he exactly? I might be wrong (and I probably am), but I am starting to think that he must have been Stephen Watson, who was my Great-Grandfather's brother. Stephen was born in Stoke and died in 1945, aged 83. Stephen married Eliza Frances Weller (from Borstal) in 1893, but she died in 1927. I don’t know if they ever had any children.

Stephen Watson's death certificate, pictured below, is dated 2 May 1945 and shows his address as Lathbury Cottages, Stoke Road, Lower Stoke.

I would like to find out if Stumpy Watson and Stephen Watson are in fact the same person. So it would be great to find a surviving photograph of Stumpy, as I have so many weird and wonderful images running through my mind at the moment.