Originally uploaded by timsunter

Address is given as High Street, Howden. Isabella was 32 years old when she died and cause of death is given as “Phthisis 3 months”. Joseph Sunter is the informant and also gives his address as High Street Howden.
Phthisis is the old term for TB.
The certificate is evidence which would indicates Joseph and Isabella were living in Howden in 1883 – just a few hundred metres from where Jane had given birth to Charles Hull Snowball.
When Isabella died Charles must surely have known Jane with her young son. I now suspect it was at Howden, rather than Bishop Auckland where Jane Ann and Charles met.

Sunter, Charles – 1907 Workhouse Entry

Originally uploaded by timsunter

At 5 minutes past 8 on Christmas Eve 1907, Charles Sunter entred the Middlesbrough workhouse. The entry lists Charles as a labourer, a Wesleyan, and living at the home of his sister in Thornaby. It appears that Charles was not well at the time as he was sent to the hospital.
The Creed Register shows that Charles was discharged from the warehouse on 24th January 2008.
The workhouse admissions register was being searched for signs of the Sunter family being admitted following census (1911) evidence which showed that Lofty’s uncles Joseph and Edward had been admitted to the Edgeworth National Children’s Homne and James was being fostered.
Jane Ann Snowball was working as a relief foster mother at Middlesbrough workhouse childrens home.
No record of any Sunter, other than Charles, could be found.

Dear Mr. Sunter,

Further to your telephone call to this Office today I have established that a William Sunter, born 1917, son of Charles and Emma, was admitted to Stockton Union Children’s Homes in January 1921.  As discussed over the telephone, if you require any further searches of our holdings for the Homes and Stockton Poor Law Union, you will need to use our research service (see attached details and application form) and supply proof of your relationship to William Sunter.

In the event that you make use of the research service it would be useful to know if William had any siblings.

Yours sincerely,

County Archivist

Papers relating to individuals are confidential for 100 years.  I have therefore sent proof of my relationship and the relevant fee to enable one of the archive’s researchers to find the information I would be asking for.

What our ancestors were up to according to the 1901 Census…

Sunter

1901 Census which shows that Charles Sunter is aged 19, a railway Stoker, and living at 5 Victoria Street, Thornaby. 

Thornaby is in Stockport and just to the South East of Unicorn Yard and Brunswick Street.  I cannot find Victoria Street on Google Earth although there is a Victoria Road.

The household is composed of:

• Jane A Sunter, head, widow, 57, Leadgale
• William Sunter, stepson, single, 29, Labourer Iron Works, Yorkshire Heights Swaledale
• Charles Sunter, son, single, 19, Railway Engin (sic) Stoker, Howden Le Wear
• Dorothy Sunter, daughter, 13, Yorkshire Redcar
• Gertrude Sunter, daughter, 11, Yorkshire Redcar
• Olive J Sunter, daughter, 10, Stockton
• Joseph Sunter, son, 6, Thornaby
• Edward Sunter, son, 3, Thornaby

Rick McGarry points out that Jane had a further son, James, in 1901. This implies that she must have been pregnant at the time of the census. Presumably William and Charles are a source of income for the family.

 Marsh family

John William Marsh (33), Jane Marsh (34) and Emma Marsh (7) are living in Leeds, Yorkshire. John is listed as being born in Leeds and is a Pit Sinker; Jane was born in Liverpool; and Emma is listed as being born in Rotherham, Yorkshire.

Emma’s sister, Amy (15), is living at 76 Kieghley Road, Halifax. She is a servant in the Driver household. James driver, the head of the househod is a 28 year old Gas Engineer’s Cashier. His brother in law, Thomas Ask is a solicitor’s clerk.

Merediths

Edward Meredith (24) is living in lodging at 25 Norton Road Stourbridge. He is boarding with Walter and Caroline Knowles. Edward is a carter for a wine merchant (the career his is to follow for the rest of his life). Walter is a carter for a corn dealer. There are several other carters and a glass blower living in nearby houses.

Edward’s parents, Joseph and Ann, and his brother – also Joseph – are living in Kingsford Lane, Kinver. Joseph snr is an ‘ordinary agricultural labourer’. Joseph jnr is a ‘Groom domestic’.

Hills

The Hill family (12 of them) are Farm bailiffs at Castle Hill Farm, Wolverley. Alfred Hill is a Farm Bailiff and has responsibility for running the farm. Alfred, 19, and Fred, 15 are farm labourers. Frances May – “Auntie May” is an 8 month old baby.
 
 

Edward (34), Ada (34), Gertrude (1) and Edward Meredith (4) living at 3 Bath Cottages, Cecil Street Stourbridge. They have three singers lodging with them. 
Joseph and Ann Meredith are living alone at Bird’s Barn, Kingsley, Wolverley.

Hill

Alfred (61), Alice (56), Edward (21), Sidney Walter (16), Amy Maud (14), James Earnest (12) and Frances May (10) are living at Beehive Farm, Golden Cross Lane, Catshill near Bromsgrove. Alfred , Sidney Walter and Edward are listed as farm workers and then more specifically as ‘haulers’ working on their own account.

Sunter (and Marsh)

Charles Sunter (29) is living with his soon to be wife, Emma Marsh (17). She is pregnant. They are boarding with Emma’s parents John William Marsh (45) and a Lodging House Keeper, his wife Jane (46) and their other daughter Amy Dawson who is registered on the census as married, although her husband is not with her on this night. Charles is an unemployed ‘fireman, locomotive’.

Of Charles’s family Jane Ann Sunter, his mother is in the Middlesbrough Workhouse. She is 46, a widow and working as ‘relife (sic) foster mother’ helping to look after 12 boys aged from 5 to 15. Ironically she is not looking after her own children:

Joe Sunter (16) and Edward (13) are living at the Edgworth National Children’s home near Bolton. Joe is listed as an office boy – it is believed he went on to be editor of the Colne Times. Edward became a Congregationalist minister and died in 1964 near Halifax.

A third son, James (9) is living at Long Melford in Suffolk with watch maker Robert Henry Miles (55) and his wife of two years Unity (57). Robert’s son, Reginald Victor Miles (15), a post office messenger is also living with them, along with another boarder Albert Blake, also aged 9.  

Grace Elizabeth (26) married Alexander Crombie (45) in 1908. They are living with their one year old daughter Annie Rebecca at ‘Cottage rear f 89 High Street, Esplanade, Recar, Yorkshire’.

Of Dorothy (23), Gertrude (21) and Olive (20) there is no trace in the 1911 Census. There are possible records of a marriage of a Dorothy H Sunter in 1926 and Gertrude Sunter to John McKinnel in Stockton in 1923.

Jane Ann Sunter also had two step children from Joseph’s first marriage to Isabella.

William Sunter (38) is now living at Redcar at 3 North Terrace Coatham. He is a Labourer cycle manufacturer. He is boarding with 55 years old widow Margaret Graham and her son ‘Jn’ who is 25 and whose occupation is described as ‘slater house’ – possibly slaughter house?

A record of Hannah Sunter cannot be found on the 1911 census.

Which leaves further research questions: 

• Where were Fred’s uncle and aunt’s Meredith?
• Who is missing and where were they?

Charles Snowball’s birth certificate arrived today.   As per the tradition the father’s name column is left blank (it makes my blood boil how it all falls onto the woman), but the name is definitely Charles Hull as opposed the Charles Hall.  The finger of suspicion reverts back to the Hull household where Jane Ann Snowball, Charles’ mother, was working as a servant in 1881.

Over the last two weeks I have searched right through the Sunter and Snowball pages of the Deaths Index and Ancestry.co.uk. These contain all the deaths listed for England and Wales. A have also searched the records of the Royal Navy but can find no trace of Charles Sunter, Charles Snowball, Charles Hall etc.

There has been a growing suspicion that maybe Charles was never even in the navy. Perhaps he had spun a tale to his family.

Yet still, on Lofty’s birth certificate it states that his father was a stoker in the Royal Navy based on HMS Mars.

An internet search on HMS Mars shows that in 1917 this was stationed in Invergordon, Scotland. So a search of the Scottish Death records (a different system to England Wales) might deliver a result.

The Scottish People website allows a “Soundex” search – i.e. a search for names that sound like Sunter as well as the Sunter name itself.

This is what the search came up with:

After a false start it seemed the only Charles in the right age range was person no 5. His record was really revealing. To read the document click the link below.

Charles Sunter death Scotland

Charles Saunders, A.B British Navy, Unknown whether married, Died 26th July 1918 at 9.06pm. Parents not known – place of death the navel base hospital.

A Google Earth Search showed the proximity of Invergordon (the last known location of Charles, derived from Lofty’s birth certificate) and Fodderty:

This would be the hospital for the naval base where Charles was posted.

The question is could there be another Charles Saunders in the navy. I have done a further search of the navy database and can only find a few people who it might have been BUT their navy records show that it could not have been the casualty at Fodderty.

My hypothesis – and I think it is a strong one is this:

• Charles Saunders is actually Charles Sunter. Whoever registered him at the hospital wrote down the name they thought it was.
  
• That the hospital couldn’t find the record for Charles. This was either because they were looking for Charles Saunders (who didn’t exist) or the record had been lost, misfiled, incorrectly filled in.
• If they had have found the record then it would clearly have stated next of kin (all military records ask this up front for obvious reasons).
• Because they had no next of kin then Emma could not be notified of his death.
• Even if Emma searched the navy would have not been able to locate a record for Charles Sunter or they would not have known that he had died.
• So from Emma’s perspective the family story is true. Lofty’s father went away to sea and simply disappeared.

The repercussions for the family must have been appalling. It would have lost its main bread winner and, with no welfare state as we know it, the home would have been put at risk.

There would have been no explanation as to what had happened to Charles and no doubt tongues would have wagged. Even contact with the navy would have produced no information on his whereabouts at the best. At worst it could have been suggested that there was no record of Charles ever having been in the navy.

We know that Emma ended up in a workhouse – in a system still designed to punish poverty and act as a deterrent – and was institutionalised for the rest of her life. We know that her children were put in children’s homes, and certainly Lofty had a very hard time of it.

If this hypothesis is correct it has taken 91 years to reveal what became of Charles. A man who started life uncertain of who his father was, who lived for at least nine years using “Snowball” as his surname and whose children never knew what became of him.