8 Having a closer look at Claude Annesley - Finding his mother - Ellen Jennings.

T

here  is one thing in life that no-one can change  -  History!  




What has happened in the past remains there.  Stories can be uncovered, discoveries made, but trying to remove what has happened is impossible.

No doubt in days gone by, our ancestors lived their lives to the fullest, and they would never have thought that matters they tried to hide could be uncovered.

When I started researching, as my part time employment (so it seems) I consistently hit huge brick walls in relation to, my father-in-law, Dale Herron’s natural father.  Claude Harold Annesley.

Dale had a wish throughout his life, and that was to find his father.  The man he never knew existed until he was around 10 years old.  He didn’t even know until then, that he had an older sister Valerie.

All that Dale had to go on, was his parent’s wedding certificate.  A document, written in 1910, which clearly indicated that Claude Annesley was born in China, and that his parents were Hon Arthur Annesley and Ellen Jennings.  He was never able to find anything about his father.

He thought that he had perished in the earthquake in Napier around 1932, where he went after working on a property Scartsdale owned by the RSL in North Queensland. 

Dale was born Claude Dalgleish Annesley, and changed his name to Dale Herron around 1940.  His step father Jim Herron was very good to him throughout his life.

He knew his father was from an aristocratic family, and that he had turned his back on his family and came to Australia for a different life. 

Right!

The Annesley Family are very notable, and indeed are very much part of the aristocracy of England and Ireland.  I made it my mission, when I discovered Family genealogy, to find Claude Annesley. 

In 2009 I was particularly excited to find Claude had lived in New Zealand. I obtained his will,  and letters he had personally written to his solicitor and I felt sorry that he had died a lonely old man.

Then I learnt that when he died, he had his ashes thrown to the wind.  So there was no headstone for us to visit, to honour him. 

I found it extremely difficult to put Hon Arthur Annesley and Ellen Jennings together.  Claude had kept a small cutting relating to one of the Annesley ‘s who married in 1912, in his personal diary.  


It was from this line, that I assumed he was either the son of the Hon Arthur Annesley who had died in France in 1882 or perhaps the son of another Arthur Annesley, 11th Lord Valentia.




Annesley joined the 10th Hussars in 1864 and was promoted to lieutenant in 1868. He retired from the Army in 1872, but in 1894 was appointed Lieutenant colonel of the Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars. In early 1900, Lord Valentia was seconded for service with the Imperial Yeomanry in the Second Boer War,and left for South Africa in the SS Scot in late January.

He served as Assistant Adjutant-General for Imperial Yeomanry, with the temporary rank of Colonel, and was mentioned in despatches and appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in November 1900 for his services. Upon relinquishing his commission, he was granted, on 1 January 1901, the honorary rank of Colonel in the Army.

But who was Ellen Jennings?

I traced the Annesley Line from the 1600’s and learnt that none of the children were called Claude, 

Arthur there were plenty, Claude none.  That research took weeks and weeks. 


The Annesley in the cut-out from the newspaper had married in 1912, and had died in Belgium in 1914, and his title was transferred to his relatives, as he had no children.  On my line of research, Claude would have been eligible for the title, had he been the son of the Hon Arthur Annesley.      This Hon Arthur Annesley was worth a fortune!    

Various questions arose, why was a solicitor from Kent, looking for him in 1921?  Did it have something to do with the title? 

Why would the son from such a famous family be living it tough in the hot dry outback of Queensland, as a pioneer?

Things just didn't add up.

But nowhere was there a partner called Ellen Jennings associated with any Annesley.

In fact there was another person called Claud Annesley - born in America. 

Questions, but no answers!

By chance I decided to help the British economy and paid for a subscription to Find My Past.uk. .A different website than my Ancestry.com.au.  I searched Ellen Jennings, and found her!!!!

The only problem was she was never married to an Arthur Annesley.

Yes she was married in Hang Chow, as per Claude’s marriage certificate, but her husband was Rev James Harold Sedgwick!

Once again I was over the moon, to find the elusive Ellen.  But this raised so many more questions.

Ellen and James had a son, Harold, who was born before 1883.  Ellen died prior to 1883, but I was unable to locate her death certificate.  This discovery raised some serious suspicions, because I firmly believed then, that Claude and Harold were the very same person.

But researcher friends had taught me that before you can make any assumption, the facts have to be proven.

So I continued my on-line research and searches of so many sites, it is lucky that I didn’t use up all my monthly internet data allocation!  Rainy and gloomy days are perfect to devote to Family History Research.

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Recapping the life of Claude Harold Annesley

1.    Who Was Claude Harold Annesley?

Claude Harold Annesley by his own admission provided information about his life prior to arriving in Australia.

He nominated the names of his mother, his father, and where he was born. 

From his World War One Australian Army Records he nominated that he had been in Boer War, and had suffered from malaria.

Very few clues indeed.  

He married Katie Isabella Jillett in 1910.

They had three children, Dorothea, (deceased), Valarie and Claude.

He enrolled in the Australian Army in 1916 in Bowen

Returned from the Army and he and Katie lived on a Soldier’s settlement in Orallo, near Roma in Queensland.  He left sometime after 1921 and took Valarie with him

Then he simply vanished!

No mention at all of a life led in England, other than he kept a Wedding Notice relating to

Hon Annesley who married in England in 1912. 

His son Claude Dalgleish Annesley, changed his name by deed poll in 1940, and thereafter was known as Dale Herron.

Dale’s wish was to find his father.  Dale died before that could be achieved, but I am sure he would have been totally shocked at what I have discovered of his father’s life in England.

 
2.  Trying to find Claude

Claude Harold Annesley was born in 1883, and on his marriage certificate it mentions that he was born in China. His parents Arthur and Ellen Annesley were listed as being both deceased.

He listed that he was born in Chao Ching Chekiang, China.  The closest to that information is the town of Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, China.

   (Hangzhou is the capital of the province, we visited it in 2007)

(In the early days it was not uncommon for someone to prepare their own birth certificate.  No record could be traced of Claude’s birth or any details of his parents.  His name is spelt Annersley on the marriage certificate.)

It is believed that his father was a member of the Diplomatic Corp, but there is no research to prove that.

He also states that he was born in China, in an area supposedly near Shanghai.  All government records of Shanghai were destroyed in the many uprisings.   His death certificate indicates he was born in India, and that his mother’s name was Mary Ann.  However that information would have been given by the person arranging his cremation, as his second wife pre-deceased him.

However, the British Government still registered all overseas births in their registers.  To date no birth register can be located for Claude or his family.

 I then contacted the Chinese Embassy

-----Original Message-----
From: 

]
Sent: 04 November 2009 14:20
To: Consular Mail Beijing -UBS
Subject: Please reply

Our grandfather, Claude Harold Annesley son of Hon Arthur Annesley seemed to disappear into thin air in the 1930's and through a lot of searching, I have now found where he died.

I am chasing a birth certificate, as he stated he was born in Chao Ching, Chekiang, North China I make that out to be the Chekiang province, and there is a town of similar name, but spelt differently just south of Hangzhou

He was born in 1883 and his mother was an Ellen Jennings, all that information is on his marriage certificate

He may have been in the Boer War, but I can’t find any records of that at all, as he maintained he caught malaria in South Africa.

We have been to China, (fantastic place)  and are aware of the fact that records were destroyed, but I understood that all births to British citizens were recorded.  Unfortunately  there is no record.  The people suggested writing to you direct, in case you are able to assist.

Any information would be greatly appreciated.  Thanking you in anticipation.

Kris Herron   Queensland Australia

Thank you for your email.

Some of the files were destroyed during the revolution period at that time, we are not able to find his record from a few discovered ones. Apologies for this, you might want to try to contact with General Registry Office in UK

Website: www.gro.gov.uk/gro 

 Regards,  Consular

Claude Annesley ‘s Marriage Certificate

3.    Proving A Theory!

From Claude’s information, and the snippet from the newspaper carefully pasted into the family birthday book, I was positive that I had connected Claude to the correct Hon Arthur Annesley.  Certainly one who was in line to carry on as the Viscount had he lived.

With a trip to the United Kingdom on the agenda in 2014 to walk in our ancestors footsteps, and after successfully locating many of my own rather famous ancestors,  coupled with a lot of wet and rainy days, I decided to once again devote my energies into finding the elusive Ellen Jennings.

I had thought she must have been a servant, that the Hon Arthur Annesley had a relationship with, but I couldn’t work out how Claude could be born a year after his father died!

I set about researching the Annesley line.  There are so many of them.  I sourced information on each one, and wrote a book of all my findings.  My ancestry.com  site came alive with heaps of Annesley facts, births, marriages and deaths. 

Then I was lucky to find so many old photographs.  The lives of the family members were so very interesting.  I knew we were going to really enjoy a second trip to Ireland to walk in the Annesley footsteps as well.

How wrong that proved to be!

As I had been unable to locate any records pertaining to Claude over the years of research, I decided to prop up the English economy and seek the assistance of several other genealogy sites other than Ancestry.com.

 I then located Ellen Jennings!

She was listed on the Miscellaneous Foreign Marriage records at the National Archives, and she was in China.

But this Ellen Dumergue Jennings married one Rev James Henry Sedgwick on 24^th October 1881 in Hangchow, in the Cheh-Kiang province of China. 

She did not marry Hon. Arthur Annesley.     James Henry Sedgwick was a missionary from a family of Anglican ministers, as was Ellen.                         

Suddenly a Pandora’s box opened up.  Did this mean that Claude was not who he said he was?

From what I had known of his past, I was sure that was the case.

But trying to prove it to the family was another thing.   I don’t think my husband, John, his grandson, believed it at first, so I knew that I need more solid facts and evidence, just to prove my theory!

More research,  more discoveries to make.

Claude nominated his birth place as Chao Ching Chekiang North China, on his marriage certificate.  Rev James Henry Sedgwick was a Missionary at Cheh-Kiang province.  

Bit of a co-incidence!!!!

Ellen Jennings Marriage Certificate

They were married by Bishop George Evans Moule the Bishop of China at the time.  Witness Arthur Elwin.

Arthur Elwin - Now remember that name!

4.    Ellen Jennings and James Sedgwick’s son

Ellen and James had a son.  He was named Harold Sedgwick.  Then I hit another brick wall.  I couldn’t find any useful information that particularly was about that person.  There was an H. Sedgwick in the Boer War, and I worked with the people at the Defence Archives in England, to locate his records. 

I also sought some help from the Sedgwick Family History Group, who had a son listed for Ellen and James, but not named Harold.  Nicky Cunningham from the group, found that Harold’s second name was Jennings.

Now I had a name to work with.   Harold Jennings Sedgwick.  

From that point on the story became a reality.