Chicken Family Tales

 Witness to History This story is not (yet) about a direct relative but about someone who's part of my One-Name Study.  George Bell Chicken was the last civilian to be awarded the Victoria Cross, not just a witness to a historical event but part of it. George was born in Howden Pans, Northumberland in 1833, the first son of George and Elizabeth (nee Bell) Chicken. He followed in his father's footsteps to become a mariner but unlike his father wasn't content to stay in merchant shipping. For reasons which don't seem to be recorded he signed off his ship in Calcutta in 1855 and spent time in the "Country Merchant Service" sailing in the region of Singapore, Penang, Malacca etc. In a letter to his uncle in England he said that during this time he had lost money due to speculation and was therefore disgusted with the Merchant Service so he left it and went to the Government River Surveying Service where he worked until news of the massacre at Cawnpore reached Calc...

A Favourite Photograph This week's prompt came in the same week as the 10th anniversary of my mother's death so it seemed appropriate to share this photograph, one of the nicest ones I have of her. It was taken by one of her nephews who visited from Ireland less than 6 months before she died. It captures perfectly her lovely smile. I know she'd be saying to him "What on earth are you doing with that camera".  He had copies of it made and gave them to my sister and me before the funeral. It now sits on top of the piano near the dining table and her smile is there with us at every meal.  She was an amazing woman, though also very ordinary. Her childhood was spent on a very small farm in Ireland and as a teenager she made the journey to England where her aunt arranged a job in the local hospital as a ward maid - making beds, emptying bed pans, scrubbing floors, all the jobs that are needed to keep a hospital clean and operational but none of them exciting or easy. A ...

 Origins Where does the name come from? Many British surnames have an obvious origin: some are related to a trade or craft like Butcher, Baker etc; others are related to a place and others to a physical attribute like red hair or being tall or small. But what am I to read into Chicken as a name? Is it related to being a poultry keeper? Or is it, as some have suggested, related to being as brave (or not!) as a chicken? Or did it arrive in England with the Norman invasion as a corruption of Chicon? I'm no closer to knowing the answer to that question than I was when I started on this family tree research more than 2 decades ago. What I do know is that it is found in much of the English-speaking world though it's still not a very common name. Some of those in other countries are definitely descendants of families that I've traced here in England. Others have no known link at present. The search is endlessly fascinating, and I fully accept that I might never know the answer. #5...

  Stories that are handed down When I first started to look at my ancestry an uncle, my father's brother, told me that my great-grandfather had come to the North East from Cornwall. The story was that the Cornish tin mines were closing down and the Durham coal field needed miners so men travelled the 400 miles or more to find work, bringing their wives and children with them. The desperation to find work must have been overwhelming to travel that far.  For years I treasured that additional Celtic link, the other side of my ancestry being Irish. I searched the records that were available on line but to no avail. Nowhere could I find anything about a Chicken family in Cornwall. As years went by more and more records became available but still no sign of the family. I carried on working (intermittently) on the information I could glean about them in County Durham. Eventually I realised that I had in fact found records of my great-grandfather, not in any way in Cornwall. He was Du...

Doing a One Name Study alongside my own family history has thrown up some interesting people and stories and I hope one day to have links from them into my own family. This week's efforts have centred on a family of mariners originating around the mouth of the River Tyne in North East England. In County Durham we have the town of South Shields while in Northumberland we have North Shields, both home to seafarers for many, many years. George Chicken, baptised in July 1769, grew up in Gateshead, south of the Tyne. He became a glass and pot maker in South Shields, married and had four children. His eldest son, William, became a sailor. He worked hard and learned how to navigate and manage a ship, gaining his master's ticket.  William married and continued his seafaring life while his wife continued to live in South Shields and bring up their nine children. She must have had a hard life at times, but she was part of a community of mariner's wives who would support each other em...

In the News Local newspapers can be a source of long forgotten stories about ancestors who are not usually thought of as "famous". One such is this story of young Thomas Chicken. Thomas was born in 1879 in County Durham, the son of a coal miner. By the age of 12 he was working as an assistant to a newsagent, selling newspapers at the railway station. On 14th January 1892 the big news of the day was the death of the Duke of Clarence, second in line to the British throne. Newspaper sales were brisk. Young Thomas sold a paper to a Mr Wood, a farmer. As soon as he handed over the paper he dashed away down the platform to make another sale. A little later Mr Wood approached him and said that he'd given him a shilling and expected eleven pence ha'penny change. Thomas rooted in his pockets, examined the money he had there and said that he hadn't received any shillings. Mr Wood then went to Thomas' mother and eventually brought a policeman to the door, claiming "...

  New Year's Day Birthday New year, new day, new baby. My GG-Grandfather, Stephen John Chicken, was born on 1 Jan 1812 and baptised 3 weeks later. Within 3 months of his birth the French army was led by Napoleon into an invasion of Russia and before Stephen John's first birthday had been defeated. Tchaikovsky celebrated that event in his 1812 overture. Back home, on the day of his birth Bishop Barrington of Durham ordered troops to break up a miners' strike in Chester-le-Street, less than 10 miles south of Hebburn where Stephen John was born. His father, Thomas, was an engine man in the Colliery so knew of the hardships which had led to the strike. Did he hear of the troops being sent in the midst of celebrating the safe delivery of his second son? Did he perhaps know some of the men involved? This was the Regency period in England, with King George III in the grip of severe mental illness and his son George acting as Regent.  As a result of the war with France Britain ende...