THINGS TO REMEMBER BEFORE I FORGET

Leeanna Fairey (1865-1950)

I begin with the things my maternal Grandmother Lucy Mawson told me, a lot of the facts are confirmed by various letters and documents Lucy was instrumental in collecting. [Note: Lucy was a keen family historian and regularly travelled to Somerset House to locate birth, marriage and death certificates in the 1940s, 50s and 60s – it is through her diligent research that we have discovered many of the facts about her grandparents, John Allen Adamthwaite and Eliza (Saynor) and their children]

Lucy’s mother, Leeanna Fairey, was the youngest of six children. She was born on 5th December 1865 in Yelden.  Her siblings were Mary Ann born September 1845, Rebecca born 1847, Owen baptised July 1849, Joseph born 1857, Evangeline baptised October 1863 Her father, Amos Fairey, was the carpenter in the village of Yelden, Bedfordshire [since the boundaries moved Yelden is now in Northamptonshire]. 

It is not known exactly when Amos died, but when he did Leeanna was sent to live with her married sister Rebecca. Rebecca’s husband, George Compton was a soldier with the 4^th Lancaster Regiment and was stationed in Portsmouth at Fort Widley. 

On her way to school Leeanna was intrigued to see the same soldier on numerous occasions, in full battle-pack running at double time around the parade ground at Fort Widley. Eventually she began to talk to him through the fence as he did the circuits. It was love at first sight! Apart from being a soldier on jankers, he was good looking and a real charmer. He was John Alexander Ridgeway Adamthwaite: he had joined the Army aged sixteen and was a bandsman also serving with the 4^th Lancaster Regiment. Altogether he served for 12 years as a bandsman, his discharge papers show he was stationed abroad for 7 ½ of those years, part of that time was spent in Gibraltar. I believe that is where Leeanna met John Alexander again when Rebecca’s husband was also transferred to Gibraltar and Leeanna had gone with them.

John Alexander resigned and was discharged from the Army on 29^th March 1884. He and Leeanna married on 12^th March 1885 in Stoke Newington. He was 30 she just 20. The first of their four children, Lucy Vipond Adamthwaite, my grandmother, was born in July 1886. On her birth certificate her fathers’ profession is described as “surgeons’ dispenser” I’m not sure what other employment John Alexander followed except my grandmother told me he ran a public house. One of them was in Lancaster and one The Royal Oak in the village of Litlington. I have his original and secondary discharge papers showing that he rejoined the army for a year, as a reserve in 1900, at the time of the Boer War (click on links to read the original Discharge papers).

read on