Eleanor Clarke Peters

Baptised

23 October 1814 at Brixham

October 23rd 1814, Brixham, Devon— From Janet Brock’s research

Married William Thomas

18 February 1836

William Thomas of this parish and Eleanor Peters of this parish were married in this church by banns this fourteenth day of February in the year 1836, in the presence of Elizabeth Heathnel (?), Jonah Peters and Joseph Clarke. Both William and Eleanor signed their names.— The wedding at All Saints — Mum's register reading (1836)

King Street, Brixham — husband at sea, Vivians next door

1841

Living in Brixham, Devon Eleanor Thomas, 1816 born Devon George Thomas, 1840 born Devon William Thomas 1837 born Devon Address: King Street No occupation recorded, but William's occupation recorded on George's marriage certificate as Master Mariner Very close neighbours are Elizabeth and Thomas Vivian and Eleanor's mother, Sarah

— From Janet Brock’s research

In 1843

1843

William Thomas dies.— From Janet Brock’s research

The widow marries the mariner next door — John Vivians

22 May 1848 at Brixham, Devon

John Vivians, bachelor, mariner, and Eleanor Thomas, widow, were married on the 22nd of May 1848, in the presence of Thomas [?] and Mary Ann Vivians. Fathers: Thomas Vivians, mariner, and William Peters, cooper. Both John and Eleanor signed their names.— The second marriage — Mum's register reading (1848)

Married John Vivians

22 May 1848

To John Vivians, May 22nd, 1848, Brixham— From Janet Brock’s research

The Overgang — the blended household

1851

Living with family in Brixham (indexed as Vicens) Eleanor Vivians, 1813, Mariner's Wife, born Brixham George Thomas . 1840, Son, born Brixham Sarah C. Thomas, 1844, Daughter, born Brixham John P. Vivians 1849, Son, born Brixham Elizabeth Vivians* Visitor born 1820, Brixham Address: Overgang, Lower Brixham, Devon Occupation of stepfather: Mariner *likely to be Eleanor's sister in law, Elizabeth Vivian

— From Janet Brock’s research

In 1855

1855

The Vivian family together with George Thomas move north to Hull— From Janet Brock’s research

The Silver Pits — how Hull became a fishing port

Some time around the middle of the nineteenth century — the trade's own story said a Brixham man found it, in a hard winter about 1850 — the smacksmen working off the Yorkshire coast discovered a deep hollow in the sea floor south-east of the Dogger Bank where soles gathered in almost unbelievable quantity. They called it the Silver Pits, and it did for Hull what a gold strike does for a river town. The fish landed at Hull rose from some fifteen hundred tons in 1854 to nearly eleven thousand ten years later, and the sailing smacks of the south-coast ports — Brixham above all — came north in their dozens to work the grounds from the Humber, bringing their families, their chapel habits and their soft Devon names to the terraces growing west of the town. For half a century Hull's fishing was done under sail: ketch-rigged smacks of sixty or seventy feet, dragging a beam trawl, crewed by five — skipper, second hand, third hand, fourth hand and a boy cook, the younger ones often apprentices bound to the owner from the workhouses and reformatories of half of England.

It was an owned world, but not by the men who sailed it. By law every British vessel was divided into sixty-four shares, and the smacks belonged ashore — to smackowners with a string of boats, to fish salesmen who took shares as security, to widows and tradesmen with a sixty-fourth or two; a thriving skipper might come to hold a few sixty-fourths of the boat he sailed, but most skippers commanded other men's property for a share of what the trawl brought up, well paid in a good season and paid nothing in a bad one, and moved from smack to smack as the owners saw fit. The crew signed articles every half-year, and those printed agreements — thousands survive for Hull — carry the working life of the fleet in their margins: crews shuffled up a rank when a man left or died, apprentices listed beside their berths, and the 'untoward events' the law obliged the skipper to report. One Hull smack's articles note, in the skipper's own words, a night ninety miles out when another smack 'came alongside of us, fouled our gear and cut our warp without making any effort to get clear' — the grounds were that crowded.

It was also, plainly, a world that killed. The smacks worked the winter sea in all weathers, often in fleets that stayed out for weeks, ferrying the catch to steam cutters in open boats; men went over the side 'shipping a sea' in the ordinary way of work, and there was little to be done but what one Hull skipper was reported doing in 1886 — going on deck at the alarm and making 'every effort to save the unfortunate man', who sank at once. The skipper's duty then was to bring the news home to a police constable, and the family's to the newspaper's deaths column. The apprentice system had its own shame: in 1882 a Hull skipper was hanged for the murder of a fourteen-year-old apprentice, and the scandal forced reform on the whole port. And yet the same fleet bred its plain heroisms — smacks standing by wrecks, crews pulled off sinking colliers and drifting barques by men in open boats.

It lasted barely fifty years. Steam trawlers appeared at Hull in the mid-1880s, fished in any weather and answered to no wind, and within a decade the sailing smacks were being sold away — to Faroe, to Iceland, into the coasting trade — and the fleeting system, the apprentices and the sixty-fourth shares of the sail era went with them. A man who had come north with the Brixham boats as a boy could, in one working life, see the whole world that brought him rise and vanish.

Union Street, Hull — the migration made

1861

Living in the parish of Holy Trinity, Hull (indexed as Viviano) Eleanor Vivians, aged 44, Fisherman's Wife born Brigham (sic) John Vivians, Son, aged 12, born Brigham Thomas Vivians, Son, aged 5, born Brigham Ann Vivians, Daughter, aged 8 born Brigham Address: 1 Kegan Place (?), Union Street, Hull— From Janet Brock’s research

In 1861

1861

The family move to Grimsby and John Vivian dies— From Janet Brock’s research

100 Church Street, Grimsby — the widow keeps a grocer's shop

1871

Vivins, Mrs Eleanor, shopkeeper, 100 Church Street [Grimsby].— White's Directory of Lincolnshire (1872) — the shop in print

In 1871

1871

Eleanor moves to Clee, near Grimsby to live with her daughter, Ann who has married Sam Willcox, a Fisherman, born in Brixham— From Janet Brock’s research

Grafton Street, Clee — with the Willcox grandchildren

1881

Living in Clee with Weelsby Samuel Willcox, Head, Aged 32, born Brixham, Fisherman Ann Wilcox, Wife, aged 28, born Brixham Annie Willcox, Daughter aged 8, born Grimsby Lily Willcox, Daughter, aged 6, born Grimsby Florence E. Willcox, Daughter, aged 3, born Grimsby Samuel Willcox, Son, aged 1, born Grimsby Eleanor Vivins, Mother in Law, Widow, aged 64, born Brixham Address: 33, Grafton Street, Clee

— From Janet Brock’s research

"Her own income" — Clee, aged seventy-eight

1891

Still living with daughter, Ann Ann Wilcox, Head, Married, aged 38, born Brixham Mm Vivius (sic) Mother, Widow, aged 78, born Brixham Anne Wilcox, Daughter, aged 19,born Grimsby Lily Wilcox, Daughter, aged 16, born Grimsby Samuel Wilcox, Son, aged 11, born Grimsby Eleanor Wilcox, Daughter, aged 9, born Grimsby Bessie Wilcox, Daughter, aged 6, born Grimsby Charles Wilcox, Son, aged 2, born Grimsby Jessie Wilcox, Daughter, aged 10 weeks, born Grimsby Address; 29 Grafton Street, Clee Eleanor had her own income

— From Janet Brock’s research

Died

1900

Eleanor Vivian, female, aged 86 — death registered July–September 1900, Grimsby district, Lincolnshire. (Volume 7A, page 376.)— Death registration (Q3 1900)

VIVIAN, Eleanor, at Cleethorpes, July 22 … 86.— The registrations column — Boston Independent (28 July 1900)

In 1900

1900

Eleanor dies. The Wilcoxes continued to live in Cleethorpes and had another son, Earnest— From Janet Brock’s research