In Service of the Crown: Modern Windsor's Founding Families

ISBN-13: 9781539457718 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 110 str.

Peter M. Farrell

Opis

The author remembers when his mother, Betty, went to visit an elderly uncle, Leopold Cleave, at his Pensioner's Lodgings in Windsor Castle, where prior to retirement he had been a photographer, clerk and ultimately Chief Tapissier. When she was younger, c. 1935, Leo had taken Betty and her half brother Harold Cleave to visit Adelaide Cottage in the Home Park, where as a child he had many times stayed with his grandparents, George and Mary Ann Fleming. The visit aroused her curiosity in the family's history and in later life she became an enthusiastic genealogist. Along with her many research projects for clients world wide, investigating the Cleave and Fleming families continued to absorb her. Frustratingly, apart from her father's background Betty didn't have much firm information at her disposal, other than the knowledge that her great grandfathers Cleave and Fleming had been Windsor residents of some note, the former as Mayor and the latter as a personal servant to Queen Victoria for 55 years. In addition Alderman Cleave's father was believed to have come originally from the West Country, where the family had purportedly been involved in "Press Gang" activities, whereas the Flemings were of rural stock from the Weald of Sussex & Kent. Betty rose to the challenge and after extensive correspondence with various authorities and institutions, as well as many visits to churchyards and reference libraries across the south of England, she had assembled a wealth of information and when she passed on her notes to her son, the author, the bug bit When Betty was doing her research, there was no internet at her fingertips, consequently progress was slow and limited to the Cleave and Fleming families. With today's technology, however, Mike Farrell been able to delve into a much larger pool of information and as a result fascinating details have emerged of other families in Windsor during the 19th century, who influenced the lives of the Cleaves and Flemings, such as the Goulds, the Tebbotts, the Underhays, the Bambridges and the Hanovers.