The family in Whitby

Most of our Whitby ancestors lived on the same side of the river as the Abbey. Addresses that crop up regularly on the census returns are Sandgate, Henrietta Street, Grape Lane, Market Place, Church Lane and on the other side of the river, Baxtergate. Below are extracts from the Alan Godfrey’s 1911 map of Whitby with the above streets highlighted in yellow, Church Lane is the long one (it says Church Lane just off the extract).

This part of Whitby is still very much as it was then, it’s just a shame that the census returns do not specify house numbers, if they did we could locate our ancestors actual homes! The pink highlight shows the general location of the Hilton headstone against the wall in St Mary’s church yard.

The map below shows Baxtergate on the other side of the River Esk. This is the location of the warehouse for the Harland and Judge tobacco pipe making business run by John Judge, and also of the Plough Inn run by Richard Hilton for a few years, highlighted in pink. Also shown in pink is St Hilda’s church where our Whitby ancestors had many family events, it is still there today.

Our Whitby ancestors had some interesting jobs.

Pipe Making

John Judge and Richard Hilton worked together. I assume this is how John met and married Richard’s daughter, Frances. According to the Pigott’s Directory of 1822 Richard Hilton is a pipe maker based in Baxtergate. The 1841 census describes Richard as a Publican (The Plough) on Baxtergate and John as a pipe maker in the same household, as is Richard’s son Frederick. Four years later John married Frances. Both Richard and his son Frederick died sometime during the 1850’s and were buried in St Mary’s church yard. During the 1861 census John Judge was a pipe maker living in Henrietta Street. There is an advert in the Whitby Gazette of 22 June 1861 for Harland and Judge tobacco pipe makers with manufacturing facilities in Henrietta Street (John Judge working from home perhaps?) and warehouse facilities in Baxtergate. By now John was in business with his Henrietta Street neighbour, Mr Harland. It’s interesting that the business still had a link with Baxtergate through its warehouse facilities, although I don’t whereabouts on Baxtergate (yet).

I’m curious what John Judge and his family were doing in York during the 1851 census. Did people have holidays in those days? Did he take his family on a sales trip? Did they live there for a while? If so why?

Jet working

Jet is a black stone formed from the fossilised wood of the money puzzle tree which grew in coastal swamps about 200 million years ago. Ornaments and jewellery made from jet were made fashionable in the 1800s by Queen Victoria. The highest quality jet came from the cliffs around Whitby and so the jet ornament and jewellery manufacturing business boomed in the town. Unfortunately I don’t know which jet working business Fred Judge was employed by. When fashions changed later in Victoria’s reign the jet industry didn’t keep up and stuck to the old clunky designs and so the industry waned. However these days with a flourishing tourist trade in the town it is now making a come back and there are lots of quaint old shops around Sandgate where you can buy jet jewellery, although it is not Whitby jet as the mines are entirely worked out.

Clockwork mecahnisms

It would be interesting to know whether Andrew Carioli came over from Italy with his clockwork trade or whether he trained here. We know he made barometers and pocket watches, I should imagine he also made maritime instruments.

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