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Patrick Delaforce & Ken Baldry'Family History Research'
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Chapter 4
"The value of shares can go down as well as up" (warning on most 'financial products')
The Dullforces
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Meanwhile, living at that time (1980) in Witham, Essex were Margaretha neé Dullforce & her husband John Dowding & as unaware of Patrick's research, as he was of them. Margaret's aunt had bought the 1st edition of this book for her. John, by the usual means of tracking the family through the public records and considerable input from Bernard Cullen of Tooting, had established a family tree as far back as 1790, the birthdate of James Dulforce, a common labourer from Bow, in East London. Margaret's parents were Eric Dullforce and Elsie Boyd from Brough in what was then Westmorland.
Eric had two siblings: Winifred is a noted horticulturalist, who had a career at Nottingham University's School of Agriculture in Sutton Bonington & it was she who distributed the 1st edition of this book. The elder sister, Evelyn, had clerical jobs with the LCC (as it then was) & a law firm before marrying Herbert James Baldry (Jim), a fourth generation shoe repairer, his ambitions to be a radio engineer having been frustrated by the Great Depression of 1929 onward. He knew he would be good at it, as he had assembled several radios himself. He had had enough of cordwaining by the age of 48 & became a walking guide in the British Mountains & on the South Coast. Jim & Eve had two sons, the younger, Geoffrey, eventually became a market gardener on the Greek island of Skiathos in the Northern Aegean and later, the internet service provider there. The older brother, Kenneth but always known as Ken, made a career in the Computer industry, eventually running his own business. It is this Ken who has prepared the 2nd edition of this book.
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Bernard Cullen's breakthrough, in his own words I believe we have now made a major find in the history of this family. I say we because I do all my research with my sister Veronica. It is she who corresponds with Terry Dullforce who originally supplied us with the marriage and death certificates of James Dullforce. Terry’s father died some eighteen months ago and it was when he was going through his fathers effects that he found the two certificates. Terry was ill for some time and was unable to pursue these matters any further. He now seems to have made a good recovery and was again in contact with my sister. He explained that he has been making further examinations of his fathers effects and he found a baptismal / birth certificate for a Samuel Delforce born in 1788 and it reads; ST. DUNSTANS STEPNEY MIDDLESEX I believe that after three years of searching, this certificate has led us to the birth of James Dullforce. I will now do my best to explain. The only document where there was an age recorded for James was his death certificate. It stated that James was seventy years of age when he died in 1855. This gives him a birth date of 1785. Ages recorded on marriage and death certificates during the late 18th and 19th. centuries are notoriously unreliable. (Also on census returns). I will not bore you with them but, I have many examples of this. The one I will quote is James daughter, my maternal great grandmother, Eleanor Belle. She was born in 1827 and died in 1898. Her age on the certificate is 66 years. If, like me, you are prepared to accept that James was not born in 1785, I can show his birth in 1790 and I will try to offer some evidence that it is our James... When we first examined the marriage certificate for James and Ann dated 1812, we used a very simple method (not scientific I am afraid) to work out their ages. We took 21 from the year of marriage and James was therefore born in 1791. We reckon the bride is usually a year or two younger, so Ann would have been born about 1793. We know full well that this is not cast iron but the system has worked well for us many times. The copy of Samuel’s birth / baptismal certificate had been in the possession of James’ son Nathaniel, the direct relation to Terry Dullforce. It must be reasonable to accept that Nathaniel had this original document because he was related to Samuel. He was in fact Samuel’s nephew. The original document now held by Terry Dullforce is over 200 years old. One other person I would like to mention is Richard Dullforce, born in 1794 and married to Elizabeth John(s) in 1813. I have been in contact with a Stuart Maskell in Australia who is related to Richard. In my research of James I found many references to Richards’ family. There were many little things that seemed to link the two families and I said to Stuart, when we find James, we will find Richard also, and we have. Now for the real evidence. I don’t know if you have a copy of the book, ‘THE FRENCH CONNECTION’ Vol. 1. by Patrick Delaforce. It is a history of the Delaforce family. If you do have a copy, turn to page 210 and you will see - William Delforce and his wife Mary Perry. They had four sons. Samuel b. 17-8-1788 - James b. 25-4-1790 - Richard b. 1794 & Thomas b. 3-7-1796. I am totally convinced that this James born on 25-4-1790 is the James Dulforce who married Ann Body. The very fact that James’ son Nathaniel had that certificate belonging to Samuel must connect James to our family. Samuel was Nathaniel’s uncle and Richard is the younger brother of James. You may rightly question the spelling of the name Delforce in the baptismal register and Dulforce when next we see it in the marriage certificate. As I mentioned in my original letter to John, my sister corresponded with Patrick Delaforce some time ago and he was convinced that the various Dullforces’ were misspellings of the Delaforce name by various church clerics etc. That is why his first book was Vol.1. He did intend to write a second book to include all the other names derived from Delaforce. Sadly he never did. I have checked the entries in St. Dunstan’s baptismal register and Samuel, James and Thomas were all recorded as DELFORCE. (I did not find Richard on that visit). When James married he was DULFORCE. When he died he was DULLFORCE. All his children were Christened DULLFORCE. When Richard married he was also Dullforce. If you do not have a copy of the book I will obtain a photocopy of the family tree from page 210 and post it to you. (Do not send any stamped addressed envelopes) Sadly, the book is sold out now. I know this, as another contact of mine, Rosemary Duncanson-Hunter who is directly related to James’ daughter Caroline Amelia ‘phoned Patrick for another copy and he told her he had no more. I hope all this makes sense to you. I am a very nervous computer user and having looked at Ken’s web site, I am so impressed with all I see but, it makes me feel totally inadequate with my presentation! Let me know if there is anything you want me to clarify in all of this. Please do not hesitate to let me know if you disagree with my conclusions. I do not want to pretend I have found James. One last thought. I have never been able to find James on the 1841 or 1851 census’. It may help to confirm his date of birth. On the other hand it may not! |
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2nd four children
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James DULLFORCE & Louisa HURREN
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George DULLFORCE & Gerty WALLINGTON
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Contact: Ken Baldry for more information, 17 Gerrard Road, Islington, London N1 8AY +44(0)20 7359 6294 but best to e-mail him |