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What can we say of the Captain. As the son of the youngest son of the
youngest child of the Captain I am so far removed that I know nothing
first hand. I am hoping that when people who know more read this they will help
me out.
The very little that I do know about the Captain, I know from having visited Ulverston, having met Ethyl Crewdson Rigg, the Captain's granddaughter, from the book "Furness Folks and Facts", and from the dry recitations of geneology. The Captain was born in Ulverston April 12, 1838 and was the fourth of the 13 children of John Crowdson, an Ulverston tailer and Betty Stones. He may have been named after his uncle, James Crowdson, John's younger brother and a blacksmith in Ulverston. Quite a bit is known about this earlier James who is one of the main subjects of the book "The Crewdson-Rockwell family history" by Ernest Crewdson.
At a very young age (20 years?) he became a Captain and spent his working life at sea. However, he was on land long enough to marry Ruth Ann Collinson Feb 2, 1862 and have 10 children. Ruth Ann was born in Manchester in 1842 and was the daughter of another Ruth Ann. In those simpler times Ruth Ann was able to go through life signing her name with an X. She died in Ulverston in 1914 and was followed by the Captain who died in 1921.
From Tim Latham we know that the Captain was Master of the "Mary & Jane", a coasting vessel. Next he was the master of the "Ann Crewdson" in 1877 and that he was probably in charge of the ship from her building in 1873. The ship itself was probably named for his wife. His daughter Annie, born in 1877, probably came too late to be the source of the name. According to the the website "Through Mighty Seas" he was listed in a census of 1881 at Penzance as Master of the J.H.Barrow. He then became master of the Mary Barrow.
According to Tim Latham in "Through Mighty Seas", " The Mary Barrow was a wooden three-masted schooner, equipped with a topgallant yard set over double topsails and described as a very beautiful ship by Basil Greenhill. She was built in October 1891, by William Henry Lean at Falmouth and was owned in Barrow and manned by Ulverston seamen in her early years. Her Crew List for 1891 shows that Captain James Crewdson of Ulverston was her first master, and that he probably took delivery of the schooner in Falmouth and sailed her to Lancaster ready for her first deepwater voyage." From the crew lists we know that William James Crewdson sailed as Mate and that John Edward Crewdson was often a member of the crew.
According to the Crew Lists of the Mary Barrow, the Captain lived on Devonshire Road in Ulverston in 1891. Later
(according to Ethyl Crewdson Rigg) he purchased the homes at 22 and 24 Casson Street when this street
was built out. Ships papers in 1910 show that the Captain lived at 24 Church Terrace. Moreover, these papers
show him signing his age as 69, rather than his actual 71 years. Ruth Carter wonders whether this was
to hold on to his job!
In Ulverston itself, my wife Nancy and I visited the Captains home at 22 and 24 Casson Street The houses are modest narrow row houses and we were lucky enough to go into the one at #24 at the invitation of its current occupants. There we learned quite a bit about the town and were lucky enough to have a look at some of the rare "Furness Year Books" that Mr. XXX let us read to our hearts content.
The Year Books, which also functioned partly as a directory of all the residents, universally
listed the Captain as "Captain Crewdson" as though everyone in town knew him. There
were LOTS of other Crewdsons. In the book
of 1907, for example
there was listed a J. Crewdson at 21 Burlington St, a W. Crewdson at 17 Burlington Street, an
M. Crewdson at 4 Conishead, a J Crewdson at 39 Dale Street, a W. Crewdson, Registered Plumber
on an ad in the book, Mrs Crewdson at 57, the Gill, a G. W. Crewdson at 19 Lightburn Ave,
a Francis Crewdson at 36 Sunderland Terrace, a George C. Crewdson at 8 Union Place and a
Thomas C. Crewdson who was a farmer. A Miss Crewdson lived at 34 Newton Street, and an
R. C. Crewdson lived at 46 Casson Street. Other books showed an M. C. Crewdson who was a
Chemist at 25 King Street,
a Mrs. C. Crewdson at 31 Neville and a George Crewdson at 8 Union and a W. Crewdson at
17 Casson Street (Could this have been William James?) All of these Crewdsons in a town
of five or ten thousand!
"Furness Folk and Facts"* has a section in which they reported an interview with a "genuine Ulverston old Salt": "...In my opinion the sailor of to-day is not comparable to the old sailors we used to know. The captain of a smoke-stack does not think of his boat, as did the master of an old wind-jammer which was virtually a member of his family, and woe betide the man who derided his vessel. ...From the crew's point of view a ship was a 'good ship' or a 'bad ship' according as to whether they had plum duff or not for dinner on Sundays. ... P.S. I was with Captain Crewdson when he made the eventful voyage from South America in the Mary Barrow , when out of a crew of six, two died, two were laid up with yellow fever and only two were left to work the ship for five weeks, in 1894."
The Captain was a man of strong convictions, according to Ethyl Crewdson Rigg. Ulverston
was a center of the Quaker movement and like many Crewdsons the Captain was a Quaker.
When I asked her if he drank Hartleys, the local beer, she said he never
touched a drop because he felt it was inconsistent in a man of his position and
responsibility. (Her dad John Edward liked his beer, however.) She remembered the
Captain bringing the Mary Barrow up the Ulverston Canal and tying it up near his
house at 22 (and 24) Casson Street. He would then let Ethyl go abord, handle the wheel
and pretend she was guiding the ship.
According to her, when he retired he quickly got tired of living with the women in the family and one day, when he was visiting Ethyl's house he asked Ethyl who the neighbor was with the funny hat. Ethyl told him he was the keeper of the Hoad Monument, that he was about to retire from that job, and most important, that the Barrow Cottage was a perk of the job. Ethyl and her mother were in big trouble with the family for this transgression because to the horror of Ethyl's mother, and the other Crewdson women, the Captain used his connections through the Masons, got the job, and moved into the Cottage where he spent the rest of his days.
The Captain himself was a nice old chap and as happy as a king when he moved into the cottage. He lived kids and turned his cottage into a little store to sell candy to the kids and he also took candy up the hill to the Hoad Monument to sell to the visitors there. From time to time ,he used to climb to the top of the monument where he could look out to sea. His death on October 15, 1921 was an occasion mourned not only by his family but by the town as related by his obituary in the local paper.
But what of the Captains' family? Most of the story sketched below I have from Ruth Carter.
Three of the Captain's children died young. Margaret, the oldest, died along with two
friends when the three of them fell through the ice while skating on the Ulverston Canal.
This tragedy was commemorated by the town who erected a large monument to the children in
the cemetary. It can be found behind the Captain's grave in the "new" cemetary on the outskirts
of the town. Another, Isaac, died as an infant and a third, Jacob died in 1894. I know
nothing of Jacob apart from the date of his death.
The 7 children who survived into adulthood were, in order, Elizabeth, Hannah, William James, John Edward, Annie, Alice and Henry (Harry). All but Hannah and John Edward are shown in the following family portrait. Elizabeth married John Kendal and had two children, Cissie and Jack. We know that Cissie, who died in Victoria British Columbia July 10, 1955, married into the Ryley family, and with her husband had a bakery in Kimberley, BC. Of Hannah I know nothing except that she married Thomas Hornby and had three children.
William James' family will soon be featured in a new page. Briefly, William sailed for some years with the Captain as "Mate" and subsequently became a Master himself. He died at age 29 leaving two daughters without a father. His wife later remarried and at Cissy Ryley's urging emmigrated to Canada when things got tough in Northern England. His children founded families that today live in British Columbia and Alberta.
John Edward Crewdson, according to his daughter Ethyl who I was lucky enough to meet before she died, also sailed with the Captain. When the Captain retired, John became a "Commodore" on tourest boats plying Lake Windermere in the Lake District of England. He would leave Ulverston on monday morning, travel to the lake (a 20 minute drive these days) and return home on the weekend. His youngest daughter Irene Crewdson married George Northan and also emmigrated to Canada where the Northan descendants live today. His youngest daughter, Ethyl, went to London as a young woman and later returned to Ulverston and married late in life to William Rigg. She died a few years ago.
Annie, the next oldest surviving child, married Norman Lawrence and the family ultimately settled near London. I am going to have to rely upon Nadia Wooldridge, her grandaughter in Surrey, to fill me in on this part of the story. Alice, who came next, was stage struck as a young adult and appeared on stage for some years before she got married. You can see some of this in her, I think, in the photo to the right. Her descendant, Val Whitehorn, who lives today in Surray also, will fill in this part of the story. That brings us to Harry, the youngest, who as the legend goes was a rogue and a ladies man who went on to a brilliant career as an engineer, first in the USA and later around the world.
*"Furness Folk and Facts", William White. Kendal: Titus Wilson & Son, 28, Highgate, 1930
