Wynmelvin » Wadebridge Urban District Council http://blog.wynmelvin.com [ the blog ] Sat, 06 Aug 2011 10:15:48 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 en hourly 1 September 10th, 2009 http://blog.wynmelvin.com/2009/09/september-10th-2009/ http://blog.wynmelvin.com/2009/09/september-10th-2009/#comments Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:01:49 +0000 Russell http://blog.wynmelvin.com/?p=319 TRURO — Today has been, I think, my last visit to the Cornwall Record Office. I was planning on going back again tomorrow but I have now looked at everything I had originally planned to view and further searching would be unfocused. Besides, the weather has been too good the last couple of days to be sitting inside. So tomorrow I think I’ll do some sightseeing—not sure where or what yet.

Meanwhile, back at the record office, I looked at several more wills and found a couple more possible family connections. I also had a look at the Wadebridge entry in various Kelly’s directories and found that my great great grandfather appears to have been first elected to the Wadebridge Urban District Council in 1908, and going by the minutes I looked at yesterday, he was still there in 1921, the year he died.

I walked down the hill to the city centre afterwards—again. Some shopping at Marks and Spencer, and fish ‘n’ chips for tea. Then it was a long, steep walk back up the hill.

]]> http://blog.wynmelvin.com/2009/09/september-10th-2009/feed/ 0 September 9th, 2009 http://blog.wynmelvin.com/2009/09/september-9th-2009/ http://blog.wynmelvin.com/2009/09/september-9th-2009/#comments Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:25:51 +0000 Russell http://blog.wynmelvin.com/?p=309 TRURO — I arrived at the Cornwall Research Office just as they were opening and immediately got to work browsing through some wills. These too are all on microfiche. They are individually indexed in the catalogue so that if you’ve done your homework and know the correct classification, you can go straight to the ones you want to view.

Over the course of the day I found three Hewett, two Popplestone, and two Burnard wills that look as though they could belong. Each being just two or three pages in length (including the cover) I got photocopies of them made—cost: 70p/sheet.

I also took a look at couple of books detailing the population of the parish of St Breock that were compiled prior to the taking of the censuses of 1831 and 1841. I was particularly interested in the earlier one as the census for 1831 no longer exists.
I was allowed to look at them one at a time and had to use a foam wedge or two to help support the spine of the book, a snake weight to help hold down the pages, and a pair of white gloves (which looked far too small but seemed to stretch to fit). Photography is allowed (for a daily fee) so I managed to take lots of photos of pages containing names I recognised. Analysis will have to wait until after I return home.

I also looked at the minutes of the committees of the Wadebridge Urban District Council. An online version of Kelly’s Directory of Cornwall for 1914 lists my great great grandfather Joe Harry Hewitt as a member of the Council. I found the first mention of him as being present at a meeting of the Water Committee in 1914, and he was also present at the last meeting minuted in the volume—a meeting of the Finance Committee in 1921.

I left the Record Office an hour earlier than I had yesterday (well, I had started an hour earlier) and so took the opportunity to go into the city centre to get some cash to pay for my accommodation. Because it was such a fine day, and because I didn’t want to give up my car park (the guesthouse is very busy) I decided to walk. I’ll probably regret the decision tomorrow morning—I didn’t realise just how much of a climb the homeward journey would be!

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