This is the final one of three updates about the documentary research I've been doing on my own ancestry during the past month. This time, it concerns my firework making ancestors.
I've started looking at this branch again, having made the 'mistake' of mentioning to one of my friends about how some of my ancestors used to produce firework displays at the ends of circus and musical performances. I'd forgotten that my friend is involved with our local family history society, but I imagine it's not a coincidence that I was later contacted with the question, "Could you write a piece about them for the journal?"
Initial 'panic' - do I know enough to write something of sufficient interest to the local members? And am I sure of all my facts? This is another family whose period of activity starts in the late 1700s, and they originate in Germany, so much of the story is second hand, and that is always a concern when it comes to the reliability of the information.
But then FindMyPast’s newspaper collection came to the rescue - while the family primarily lived in London, they did travel around the country to put on performances and, lo and behold, there are reports of them putting on events in this very area. So I am hoping to create an interesting piece, just summarizing the family line and their wider activities, before using the specifics from those events to provide the local aspect.
Who knows, some of the readers' ancestors might even have been at the performances!
I'm not going to write much about the family here now, but I thought I'd just mention some of the recent discoveries, which aren't directly relevant to the article.
The earliest known ancestor for this family line is John Michael HENGLER, who was buried on the 18th February, 1802, in Southwark, London. There are almost seventy family trees on Ancestry for him, some of which now show a birthdate of 1759, along with potential parents' names. I hadn't seen this information before, which comes from a database on Ancestry called "Germany, Select Births and Baptisms, 1558-1898". But, since I haven't investigated the details further, and there are other pedigrees that give his birth as around 1740, I won't be adding these earlier generations to my tree just yet. I have my doubts as to whether someone born in 1759 would have been old enough to have served as a Lieutenant in the Hanoverian Artillery, and developed the skills necessary for producing large scale firework displays, before moving to London in around 1780 and setting up a firework company three years later. (But I could be wrong!)
It is often helpful to research more widely than just one's own direct lines. Whether that is in the form of a One-Name, or a One- Place, Study, or using the "Friends, Acquaintances, & Neighbours" (FANs) principle of developing clusters of the people who were connected to 'your' people, these methods of researching can be very helpful in solving some of the more difficult genealogical problems, such as identifying who is who, when there are several people with the same names and ages, in the same area, or when individual records have insufficient information to confirm identification. It's useful to build up biographical profiles of the individual, and to ensure you aren't creating a 'fictional' person in your tree, through a mix of references that actually relate to several different people.
But sometimes such research doesn't (immediately) lead to a solution - just to another sad story.
In the 1841 census1, John Michael's widow, Sarah, aged 70 and now remarried, so under the surname FIELD, was living with her daughter, Magdalen JONES, aged 45, along with a Harriet JONES, aged 5. The occupations of Sarah and Magdalen were given as "artist in fireworks". Their neighbours were an Elizabeth CANNON, aged 30, with two children, Elizabeth aged 4, and Sarah, aged 1. Also in the house was a Thomas NASH, aged 20, and a Henry CORBY, aged 40. Elizabeth CANNON and Thomas NASH were both listed as firework makers.
I had previously seen that some pedigrees gave a maiden name of "CANNON" for Sarah, but it was only when searching recently that I found potential confirmation of this, in the parish records for St Margaret’s Church, Westminster, on Ancestry, where, on the 15th September 1783, "Michael HANGLER" married Sarah CANNON. So I decided to purchase the birth certificate for the one year old Sarah CANNON, to see if that might eventually lead to more information about the earlier generations of the CANNON family.
The certificate showed that Sarah was born on the 25 February 1840. Her father was a William CANNON and Elizabeth's maiden name was NASH. Their address was Edwards Place, Westminster Road, the same as in the census entry.
William CANNON and Elizabeth NASH are possibly the couple who married in St. Bride Fleet Street, London, England, on the 5th June 1830. Sarah CANNON's birth certificate did not indicate that William was deceased but, as I searched the BMDs and newspapers, I soon discovered newspaper reports of two accidents he seems to have been involved in, the second of which led to his death. I also found a record of his burial in St George the Martyr, Southwark, on 31 Jul 1839, aged 30.
The first accident was in 1835, and was reported in several newspapers. The following is from the London Packet and New Lloyd's Evening Post, 08 July 1835, available through FindMyPast.
I am reasonably confident that this is the correct William CANNON, since he is described as an artist in fireworks, from Westminster Road. But I have noted that it mentions his mother being present, but not the fact that he was married. (And it's a shame that the report doesn't give his mother's first name!)
The second accident, which led to his death, took place in 1839. Again it was widely reported - the following being from the Blackburn Standard, 31 July 1839, available through FindMyPast.
Another article, from the Morning Herald (London), 27 July 1839, indicated that William CANNON had told his wife, after his admission to the hospital, that the boy, on leaving the room, had "slammed the door sharply after him, and that the current of air caused by the violent shutting of the door, blew a spark from the candle into some firework composition which was spread on a bench to dry. The fatal explosion instantly took place."
Elizabeth must have been in the early stages of pregnancy at the time of William's death, since the articles only mention one child, and Sarah was born seven months later. The reference to Elizabeth's brother in the article suggests that the Thomas NASH in the 1841 census might be that brother.
So that's one sad story.
There's a potential second sad story, which stems from a greater appreciation that "John Michael HENGLER" can appear as just "Michael HANGLER", and that it's therefore worth searching for HANGLER entries, as well as "HENGLER", "ENGLER" etc.
I'd probably always known this, at some level, because the baptisms of two of the children usually recorded as born to John Michael and Sarah HENGLER (Henry Michael, bapt. 30 June 1784, and Magdalen Elizabeth, bapt. 8 June 1788), as well as the burial of a third child, (Tobias Joseph, bur. 1 Sept 1786), are all under the surname HANGLER in the "All London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812" database on Ancestry, with the parents listed as Michael and Sarah (ignoring the one record that has the father as "Richard" - despite the image clearly showing Michael!)
A search on Ancestry (UK and Ireland) produces 120 results for HANGLER, and on FindMyPast (Britain), just 44 results, so it is not a common spelling. When I narrowed the dates down to an expected range for children to John Michael and Sarah, in addition to the known London events, I found a burial of a Barbara HANGLER, daughter of a Michael, in Hull, on the 31 October 1791. Intrigued, I tried the HENGLER spelling, and found, not just the baptism of Tobias Joseph in London (8 Mar 1786), but also the baptism of a Barbara HENGLER in Nottingham, on 28 Mar 1790, parents Michael and Sarah.
The HENGLERS are known to have travelled around the country producing firework displays. The later generations certainly performed in both Nottingham and Hull2.
Although I haven't been able to find any newspaper reports of them being in those cities, in those particular years, could it be that there was a fourth child, now long since forgotten in the modern accounts of the family?
It would be interesting to know if the John Martin Turner Circus Research Collection3, which contains a family tree for the HENGLERs (along with a vast quantity of information relating to the family, and other circus performers), mentions Barbara.
Notes & Sources
1. 1841 census entry: HO107; Piece: 1086; Book: 9; Civil Parish: St George The Martyr; County: Surrey; Enumeration District: 18; Folio: 10; Page: 13;
2. Newspapers containing adverts for displays of fireworks by the HENGLER family in Hull and in Nottingham appear in The Hull Packet 28 July 1807, and The Nottingham Journal 29 June 1838
3. Details about the John Martin Turner's Circus Research Collection, held at the National Fairground Archive, University of Sheffield Library: https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/2c11bc5a-26a5-343a-9fc2-dd1dfe2f420f , https://archives.shef.ac.uk/repositories/2/resources/10 .
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