A Few Glimpses of the Siblings of Joseph TRENDALL (C1769-1838)

 

Joseph TRENDALL is important in the history of the Trendall family because he lived long enough to have his death registered under the arrangements prescribed by the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1836.  He died on 28^th Nov 1838 at 14 Ashford Street Hoxton, London.  We know a fair bit about his work as a Baker, about where he lived and about how he prospered.  He was my 3 x Great Grandfather

Joseph made a Will on 30^th Oct 1837.  Perhaps he knew he was ill – there is no evidence to support this apart from a rather shaky  signature as a witness to his daughter’s marriage in Feb 1837.  His Will was the usual complex mix of legacies that seem common in the early nineteenth century.  It gives rise to a small mystery in that he makes no mention of his sons William and Thomas (b1820).  He does mention his brother, Thomas TRENDALL,  late of Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire.  In particular he mentions a legacy received from his late brother in the sum of £50.  This useful reference enables us to trace Thomas and in doing so to gain an understanding (or at least a glimpse) of the wider family.  He may also help answer the question of when this part of the TRENDALL family moved to London.

There have been TRENDALLS living in London since at least the seventeenth century but what we do not yet know is if they were part of the wider extended family of which we are a part.  In the case of Joseph the records first place him in the capital renting property in 1804.  But from his Will we know that his brother was ‘late of Chipping Norton’.  This is a possible clue as to the origins of the family.  But Thomas probably did have business interests in London.  The house in which Joseph died was held by lease by Thomas.  Nothing in my recent research has thrown much light on why Thomas would have leased these properties away from home.  From Joseph’s Will it is clear that both were interested in property in addition to their principal trades.

Chipping Norton is in north east of Oxfordshire.  This is not a huge county and has seen significant boundary changes over the last hundred years with some villages ‘moving’ between Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.  The surname TRENDALL and it variants is relatively common in the area and has been so for a very long time.  There is even a small area of woodland known as TRENDELL’S WOOD in the parish of Stokenchurch, not far from the M40.  The use of an ‘A’ or an ‘E’ in TRENDALL/TRENDELL is almost interchangeable throughout this period.  As late as 1878 when  Joseph’s son Thomas died an ‘E’ is used in the register of deaths despite a lifetime of using the spelling which we have come to accept as standard.  The memorial card produced for his funeral uses an ‘A’.

The detail in Joseph’s Will has allowed us to trace Thomas’s Will with a very high degree of confidence that we have got the right man despite the popularity of the Christian name.   Thomas made his Will in 1827 with a codicil in 1832.  We can learn a great deal from these documents including:

 

1.       He was married to Deborah TRENDALL

2.       He had brothers: Joseph, William, Ephraim and James.  The latter was dead by the time the Will was written in 1827.

3.       He had a sister who is unnamed in the Will.  In fact it looks as if a space has been left blank for the sister’s name.  The sister may well have been dead by 1827 but mention is made of her son; Thomas SEARS.

4.       He makes provision for the family of his late brother James.

5.       He makes extensive provision for his wife but does not mention any children of the marriage.

6.       Mention is made of a pub – the Blue Anchor – in Chipping Norton but by the time of the codicil he is living in Eynsham (now a suburb of Oxford).   

7.       There is no mention of his leasehold property held of the Haberdashers Company and occupied by Joseph.

From this information we have discovered more about Thomas.  I will write further details on this shortly but it would seem that he was a well off tradesman.   He appeared as a voter until the time of his death – at this time there were only around 200,000 voters out of a population of 2.6M.  However some of his dealings appear confused and his widow was left to clarify the ownership of some parcels of land after his death.

In November 1828 an advertisement appeared in the Oxford Journal: 

To be let, and may be entered upon immediately, - a house and premises, situated in Charlbury, Oxon, latterly occupied as an old-established Carpenter’s shop, with stabling &c suitable for any business requiring room.  For further particulars apply to Mr Thomas Trendell, Anchor Inn, Chipping Norton; if by letter, post paid”. 

He died on 05 November 1832 and was buried in the church yard at Cogges – a small village near Eynsham.  He had a fine table tomb erected that still stands.  His Will was proved at Oxford by his wife on 09 March 1833 and was confirmed as being of less than £800 in value.

Thomas’s widow, Deborah lived for another eleven years and died 03 April 1843 aged 62 years and was buried in the same grave.  Her death certificate records that she died of Asthma.  In her Will she addressed the problems caused by the codicil to Thomas’s Will and made provision for his legacies to be honoured.  She also left money and property to other family members including her brother Robert Allsop.  When proved her Will was confirmed as being worth less than £1500.

James TRENDALL made a Will on 22 April 1820.  This shows that he, like his brother Joseph, was a Baker and that he was of Lewknor in Oxfordshire.  He left freehold and copyhold property for the benefit of his wife and his daughters Elizabeth and Mary.    He also had three sons, James, Joseph and George.  He was 57 when he died and had married Mary BENNELL in 1795.  As mentioned above Thomas made provision in his Will for James’s family.

It is possible that James was ill by the time he made his Will as he lived for only a few further months dying in August aged 57.

James was buried in Stokenchurch Oxfordshire on 24 August 1820.  Lewknor and Stokenchurch are only a couple of miles apart.   His Will was proved at Oxford on 08 October 1821 and was valued at less than £200.

By co-incidence another James TRENDELL died a few months later in Shoreditch, London and was buried in Bunhill Row Burial Ground.  A few years later Joseph would live in Shoreditch and the land leased by Thomas is between Shoreditch and Bunhill Row.  It is possible that this James was also part of the wider family but the link, if there is one, is at present  unknown.

Mary (James’s widow) lived until 1855 when she died aged 80 and was also buried in Stokenchurch.   In the 1851 census she was living with some of her children.  At the age of 76 her occupation is given as ‘Baker’ suggesting that she worked in the family business with her husband, or took it up on his death.

There is more research to be done to trace the family business but we know from the Registers of Duties Paid for Apprentices Indentures that James had a number of apprentices whilst working in Stokenchurch, this is perhaps suggestive of a successful business.

Of Ephraim and William and the sister with no name I cannot, at the time of writing, find any further trace.  Thomas mentions them in his Will of 1827 and their legacies are mentioned in the Will of his Widow Deborah in 1842 but by this time the document speaks mainly of the issue of James TRENDELL.

The unnamed sister had a son, Thomas SEARS.   The tone of Thomas’s Will suggests that his sister was dead by 1827 but there is no mention of her husband.  This is an obvious line for further research (for example there is a Thomas SEARS who died in 1861 in Stokenchurch).

The fact that at least two of Joseph’s siblings were based in Oxfordshire may demonstrate that he was the person that brought our branches of the family to London at around the turn of the century but it may well be that other parts of the family had already migrated the few miles from rural Oxfordshire to the industrial sprawl of the Metropolis.

The parish registers of Radnage (which lies a couples of miles to the west of Stokenchurch and is now just over the county border into Buckinghamshire) contain a number of entries that could record the birth of Joseph and Thomas.  For Joseph there are two entries, one written on a flyleaf of the register and then, possibly copied in:

This entry occurs in April 1769.  This would match with his death at the age 68 in  1838.

In the same register there is an entry in 1767 for the baptism of Thomas born of the same parents as Joseph (William and Anne).

Assuming that this child was baptised shortly after birth there arises a mismatch with the fact that at the time of his death in 1832 Thomas was described as being of 60 years of age.  This would give him a date of birth of 1772, creating a five year gap. 

There are also entries for the baptisms of an Anne and a Ruth of the same parents.  Banns and the marriage are also recorded for William and Anne in 1767.  Clearly there is much to be done to firm up the nature and relevance of these relationships.

 

Philip Trendall

October 2025

 

This is an update to the note originally prepared 17 November 2013

Frederick TRENDALL (1890-1940): A New Record

 

Sometimes a very short document can carry a heavy weight.  During a recent visit to the National Archives (TNA) I noticed that there was a new catalogue entry for my Grandfather, Frederick TRENDALL (1890-1940), in the WO 416 series.  This series contains the Prisoner of War index cards created by the Germans during the Second World War.  They were seized at the end of the war and are now, after many years, are available to view.

Frederick TRENDALL never was a POW but the cards were also used to record the details of deceased soldiers when there was any identification.  The cards can only be viewed under supervision.  I went into the ‘invigilated’ room at the TNA and the record card was inside an envelope inside a plastic box.  It seemed strange to be handling a document that had been filled up by a German clerk/soldier in May 1940.

The record does not add much to what is already known.  It records his name and rank, gives the location of his burial and suggests that the burial was overseen by a British Army padre (presumably a POW) although the German translation is approximate.  The card is stamped with a black cross to indicate that the subject is deceased.  His grave is now marked by a Commonwealth War Graves headstone in Calais South Cemetery.  I visited the cemetery about 30 years ago – I will try and go again soon.

War is a bureaucratic process but behind every document there was a real person and a real family.

 

Philip Trendall

August 2025

 

Note:  Document Reference:  The National Archives:  WO 416 366/141 viewed and copied 21 August 2025

Fictional Trendalls

 

It is not often that one comes across our surname (TRENDALL) in works of fiction.  I recently finished a newly published novel: The Reservoir of Greed (Sound of Jealousy 2) by Rod LEWIS that features a baddie called Steve TRENDALL.  An unattractive character who spies for a foreign state.  It can’t be easy for authors to think of names for their characters but as I know the author it is at least clear where he got the idea from!

More of a mystery are the works of William Le QUEUX.  He was writing at the beginning of the 20^th century and, for a while,  was a very popular author of spy and detective fiction.  His most famous book: The Invasion of 1910, With A Full Account of the Siege of London, was based on the idea of a German invasion of the UK that had been enabled by the work of the Kaiser’s spies.    It was published in 1906 and was one of the causes of the wave of the ‘spy mania’ that swept the country in the years before 1914.

Le QUEUX was not a very talented writer.  His plots are predictable and his dialogue wooden.  His habit of employing an exclamation mark several times on every page makes one question what his agent and editor were contributing to the production of his books.

Le Queux wrote the Doctor of Pimlico (Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime) just after the First World War.  It is the story of an evil doctor who blackmails a retired General and his daughter whilst running an international gang of criminals.  He is thwarted by the hero of book, a novelist and an archetype of the English hero (square jawed etc).  This chap has, for reasons that are not well explained, at least two surnames and appears to work closely with Scotland Yard and other law enforcement agencies.  His contact at the Yard is Herbert TRENDALL.

TRENDALL is described thus:

“He was a marvellously alert man, an unusually good linguist, and a cosmopolitan to his finger-tips. He had been a detective-sergeant in the T Division of Metropolitan Police for years before his appointment as director of that section. He knew more of the criminal undercurrents on the Continent than any living Englishman, and it was he who furnished accurate information to the Surete in Paris concerning the great Humbert swindle” (P235).

He has done well as a Detective Sergeant as he has a secretary, a large department and an office that is described as:

“the big, airy, official-looking room, the two long windows of which looked out over Westminster Bridge” (p229)

TRENDALL’s job is not defined although there are hints that he does something secret.  However at the end of the book when he has just interviewed the evil doctor in Chelmsford prison he is described as being the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department.

We can’t know where Le QUEUX got the name Herbert TRENDALL.  There were a few people in circulation with that name at the time he was writing The Doctor of Pimlico.  Of course he could have made it up by combining a popular first name with a surname he had come across in his daily business.  My guess is that he had heard of Herbert TRENDALL/TRENDELL a senior official in the Lord Chamberlain’s Office who was in charge of the rules around the dress to be worn at the Royal court.  He had given evidence at the trial of a suffragette who had been arrested at the Tower of London and his name (using various spellings) was, for a while, all over the newspapers.

Le QUEUX’s novel is not entirely without merit.  He manages to slip in a heavy but very thinly veiled criticism of Lloyd George’s habit of selling honours.

There must be other examples of the use of our family name in fiction.  Any suggestions?

 

Philip Trendall

Bramfield

August 2025

 

Notes

Rod Lewis’s Book is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sound-Jealousy-Reservoir-Greed-ebook/dp/B0FD8Z32LM/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1TET54UEKYR9H&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.E4eGHjp25-ubPoTyZFkZiN3801qbMkryHsXHu7nYRwZRmeRhheV42uaQ8Z1IggS-7XpMCPbKPFJvq4lCoIzTiAzea6puRXU95Mwbf8eYe-aqzC9lMBcT29eiqrAY2goJQUqB5sNc_RcYS0srNdOdAE7eAugYkDOadKK_bP8f3SxessEYVaoSopAXApJuoJlq-HvVrzZv2zW0RnTzHVOj2YQoaxhQSxfiy6Qw1ncLPos.8MbqMJ7Kr54czjBNNEzd1WYZSEMINbuYdcbmAjlj2sY&dib_tag=se&keywords=rod+lewis&qid=1755451452&sprefix=rod+lewis%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-1

Most of Le QUEUX’s works can be found on the internet archive:

https://archive.org/details/doctorofpimlicob00lequiala/doctorofpimlicob00lequiala/mode/2up

 

 

 

 

 

'POP’ SCOTT – A COUNTRY SERVED

 

George SCOTT 1906-1971

I remember my Grandfather, George SCOTT (1906-1971) for many reasons.  He was a jovial sort of chap who liked a cigarette and a drink.  He spoke with a strong Glasgow accent despite having lived in London for many years.  I always knew him as ‘POP’.  He was a generous Grandfather even though he was not wealthy – indeed his generosity was the source of several problems.

I knew he was my Grandfather – the father of my Mother (Jean Duncan McGAVIN/SCOTT/PALMER/TRENDALL1924-1982), but if a future generation follows the paper trail he would not appear as according to my Mother’s birth certificate she was the daughter of John Simpson McGAVIN (1895-1940), the first husband of my Grandmother – Helen Kirk McBeth DUNCAN (Nellie) (1896-1971).  Everybody knew that George SCOTT was her biological Father – and much family pain ensued.  By 1925 George SCOTT and Nellie McGAVIN (as she was at the time) were living together.  They could not marry until the John McGAVIN died, which he did in 1940.  By that time George and Nellie had two more children: George SCOTT (1928-2009) and Andrew Nicol SCOTT (1931-1931).  Andrew was given the middle name NICOL after George SCOTT’s (B1906) Mother.  He was severely disabled and lived only a few months.  I recall my Mother describing how shocked she was when she saw the deformities that her brother was born with.  She said that he was only expected to live a few hours and she also recounted how caring her parents were with him.

George SCOTT (B1906) worked as a labourer, a miner and as a ship’s steward/cook (including on board the famous Athenia which was the first British ship sunk, with a great loss of life by a German U Boat).  In later life and for many years he worked at the London Hospital as a porter.  I don’t recall much being mentioned about his service the Second World War.  There was a family story about him singing ‘We’ll Meet Again’ when being waved off at Glasgow Central Station and another tale that he was always slightly relieved at the end of his leave from the army to get away from the bombing in London.  He used to say with a smile that he was safer in the army!

I recently tracked down a copy of his army record via a Freedom of Information Request to the National Archives.  The record added to my knowledge of a man I only knew when I was a child. 

He enlisted within six weeks of the start of the war.  He chose the army rather than the navy despite (or perhaps because of) his experience of passenger ships. Throughout his service he described his nationality as English.  This is common in records of the time when ‘English’ and ‘British’ were used interchangeably.  Those were the days when the Scottish Nationalists were seen as a dangerous, anti war, fringe group.  He joined in Glasgow as a single man (no mention of living with Nellie) but other records before they were married in 1941 do describe her as his wife.  He was noted as being as 5’7 ½ tall, with hazel eyes and a fresh complexion.  I recall that he had a tattoo on his arm and this is described in his papers as being of two clasped hands.  A common design among sailors.  He joined the Pioneer Corp as a labourer.  Within a month of joining up he was sent to France with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).  He remained there until the final evacuations from the continent in June 1940.  As a member of the pioneer corps it is likely that he saw a considerable amount of action.  He was attached to various regiments including the Middlesex Regiment, RAOC and the Royal Fusiliers.  Later he transferred to the Royal Artillery.  During his time in the army ‘at home’ he served at various locations.  A week after D Day he was back in Europe where he remained until September.  He was demobbed in November 1944 and returned to his family, who were by this time living at 89 Cambridge Heath Road London – a flat I well remember.

He was a well behaved soldier for the most part with only minor deviations from the straight and narrow.  

During his first stint in France he would have served in proximity to both my Father (Frederick Alfred TRENDALL 1914-1983) and to my other Grandfather (Frederick TRENDALL 1890-1940).  But of course he would not have known them as my Mother did not meet my Father for another decade and a half.

On returning to the UK in 1944 his commanding officer in the 496^th Field Battery, Royal Artillery wrote:

“This soldier served throughout the campaign in NW Europe and was first class.  He is very loyal, reliable and willing, and cheerful in difficult circumstances.  He always did his job efficiently and conscientiously, and no hardship or difficulty ever got him down”

Not a bad set of comments and the description reminds me of the man I briefly knew.

George SCOTT - Medal Application Card 1956?

In many ways George SCOTT’s record of service was very similar to that of many other men who found themselves in extraordinary circumstances.  Together with the men and women who served on the Home Front it was typical of a generation that has now nearly passed.  What a generation! when ordinary people did amazing things.  A generation that bequeathed to us a life of peace and comfort.  A life they could only have dreamt off.  We must not forget our debt to those that endured so much for our freedom.

 

Philip Trendall

August 2025

 

A Super Family Photo

 

Some years ago George BARKER was interviewed for a great piece on the on the campaign to save the Marquis of Lansdowne.  I re read it recently and noticed that it included a great photograph of my 'half' siblings' with their 'half siblings' - the latter of course not being (technically) relatives of mine.  It reminds me of how families are a lot more than lines on a chart and that many families are really quite complicated!  It is alway demonstrates the importance of 'place'.  This pub was common to all of us having been run by the Barkers/Wilsons and Trendalls for over half a century.

This photograph was taken around 1957 in the back yard of the Marquis of Lansdowne 32 Cremer Street London E2.

Does anybody remember it being taken?  Who took it?  Was it a special occasion?  

From Left to Right:  Maureen TRENDALL, Frederick (Freddy) TRENDALL, Eileen BARKER, Christine TRENDALL and George BARKER.  The wall was the large (and eventually unsafe) boundary wall of the Marquis of Lansdowne - note the Charrington beer crates on the left

Blogpost May 2025

Of Knife Crime, Gangs and Poverty

 

Fig 1:  The Marquis of Lansdowne in the 1930s.  When built it was in Thomas Street, later renamed as Harwar Street and, in the 1910s, re-named as Cremer Street.  It stood on the junction with Maria Street, now Geffrye Street.  Note the cobbles.  The murder took place just behind the photographer's position near the railway bridge.

The Marquis of Lansdowne (the ‘pub of my birth’ rather than the aristocrat) regularly appears in this blog.  The area is now seeing a slow process of gentrification but its past is resolutely one of poverty.

At the very beginning of the twentieth century the Shoreditch and Bethnal  Green districts saw a significant rise in crime and violence – to the extent that concerns  were frequently raised in the national press.   We tend to think of that the problems of gangs and knife crime in London is of more recent date but in the early Edwardian period the streets around the Marquis of Lansdowne saw many instances of violent crime.  Some of the victims were members of rival gangs but also innocent members of the public.  The scourge of domestic violence was also ever present.

Street names change.  Cremer Street London E2 was, in this period, called Harwar Street and in earlier times it has been Thomas Street.  Geffrye Street was Maria Street.  Harwar Street linked the Kingland Road to the Hackney Road and although something of a back street it became associated with street crime.

Fig 2:  OS Map 1897 Showing Harwar Street, Maria Street and the North London Railway (Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland)

In 1900 the Eastern Argus and Borough of Hackney Times reported that “pedestrians walking along the side streets at night are being ruthlessly shot at in some cases and in other cases the knife is resorted to” (1) A mile up the road a man walking down Brick Lane was shot by a stranger.  A nearby police constable chased the suspect who escaped after dropping a revolver.  Another victim was stabbed from behind in Bethnal Green and in Vallance Road a large gang fight took place which caused injury and damage as well as much alarm to local residents.

One evening in October 1900 a 16 year old carman was undertaking an errand for his employer when he was seen to be talking to two or three youths in Harwar Street, near the junction with Maria Street and the railway bridge, and not far from Wilson’s Iron Yard (another family connection).  Witnesses stated that he walked away from the group.  A firearm was possibly discharged (missing the victim) and one of the men rushed up to him and stabbed him.  They made off and local residents went to the assistance of Charles HISCOKE, who was bleeding badly.  The police were on scene within minutes but by the time the divisional surgeon arrived (which was within 20 minutes) the youth was dead.  A 13 year old witness said he recognised the attackers as having been involved in recent street fighting in Hoxton.  An Inquest a couple of days later delivered a verdict of Wilful Murder by persons unknown.  The victim was not thought to have been involved in any instances of gang activity. (2)  There is no record of anybody being prosecuted for the murder.

Two weeks after the attack on HISCOKE, another man was assaulted by a group in a nearby coffee shop and slashed in the face.  The gang had been trying to provoke a sailor into a fight and the victim had gone to his assistance.  A 17 year old suspect, described as “a dirty lad of 17” was arrested and charged with wounding and was committed for trial from the police court.  In the same week the Coroner, Dr Wynn Westcott, told a jury that  “There seems to be an outbreak of crimes of violence in the streets at the present time.  I have three cases on hand where persons have been fatally assaulted in the streets”  (3)

Despite the efforts of the Metropolitan Police (who were quickly scene within minutes of every incident) it remained a violent area.  A few years later a woman stabbed her partner to death in Maria Street, the latest instalment in a violent relationship. (4)  A women was stabbed by her lodger in Hawar Street in 1906.   In 1905 a group of ratepayers petitioned the council  asking for something to be done: 

              “We beg to make a complaint against a gang of boys who make night after night in Harwar Street, a nuisance and a terror to passersbys and an annoyance to shopkeepers; one of the gang went to the extent of stabbing a shopkeeper in the head”  (5)

One of the ratepayers may have been the landlord of the Marquis of Lansdowne.

As late as 1913 a woman was stabbed by her former boyfriend and his new partner as she was talking to friends in Harwar Street. (6)

Notably in this period only one case is mentioned that directly involved the pub and that was a simple case of damage caused during a dispute between a man and wife.  It was a busy pub with no fewer the 13 residents (7) in 1901 – perhaps the landlord ran a strict house.  By the outbreak of war in 1914 the street gang issue seemed to disappear – never to fully return.

Booth's Poverty Map shows the area as being a mix of 'very poor, casual, chronic want' and 'fairly comfortable'

Fig 3: Booths Poverty Map (LSE Collections).  These maps colour code the areas of London according to poverty

In the years after the Great War the area calmed down – it became more respectable and the shops that lined Cremer Street (as Harwar Street had become) became a little more up market.

The link between poverty and crime is a well established one but the outbreak of ‘hooliganism’, as the newspapers called it, in the area was the cause of a mini moral panic.   The next time I sit and have a £5.00 coffee in the refreshment house that now occupies the former pub I will reflect on some of the goings on in the area in the first decade of the 20^th century and remind myself how lucky I was to be born half a century later.

 

Philip Trendall

May 2025

 

NOTES

(1)    Eastern Argus and Borough of Hackney Gazette 13 Oct 1900 p3

(2)    Hackney and Kingland Gazette 15 Oct 1900 p3

(3)    Ibid

(4)    Illustrated Police News 06 Feb 1909 p11

(5)    Shoreditch Observer 11 Feb 1905 p3

(6)    Morning Advertiser – 02 June 1913 p6

(7)    The 1901 Census, 32 Harwar Street:  Head of the Household: William PEAD, Publican’s Manager.  Downloaded from Find My Past – 26 May 2025

 

(A)    The stabbing of F R James FRIEND by his partner in Maria Street resulted in Emily DOLAN being sentenced at the Old Bailey for 12 years penal servitude for Manslaughter, a charge of Murder being withdrawn – See The Proceeding of the Old Bailey 1909

 

 

A Little About Aunt Rene

 

Fig 1: parish Register for All Souls Cawnpore 1921 showing the baptism of Irene Nellie TRENDALL

Most people know their Aunts and Uncles, and in most working class families there are (or were) generally, lots of them.  But my Father had only one sibling – and I never met her.

Irene Nellie TRENDALL (1921-2012) was born in India where her Father, my Grandfather, (Frederick TRENDALL 1890-1940) was serving with the British Army.   I know nothing of her life growing up in the sub continent or about her schooling when the family returned to London in 1932.  It would be fair to say that she has remained a mystery to me and has resisted attempts at finding out much more.  Most of this blog will therefore be highlighting what I don’t know rather than what I do.

It has long been known in the family that she had become involved with a much older man who was a well known band leader and that she had later emigrated to the United States.  It has been suggested that she never fully got over the ending of that first relationship.

One thing that has bothered me has been my inability to discover where she was at the time of the creation of the 1939 Register.  The Register was compiled in the first months of the war.  It was a mammoth undertaking and was put together with much speed and considerable accuracy.  It was used to issue national Identity cards and after the war it formed the basic database of people entitled to NHS treatment.  It continued to be used for more than 20 years, being updated as necessary.  Because an ID card was essential part of wartime living the Register successfully captured virtually all of the civilian population. 

It was clear that Irene (often known as Rene) was not living with her Mother (her Father had already re-joined the colours) in the Autumn of 1939 – but where was she?  Years of checking back on the various transcriptions of the Register did not turn up a result.  She was only 18 at the start of the war and searching using just her date of birth in the London area failed to find her.  One day recently it occurred to me that she could have been using the surname of her older boyfriend but this too failed to produce a result.  In fact I couldn’t find him in the Register either!

Fig 2:  Billy TERNENT with a young Frankie HOWERD c1953

Frederick William TERNENT (always known as Billy TERNENT)  was a northerner who had made his name as a talented musician, arranger and a band leader, achieving a celebrity status by the late 1930s.  He was much in demand and later provided the band for stars such as Frank Sinatra when they visited the UK.  In 1939 he started to work for the BBC.  Reading about the war plans for the Corporation I noted that some of its functions were transferred to Bristol.  This caused me to widen my search, but still without a result until I discovered that the indexes to the Register had been mis transcribed and he was listed as TENNETT.   In the Autumn of 1939 he was living in Bristol (described as a Musical Director) with two other people.  One was a well known character actor, Sidney KIRKMAN, whose stage name was Syd WALKER.  The other was my Aunt Rene.  She had added a year to her age, presumably to close the age gap between her and Billy (who was 40 at the time).  She was using the name Irene TERNENT and was listed as doing  ‘unpaid domestic duties’ – the phrase usually employed to describe stay at home housewives. Billy’s wartime work for the BBC included providing the music for ITMA and a weekly slot on Music While You Work.

Fig 3:  The 1939 Register showing Irene TRENDALL as Irene TERNENT

Fig 4:  Syd WALKER the comedy actor who was living with Billy Ternent and Irene in Bristol when the 1939 Register was taken

The exact nature of her relationship with Billy TERNENT is unknown, but they were to remain together for several years.  It is not clear but he may have been married but estranged from his wife.  In 1943 Rene arranged for a notice to appear in the London Gazette confirming that she had changed her name to TERNENT.  Her address at the time was an up market flat.  Electoral Registers show that she shared various flats, mostly in the Marylebone area with Billy until at least 1952.  We do not know exactly when or why the relationship ended but in 1956 Rene married Delbert Allen BRUESCH.

Delbert was a divorced American airman (Master Sergeant USAF).  According to the marriage certificate he was living at the same address at Rene: 24 Stafford Terrace, London W8.  The marriage was witnessed by non family members.

Fig 5:  The Marriage of Irene TERNENT and Delbert BRUSECH in 1956

Around this time the couple went to the US where Rene was to stay for the rest of her life.  Her Mother (my Grandmother) emigrated to the US shortly afterwards.

Rene and Delbert divorced in 1967 after having two children.  In 1971 she married again to Joseph ADRAGNA in California.  They divorced in 1980. 

She then disappears from international view almost completely.  I had some correspondence with one of my cousins in around 1983 and in 2010 I tried to contact Rene but the letter was returned as she had moved from the address I had found for her.  She died in 2012 aged 91.  My Father did not leave a great deal of information about his family so I have always hoped that any family paperwork may have descended from my Grandmother (Nellie PARROCK) to Rene and thence to her children.   Perhaps one day I will be able to fill in some of the gaps.

Neither of Rene’s marriages lasted as long as her relationship with Billy TERNENT.  We do not know if they were in contact in later life.  A family story suggests that she retained a ring with his initials during her time in the US.  His career continued to flourish and for several years he was Musical Director at the London Palladium.  He performed until the mid 1970s.  His style was by then long out of fashion but he still had a strong following.  Not long before he died he married a woman who was 20 years younger than him.  She had previously changed her name to TERNENT and it looks as if they were together for many years, possible from around the time that he split with Rene.

I find that in studying families, both for clients as well as my own, that I am constantly reminded that there is no template.  Every family is different.  Every family is made up of individuals who chart their own path through life.  I will continue to research my Aunt Rene, together with many others and to celebrate the complex lives of those who came before me.

Note: If anybody has a picture of Rene (I only have one of her as a baby in India) then I will update this blog.

 

Philip TRENDALL

May 2025

NB:  There is a fan website for Billy TERNENT - this contains links to some of his programmes on the BBC and to recordings: http://www.mastersofmelody.co.uk/billyternent.htm