Walking With The Wounded

Simon Daglish is co-founder of the charity Walking With The Wounded, which aims to raise £2 million Pounds to help wounded ex-servicemen.

The goal of the challenge is to successfully reach the North Pole with four wounded soldiers, of whom two are amputees. They will become the first amputees to reach the North Pole unsupported. The team has been joined by Prince Harry who is training with the team and will join them for the first five days of the trek. The aim of the team is to reach the North Pole around the 25 or 26 of April.

Picture: The Walking with the Wounded team trekking to the North Pole (L-R) Guy Disney, Simon Daglish, Edward Parker, Jaco Van Gass, Martin Hewitt, Steven Young and team leader Inge Solheim pose for a team photo as they train on the Norwegian Island of Spitsbergen on March 31, 2011 in Spitsbergen, Norway.

For more information please see the Walking With The Wounded website:

http://walkingwiththewounded.org.uk/

http://walkingwiththewounded.org.uk/profile/simon-daglish/

Donations can be made here:

http://www.justgiving.com/walkingwiththewounded

For details of Simon Daglish's 2006 Numis Polar Challenge to the South Pole, see:

http://daglishfamily.blogspot.com/2007/09/simon-daglish-numis-polar-challenge.html

Latest progress report:

On Top of the World

Late last night, four wounded servicemen have reached the Geographical North Pole unsupported! Setting a World Record, the teamed trekked almost 200 miles to achieve their goal and raise money for projects that help rehabilitate our injured servicemen and women. They reached the Pole well ahead of schedule and were absolutely delighted to have achieved their goal! They speak below from on top of the world:

Simon Daglish: "What an incredible thing to be able to and thank you to everyone for your support."

Ed Parker: "It’s been the most exciting, amazing, emotional day but we’ve done it and there were a lot of people who said we couldn’t."

Martin Hewitt: "We acheieve our aim, set a world record and we hope we have proved what can be achieved with the right team and equpitment and attitude. You can adapt and improvise and overcome challenges."

Guy Disney: "We are absolutely delighted, we got here in thirteen days which is much quicker than we ever hoped, everyone is in great form with just a few bumps and bruises and it didn’t stop getting challenging until the last minute."

Steve Young:"It’s unbelievable, we're sat at the top of the world tonight and loving every minute of it."

Jaco Van Gass: "Thank you everyone for the support, we can’t thank you enough! A lot of people said it can’t be done and here we are, at the North Pole."

Polar Guide Inge Solheim: "We’ve had a great trip, everything has gone well and according to plan and we have had relatively good ice conditions, stable weather and no serious injuries. We are very, very happy for how it has all turned out. We are there or four days ahead of schedule, which is great! Over and out from the North Pole!"

Peter Daglish at Chelsea Futurespace

An exhibition entitled "Wall Hangings - A Collaboration" by Marian & Peter Daglish opened at CHELSEA Futurespace on April 15th and runs until June 21st. It is open 7 days a week from 11:00 am to 6 pm, admission free.

The brochure which accompanies the exhibition notes that the designs by Peter were produced by his wife Marian:

These works were made using the "Punchwork" method: Peter would draw directly onto stretched Osnaburg canvas, a type of coarse linen, which Marian then perforated and stitched using a hollow needle filled with yarn to create a kaleidoscope of vivid colour and warm textures.

Marian Daglish passed away in 2008, and the exhibition is a celebration of their life and work together.

CHELSEA Futurespace is a collaboration between Chelsea College of Art and Design, Future City Arts and St James Homes. This gallery is situated in the Hepworth Building at Grosvenor Waterside, a new residential development near Chelsea Bridge.

Address: CHELSEA Futurespace, Hepworth Court, Grosvenor Waterside, London, SW1W 8QP
http://www.chelseafuturespace.org/

Uppies and Downies 2009

Easter is the time for the annual Uppies and Downies games in Workington. With a history stretching back hundreds of years, three games are played on Good Friday, Easter Tuesday and the following Saturday.

Of these, the Tuesday game is considered by many to be the most prestigious as this was the original match day. The local Daglish family has started the Tuesday match for as long as the games have been played, and also participated in many.

On Tuesday, Jennifer Daglish (pictured above) threw the ball in - the first woman to do so since 1941. The match was won by the Uppies, who also won on Good Friday giving them a 2-0 lead. However the Downies salvaged some pride with a win in the last match which, at 40 minutes, was one of the quickest in recent times.

The future of the games has been under threat for some time as Tesco plans to build a new store on the area where the games are played.

Pictures from the Workington News & Star.

Joseph Daglish watch

Last year, I was fortunate to find a pocket watch for sale made by the Alnwick clock maker Joseph Daglish. The watch is hallmarked 1814 and has an enamel face with gold coloured hands.

It has now been restored to working order with the help of our local antique clock shop, Times Past in Eton High Street, and is keeping good time - with a distinct loud ticking produced from itsa verge movement.

The name of Joseph Daglish is engraved inside the watch.

DNA Study includes Daglish name

A paper has recently been published by researchers from the Department of Genetics at Leicester University. This looked at 40 British surnames and their variants - including the names Daglish and Dalgleish.

Some years ago the researchers - Professor Mark Jobling and Dr. Turi King - contacted people with the surnames being studied requesting DNA samples. I know of at least two Daglishes who were contacted in this way at the time and provided samples. Under the terms of the study, the identities of the participants are confidential; the results are by surname only.


The results are interesting, providing some good matches with those in our own Daglish DNA Study. These include exact matches for the names Daglish - and some very close matches with the results for the name Dalgleish. This does seem to provide more evidence for a possible link between the names and I have now added the names Dalgliesh and Dalgliesh to the scope of the Daglish DNA Study to try to investigate this further.

The results of the study can be found in the Supplemental Table here, and the full article here.

Peter Daglish exhibition in Calcutta

This month sees Peter Daglish in India for a joint exhibition with Amal Ghosh entitled "Vitreous Enamels & Linocut Prints". The show - which features linocuts by Peter and enamels by Amal Ghosh - is at the Ganges Art Gallery in Calcutta. It opened on January 14 and runs until January 31.

Ganges Art Gallery: Exhibition guide includes images
Review - from Kolkata Mirror

In its notes about the exhibition the Gallery writes:

Peter Daglish’s incisive linocuts hark back to the graphics of Hogarth and Daumier. Linocuts are relief print produced in a manner similar to woodcut.

The wooden block has a thin layer of linoleum which can be cut away in any direction to produce a raised surface that can be inked and printed, producing either monochromatic or multi-coloured images.

Daglish makes incredible use of the medium’s strong graphical potential to exploit the bold patterns which are integral to his work. His use of colour, while exuberant in its own terms, also allows for shading and texturing the image.

Daglish’s linocuts brim with the fineness and foibles of the human condition and are both perceptive and funny. He is able to explore the earthy and quotidian as a reproach to the spiritual and a negation of the ideal and is able to perceive incongruous relationships and express them in a pointed manner.

His women are celebrations of pure energy: stylized, curvilinear and more than faintly kinky. Their sensuous lips and extravagant hairdos show the artist’s taste for precise detail and stylized though highly idiosyncratic motifs.

In what they encompass or allude to, these works transcend the beautiful, the comic, the grotesque or even the quest for objectivity. They are a relentless scrutiny of the world ranging from scathing social commentary to opulent ornamentalism. On all scores, though, the artistic attention is contemplative rather than confrontational.

Christmas wishes

I would like to take this opportunity to send best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. I would also like to apologise for the lack of postings here in the last few months. This has mainly been due to pressure of work leaving not enough time.

However that does not mean that work on the Daglish One-Name Study has stopped. On the contrary this has continued throughout the year.

I am still working on building the trees for Daglish families around the World, with the focus on trying to go further back to find connections. This inevitably leads to variations with the spelling of the name.

During a recent trip to South Shields, I found a gravestone for the Dagleas family in Westoe Cemetery, for John Dagleas, his wife Isabella Taylor and family. The name Dagleas shares its roots with the name Daglish, and I have now added this into my One-Name Study.

The Daglish DNA Project continues. Although we have not had many new members this year, we have had one very interesting result. This is from a living descendant of Henry Daglish, the Premier of Western Australia. This new result matches our core group of Daglish results, providing more useful information to the study. The cost of DNA testing appears to be coming down, so I hope we can recruit some more members next year.

During the year several people have left comments under stories on the blog. There are some that I would very much like to contact for more information, but unfortunately this is not possible through the comments section. I would particularly like to hear from Derek and Phil if possible please.

If you do have any connections with the Daglish name or information and stories, please do e-mail me - you can do this through my Profile page on this blog, or go to the Daglish One-Name Study site.

1911 Census of England and Wales

UPDATE:

The official site for the 1911 Census of England and Wales was originally launched on January 13. The site was initally launched with 35 English counties but - unfortunately for me - neither County Durham or Northumberland were among these initial counties.

More counties have since been added - and, as at April 11, all of the remaining English Counties (Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland) and the missing Gateshead district records from County Durham have now been added. Therefore all English counties are now complete and online.

Scanning of Welsh records is underway and some data from Wales should be available in the next 4 to 6 weeks.

1911 Census

The 1911 Census is not covered by the Census Act 1920 which requires the closure of all subsequent censuses for 100 years. A challenge was made under the Freedom of Information Act to allow access to the 1911 Census earlier than 100 years and, following referral, the Information Commissioner ruled that access should be given. However personally sensitive information will not be released until 2012.

Unfortunately it is not possible to show a sample page - but the details shown in the 1911 Census for each person are name and surname, age, sex, marital status, occupation, birthplace, nationality, infirmity (only available after January 2012 under the 100 year rule - until then this will be obscured). Additionally, for married women the census shows number of years married and number of children born to present marriage, living or deceased.

Unlike the pages for the 1901 Census and before, the 1911 Census will show schedules completed by the householders themselves, rather than by the census enumerators. This means that when you find a census page relating to an ancestor, you will see their own handwriting and signature if they were head of the household.

Life in England and Wales in 1911:

The estimated population in England and Wales in 1911 was 36,003,276 people. Today’s population is an estimated 54 million people.

Life expectancy was 54 years for women and 50 for men in 1911. By 2011 life expectancy is predicted to be 82 for women and 74 for men. There was an estimated 100 centenarians in England and Wales in 1911 - today this has grown 90-fold to 9,300 people.

The average family had 2.8 children in 1911 - the average in 2008 was 1.8 children.

The top five occupations in 1911 were domestic service (1,302,438), agriculture (1,229,555), coal mining (971,236), building (817,942) and cotton manufacture (623,825).

Time to remember

Today saw the opening by The Duke of Edinburgh of the The Royal British Legion Field of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey.

The Field of Remembrance is made up of thousands of little Remembrance Crosses, Stars of David and Muslim Crescents each bearing a poppy in tribute to those who lost their lives in the service of their country. They are laid out in plots for Regimental and other Associations.

In Plot 22 there are four crosses to remember some Daglishes who fell serving in the First World War.

The Field of Remembrance is open for public viewing throughout the period of remembrance and commemoration and visitors can add their own crosses in memory of loved ones.

The Welsh Field of Remembrance is also open at Cathays Park, behind City Hall, in Cardiff.

This week also sees the launch of a new web site for Military Genealogy. The site claims to hold records of over one million members of the British armed forces going back to before 1630. Included are details of Daglishes who died in conflict, and also some serving and retired members of the forces.

UK incoming passenger lists go online

This week a new set of records went online containing details of more than 18 million immigrants, business travellers, tourists and returning emigrants and their descendants who arrived in the UK by boat in the period 1878 to 1960.

The records are from the National Archives and made available on-line by the Ancestry web site. It is free to search - but there is a charge for viewing the full entry and downloading images of the passenger lists. TV presenter and family history enthusiast Tony Robinson was on hand for the launch.

The passenger lists are for people arriving in the United Kingdom from ports outside of Europe and the Mediterranean and may include: name of passenger, their birth date or age, port of departure, port of arrival, date of arrival and vessel name.

The press coverage of the lauch concentrated on some of the well-known names that are included in the lists - but the collection also includes many Daglish entries. These mostly refer to those travelling abroad for work or pleasure and returning home, although some refer to families which have moved permanently overseas and are returning for family reasons.

This is an interesting new resource for family historians.

National Archives news release

The Independent article

The Herald article

Daily Mail article

WWT Nikon Photography Competition 2008

Anthony Daglish from Wallsend has won a top prize in the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) Nikon Photography Competition 2008.

His image of Washington’s record-breaking avocets fought off competition from WWT’s eight other UK wetland centres to be named number one in its category by the judges.

In July 2006 a pair of avocets – which traditionally nest in southern England – hatched two chicks at WWT Washington Wetland Centre, the most northerly ever recorded in the UK. They have since bred and successfully reared young in both 2007 and 2008.

Anthony, 34, only took up photography two years ago, after seeing fellow wildlife enthusiasts with cameras in tow.

He said: “I first got into photography after watching other people doing it. It sparked my curiosity and I thought, ‘I wouldn’t mind a shot at that’.

“I’ve always loved birds and have been a keen birdwatcher for years, so it was the next step to start taking pictures of them.”

Details from the Joural Live - full story here.

Royal Humane Society award

The most recent issue of "Remember When" published by the Evening Chronicle in Newcastle includes in its Roll of Honour column the following:

1954: The Royal Humane Parchment was presented to 12-year old Anne Valerie Daglish, a pupil of Central Modern School, Wallsend. William Messenger, a nightwatchman, had been overcome by gas and fell into a four feet deep trench. In a gallant rescue Valerie managed to help the victim to safety.

The Royal Humane Society is a charity that grants awards for acts of bravery in the saving of human life and, also, for the restoration of life by resuscitation. Its awards range from bronze, silver and gold medals to Testimonials on Vellum and Parchment.

The Testimonial on Parchment is awarded where someone has put themselves in danger to save, or attempt to save, someone else. Many of the awards go to people who have swum to the rescue of someone else - in a quarry, a lake, a river or at sea.

Some useful web sites

Firstly my apologies for the lack of recent postings. However, I am still here and continuing with the Daglish research! I hope to continue to make occasional postings, as time allows.

The following web sites that I have not seen before have been brought to my attention - these may be useful to anyone interested in family history research.

The Coalmining History Resource Centre

Described as "the UK's largest and most comprehensive website concerning the history of coalmining - including a searchable database of over 164,000 recorded accidents and deaths".

The information on the site has been compiled by Ian Winstanley and is now available through this new site, sponsored by Rales solicitors from Barnsley - who are described as specialists in workplace accidents and disease compensation.

The War Graves Photographic Project

Working in association with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the aim of this site is:

"to photograph every war grave, individual memorial, MoD grave, and family memorial of serving military personnel from WWI to the present day and make these available within a searchable database."

The site was launched in February 2008 and is work in progress with many photos waiting to be uploaded. The site relies on volunteers to visit, record and catalogue the many hundreds of thousands of graves scattered aound the World.

Deceased Online

This new site was launched on 11 July. It is described as:

"the first central database of statutory burial and cremation registers for the UK and Republic of Ireland -- a unique resource for family history researchers and professional genealogists ... We are making it possible for burial and cremation authorities around the country to convert their register records, maps and photographs into digital form and bring them together into a central searchable collection."

For now the site has very limited data from Kent and Sussex - and is running in test mode. During this tes period, access to data is free of charge, but after this there will be a charge to access the records (although searching will be free).

The Aerial Reconnaissance Archive

In the news today is The Aerial Reconnaissance Archive (or TARA), one of the World's largest collections of aeriel photography. More than 10 million military photographs are stored in the archive, most of which were taken by surveillance aircraft in World War Two. The photo below shows the German battleship Bismarck which was sunk within a week of this picture being taken.

The collection is is being re-located from Keele University to a new home at the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) in Edinburgh. It is hoped much of the archive will be now made available to the public online; an earlier attempt to do this was unsuccessful.

Historian Ian Daglish has provided the BBC with some interviews about this interesting collection which will be going out today. There is also an Audio Slideshow on the BBC web site, where Ian and retired Wing Commander Michael Mockford discuss the significance of just a few of the photographs from the war.

See also The Times Online

Richard Daglish, New Zealand

This is a photo of Richard Daglish which he signed and also wrote on the back "Taken "Somewhere in France" 10-1-17".

Richard was born in November 1892 in Tasmania, the son of James Daglish and Lydia Stevenson. James and his wife were married in Newcastle in 1884 and a few weeks later emigrated to Australia. The family later moved to Dunedin, New Zealand.

Richard's army service record shows that he joined the Dunedin Cycle and Signal Corps in 1909, going on to join No.2 Signal Company (Otago) before leaving for Europe in 1915 with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force.

He served first in Gallipoli and Somalia before arriving in France in 1916. On 2 January 1917 he was mentioned in dispatches by General Sir Douglas Haig and the photo was taken a few days after this. On 11 March 1917 he was promoted to Staff Sergeant.

In 1917 he was posted to England, marrying Mary Stewart Scott in Ryton on 5 February 1918.

The photo below of Richard and family is dated May 1918 and taken at the Kapai Studio, Dunedin. Richard also served in the Second World War.

North East War Memorials Project

The North East War Memorials Project is a site that may be of some interest to people with ancestors from the North East who lost their lives in the two world wars.

What makes this site different from some others - such as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission - is that it is dedicated to local war memorials. This includes the public memorials ones that can be seen in towns and villages, and also ones that are less visible being inside schools, churches and working mens clubs.

Details provided include the location and description, a listing of names and a photograph. Searches can be made by name and/or location. A simple search for Daglish produces 43 results.

I have used this to find various memorials on my trips to the North East, such as the Cenotaph at Castle Bank, Morpeth.

The Proceedings Of The Old Bailey 1674-1913

A new site offering transcripts of trials held at the Old Bailey in London has been causing a lot of interest - so much so that the site is currently displaying a warning that, due to high demand, the site is running slowly and some services may be temporarily suspended.

The site contains the transcripts of every trial heard at the Old Bailey from 1674 to 1913, a total of more than 210,000 criminal trials. These are covered in more than 110,000 pages of text and some 120 million words - together with 195,000 digital images, contemporary maps, images of the courtroom and information on the historical and legal background to the Old Bailey court. Also included are the biographical details of around 3,000 men and women executed at Tyburn.

A search by keyword Daglish produces just 6 results.

Of these two are for a Daglish Street in East London, mentioned in a case in 1822 and again in 1866. I cannot find any information about this address or its history.

The other four references are to Daglishes appearing before the court as witnesses (including my grandfather, James Daglish) or as the victimsof crimes. No black sheep here!

The Proceedings Of The Old Bailey 1674-1913

Peter Daglish exhibition opens in London

An exhibition of prints and enamels by Peter Daglish has just opened at The Sun and Doves in Camberwell, London. A private view was organised last night by the Kapil Jariwala Gallery, with Peter in attendance and playing with The Parkshot Jazz Ensemble.

The Sun and Doves is a pub which also presents art, films and music, providing an interesting and unusual venue for seeing Peter's work on display.

The exhibition continues until May 25th at The Sun and Doves, 61 Coldharbour Lane, Camberwell, London, SE5 9NS.

Peter Daglish Racing

Peter Daglish is competing in the British Formula Ford Championship this year.

24 year old Peter from Chester-le-Street has been involved in the sport since 1998, starting in karting and for the last two years in the BARC Westfield Sports Car Championship - last year recording 3 wins, 4 second places and 4 pole positions and finishing 2nd overall. This has given him the confidence to step up to Formula Ford. This season Peter is competing in the Scolarship class, and after the first two events is lying in third place.

Formula Ford has been a launch pad for many drivers who have gone on to bigger things. The list includes drivers who moved on to Formula 1 including such names as James Hunt, Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill, Jenson Button and David Coulthard.

Races take place throughout the summer and autumn at tracks including Brands Hatch and Silverstone, with TV coverage on Sky Sports.

I know very little about the sport of motor racing - but will be keeping in touch with the results as the season progresses.

For more information, see Formula Ford 2008 and Peter's own site.

Latesst news: Evening Chronicle

Lost Cousins, Family Search and a postcard

Firstly my apologies for the lack of new posts in the last few weeks. There has been a lack of new stories relating to the Daglish name, whilst a major project at work is likely to keep me busy until the summer.

Nevertheless, research into the Daglish name goes on.

Lost Cousins seeks to match entries based on entries in UK, US and Canada censuses. This helps to ensure correct matches by effectively removing those with similar names but from different families. Only the details from the census records are shown on the site.

LostCousins has recently reached agreement with the Guild of One Name Studies for members of the Guild to add their records to the LostCousins site - and I plan to add the Daglish details in the hope of making some new contacts. Unfortunately uploading the data is a manual process, so this may take some time to complete.

Basic LostCousins membership is free, but if you want to contact any matches you need to pay a subscription.

The International Genealogical Index (or IGI) published by the Church of Latter Day Saints on its FamilySearch site has long been a useful index of parish records for those researching family history.

The Church has now launched a new pilot site FamilySearch Labs, which includes some new indexes and also some scanned images. A simple registration is required using an e-mail address.

I was interested that it includes scanned images of Bishops' Transcripts from the Diocese of Durham from the 1700s and 1800s. Bishops' Transripts were copies of the parish registers, which were ordered to be kept from 1598 - the parish was requiredto send these transcripts within a month of Easter for the period covering the previous year. These transcripts can useful where the original register is missing or is unclear.

Details are available on the site for most County Durham parishes and many from Northumberland, with some for Yorkshire and a few for Cumberland. At present these records have not been indexed but are still useful as reserarch material available online.

Lastly, I have received a postcard photo which suggests this might be a Daglish. Little is known about this, other than the writing in pencil on the back which shows two names (Daglish on the left and Jarvis on the right) and a date (13 January 1922). The place where this was taken is unknown and the uniforms give little away. I will be trying to find out more about this - but if anyone has any details, please let me know!

Uppies and Downies

The Uppies and Downies is a series of ball games held in Workington each Easter. The games have been supported by the local Daglish family for over 300 years, and I had the pleasure of seeing the Tuesday game last year - and had hoped to be back this year, but unfortunately work commitments made this impossible.

The future of the games is in doubt following the sale of the Cloffocks, an open area on which the games are played, to Tesco - which intends to build a large supermarket and petrol station on the site (see illustration below).

In January Tesco's planning application received approval by Allerdale Council. As well as concerns for the future of the games, other questions have been raised about the way in which the local council conducted the sale.

These games are part of the history and tradition of the local community which Tesco hopes to serve - and it would be a real shame if these were lost. There have been some suggestions to re-locate the games to another site - but this would make it an organised event which is contrary to the spirit and tradition of the games.

On Tuesday evening, the ball was thrown off by Robert Daglish junior, continuing the long family tradition. His father, Robert Daglish senior, talking to the local media about the current situation said:

“I hope that the new Tesco won’t bring a stop the game as it is right in the heart of where the Uppies try to get the ball to. As long I have a breath in my body I want the game to continue. It is part of the tradition of Workington. It would be a sad day if the game had to stop.”

The Uppies won the 2008 series 2-1, their fourth successive win.

See recent coverage from the BBC and Times & Star.

The games are celebrated in a recent book "Uppies and Downies: The extraordinary football games of Britain" by Hugh Hornby, published by English Heritage.

Whilst the book takes its name from the Workington games, it also looks at other similar events around the country and provides a useful calendar of these.

The book includes a photograph from 1872 of Anthony Daglish, pictured holding the balls he had hailed for the Uppies in that and the previous year (the years are on the balls).
There is also reference to an article in the Whitehaven News in 1931 that the Daglish family once owned a 300-year old ball won by an ancestor. I wonder where that is now?

Update 2014:
I recently received an email which read:
Now that we have got rid of any talk of Tesco building on the Cloffocks we thought that would be an end to it but the council now want to build a leisure centre down there.

2014 games 
The 2014 games went ahead as usual, with the Downies winning 3-0. A report of the games appears here, with a link to a report and pictures from the Tuesday game - this notes:
The ball was thrown off by Robert Daglish, 34, who had had the honour for 24 years. He was with his wife Jennifer and their 16-month-old son Harry, who will throw off the ball when he is old enough.

http://www.timesandstar.co.uk/news/other/span-style-color-red-photos-span-downies-clinch-second-game-in-workington-series-1.1130999

The Barbarians of Workington
I also recently found another book "The Barbarians of Workington: Uppies v Downies" by Keith Wallace (Wallace & Scott 2009).

This contains many stories and photos, including the following one of Anthony Daglish:

There is also a list of Hailers of the Ball, including the following Daglishes:

Daglish - the development of a name

There has been little new Daglish news to write about recently. If you have any stories, photos or anything that might be of interest, please let me know.

Today I attended a meeting of the London branch of the Northumberland & Durham Family History Society. The speaker was Rosalind Moffitt and the subject "Surnames in the North East".

Rosalind studies the history of surnames, in particular those from North East England where her family comes from. After studying English at Durham University, Rosalind trained as a Speech and Language Therapist and spent time working with children. She began her talk by looking at how young children adapt words - and how this might be applied to ways in which surnames developed in an age of widespread illiteracy.

Names might be simplified by dropping syllables from the word or maybe just the last consonant or by using different vowels.

Looking at the entries in the Whickham parish register for marriages - in which Daglishes have appeared since the late 1500s - we can perhaps see some examples of this.

The earliest entry is for the name Daglis, maybe a case where the last consonant has been dropped. Will Daglis married Magdalene Thompson on 30 January 1596.

Under burials, there is an entry for 3 April 1613 which reads:

"A POORE child of Daglis, his wife, and the mother and two other children of Daglis. Buried."

The spelling of Daglis continued to be used until around 1615, after which various others are used - including Dagglish, Dagleish and Dagleese - until the name is shown as Daglesh, a change of vowel. This begins with the marriage of John Daglesh to Barbery Croser on 31 May 1669 and continues until around 1691.

After this date the spelling Daglish is consistently used.

This is how the name may have developed in one key Parish - this may also have been influenced by changes in the local vicar and how the name was written down. In other places the name may have developed differently.

The subject of how the name may have changed is of interest because of some recent developments with the Daglish DNA Study.

We now have matching DNA results with a person named DOUGLAS and with a person named DALGLIESH. Both of these people live in Scotland. Both of these names have been suggested in various reference books as the source of the name Daglish (though neither have been found to be linked through standard research of historical records).

It is perhaps possible to see how Douglas may link to the early records as Daglis, and also to imagine that the Scottish name Dalglish or Dalgliesh may have been simplified if it moved across the border into North East England. This is a subject for further research.

Rosalind Moffitt runs a service Nameswell Surname Research and also writes for Family Tree Magazine.

William Daglish, Santa Cruz, California

I recently found some advertising materials for Daglish’s Health Food Service of Santa Cruz, California, and a little research led to a colourful story.

An article from the Santa Cruz Sentinel by Carolyn Swift provided some details.

The story begins in 1928, when Sarah Jane Kitchen married William Edward Daglish. The couple moved to Santa Cruz at the height of the Depression, opening the “Daglish Free Welfare Depot”. William quickly earned a reputation: the report describes him as "something of a fanatic, driving a "sign-flaunting gas chariot"... on a boisterous one-man moral crusade".

Life for his wife was difficult. She was described as "semi-invalid" and, forced by her husband to eat his chosen diet, some thought she was slowly starving – and said she occasionally went to neighbours for more food.

On July 17 1940, Sarah Jane died. She was buried the next day, Thursday, when William delivered the funeral sermon. On the following day he eloped to Reno, Nevada, with 22-year Joan Allardyce where the couple were married. This series of events led to nationwide news coverage, and one newspaper reported:

"If Daglish and Miss Allardyce had reached the Remo marriage license clerk four minutes later than they did, their marriage would have to be postponed until Sunday because Daglish’s church, Seventh Day Adventist, does not sanction marriages on Saturday."
Meanwhile, back in Santa Cruz, the authorities had ordered Sarah Jane’s body to be exhumed from the Felton Cemetery, and tested for poison.

William protested his innocence and gave his version of the story. He accused the authorities of a plot against him because of his campaigning against vice and gambling. He claimed that Sarah Jane had approved of Miss Allardyce as his future wife, and had urged him to marry her immediately after the funeral.

No poison was detected in the tests, and the authorities accepted the coroner’s decision that Sarah Jane had died of “hemorrhagic pancreatitis”.

The handbill dates from just after this in 1941. The photo shows William, Joan and their daughter Noaomi Celeste. William continued his business until his death in 1952.

William was born in 1896 in Indiana, the son of John Daglish and Mary Aldrich. His grandfather, also John Daglish, had emigrated from England.

I would be very interested to know more about the family and their story, or to hear from any relatives. Also any photos of the Daglish store in Santa Cruz, which was covered with various slogans and adverts - I have seen one small photo from the 1950s, but this is too small and the quality too poor to show here.

Daglish boxers of Workington

I recently stumbled upon an excellent web site abour Pre-War Boxing, run by boxing historian Miles Templeton. The site included details of two Daglishes who were boxing in Workington in the mid 1930s -Harry and Jim Daglish. From the site I obtained scans of two handbills from 1934.

The first is for Harry Daglish (born Henry Daglish, born 1917, died 1977). The fight to which the handbill refers took place on Monday November 12, 1934 at Drill Hall Carlisle. Harry beat his opponent Frank Moran on points.

At this time Harry would have been 17 years old. Miles tells me that he would be fighting for prizes of around 10 or 15 shillings, money that would support the family budget.

Harry was a member of Jim Pattinson’s Boxing Club and fought all over the North of England, from Workington to Manchester and across to the North East.

He carried on boxing until he was called up into the Navy during WW2. In the Navy he kept quiet about his boxing skills – but his daughter Linda tells a story:

“There was one fellow used to win bouts most of the time and he got rather too big for his boots - so Dad decided to bring him down a peg or two. Harry told his mate to put all the money he could scrape together on himself - and then he hammered the other fellow, much to everyone’s surprise! They all lost their money, except Dad’s mate - and of course the other fellow wasn't quite so big for his boots after that.”

Harry is part of the Daglish family which has been involved for many years with Workington’s famous Uppies & Downies held each year over the Easter period.

The other handbill is for Jim Daglish – and this is proving something of a puzzle, as no-one knows who this is! The fight appears to be a challenge match, as the handbill reads:

Daglish has asked for this contest, confident he will check Nugent’s series of victories. Will he?

Unfortunately we don’t know the result of the match!

My thanks to Miles Templeton for the handbills and to Linda Carter for the photo and family details.