Our mysterious great grandfathers

I have been researching and writing about our mysterious great grandfathers from across the seas for some years now. It is great to have a blog to publish my writing in.
Here is some background on the Jersey family of our great grandfather Edward Thomas Romeril.
I'll figure out how to include the map of Jersey and a family tree to make it easier to track the details ...

Rachel (Pirouet) Romeril and her Children in Jersey

Barbara Romeril

26 January 2012[1]

My great great grandmother Rachel Pirouet lived in Jersey in the Channel Islands and her life spanned most of the 19^th century. Within our family her main claim to fame was giving birth to my father’s paternal grandfather, Edward Thomas Romeril who sailed to Australia as a merchant seaman, married, had children and then went missing. Exploring the story of the mysterious disappearance of Edward Thomas brought us to look more closely at his early life in Jersey which of course included his parents, siblings and ancestors.

We don’t know if our branch of the Jersey Romerils had any knowledge of the adventures of Edward Thomas in Australia, either his successes as the hero who saved the SS Richmond in 1881 and supported mariners in distress through his role as the Secretary of the Sydney Marine Benefit Society or the failed businessman and reputed gambler who deserted his wife and four young children in 1889, on the run from the police for theft from the society set up to assist his brothers on the sea. What we do know is that our Jersey Romerils were a family in modest circumstances, scratching out a living through unskilled labour, based in the most remote rural part of Jersey Leoville in the parish of St Ouen (see Figure 1), the seat of many generations of ancestors[2]. During Edward Thomas’ lifetime the family also established itself in the island’s only township, St Helier.

Jersey is a small island in the English Channel which has been settled by humans since prehistoric times. It is ‘a British Crown Dependency, a self-governing parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy, with its own financial and legal and judicial systems’.[3]

At the time of Edward Thomas’ birth in 1849 the population was about 55,000[4]; most of the population has always been concentrated in the only township, St Helier and the parish of St Ouen had only a few thousand residents. The main industries in the 19^th century were ship building and agriculture[5] – and our research shows that the Romeril family worked in both industries as well as in domestic service to the wealthier families of the island.

In the 19^th century most Jersey residents spoke the language Jerriais[6]. The Parish of St Ouen where the Romerils and Pirouets were based is the most rural area of Jersey[7] and holds the largest proportion of native speakers to this day – so undoubtedly Jerriais was the first language of Jean, Rachel and their children.

The Church of St Ouen was established before 1066 and is an imposing granite building sitting on top of a hill overlooking the ocean[8]. Rachel Pirouet was baptized at the Anglican Church of St Ouen in the autumn of 1815, just a few months after Napoleon had lost the Battle of Waterloo. She would have been baptized in the silver bowl that was donated to the church for this purpose ten years earlier (and is still in use 200 years later[9]). Whoever recorded the baptism went out of their way to record four generations of Pirouet ancestors - the baptismal record reads like something from the Old Testament, naming four generations of Pirouets back to the appropriately named great great grandfather Abraham – ‘Rachel daughter of Thomas (son of Jean, son of Phillipe, son of Abraham) and Jeanne Perier’. This suggests a strong value was placed on ancestry and on preserving knowledge of this ancestry; it could also be a practical measure to distinguish our Rachel Pirouet from the other women of this name living in St Ouen in the early 19^th century.

Census information for each decade from 1841 to 1911 shows a large number of Pirouets living in St Ouen, and a smaller but significant number of Romerils. The Romerils and Pirouets, like most of the population of St Ouen were poor unskilled labourers, the men working mostly as mariners and farm labourers, the women as domestic servants and homemakers. The census suggests that Edward Thomas’ father, Jean Romeril had a relatively uneventful life in sleepy Leoville; Jean was a shoemaker and farm labourer until his death in his 50s. His brothers Charles and Edward were both mariners before settling down like Jean as labourers in Leoville so it is possible that Jean may also have sailed the seas before settling down with Rachel. Leoville remained the base for the extended family right into the 20^th century.

We have no record of Rachel Pirouet between her baptism and her marriage to Jean Romeril at the age of 23; perhaps she worked as a domestic servant before marrying and producing seven children, 2 sons and 5 daughters. After being widowed in her late 40s or early 50s she moved back and forth between Leoville and St Helier, strangely going into domestic service for a period in her mid 60s; by that time all 7 children had left home, the boys to pursue careers on the high seas, the girls to marry.

In going into service Rachel followed in the footsteps of her three eldest daughters who all worked as servants before starting families of their own. Her eldest daughter Rachel junior was the first to go into service; as a teenager she worked as a domestic servant within the local parish while her father was still alive, her older brother John had become a sailor[10] and the 5 younger children were still at home in Leoville.

Then Rachel junior married John Moignard and settled in the southern village of Beaumont (see Figure 1) and the second and third daughters Harriet and Elizabeth also went into service as teenagers, Harriet near to Rachel junior and Elizabeth closer to home. Their father died around this time and their brother Edward (who was born between Harriet and Elizabeth) followed his older brother to become a seaman but still lived in the family home when in port. The 4^th daughter Amelia appears to have died in childhood and the youngest Jane was the only child still living full time with her mother Rachel. (It is possible that the eldest child John lived in the family home between voyages, however he does not appear at this address on the census for 3 decades).

The 1870s saw huge changes in the family – all of the children left home, and their mother Rachel went into service in the town. It seems reasonable to expect that the two sons would support their widowed mother after Jean died in the 1860s; but it appears John was still at sea, the sisters all married or were in service (apart from young Jane) and Edward Thomas left Jersey for distant Australia some time between 1871 and 1876. Perhaps this was the last straw that brought the house of Rachel to a crisis.

By 1881 half of the family had moved into town, Rachel senior into service, the eldest and youngest daughters Rachel junior and Jane both married (Jane married Phillip Romeril, possibly a cousin) and living next door to each other in St Helier. Rachel junior brought her husband and 2 children to the town where she had 4 more children and stayed into old age, living as a widow with her son Edward and his wife and daughter.  

Harriet was still in service in her 30s, a little further from the family home in the parish of St Peter. Elizabeth was the only family member who remained living in the family home which she had returned to with her laborer husband Phillip Langlois; she worked as a charwoman.

But the ancestral link to Leoville remained strong - by 1891 the family had largely moved back to their roots. Rachel senior moved in with Elizabeth and her husband; big brother John had returned from the sea to live next door and work as a farmer, married another Rachel Pirouet (his cousin) and produced 2 sons of his own, where he remained settled into old age. Jane also moved to Leoville with her 2 children but without her mariner husband. Rachel’s eldest daughter Rachel junior was the only family member who remained in town, a widow living with her four youngest boys.

But by 1901 the family has undergone another crisis; the women had moved back to town, Elizabeth taking her mother Rachel and her sister’s children – it appears that Jane died tragically early in her 30s and left the care of her two young children to her big sister. The last available census records in 1911 show Elizabeth was living in town with her husband and her sister Jane’s daughter Cecile with her husband and their daughter[11].

Harriet was the last of the siblings to marry, settling in the southern parish of St Peter with her laborer husband William Warren and then moving into town. (She did not have any children of her own and when she died in 1914 she left her estate to her niece Cecile.) So eventually all of the surviving female siblings settled in town, one widowed with a son and granddaughter, another widowed with no offspring and the third still married and living with her niece and grandniece. The sisters lived within walking distance of each other as they would have done had they settled in their ancestral home of Leoville. Rachel’s daughters maintained the close emotional bonds of the extended family, with the two sisters who died without offspring leaving their estates to their two nieces[12].

The physical roots of the family in Leoville were maintained into the 20^th century by Jean and Rachel’s eldest son John, returned from the sea and still working in his 70s as a farmer with his wife and son. His eldest son died in his teens and his second son Alfred Pirouet Romeril was still working on the farm in 1911 (although it is not known if he had any children).

Rachel Pirouet was born the year after the first steam locomotive was designed and the first photograph was taken; there were no typewriters, sewing machines, telephones or telegraph. She lived into the 20^th century, outliving her husband Jean and at least one of her children (and possibly three). Under her nurturing, the Pirouet-Romerils maintained their presence where their ancestors had lived in Leoville and branched out to take up the opportunities afforded by the town of St Helier and overseas to Australia where she now has hundreds of descendants.[13]

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[1] Based on analysis of the Channel Islands Census 1841 to 1911 and Jersey baptismal records

[2] At least 4 generations of Romerils lived and died in Leoville; prior to this the records show a presence in nearby St Mary’s parish.

[3] Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey

[4] The Société Jersiaise Library includes a single sheet of paper giving the population of each parish and a total population in 1770 of 19,788 and in 1788 of 20,025. It is not known how the figures were compiled.

Censuses in 1806 and 1815 were conducted by General Don, the Governor of Jersey, and provide more reliable estimates, and since 1821 there have been formal censuses.

In the 45 years between 1806 and 1851 the population rose from 22,855 to 57,020, an increase of 150%, an annual rate of over 2%. The 1820s and 1830s were periods of particularly rapid growth, around 25% in each decade.

After 1851 the population declined for 70 years before recovering such that in 1951 it was virtually the same as 100 years earlier. From the peak of 57,020 in 1851 there was a 13% decline to a low point of 49,701 in 1921. However, the 1921 figure was artificially inflated as it was conducted in June rather than April. On a comparable basis the 1921 population was more like 47,000, a decline of 18% from 1851.

From 1951 to 1991 there was a second period of very rapid population growth. Subsequently, the rate of increase has been more modest, although still high by international standards.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey's_population

[5] Jersey was the 4th largest ship building area in the 19th century British Isles, building over 900 vessels around the island. In the late 19th century as the former thriving cider and wool industries declined, island farmers  benefited from the development of two luxury products - the Jersey cow and the Jersey Royal potato. The former was the product of careful and selective breeding programmes; the latter being a total fluke.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey

[6] Although Jèrriais is now the first language of a very small minority, until the 19th century it was the everyday language of the majority of the population, and even until the Second World War up to half the population could communicate in the language. The parish with the highest proportion (8%) of Jèrriais speakers [in 2001] is Saint Ouen, and that with the lowest proportion (2.1%) is Saint Helier, although Saint Helier as the largest parish has the highest number of Jèrriais speakers.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A8rriais

Jersey French is the official language, with most place names and street names in French and official documents such as Wills in French - Edward Thomas’ sisters Harriet and Elizabeth Romeril both left Wills in French

[7] Saint Ouen (Jèrriais: Saint Ouën) is one of the twelve parishes of Jersey in the Channel Islands. It is in the north west of the Island. The parish is the largest parish by surface area, covering 8,341 vergées (15 km².) It is reputed to be the most traditional of the parishes, being the farthest from Saint Helier and with much of the territory of the parish forming a peninsula. Its manor - the seat of the de Carteret family for over eight centuries - is the senior fief in the island, and the influence of that family has also been a factor in the parish's independent-minded approach to its affairs.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Ouen,_Jersey

[8] St Ouen’s church is beautifully situated on the crest of a hill overlooking the Atlantic. Down the slope from the church, towards the golden sands, is one of the finest dune areas in Europe, Les Mielles, and the largest freshwater lake in the Channel Islands, La Mare au Seigneur. This is an area where magical wildlife, stunning views and glorious sunsets are abundant. The church, with its rugged granite buttresses weathered by Atlantic storms, can be clearly seen from most parts of this picturesque setting of St. Ouen’s Bay.

Source: http://www.stouenschurch.org.je/church-history/

[9] Source: http://www.stouenschurch.org.je/church-history/

[10] John crewed on the schooner the Tickler in 1861, captained by his neighbor Phillip Hubert (possibly a relative as his children have Pirouet as a middle name). The Tickler is commemorated on a Jersey coin in recognition of the economic importance of ship building to the 19^th century Jersey economy.

See http://jerseycoins.com/com_1/com_1.htm#ships

[11] Wills and Census data show that after Cecile died in her 20s, her husband John lived on with his aunt-in-law Elizabeth and remarried soon after. Tragically his second wife died a few years later so he lost two wives within a few years and died young himself at just 43 years of age.

[12] Harriet left all of her estate to her sister Jane’s daughter Cecile; Elizabeth left a fixed amount to her niece Isabella (Rachel’s only daughter) and her grandniece Gladys (Cecile’s daughter) with the balance shared between the children of Cecile’s husband John Thullier – note that both Cecile and John died before Elizabeth wrote this Will.

[13] Does anyone have the actual number of descendants of ET Romeril?