A Baptist
conundrum
Daphne Spurling
It all began with a phone call. 'Hi, Mum'. It
was my son calling from his home in Pakistan,
'We've decided to give your new grandson the
middle name of Shorney. "That's wonderful,'
I replied. Shorney was my mother's maiden name.
'I don't know other close relatives with the
surname so it would be great to keep it alive.' I
later found that my closest male relatives with
the Shorney surname in England would have to be
descended from my 4 x great grandparents who
married in 1760.
'There's just one point', he continued, 'can
you tell us something about the family?' My
mother had died when I was a teenager and we had
spent our working life overseas, so my son knew
only one cousin whom we had visited regularly
when living in Lesotho for a year.
'That's easy,' I said, with great conviction
remembering that an American cousin had published
a book on the families of the four grandparents
of her children. 1
And so it proved to be - initially. Although
the book wasn't produced until 1960, the Shorney
part had been based on a visit in 1932. Great
Aunt Emmie, who had taken them round, had several
advantages: she and her sister had married my
grandfather's brothers and she had grown up in
the next village and in the same Baptist
community in Somerset as my grandfather; in fact
from her surname she was possibly related to my
grandfather's grandmother. Most important of all,
my very sprightly great grandmother, Mary
Duddridge, had only died in 1927 aged 92 and the
family remembered the stories of her childhood
of, what is now, 150 years ago. The book provided
a wealth of information on family and farm life
and from it we were able to identify and visit
the family farm.
My great grandfather, Henry Shorney, was not
strong physically and prone to depression. In
1883, when my grandfather was only eight, the
great agricultural depression forced them from
the family farm. The following 12 years were
spent renting farms - one in Somerset and then
three in Berkshire - until by 1895 they were at
Langley Hill Farm where my great uncle remained
until the 1920s. My grandfather, Arthur, became a
civil servant, married Lilian Chapman in 1903 and
their third child, my mother, was born at Theale
in 1911. They moved to Lincoln when my mother was
a teenager and retired to Somerset where we often
visited my grandfather's relatives. But when I
was 10 they returned to Lincoln when my
grandmother's broken hip didn't heal. So I knew
quite a lot about my grandfather Arthur and his
family.
At this point in writing the story for our new
grandson I realised that I knew nothing about my
grandmother except her name, Lilian Chapman, and
that she used to teach music. Where was she from,
how had she met my grandfather? Then began a
series of coincidences that led me onwards each
time I reached an impasse. First my son gave me a
Christmas present cheque with instructions to get
on the Internet so that we could communicate more
easily. I surfed madly during the 'month's free
trial' - and it paid off. A website pointed me to
another Shorney family member who has collected
all references she found to the family. We don't
know if we were related but she helped me to get
back further
Arthur and Lilion Shorney
than the family memory. But that still left
Lilian. Several possibilities came to mind.
Perhaps Lilian was from this area; after all
Arthur. was 20 when the family moved to Calcot. I
vaguely remembered Aunt Emmie saying that a
leading congregational family in Theale 'were
sort of cousins 'and finally the IGI showed two
generations of Chapmans in Tilehurst called
Frances Mary, the same combination of forenames
given to my aunt. But first to follow the advice
in all the books: 'ask relatives'. Arthur and
Lilian's daughter-in-law said Lilian never spoke
of her family and gave the impression that she
was ashamed of them. She added that my
grandmother had a brother whom she thought was a
miner. And my cousin thought our great
grandfather was a Baptist minister. Certainly the
Baptist religion was a likely common factor.
Arthur's mother, my doughty old great
grandmother, described being sent as a boarder at
the age of five to a school run by a Reverend
Chapman and his wife at the Baptist Church in
Stogumber, Somerset. Surely the families could
not have stayed in touch for 6o years?
Alternatively perhaps Lilian's father had been
based at Tilehurst. The next coincidence was a
phone call from someone whom my husband had known
briefly lo years ago. Over lunch we discovered he
was connected with the Baptist church in
Tilehurst, but he told us that it had not started
until decades later. Perhaps great grandpa had
been at a Reading church. But first a search of
the marriage index working backwards from the
birth dates of my mother, aunt and uncle. And
with it came surprises. My grandparents were
married at Coventry. How on earth did my
grandfather, who so far as I knew had never lived
north of Ewelme just over the Thames in
Oxfordshire, come to marry someone from Coventry?
Grandpa was living in Worcester at the time of
the wedding and was still there seven months
after the wedding when my uncle was born. That
again was a shock as my grandparents were so
puritan that they objected to me marrying before
My 25th birthday and we were not allowed to play
cards or have similar leisure activities on
Sundays. My cousins who lived near them became as
deft at hiding cards as youngsters are nowadays
at exiting web sites they don't want parents to
see. It was rather a let down when my cousin said
she'd heard that Uncle Vernon was so premature
that he fitted into a pint jug. And lastly,
Grandma's names were Mary Lilian. At least the
marriage certificate confirmed that her father
was William Chapman, Baptist Minister. Then came
the next coincidence.
As I was now on the Internet I joined the BFHS
email discussion group. That week one message
ended with the comment that the writer was happy
to help anyone with Baptist ancestors. She
suggested I contact the Angus Library of Regent
Park College in Oxford. Back from them came an
obituary including a photograph of my great
grandfather, strict looking and wearing a fez.
But the obituary didn't help my central question
of how my grandparents had met. I still knew of
no personal or geographical connection between
them. I even toyed with the idea of a Baptist
lonely hearts column. Great grandfather William
Chapman had been born in Wendover, worked in
Highbury , and had gone to the Midland College at
Leicester. He had been a minister near Coventry
for 20 years, then in Derbyshire, in
Lincolnshire, in the Calder Valley on the borders
of Yorkshire and Lancashire and finally outside
Nottingham where I found him in the 188i census
with a much younger wife, Mary Hannah, daughter
Ma Lilian and son William Ernest. After 45 years
as a minister he retired to Coventry where he had
died in 1905 at the age of 86. We visited the
Angus Library and read the Minute Book of the
Stogumber Chapel which contained many references
to my Shorney family and their friends and
relatives in Somerset. Then the Angus Library
sent another batch of photocopies that included
references to him at training college and part of
a table listing Baptist ministers. The table
headings were missing but in one column was the
word Maidenhead opposite William Chapman's name.
That rang a bell.
Before settling at Langley Hill, my Shorney
great grandparents had rented Whiteplace Farm
between Maidenhead and Cookham. They were very
happy there but the farm was soon sold to the
Astors who wanted it as the home farm to Cliveden.
At last a possible connection. Shortly afterwards
I was at the LDS Research Centre in Tilehurst
looking up my husband's family. Having a half-hour
spare before closing I asked if they had the 1891
census for Maidenhead. They were not in
Maidenhead, but I found them in Cookham. There
was William Chapman, his wife and son. I don't
know what they were doing there, as I know of no
connection between him or his wife and Cookham,
and it would have been mentioned in the obituary
if it had been on official Baptist business. I
have not yet found my grandmother in 1891, but it
didn't matter. I had placed the two families in
the same area and as strong Baptists they must
have known each other. That wasn't quite the end
of the story.
Wanting to trace my great grandmother's family
I bought the indexed 1851 census for Warwickshire.
She was there aged eight working as a ribbon
weaver as indeed were her parents and older
siblings. I also found 32-year-old William with
Elizabeth his wife, and children William, Mary
and Harriet. His wedding certificate to Mary
Hannah in 1872 confirmed he was a widower and a
Harriet Chapman was a witness. He had given his
second son and daughter the first names of the
children of his first family. I have now found
that in a three and a half year period he lost
his son and daughter both when aged 20 and both
from tuberculosis and his wife from an abdominal
tumour. No one in the family knew my grandmother
was part of a second family. I still don't know
what happened to Grandma's half-sister Harriet or
to her brother William.
1. Shorney, Mary Wallace, 'This is your
Heritage - Being a Series of Biographical
Sketches Written for my Children'. Privately
printed 1960.
