Thread by @MattChorley

The war hero and the prisoner.

Family history: a thread

@hugorifkind’s brilliant show on @TimesRadio is sponsored by @AncestryUK, so they took a look at my family tree.

The genealogist Simon Pearce is a genius.

Last week we looked at the war record of my great-grandfather, Edward John Mildon, serving in Gallipoli, Palestine, Balkans and the Somme, for which he received medals for gallantry from Britain and France.

Today we do the other side of genealogy...

Edward Mildon was my great-great-grandfather.
Here he is in the 1851 census

And then here he is in Exeter court records in 1864: sheepstealing

Here is a local newspaper report about it. He basically said he’d bought the sheep from a man, he then that man had died.

The jury didn’t believe him. He got 12months in prison with hard labour.
For one sheep.

Fast forward 1868 and we are back at court again. This time for “larceny by servant”

Turns out great-great-great grandad wasn’t the best master criminal.
His foolproof plan to steal his boss’s coal didn’t work.
Committing theft while a policeman watches the whole thing also isn’t ideal

Seven years penal service at Portland Convict Establishment is tough

These are photos from around the same tome he was there of prisoners in their uniforms cracking rocks

Great-great-great grandad turns up again in the 1891 census. By this time his wife had died. He was 70, working as a farm labourer and living as a lodger with the Bucknalls

What I learned from this is:
Life in 19th century rural England was tough.
Local newspapers are so, so important.
@AncestryUK is brilliant.
I won’t steal coal from Mr Murdoch.

Listen to me learning this story on @TimesRadio with @hugorifkind from 12.30pm today