The BLANEY BROTHERS in the THIRTIES

While the Great Depression began with the Stock Market crash in the United States October 1929 it quickly spread throughout the world.

In the United Kingdom, it was referred to as the Great Slump. Since the UK had not fully recovered from WWI, it seemed less severe than that experienced in North America, which had seen boom times during the 1920s. Hardest hit was the industrial northern area of the UK. World trade declined and the demand for product exports decreased significantly. Mining and ship building industries suffered and mass unemployment caused severe poverty.

The area around London and the Midlands were less affected. While unemployment was initially high, by the mid to late 1930s the area was quite prosperous. Home building around London was helped along by a growing population in the area and low interest rates. Birmingham was prospering because of their booming automotive industry and the number of cars on the road doubled in the decade.

When Bess' parents, Harry & Jane Blaney returned to Birmingham with their children, Louise and Alfie in October 1930. they were taken in by their son Edwin (Ted) Harold Blaney at 12 Heathfield Road, in the King's Heath area.

Ted was born in Birmingham 17 August 1900. He served in the Royal Navy for two years from 15 June 1921, until 14 June 1923 and married Florence Sophia Whitehouse that year.

By 1930 they had two daughters, Florence (b. 1924) and Margaret (b. 1928) so an additional family of four made it a little crowded. Ted was a leather worker and likely had work during this time. It also came in handy fixing the family's shoes.

Their son John was born in March of 1932 and the 1939 Register shows Ted employed as a boiler attendant and Florence working part time as a shop assistant.

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Bess' youngest brothers Albert (b. 4 September 1904) and Stanley (b. 16 January 1906) were both living in British Columbia, Canada. 

Albert Blaney lived an interesting life. He came alone to Canada at the age of 17 in 1922 landing in Halifax, travelling by rail to Montreal, then on to British Columbia. He had a job offer from the logging railroad that his uncle Michael Murphy (husband of his mother’s sister, Clara Elcocks) worked for in Rock Bay, B.C. It turned out that working “in the bush” as he called it was filled with much hard work and danger, but he loved it.

From 1925-1927 he and his brother Stanley served in the Militia with the 42^nd Black Watch Highlanders in Montreal. They also worked in Montreal General Hospital along with their sister Bess before returning to British Columbia.

By 1929 Albert had a floor laying business and he met Helen (Nellie) Atkinson in the Vancouver boarding house where they both lived. She was also new to Canada, arriving in June 1920, age 24, travelling alone to her brother in Winnipeg. She worked there for a short time and then moved on to Vancouver where the weather was not so severe.

They became close as he taught her about photography including developing film. They were married January 12, 1929 and stayed happily together until her death at age 90.

Albert owned some property in Capilano area of North Vancouver gifted to him by his Aunt Clara and Uncle Michael Murphy for his 21^st birthday so they were able to live reasonably well during the Depression. The land provided plenty of food and there were lots of salmon in the Capilano River. Albert said “it looked as if you could walk across the water on the salmon. One salmon could last us a week”.

He had numerous ways of creating work for himself and others as well as sharing his land.  He cleared land, built houses and sold honey from his ten bee hives.

From 1934 until 1938 Albert belonged to the Legion of Frontiersmen a version of Special Constables that was for a time affiliated with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

                         
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In 1930 Stanley Blaney, was living in North Vancouver with Margaret Kelly Thompson born 1902 in Belfast Ireland. Albert had sent passage for Stan to emigrate to Canada in June of 1923 and the brothers worked and lived close to each other for many years. 

Margaret left a troubled life in turbulent Northern Ireland in 1920. She travelled across Canada alone to stay with an uncle in Vancouver where life was not much happier.

A few years later, Margaret was working as a waitress when Stan rescued her from an abusive relationship. He was just 5ft 8in in height but he was tough, strong and hardworking. Since he had no money, car or house, their first home was a converted chicken coop at the back of Albert’s property. Like many other couples in those times they could not afford to marry.

In 1933 they heard there were jobs in Toronto and set off on their greatest adventure. Stories written by their daughter Patricia (Blaney) Koretchuk tell us “Margaret disguised herself in men’s clothes and together they hiked and hopped freight trains 3000 miles across Canada”. She cut her hair very short, wore a vest and long pants, heavy work boots and a peaked hat down over her eyebrows.” Many men travelled this way at the time but it was unusual for a woman to do so. It was a difficult and dangerous journey with many hardships along the way including hunger and evading the railway police.

In Toronto, they lived with Bess and Harry and their three young children for a short time but when it became clear that Margaret was pregnant and unmarried, Bess asked them to leave. She could not afford to compromise her reputation in the church.

Things were actually worse in the city where they experienced hunger as well as unemployment. Stan worked at every odd job that came along, they took in boarders and over time he found steady employment as a leather worker.

Their daughter Patricia was born in Toronto April 23, 1934, they were married and the family stayed there for the next eleven years. They mended their relationship with Bess but their love for the west prevailed and they returned to British Columbia on V.J. Day in 1945.

Thanks to Patricia (Blaney) Koretchuk for sharing her memories of Albert & Stan.


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Bess's "big brother" was William ( Bill) Blaney born January 9, 1896 in Birmingham. Bill joined the Royal Navy at the age of 15 1/2 entering as a Boy II on a training ship in 1911 and didn't return to Birmingham to live.

In 1919 Bill married Rosetta (Rose) Amy (Wallis) Huxley whose first husband Henry John Huxley had died in France during WWI. Bill remained in the navy until the end of WWII and they lived many years in Feltham in Middlesex, about 150 miles from Birmingham.

In 1920 Bill received a medal for his part in the rescue of a fellow seaman who could not swim. 

In September 1931 near the beginning of the Depression The Invergordon Mutiny occurred. It was a strike by thousands of sailors from about a dozen Royal Navy Warships docked in Cromarty Firth Northern Scotland while participating in a naval exercise.

Rumours were swirling that wage cuts of up to 25% were coming in order to reduce government spending. News of the strike spread upsetting the stock market and undermining the British Pound. It was settled by allowing those on lower rates of pay to remain on the old rate, effectively cancelling the 25% pay cut in favour of a universal 10% cut.

Depending on where they were living and their occupations, the Blaneys suffered to different degrees during this difficult time. Their courage and tenacity served them well.

Next: Growing Up in Toronto

 

1915 - A DIFFICULT YEAR

1915 was a turbulent year for Elizabeth (Bess) Blaney and Harry Lewis Welch during which they were faced with some difficult decisions and experienced life changing events.

Firstly, a new baby was welcomed into the Blaney family and since it had been nine years since the last addition to the family this event likely caused some drama. A daughter, Martha Louise was born on February 28, 1915. At the time, Bess was about eighteen years of age and likely living at home helping to care for her new sister. She may or may not have been still working as a baby nurse as well but by the end of the year she would be working in a munitions factory. 

Many manufacturers in Birmingham, as elsewhere, converted their operations to produce items for the war effort and many of their employees were women. One such was the Mills Munitions Factory which supplied the 'Mills Bomb' hand grenade to the British and Allied armies throughout the war. The factory was located at Bridge St. W, Birmingham, less than five miles from Sherbourn Road, Balsall Heath where Bess was living, so perhaps this was where she was working. She laughingly told of it being so hot from the heat of the furnaces and the wearing of a heavy leather apron that the women wished to remove their upper garments while on the job. Not an easy job, working 7am until 7pm for about £l pound a week but Bess was strong and she continued to do physically difficult work most of her life.

While Bess left the family home when Martha Louise (Lou) was less than one year old, she did live nearby for the next seven years before emigrating. Bess left England in 1923 and she would not see her only sister again until 1929 in Canada. Martha Louise (Lou) was age fourteen and Bess was thirty-two and married with three children. They did not see each other again for many more years. Lou lived in Birmingham, married there and had three children before emigrating to Canada with her own family in 1956. This photo was taken on the beach in Toronto.With eighteen years between the sisters, Lou was only one year older than Bess’s son. It is hard to say how much the distance in geography and age affected their relationship but it was somewhat rocky over the years.

Unfortunately by late-summer of 1915, Bess discovered she was pregnant. There was of course no pregnancy test at the local pharmacy but likely she knew the symptoms. I can only imagine her mixed emotions; uncertainty, joy, fear, anxiety, embarrassment, shame? She was in love with Harry but I don’t know how he felt at the time, whether or not there had been talk of marriage and a future together. They had likely known each other less than a year. Family lore has it that Harry’s family was not pleased and I don’t suppose Bess’s family was either.

To be unmarried and pregnant was to be a social outcast. Girls would often be ostracized by their friends, families and employers. Certainly it was a less open time; sex education did not exist and even though Bess’s mother had several full term pregnancies and miscarriages it is unlikely they talked of such things. Her relationship with her mother was not a close one and she probably didn’t know that her oldest brother had been born six months after the marriage of their parents.

About nine years later Bess wrote in response to a letter to the editor of the Montreal Star:

“How many people criticize the fallen girl and condemn her. They do not know that maybe there is a heart perhaps a better and cleaner than their own in that body, but one who has possibly had no sunshine in her young life and when she comes out to her own she may likewise meet one of their own sons or sons of their kind who take her around and she thinks surely a fellow who would be good enough to interest himself in her could be only doing so for good.

Alas, many a girl who has had no pleasures as a youngster ………….and of all things a mother’s love and care - thinks she has struck heaven itself. But to her sorrow, she pays and pays dear. She’s never been told the things that careful mothers tell. She’s never had the things she has now and on she goes blindly. How many realize that many a bad girl is good inside, better than the mother’s darling that led her astray The boy his mother idolized is sometimes far worse than the boy who has suffered (I wonder why?).”

She wrote this at age twenty-seven, married with two children, living thousands of miles away from her family in England.

And there was a war on. 

Bess’s older brother William (Bill) had been serving in the Navy since 1911 when he was 15 ½ and in 1915 he was stationed at the HMS Excellent in Portsmouth Harbour. This was a shore establishment known as the home of the Royal Navy gunnery, located in the County of Hampshire on the south coast of England. In January 1920 Bill was awarded an RHS Bronze medal for saving a life in Portsmouth Harbour. He was twenty-four years old and serving as an Able Seaman on the HMS Terror. 

Also, there was the looming threat of mandatory conscription for men such as Harry; those who were young and single. 

England had declared war on Germany August 4, 1914 and by the spring of 1915 the flow of recruits was slowing. While the government was reluctant to mandate compulsory military service, they began by raising the upper age of eligibility from 38 to 40 then passing the National Registration Act to stimulate recruitment. Under the Act all those not in the military and between the age of 15 and 64 were obliged to register and give the details of their employment. 

In October 1915 a program called the Derby Scheme gave men two choices; volunteer or attest with the obligation to come if called up. Those who registered were classified as married or single and grouped by age then placed in Section B of the Reserves They were sent back to their homes and jobs until they were called up for military service. 

To Harry, with fatherhood quickly approaching, it likely seemed a good idea to attest under the Scheme. It would delay active war service and allow him to continue to work close to home until he was actually called up. Then there were options - to appeal the date, perhaps some choice of regiment in which to serve and some men with occupations that were needed in the war effort were placed further down the list and thus called to service later than others.

The last day of registration under the Derby Scheme was to be Saturday, December 11, 1915 and that was the day Harry signed up for the army.

1911

By 1911, the family fortunes had improved. The Census record finds the Blaney family at 45 Middleton Road, Kings Heath. The family included Harry, Jane and their children; William is aged fifteen, Elizabeth is fourteen, Edwin is ten, Albert six and Stanley five years old.

45 Middleton Rd.

They also have a boarder named Alfred Gibbs who is a fifty-four year old widowed frame maker. He is likely Jane’s brother-in-law. Her sister Matilda, whose death is registered in January-April 1911, was married to Albert Gibbs who in the 1901 census was shown as a frame maker. It was not unusual for working class families to have a boarder if there was enough room in the home and sometimes the boarder was a relative. It is often helpful to the family history researcher when this is the case.

While in 1901 they were living in a crowded three room back-to-back house on Ryland Road in Birmingham, ten years later Harry had a more skilled occupation and there were three family members working in the household. Likely this along with some income from a boarder enabled them to live in this six room row house. The family had grown between 1901 and 1911 with the birth of two additional sons, Albert in 1904 & Stanley in 1906.

At the turn of the century Kings Heath was a growing and prosperous area just outside the city of Birmingham. Most of the residents of Kings Heath were working class with poor local wages except those working in the workshops and factories in Birmingham. There were eight passenger trains travelling to Birmingham daily before 9:00am. After being introduced in 1901, electric trams soon became plentiful providing frequent and economical transportation around Kings Heath and to Birmingham.

Elizabeth's father, Harry was age thirty five and working as a leather worker for a bicycle saddle maker, likely located in Birmingham. Harry's father had been a skilled equestrian saddler. Later in life Harry would become a foreman in the cutting room of the Lycett Saddle Company making bicycle saddles.

Jane Blaney was thirty-three on census day, the mother of five children, the youngest being five years old.

Son William was working as a brass turner for a clock maker. A turner is someone who machines (cuts out) brass parts to be used in this case in the manufacture of clocks. 

At fourteen, Elizabeth was working as a pinafore machinist and it is unknown how long she had been running a sewing machine. Some girls were employed as early as twelve years of age. A pinafore was a sleeveless garment worn by girls as an apron over a dress. It could easily be removed for washing, keeping the dress clean longer.  Girls who worked in the dressmaking trades laboured many hours a day for little pay but the choice of occupation for the working class girl was limited to domestic service, shop work, or dressmaking.

Elementary School leaving age at the time was twelve years old which was changed in 1918 to age fourteen.  The 1911 National Census showed that only 8% of fourteen and fifteen year olds were still in school. Many young sons and daughters like William and Elizabeth were working to contribute to the family income.

Both of Elizabeth’s grandmothers were living in 1911. Her maternal grandmother Martha (Bellingham) Elcocks, was a widowed pensioner, aged seventy-four, living about five miles away from Harry & Jane's family, on Grant Street in Birmingham.

Her husband William Elcocks had died April 1910 at the age of seventy-eight. The census record shows she was married for fifty-seven years and bore twelve children, eight of whom were still living in 1911. She also had a lodger, Miss Ester Cope, age fifty-eight, who was single and working as a Pinafore Presser.

Elizabeth’s paternal grandmother Ellen Elizabeth (Langley) Blaney was living, but I have been unable to find her in the 1911 census. She was a widow, her husband Edward/Edwin having died in 1885 of Phthisis Exhaustion (T.B.) at the age of fifty-one. In 1901 Ellen Elizabeth was living with her daughter and son-in law, Joseph and Elizabeth Priestmall, in Birmingham and she died in Birmingham in the spring of 1915. 

On August 15^th 1911 at the age of 15½, William joined the Royal Navy. His naval record shows he entered at a Boy II rating which means he was between 15 and 17 years of age and on a training ship. This was conditional on his adequate physical height, weight, medical fitness and evidence of being of good character. Harry & Jane would have signed a declaration that William would serve in the navy for a minimum period (usually 12 years). 

On March 28, 1912 William was promoted to Boy 1st class and granted a pay raise. This was the rating given a boy aged 16 to 18 under training, who had previously served for at least 9 months rated as Boy II, had shown proficiency in seamanship and accumulated at least one good conduct badge. William’s military record held at the UK National Archives only outlines his service until 1928 at which time he held the rank of Petty Officer. He would later also serve in WWII. He was in the Royal Navy in 1943, when he visited his sister Elizabeth in Toronto Canada, during the war.

While the class system was very rigid in The Edwardian era (1901-1910), economic and social changes created an environment in which there was more social mobility. There was more attention to the plight of the poor and the status of women. There were increased economic opportunities as result of rapid industrialization and more access to transportation. Of course, more change lay ahead with the coming of WWI which began in 1914.