Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

If you can trace your family tree, it proves you descended from apes.

I have my family tree on my fathers side back to the 1600's.

The real point of interest to me is that an ancestor in the 1700's was a 'publican' in Epsom, and 'died of drink' ! I await ribald comments !

We have one of those, JR. A relative of mine was licencee of the Half Moon in Putney - quite a large establishment. As a 50+ year-old widower he remarried, to his 29 year-old head barmaid, and eventually died of alcoholic poisoning, just a few days after rewriting his will, which of course left the bulk of his wealth to her, although he also left three months wages each to all his staff. Surprise, surprise, the executor was his wife's brother; the wife remarried soon afterwards, and her brother continued to manage the pub.

In the early 1800's a forebear founded the Who'd Have Thought It pub, just off Plumstead Common. On the wall of the pub, the address is engraved in a brick as 3 Hopgood cottages. On the Census she is recorded as Beer Seller. He is a Market Gardener, which I take to mean, Labourer.
I am told that I still have some cousins who live around the common.

My maternal great-grandmother's first child William was born in the Red Rose, Etchingham, Sussex. She was already "a bit pregnant" when she got married at 19. There were 9 more children, 3 of whom died before their 3rd. birthdays.

In an attempt to steer this back towards the topic, whilst researching a friend's family tree I came across a parish record of a woman being 'churched' after childbirth. I remember seeing such a service mentioned in the Book of Common Prayer (and I know it was common practice in Judaism). Does anyone know whether it is a custom still performed today?

Fjgrogan wrote:In an attempt to steer this back towards the topic, whilst researching a friend's family tree I came across a parish record of a woman being 'churched' after childbirth. I remember seeing such a service mentioned in the Book of Common Prayer (and I know it was common practice in Judaism). Does anyone know whether it is a custom still performed today?

Mea culpa Frances!
In 1968, in Mary 1 Ward of St. Thomas's, a vicar came round to ask if mothers wanted to be churched. Several did but I declined. I didn't approve of being "cleansed" of something so natural and joyful. It seemed so misogynistic - one of the reasons I left the C of E and joined the United Reformed Church, a far more civilised congregation.

Mum was churched after the birth of at least 3 of her 4 offspring. I was 12 when my brother was born and remember thinking, even then, that it was a bit of a testosterone-toss and somewhat insulting to both mother and newborn.

Fjgrogan wrote:In an attempt to steer this back towards the topic, whilst researching a friend's family tree I came across a parish record of a woman being 'churched' after childbirth. I remember seeing such a service mentioned in the Book of Common Prayer (and I know it was common practice in Judaism). Does anyone know whether it is a custom still performed today?

This subject has come up before. As a server in the 1950s I attended just one churching (which was carried out at the baptism from memory) and have never heard of it otherwise.

Fjgrogan wrote:We have one of those, JR. A relative of mine was licencee of the Half Moon in Putney - quite a large establishment. As a 50+ year-old widower he remarried, to his 29 year-old head barmaid, and eventually died of alcoholic poisoning, just a few days after rewriting his will, which of course left the bulk of his wealth to her, although he also left three months wages each to all his staff. Surprise, surprise, the executor was his wife's brother; the wife remarried soon afterwards, and her brother continued to manage the pub.

Dying of alcohol poisoning does not necessarily mean he drank a lot (though as a publican he might have felt it necessary to entertain his clients). Even now, poor distillation can mean the inclusion of wood alcohol in the final spirit and if Mr Kirby was right, 1cc = drunk, 2cc = blind and 3cc = death.
It was the discovery of a painting of me in Chartres by my daughter which started me off; it was a self portrait by a man with my blood father's family name though we haven't discovered a connection. No publicans but plenty of seamen, a couple of NHS bosses and it looks like a pop musician from California!

I came across a parish record of a woman being 'churched' after childbirth. I remember seeing such a service mentioned in the Book of Common Prayer (and I know it was common practice in Judaism). Does anyone know whether it is a custom still performed today?[/quote]

Yes! What about the Jewish mikveh, then?

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I think that was what I was referring to?

Angela Woodford wrote:I came across a parish record of a woman being 'churched' after childbirth. I remember seeing such a service mentioned in the Book of Common Prayer (and I know it was common practice in Judaism). Does anyone know whether it is a custom still performed today?

Yes! What about the Jewish mikveh, then?

.[/quote]

I believe that the mikveh is very much still part of Orthodox Jewish "family purity", isn't it? I admit, I find it a very attractive concept...

Not just after childbirth, but on a monthly basis, I believe? Orthodox Judasim is obsessed with ritual cleanliness - in fact rituals to absolve them from almost anything - hence all the taboos about leprosy, which in most cases was not Hansen's Disease, but any kind of skin affliction - imagine having eczema or psoriasis in OT times - but it made good sense if you were living a nomadic desert life to have some rules of basic hygiene. Particularly relelvant in Lent was the prophet's warning (sorry I forget which prophet! Amos, maybe?) to 'rend your hearts and not your garments' - rituals are not enough - it is what is in your heart and mind that makes the difference. Here endeth the sermon!!

I heard somewhere that the Orthodox Jews, those who practise these rituals, also have a morning prayer in which they thank God they were "not born a woman".

H'm. If nobody was born a woman the Orthodox Jews and everybody else would soon die out. Am I right in thinking that to be defined as a Jew, your mother must be Jewish?