By jingo, it has to be Mazawattee!

Inspired by this informative and delightful prize-winning short video made by my cousin Alwyn Scott about Earl Grey and his famous Tea, I started thinking about other teas that might have once been popular but have disappeared.

One brand that has and I remember well as a child was Mazawattee tea. Mistakenly, I had always thought it an African name, but the Mazawattee Tea Company was founded in England by John Boon Densham in the mid-1800s. 

Diana James, author of the book The Story of Mazawattee Tea, in this article in The Sunday Times of 24 May 1998, describes the origin of the name as

“... an exotic combination of the Hindi word Mazatha, meaning luscious, and the Sinhala word watte(e), or garden. On the advice of the firm’s printer the “tha” in mazatha was excised, and thus Mazawattee Tea was created. This strange linguistic hybrid, which paid scant respect to native pronunciation, proved to be remarkably popular.”

She further tells us:

“People were fascinated by this unusual name, and so it achieved the objective of bringing the firm’s tea to the forefront of the market. It gave rise even to several cartoons in the newspapers of the day. One, which was rather racially patronising, showed a little page-boy of African descent offering a silver salver displaying packets of tea. The balloon from the boy’s mouth encloses the pun: “Massa-wot tea?” (“Master, what tea?”)

It was during this period that a famous painting was developed; a painting which is today one of the few lasting legacies of Mazawattee Tea. Entitled “The Old Folks at Home”, it shows a smiling, bonneted and shawled grandmother, together with her bespectacled grand daughter, happily drinking cups of Mazawattee Tea. This painting was used extensively on posters, tea packets - and large enamelled metal advertisements which were in those times the equivalent of today’s more sophisticated hoardings.”

WikiCommons

The company knew how to get attention and the brand became strongly associated with the British Empire.

This image was used on postcards to promote the arrival in an area of the tea wagon drawn by a team of zebras and driven by men from the colonies. As zebras are notoriously difficult to train, this was an amazing success story.

Image London Zoo collection

A full column advertisement from The Ipswich Journal of 19 September 1896 demonstrates the Empire connections well. John Bull representing Britain faces a critical world with Mazawattee in hand, and Australian cricketers, King of the Ashanti, Paul Kruger and the even the relieving column for the Matabele Rebellion in Rhodesia all owe some kind of allegiance to Mazawattee! 

In later years, the declining fortunes of the company hadn’t been helped by its warehouse at Tower Hill and a factory at New Cross being destroyed by the Luftwaffe in World War II.  By the 1960s, Mazawattee had disappeared from the shelves. Its tins, cards, and posters are still popular with collectors.

"Shipwreck of the Future"

This extraordinary futuristic drawing of a disaster is from the New-York Tribune of December 26, 1909. 

From Chronicling America, Library of Congress

The text above the drawing reads:

“Liner Icarus in mid-ocean Dec. 26 1919, 3.10 pm. By wireless to The Tribune. A disastrous explosion (cause as yet unascertained) in our motor room at 5.12 this morning made it necessary to descend. Unfortunately, the waves were running high and our rudder was broken. Wind increased rapidly and our stern was battered till we threatened to sink. Other airships have come to our rescue as have some submarines and the freight steamer Lusitania, formerly used for passengers. All hands will be saved beyond a doubt, except those in the motor room which is now submerged.”

The likelihood of such an air “liner” as this actually being constructed may seem highly improbable from an engineering point of view although strangely enough something not too dissimilar featured at the most recent Paris Air Show. See here.

There is also a certain poignancy in that this fantasy drawing unwittingly presaged two enormous tragedies at sea that would happen long before 1919. Less than three years after the drawing was published the Titanic sank, in which all those in the submerged “motor room”, ie the engineers, really did perish and Lusitania did not survive either to become a “freight steamer” and was sunk by a German U-boat off Ireland in 1915, with an equally huge loss of life.

The artist was H.M. Pettit. He was born in Rock Island, Illinois, in 1867, and worked as an artist and designer in his home town before moving to New York City. His illustrations appeared in many of the famous magazines of the day, such as Frank Leslie's Weekly and Harper's Weekly. He was particularly known for bird's eye vista illustrations and imagining future skyscrapers and a cosmopolis such as that in Moses King's book King's Views of New York that showed the skies of the city full of dirigibles. Pettit went on to work on conceptual architectural images, and was commissioned for large industrial murals, train stations and educational establishments. He was also the official artist for the Chicago World's Fair in 1933-34. He was married twice and died in 1941.

Another example of Pettit's work – the burned out area of San Francisco after the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906. [Frank Leslie's Weekly]

90th Anniversary USAT Merritt

An occasional newsletter from the Museum of Russian Culture in San Francisco has alerted me to a story of which I knew nothing, the impending 90th Anniversary of the arrival of a group of Russian refugees into San Francisco.

July 1st, 2013 - Anniversary at the Immigration Station on Angel Island

2013-06-24

Maria Sakovich, Eugenia Bailey 

Ninety years ago, on 1 July 1923, a special group of refugees on the American transport U.S. Army Transport Merritt arrived at San Francisco. These 526 Russian men, women, and children had been part of a flotilla of some twenty Russian vessels (under the command of Rear Admiral Yu. K. Stark) which left Vladivostok at the end October 1922 when the city fell to the Bolsheviks. After a harrowing journey plagued by inhospitable governments, poor shipboard conditions, and typhoons which sank two of the not-very-seaworthy vessels and their passengers, a remnant of the original 7,000 refugees managed to make it to Manila in the Philippine Islands, where the American government had guaranteed asylum. Consultation by Governor General Leonard Wood with President Harding and the Secretaries of War and Labor enabled the homeless and stateless Russians to come to the United States under the terms of the recently enacted quota law. The American Red Cross helped to finance the trip.Because the group was so large (the only one to come with American assistance), Angel Island immigration officials held and processed the refugees at Fort McDowell, an army installation on the west side of the island. Although great care had been taken to make sure that all were eligible to enter the country, under the immigration laws, nineteen (possibly twenty-one) were excluded. Those who appealed the order had to wait at the immigration station until final decisions were made in Washington, D.C. Ultimately four persons were deported back to the Philippines.Among the passengers were fifty families (forty-three of the children were under fifteen years of age), naval and army officers, engineers, two doctors, and a chaplain. The parents of one of the writers of this article, Paul and Maria Nikonenko, were among the refugees. Most, however, were young men, sailors and farmers, including a nineteen-year-old seaman, Prince A. Chegodaieff. After the dangers and uncertainties of the preceding months, the emigrants had found safety. Several became movers and shakers of the newly emerging Russian community in San Francisco.

For more information and details of contacts or how to get to the service at Angel Island on July 1, see Museum of Russian Culture news and an image on Flickr of USAT Merritt here.

When many countries around the world are sweating and bickering over what to do with immigrants and refugees, this serves to remind all of us who live under secure and democratic governments that we still have our role to play in rescuing and giving shelter to those trying to escape from brutal regimes.

It is sobering to think that only a remnant 526 people made it to America out of 7,000 original refugees. What happened to the rest of them? Has anyone documented their story? Or are they just another group of unwanted people who have fallen through the cracks of history ?

Samuel Laman Blanchard

My final post in this series from that single column of The Carlisle Journal in 1845, is an obituary that is so dramatic and effusive that one begins to suspect the person described is just too good to be true until you reach the last comment and it makes you feel guilty for having such thoughts.

It is our most painful duty to announce the sudden death of Mr. Laman Blanchard. He died about half-past one'clock this (Saturday) morning and has left four orphan children to lament his loss. Mr. Blanchard is well known in periodical literature. His graceful verses, his lively stories, his wit that never had a touch of malice, are known to many readers. There, perhaps, never was a man who had a readier pen. A poem, an essay, a witty paragraph seemed to spring spontaneously from his brain. There was an amenity in everything he did; and, indeed, how could it be otherwise, seeing that he himself was the very impersonation of kindness and goodness of heart. Mr. Blanchard was long in the service of literature. He was a member of the press in various ways, for more than twenty years; beginning young, and fighting an upward fight throughout – bravely, independently, without envy or uncharitableness – until he reached the age of 42, when he died. We may fearlessly assert that no man ever ran the same career, in the same circumstances, who left so few enemies, and so many, many friends. These few facts are addressed to strangers. His independence, his perseverance, his untiring kindness, and his many sterling and admirable qualities need no demonstration to his acquaintance or his friends.- Examiner. [Mr. Blanchard committed suicide after his wife became insane.]

Samuel Laman Blanchard was born in 1803 and had started out as an actor but later became a poet, journalist and editor. When one reads a list of his friends that includes such famous individuals as Edward Bulwer-Lytton, William Harrison Ainsworth, Charles Dickens, Leigh Hunt, Robert Browning and William Makepeace Thackery, all of whom sprang to help his orphaned children, there is no doubt the fulsome obituary was genuine and he was much loved in literary circles. 

One of two images of Blanchard at National Portrait Gallery London

Depression was obviously the direct cause of his death, and here is the sad relevant extract from his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of Biography:

In February 1844 Ann Blanchard was struck with what was described at the time as ‘paralysis’, and after a protracted period of suffering died on 16 December. Distracted by his wife's illness and death, by the pressures of periodical journalism, and by concern for his four children, Blanchard entered an acute depressive state during which symptoms of his wife's paralysis were repeated in him. On 14 February 1845 he committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor at his home at 11 Union Place, Lambeth Road, London. A coroner's inquest decreed that he was of unsound mind at the time. He was interred the following month at Norwood cemetery.

Unlike his more famous contemporaries, there is not much to be found on Blanchard's writing although here are a few links.

Wikipedia Quotes

Poems

Sonnets here 

Some personal memories of him by George Patmore

Bucks Head Hotel Glasgow ... and a family tragedy

The fleeting nature of life in times past is all too apparent from the briefest and yet most poignant entry in the death column of the Carlisle Journal of 22 February 1845. 

This is for a boy who didn't live long enough to make a mark in life but in trying to find out something about him and his parents I found myself following some fascinating links to a Glasgow landmark, a couple of eminent Scots builders and, curiously, a King of Saxony.

This is the entry -

“At Glasgow, on Friday last, Charles, the only son of Mr. McDonald of the Buck's Head Hotel”.

No age is given, but it is very likely this was the “son and heir” proudly announced when he was born the year before (18 June 1844) to a Mrs McDonald at the same hotel.

My first step was to find out about Charles McDonald and the hotel. This advertisement appears in the Carlisle Journal of 8 August 1843.

BUCK'S HEAD HOTEL

61 ARGYLE STREET, GLASGOW

Charles M'Donald respectfully returns thanks to his Friends for the Patronage bestowed on him since he Opened the above Extensive and Commodius HOTEL, and at the same time begs to state that nothing shall be wanting on his part to merit a continuance of Public Esteem.

THE BUCK'S HEAD is situated in the most Central Street in the City, and is in the Vicinity of the various Railway Stations, and Steam Boat Wharfs, for which Conveyances leave the Hotel at the various hours suiting the departure of the Trains and Steamers.

N.B. The House kept open waiting the arrival of the London Mail by Carlisle, and the last Railway Train from Edinburgh, at which terminus a Conveyance will be in attendance.

*** STABLES and LOCK-UP COACH HOUSES are attached to the Premises.

Early hotel images from Glasgow Story

The Hotel was a prime establishment in Glasgow that had existed since the mid 1700s and had long been associated with important events in the history of the city - which can be read about here.

It certainly catered for VIP guests. During July 1844 there were various newspaper reports of it hosting the King of Saxony and of big crowds around the Hotel and of Mr McDonald being seen attending to him in great style.

However, Charles McDonald's early optimism and confidence was short-lived as he, too, was dead within eighteen months, as per another death notice for him in the Carlisle Journal on 22 November 1845 in which it was noted he was “formerly of this city” [Carlislel]. 

No cause of death is given and one has to ask did both he and his baby son die from one of the raging infectious diseases that often afflicted cities like Glasgow during this decade, or were the two deaths unrelated? What happened to his wife? In that connection, I also discovered an intriguing marriage announcement in another newspaper of 18 March 1845 - “At York Place, Stirling, Charles McDonald, merchant of Glasgow, to Christina Bowie, daughter of late Alexander Bowie, Esq. of Stirling”.  Is this the same Charles McDonald?

Only further research well beyond the scope of this posting might answer such questions. An online family tree (see here) about the Bowie family suggests she had died in childbirth but there are conflicting dates on that family tree as to her marriage and death so one can't be sure. Still, the McDonalds were an example of a mid-Victorian tragedy that wasn't that rare – father, possibly mother, and only child all dead within the space of a year.

After McDonald, numerous proprietors came and went. In 1860, a Mrs. Moffat advertised that the hotel had undergone “a complete renovation in every department”, but less than five years later - twenty after Charles McDonald's brief sojourn - the hotel was razed and replaced with a new building designed by the famous architect, Alexander “Greek” Thomson. 

Buck's Head Building remains a major Glasgow landmark today and is a British “A” Grade Listed Building.

More images of the building that stands today from various angles here

YouTube video

Lieutenant E N Kendall ... a man of "talent, enterprize and unwearied zeal" (Sir John Franklin to Kendall's mother)

Moving on to another individual in the obituary column from the Carlisle Journal of 22 February, 1845 (see previous blog entry) this short summary sparked my interest and sent me digging for someone of whom I knew nothing and, as usual, I was astonished at what was to be found -

“On Tuesday week at Southampton, Lieut. E. N. Kendall, marine superintendent of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Company. This promising officer served on several expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic seas, and accompanied the last expedition of Sir J. Franklin to the Polar Seas, between the years of 1825 and 1827, and was the companion of Dr. Richardson on that branch of the expedition which discovered and delineated the northern coast of America lying between the Mackenzie and Coppermine Rivers.”

This “promising officer” was Edward Nicholas Kendall, born in 1800 into a Cornish naval family and left orphaned with three siblings at the age of six. His life was remarkable, both in the way of exploration and dutiful naval service, yet promotion to higher rank than Lieutenant seemed to have eluded him. One has to wonder why after reading the summary in The Canadian Dictionary of Biography of his achievements. Perhaps he was too humble and not pushy enough on his own account or he fell foul of someone with influence at a critical time in his career. And history is full of people like him.

Cree Wigwams in Summer, 1851, Lieut. E. N. Kendall
McCord Museum, Canada

Members of Ancestry will be able to search for and view Kendall's public family tree showing his numerous descendants, several of whom are in Australia. A family photograph is also posted to the family tree (he looks not unlike his one-time superior Sir John Franklin) also his polar medals and other information about him. (Just enter Edward Nicholas Kendall into www.ancestry.co.uk)

Some of Kendall's paintings, sketches and charts can be found at the Scott PolarInstitute and National Maritime Museum UK.

by Lieut. E.N. Kendall

Another longer obituary in a Southampton newspaper where he was Superintendent for the Peninsular and Orient Steam Navigation (P&O) company describes how his death was unexpected and much regretted in the city and the flags were at half-mast for several days after he died -

“... By his kindness and urbanity of manner to all who approached him, by his indefatigable attention to the duties of his highly important and responsible situation, his officer-like conduct to the gentlemen in the service of his company, by his regard for the interest of the town, his extreme benevolence, and the exercise of all the virtues of private life, he had gained universal respect and esteem, and the announcement of his sudden death was felt universally, as that of a dear and respected friend. ...”

It goes on to say that since the 1820s, Kendall had great zeal for the expansion of “steam communication with our Colonies” and while in his service with P&O had -

“projected a plan for … extending steam navigation to Australia and printed for private circulation a pamphlet describing the proposed route and arrangements – a project which will no doubt be carried out at no very long period hence.”

Sadly, Kendall did not live to see his dream fulfilled.  Although not the first steamship to operate in Australian waters, in 1852  Chusan, built at Miller, Ravenhill & Salkeld, Low Walker Yard, Tyneside, became the first P&O regular steam vessel to Australia.

SS Chusan
State Library of South Australia

More interesting links on Kendall here

Cape Kendall Canada

Internet Archive - Book on earlier Franklin expeditions (includes many references to Kendall and his drawings)

Internet Archive - Reports written by Kendall on New Brunswick.

The “twins” of Waterloo

As more and more old newspapers become accessible online, these have become a treasure-trove for crazy folk like me who love nothing better than delving into the obscure, weird or wonderful stories from the past and then going off to try and find out more about the people involved. Sometimes there is much to be found, other times the trail goes cold.

A group of death notices and obituaries following one upon the other in the Carlisle Journal of 22 February 1845 provide a snapshot of a variety of people who had their 19th century equivalent of “fifteen minutes of fame” and for very different reasons. 

This is the first of them. Normally, this story would be more pertinent to my other blog on women, The History Bucket, but is included here as a complement to the other lives that I will explore in coming months about this group of people from various walks of life who all happened to go off to meet their Maker around the same time in 1845.

Were twins born on the field of Waterloo?

“On the 29^th ult. [January], aged 67 years, Mrs. Letitia Scott, Murray Street, Oldham Road [Manchester]. She was a soldier's wife and gave birth to twins (girls) on the field of Waterloo, both of whom are still living.”

This triggered many questions. Could this be true? What on earth would that experience have been like for a woman - going through what could have been a complicated birth on this most famous of all battlefields? Did this happen at the time of the battle or afterwards?

The female experience of war during this era is notoriously difficult to research, not just because it was never officially documented but like all personal war stories is open to the problems of memory inaccuracy and myth.  A recent book on the topic by Annabel Venning, Following the Drum – The Lives ofArmy Wives and Daughters Past and Present has gone some way to enlightening us, but much of this feminine history is shrouded in mystery and especially as it pertains to the Napoleonic era.

I did glean some information about Letitia Scott, although I knew not to expect much. I surmised that having served in this famous battle, there was bound to be a lot of information available on her husband, via the Waterloo Medal Rolls and other well-documented resources.  Sure enough, I soon determined that he was Corporal William Scott of the 95th (Rifle) Regiment, or Green Jackets – now a popular regiment with re-enactment groups and also in the famous Sharpe novels. I also discovered that his medal came up for auction in 2005 and sold for £3,300 - a sum of money that would have completely beyond all comprehension for William and his family.

As to the Waterloo births, two entries do appear in the Army GRO birth indices for 1815 but they are both for a Mary A. Scott born St. Amand (Waterloo area) - a clerical error which may account for the “twins” story perhaps. 

Further research via family researchers on Ancestry and elsewhere show baptismal details for two girls born two years apart, and before and after the battle date of 15 June 1815.  Mary Ann was born on 23 March 1815 and Margaret 17 July 1817. 

One family tree states that Letitia was born Letitia Borr in Ireland in 1779, but that seems to be all there is on her origins.

Letitia and her husband William appear in the 1841 Census Return, living at 31 Murray Street, Manchester. The conditions in which they lived must have been dire and extremely cramped as there are 13 other individuals listed for this address. William is now a labourer, and both of them are aged 60. There is a son, also William and a labourer, aged 20 and one daughter “Maria” Scott, whose age of 25 would indicate that she is probably Mary Ann. A toddler and a baby are also listed, obviously grandchildren.

We can presume that William and Letitia Scott worked in tough conditions in industrial Manchester as everyone else in that area would have done. William lived to a grand age considering how hard his life would have been in first the army, and then the mills. He died in 1864 aged 85. In the 1861 Census Return, he was shown living with Mary Ann, whose birth is simply noted as “France. British Subject.” Not exactly correct, as in 1815 Waterloo was part of the Netherlands, and is now in Belgium, but that's a minor technicality and should not impact on the romantic notion about her birth that may very well have been much cherished or proudly boasted of in the Scott family. Mary Ann herself died in 1869.

Of what happened to her “twin” sister Margaret, there is nothing. Perhaps she died young or married and just disappeared into the great throng of Manchester mill life.

This caricature from this website for a re-enactment group for 95th Rifles. Note that all the women seem to have twins, or more!

Modern photo of Murray's Mills, Manchester.