'In memoriam', John James Britton's poem to his late wife.
Catherine Eskine Britton
by Robert Hughes.
Catherine Erskine Britton was the grandmother of Lionel Britton, who is featured prominently on this blog as the specialist subject of Dr Tony Shaw.
She was also the grandmother of my grandfather, Bob Britton, whom I always called Keebah. (See article on here).
Catherine was born Catherine Erskine Smith, on 16 Jan 1839, at 13 Caroline Street, in what is now known as the Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham.
Her parents were James Smith, a button factor (buttons were big business in Birmingham) and Elizabeth Smith née Nimmo, who came from Greenock, Renfrewshire.
She was christened 16 Mar 1839 at St Philip's, although Caroline St. was in the parish of All Saints'. On the same day, three of her siblings were christened as well, which is a handy fact for researchers into the family history. Her name was clearly after her aunt Catherine Erskine Nimmo (1791-1848), but where the Erskine crept in is not yet known. Lionel Britton thought he was something like a fourth cousin of the Earl of Mar and Kellie, but this could not be established.
Her birth certificate includes a very unusual notation: No 9. But for this I would not have looked for any siblings beyond the five who came to light fairly easily, however we now know of a Thomas Smith, born 23 Apr 1830 in the parish of Handsworth. On his baptismal record of 13 Aug 1830 his father is a 'commercial traveller'. According to the Scottish naming tradition, the second son is named after the mother's father, and indeed Thomas was clearly named after Thomas Nimmo the father of Elizabeth. We also can see a clue as to how Elizabeth and James met: if he were up in Scotland selling his buttons they might have caught each others' eye. The marriage record of 1825 was so elegantly calligraphed that I include it here.
Catherine married John James Britton on 20 Jan 1858 in Handsworth parish church. John James had been baptised as an Anglican at the age of 16 although his background was very much Quaker. He was a solicitor in partnership with James Nimmo Smith, and it seems likely that this is how he met Catherine: James Nimmo Smith was her elder brother.
However the Smiths and the Brittons were not strangers by any means. John James Britton's father James had a business (recorded on Wrightson's directory for 1833) at 1 Brook St. St Paul's, which is just at the bottom of Caroline St. The definition of 'jewellery' was rather wide in that era, it covered a multitude of sins. Gerald Ratner would be proud: apart from buttons and baubles, there were toys and trinkets and basically...trash. But it was exported all over the world, and let's face it people wanted to buy it. Birmingham became known as the 'City of a Thousand Trades'. Uncle Lionel Britton may have known a lot or a little about what his ancestors were up to, but he categorically rejected everything they were all about. The discussion about Lionel's beliefs is on Tony Shaw's blog, and some of the background is emerging from my work on the Britton family tree.
Almost all these people were in Trade, with exceptions including John James Britton and James Nimmo Smith who were lawyers.
Look at Lionel's iconic work Hunger and Love and you will see a massive polemic against Trade! He did of course broaden it to cover the Law, the Church and much else.
Where did Catherine Erskine Britton stand in all this? We have one book, Germaine de Staël's Corinne, written in French, with a notation inside the cover saying that it was a favourite book of Catherine's. (This belonged to one of her daughters, Ethel Alice Britton, and here I am indebted to Tim Jardine-Brown who realised the significance and sent me the book). The family lived in Vire, Normandy for a short while. One son, Henry, is recorded as having been to school there, (Cambridge University Alumni records). We do not yet have an exact time-line for the family: a brief account of John James by a son from his second marriage, Herbert Eyres Britton, and published in Staffordshire Poets, is sketchy and contains at least one inaccuracy in stating that Catherine died in 1872. We are told however that after some years in Newcastle the family were prompted to move by the failing health of Catherine. John James bought a practice in Maidenhead, built a house there, and was elected (unopposed) to the Town Council in 1875. When Catherine died he 'took a dislike to the place', sold his practice and house and went to live in Vire in Normandy.
On the front endpaper of Corinne however there is the notation 'CEBritton Vire', while Ethel Alice's handwriting is different. The inference has to be that Catherine herself was at Vire for at least a spell. Perhaps they were early examples of the second-homers who are so controversial in France to this day. John James himself was said to be a scholar of Latin and Greek as well as French (Herbert Eyres Britton again), but the fact of Corinne being a favourite book suggests that Catherine was at least very proficient, and the subject matter of the volume might be regarded as adventurous for a young married woman of the Victorian era.
Some families stay rooted to the same spot for generations, while others are peripatetic. The John James Britton household was firmly in the latter camp. Their first child was Richard Waddams Nimmo Britton, born at Gravelly Hill in Birmingham (now famous for Spaghetti Junction) in 1859. The second was Ethel Alice Britton born in 1860 in Accrington, where they appear on the 1861 census. Next came Lilian Elizabeth Catherine Britton born in 1862 in Petersfield, Hampshire. Number four, Arthur Henry Britton, was born at Elswick, Newcastle-on-Tyne, in 1863. The fifth child, Joline Maud Mary Britton was born in Newcastle in 1866 but sadly died in 1869 at the age of two and a half.
On the 1871 census they are at Whickham, Durham, at the optimistically named Alpine Cottage. Presumably it was not long afterwards that they sought out a better environment and perhaps alternated between Vire and Maidenhead.
Catherine died on 10th January 1879, six days short of her fortieth birthday. Her death certificate records 'cardiac disease - dropsy', and the certification of the cause was by Edwin C Montgomery, L.R.C.S.J. The informant was Harriet Wootton, Market St, Maidenhead. Possibly she was a nurse. It may even be that John James Britton was away at the time, possibly in Vire.
His devotion to Catherine is not in any doubt. The poem 'In Memoriam' is perhaps a little roseate to the modern ear, but the emotion is manifest. (This appeared in the Lay of the Lady Ida, published 1882).
We only have one portrait of Catherine Erskine Britton, and again I owe this to Corinne and my friend Tim, for it was stuck inside the cover with red sticky tape. Ethel Alice Britton died in 1936 so it was not possible to consult her on the matter, but there was the outside chance that she had put a portrait of herself into the book rather than one of her mother. I sought advice from an expert on Victorian fashions, whose best guess was that the image was taken around 1860. On the reverse of the print is the logo of a studio in Newcastle, and the family were in Newcastle by 1863. If this were a young Ethel Alice, the portrait would need to be from about ten years later, and the fashions would not really fit. Anyway, why would Ethel Alice stick her own picture into her mother's book?
Catherine Erskine was of course the baby of her family and no doubt doted on by all, but a small crumb of evidence of the affection comes from the will of Richard Chalmers who died in Kirkintilloch in 1880. He leaves £150 to Richard Britton to buy books for his law studies. A quick reference to Inflation Calculator tells us that this would be £12615.96 in today's money. I am not a lawyer, but that seems an awful lot of law books!
Granted, Richard Chalmers seems to have been loaded, although his profession of teacher was modest enough by today's standards. Richard was the second husband of Catherine's elder sister Elizabeth Mary, who also died at a tragically young age, 33 in fact. Richard did not marry again. One intriguing speculation is that he was actually the godfather of Richard Britton, who could very well have been named after him.
Catherine Erskine Britton's grave in St Luke's churchyard Maidenhead is up against the West boundary, fairly near the north-west end. The parish have no intention of disturbing it, and I welcome that on behalf of all her descendants.
The grave of Catherine Erskine Britton.
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