Sydney RICHARDSON (1862 - 1951) - #39 (52 Ancestors)

Theme: Unusual     |     Images: Click on many to enlarge

Sydney RICHARDSON as a boy in Norfolk England

I think it’s unusual for a family tree to contain a prize-winning cheese maker, but it fact my material great-grandfather Sydney “Cheesy” RICHARDSON was such a man.  Last year I wrote about Sydney in my “Finding Treasures in Old Newspapers about PEI Ancestors” posting - Sydney and/or his wife are listed at least 32 times in old Charlottetown PEI newspapers. And in 2013 I talked about Sydney twice: his emigration to Canada and getting his start in the cheese making trade in “Richardson Migration”, and about his family’s photos in “Weaving Stories Around Old Family Photos - Richardson & Andrew Families”.  Now it’s time to focus on Sydney’s long life.

Sydney RICHARDSON was born 3 Jul 1962 in the village of Weston Longville in Norfolk England (north west of Norwich), where by 1861 his father Henry Proctor RICHARDSON II was a gamekeeper for the Custance family of nearby Weston Hall (the manor house dates back to 1558).  Sydney’s father came from Brede Sussex near Hastings, and his mother Elizabeth HARRIS (1828-1902) was born in Lower Slaughter Gloucestershire in the scenic Cotswolds.  Sydney was the fifth of eight children (3 boys and 5 girls) and was baptized in All Saints Church in Weston Longville on 20 Sep 1863 at the age of 14 1/2 months.  From his father he gained an appreciation of animal and land management and a love for gardening and hunting.  According to my aunt (Sydney’s granddaughter), he must have done well at school because he received an award for his good penmanship, which was proudly displayed on their wall at home. (I had previously and incorrectly attributed this award to her other grandfather William ANDREW.)

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Weston Hall, Weston Longville, Norfolk, England (ca 2010)
Estate employed both Henry RICHARDSON (c1860-aft1891) and then son Sydney RICHARDSON (1881) as gamekeepers

By 1881, Sydney was still living with his parents and siblings in Weston Hall Cottages, then 18 years old and employed as a gamekeeper like his father.  But he had other plans.  Family stories tell us that Sydney emigrated to Ontario Canada while still a teenager to learn the cheese making profession, and this is likely because other Richardson relatives were already there and could help him get started.  Stories claim this happened in 1880 but more likely it didn’t happen until 1882.  The closest travel record I can find is for a Sydney RICHARDS [sic], age 17, leaving London England aboard the “Thames” and arriving 21 Aug 1882 in Halifax Nova Scotia destined for Montreal.  If our Sydney, he would have turned 20 the month before this arrival.

I have been unable to trace any personal record for Sydney during his brief life in Ontario.  But records in the Prince Edward Island (PEI) Archives verify that Sydney Richardson was the first cheese maker in the new "St Eleanors Cheese Factory” in 1883. The Archives Canada site also refers to it as the “St. Eleanor’s Cheese Manufacturing Company”.

"St Eleanors Cheese Factory: St Eleanor's [PEI] boasted one of the earliest cheese factories on PEI.  Unfortunately there is little documentation of this enterprise.  The company was established by statute in 1883 (Cap. 21) and the factory was built on Lot 16 Road.  The first cheese maker at St Eleanor's was Sydney Richardson who received a bronze medal in 1886 for the best exhibit of cheese in the British Empire. The factory was still in operation in 1903 according to an entry in the report of the Dairy Association for that year."

Fond Summary: "The fonds consists of a photocopy of a letter from Charles Andrew Sr. on behalf of the St. Eleanor's Farmer's Club who were desirous of starting a cheese factory to Samuel Wood at Newtonville, Ontario requesting him to take the letter to a cheese factory where someone could respond to questions regarding the starting up and operating a small cheese factory.”

Having obtained a copy of this letter (which appears to be a typewritten transcription rather than the original), a note at the top says that the letter was subsequently forwarded to John Waddell in Orono, Ontario. Unfortunately there is no further record of any other response or actions taken.  It seems clear, however, that the planned cheese factory was incorporated in 1883 and Sydney RICHARDSON was hired for the job after this letter was written, as it was still in the planning stages then.  Perhaps Sydney worked or apprenticed in the cheese industry in Newtonville or Orono when he was in Ontario and heard about the opportunity in PEI.  The letter states that “there is to [two] factorys on the Island [PEI] over fifty miles from us”, so the St Eleanors factory was not the first of its kind in PEI, but likely the first in Prince County.  It is a bonus for me that the letter was written by Charles Andrew Sr., my great-great-grandfather, whose grandson Harry Charles ANDREW (my grandfather) later married Sydney RICHARDSON’s daughter Nell RICHARDSON (my grandmother).  So if the letter hadn’t been written, or if Sydney hadn’t been hired for the job on PEI, the marriage wouldn’t have happened.  Thank goodness it did!

Regarding the references to Sydney’s 1886 bronze medal award for his excellent cheese, I looked for confirmation of this in various PEI publications.  On June 2nd and 3rd, 1886, the Charlottetown Daily Examiner newspaper published lists of PEI exhibitors at the Indian and Colonial Exhibition in London.  "St Eleanor’s Cheese Factory - Cheese” was an exhibitor in their June 3rd issue. The following year on March 26, 1887, the Charlottetown Daily Examiner listed “St Eleanors Cheese Factory, St. Eleanors” as one of the winners of "diplomas and medals”.  Sydney’s name and the exact nature of his award were not listed.  However a couple local history booklets provided additional information. “Sketches of Old St Eleanors” published in 1973, states on page 34:

 “In 1886 [Sydney Richardson] received a bronze medal for the best exhibit of his cheese in the British Empire.  This medal, now in Edwin Bernard’s possession, shows that Edward Albert, Prince of Wales, was president of the Colonial and Indian exhibition, London, England.  The old cheese dry house is now on the farm of Ralph Riley used as a machine shop.  Hogs were kept in an enclosure at the back of the factory to feed on the surplus whey.”

While Sydney was busy establishing himself in the cheese making industry and winning awards, he also found time for courtship, marriage and parenthood. Isabella Harriet “Ella” COMPTON was the daughter of George and Eliza COMPTON, farmers in St Eleanors and  contemporaries of the above Charles ANDREW who wrote the letter.  They were part of the same farming community and likely supplied milk to the cheese factory.  Sydney and Ella were married on 9 Dec 1885 at St Johns Anglican Church, St Eleanors.  The first of their five children, Henry Melbourne RICHARDSON, was born the following year.  When he was old enough, Melbourne helped his father out at the cheese factory.  Their remaining children Frances Lulu RICHARDSON (1888), George Lewis Compton RICHARDSON (1891) and my grandmother Eleanor Louise “Nell” RICHARDSON (1894) also grew up and married.  Their youngest child sadly died as an infant.

His son Melbourne wrote a short memoirs of his early years which included the following details:

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“I was born Apr 6 1886.  Eldest of 5 children...  I was born in a cottage owned by the Darby family across the road from their farm.  My father had small cheese factory, supplied with milk from the farmers surround it with delivery routes about 5 or 6 miles in several directions around the factory.  The routes picked up milk & returned whey to those who could use it, a food for pig feed mixed with crushed grain also chickens, etc.  After a couple of years or so, father bought a small farm 25 acres, a good house about 7 rooms, 2 stories.  A good barn suitable for 3 cows, 3 horses and mows for hay for long winters. ”

Sydney RICHARDSON and his daughter Nell ANDREW, St Eleanors PEI probably in the 1940s.

One of my favorite stories about Sydney came from one of his granddaughters, my Aunt Harriet (ANDREW) CLARK, who grew up in St Eleanors.  She told me that Sydney was quite the cook.  He loved to fish and hunt rabbits and wild birds.  Many the bird, wild duck or goose that he gave to his daughter Nell’s family when the children were young had to not only be plucked etc., but when they ate the bird they had to watch out for buck shot, as "those hunters were really generous with their ammunition!”  Harriet remembered being invited to stay for lunch one time and the stew bubbling away on the stove smelled delicious, like chicken in fact.  They enjoyed it immensely and after lunch Sydney got a big kick out of watching their faces when he hold them that it had been RABBIT stew!

From the few pictures I have of Sydney, he was a square-jawed man with rigidly square shoulders and very upright bearing.  My grandmother Nell once told me that he was very particular about his posture and insisted the same of her, going to the extend of strapping a board to Nell’s back to make sure she kept her shoulders back.  Judging from Granny's later posture, it worked.  I wonder if Sydney’s parents had done the same to him?

Old newspapers provide additional glimpses of Sydney's life and activities over the years. He won prizes at the Prince County Exhibitions in Summerside, sometimes for a heifer or a pair of Orpington Buff chickens, or for his produce: carrots, cabbage, parsnips, eschallot seeds, Roxbury Russet apples, wheat, and celery. He traveled to Charlottetown on occasion, sometimes with relatives and sometimes staying in hotels there.   In 1901 he was one of 2 directors elected to the Kensington Dairying Association for Prince County. In 1909 he was elected Vestrymen as well as delegate for St John’s Church in St Eleanors.  In 1921 he was honorable pall bearer at the funeral of Thomas ANDREW, his son-in-law’s uncle.  In 1926 he was foreman of the jury at the inquest into the death of an Anthony Mitchell.  In 1928 he was one of twelve called to serve on the Grand Jury in Summerside for 5 criminal and several civil cases.  In 1947 (but reprinted from 1897) Sydney RICHARDSON was acknowledged as one of 32 cheesemakers on the island the previous year, saying that he had been at St. Eleanors for 15 years (13 by my reckoning).

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Sydney and Ella remained in St Eleanors PEI for the rest of their lives, outliving three of their children, and eventually separated by distance from their other two.  Their daughter Lulu died in 1940, and George died in 1943, having suffered from mustard gas in the First World War.  Their son Melbourne had left home as a young man and ended up in Seattle.  Nell was the only one left of the island.  Ella had a bad stroke in about 1935 when she was 76, leaving her bedridden and dependent on family for another 15 years.  Their daughter Nell tried to help her father out with nursing duties as much as possible although her own youngest child was only six at the time of the stroke and most if not all of her seven children were still at home.  It must have been so hard on Ella too, as she had been a nurse herself so knew what the commitment entailed and the toll it had on her remaining family. By 1950, Nell had her own health issues and could no longer care for her aging parents, so moved to the west coast of Canada where her husband and family were already settled.  Some distant COMPTON relatives took over the care of Ella and Sydney.

Ella died at age 92 on 16 Mar 1951, her daughter Nell’s birthday.  Sydney must have been holding on for Ella’s sake because just a short 19 days later, Sydney died at the age of 88 on 4 Apr 1951.  They are both buried in St John’s churchyard, St Eleanors PEI.  They were also remembered by their descendants on 27 Jan 1985, when a new stained glass window in St Johns Church, St Eleanors was dedicated to the memory of Sydney and Isabella RICHARDSON and their daughter and son-in-law F. Lulu and Bruce BERNARD. They are remembered.

Grave of Sydney and Ella RICHARDSON, 1951
St Johns churchyard, St Eleanors, PEI

Stained glass window in St Johns Church, St Eleanors PEI, dedicated in 1985 to Sydney & Ella RICHARDSON,
and Lulu and Bruce BERNARD

RESOURCE LINKS

Weston Longville All Saints Church, Norfolk England - Norfolk Churches site
Images of Weston Longville Norfolk (copyrighted): Weston Hall, 1946 and Weston Longville Church sketch
St. Eleanor's Cheese Manufacturing Company Fonds - archivescanada site
PEI newspaper index, 1886 exhibitors and 1887 medals and diplomas - islandregister site
St Johns Anglican Church, St Eleanors, PEI, Canada - historic places site
St Johns Anglican Church, St Eleanors - PEI heritage buildings
St Johns Church St Eleanors and Richmond  Parish Fonds - Archives Council of PEI

I have posted additional  information on my RICHARDSON families elsewhere on this website.

"52 Ancestors" is a reference to the "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" challenge I am participating in.  
Reference the No Story Too Small blog by genealogist Amy Johnson Crow for more details.  
It is giving me  the much needed incentive to write and publish my family stories.