Martin Shaw Who Do You Think You Are?

Eddie, good boy. There you go.

Actor Martin Shaw was born and brought up in Birmingham.

He now lives in Norfolk.

Go on, good boy.

Martin's career spans almost 50 years.

He's performed in over 100 film, stage and TV roles,

from Shakespeare to The Professionals,

and most recently as Inspector George Gently.

I was born in Birmingham in the closing months

of the Second World War - January, 1945.

My parents were very young, that was the great thing.

My mum was 19, my dad was 21.

And this is my mum and dad and my brother

and myself on my grandmother's red velvet Chesterfield sofa.

There's a kind of a not entirely accidental resemblance,

I always think, between my mother at this age and Ginger Rogers.

It looks like a happy picture, doesn't it?

Now by contrast...

This is, er, my dad's side of the family.

This is my Aunt Lily, my dad and my grandmother Alice.

I had a very close relationship with her.

It is a mysterious and...and rather a painful photograph.

They do look sad, all three of them in this picture.

My dad's hands are folded, you know, just sort of like,

just looking at the camera.

He's just a young, very, very young boy.

There's a significant person missing - my grandfather, Edwin.

As far as I know, at about - you know -

1930 or the beginning of the '30s, Edwin vanished.

So that's the mystery for me.

I don't know very much, if anything at all, about Edwin.

My grandfather Edwin is a bit of a mystery

because he was kind of persona non grata.

Nobody talked about him very much.

There was always a kind of, um, painful silence

and a painful information blackout about Edwin.

It's as though this huge tragedy went into my, my father's family.

I think my dad said that Edwin left them for another woman.

My grandmother never said anything about him at all,

other than a, you know, a turn of the head.

And my dad's... Any questions to my dad were sort of answered with a

sort of a, a sadness and a "I don't want to talk about it," you know.

My father had been damaged by not having a father at the time

when he needed one most.

I've only got one picture of Edwin, which is this one here.

He was referred to as Ted, if he was referred to at all,

which wasn't very much.

My dad said when I asked him about this picture,

that Edwin was 17 when this was taken, and it's a military

uniform, and we had no idea what the uniform was until my brother

very cleverly zoomed in, cos he's clever with computers.

He zoomed in on the cap badge

and he determined that it was the Royal Marines,

so we're almost sure that Edwin was in the Marines.

But that's it. The rest of it is a complete blank.

Grandparents are usually there in your memory.

But I don't know what kind of man he was.

It would be wonderful to find out now who he was, what he did -

mysterious Edwin.

So we're heading to my local pub to meet a military historian,

and he's going to tell me some more about

the photographs that we were looking at, which... It's very exciting.

Er, I have no idea what sort of information is coming my way.

Right, Chris, this is my grandfather Edwin Shaw...

about whom I know nothing. Well, next to nothing.

It's a fantastic photo.

Um, what I CAN confirm for you is that he is wearing

-a Royal Marines uniform.

-That's good. That's what we thought.

Yeah, for the First World War period.

We think that he was about 17 when this was taken.

-Um, I can be a little bit more precise...

-You can?

-..than that.

Um, almost to the day, I suspect.

I have managed to find, or we've managed to find,

your grandfather's Service Record.

Wow! "Born on the 24th December, 1899."

-Yes.

-So his age at enlistment was 18 years, five months and ten days -

that's precise.

-And what have we got here? Gosh, it's tiny writing.

-Well, here...

That's his date of conscription.

So he joined 3rd June, 1918.

June, July, August, September, October, November...

so six months before the end of the war.

But by the time he'd completed his training the war was over, presumably.

The war was over and in fact...

"Demobilised 11th March, 1919." Oh, yeah, 1919.

So yeah, he wasn't there very long.

At the end of the First World War,

after four years of gruelling combat across the globe,

hundreds of thousands of British veterans returned home.

But 18-year-old Private Shaw could only look on from the sidelines.

He never entered the theatre of war.

There is something that's very interesting. What's this?

"Enlisted the 5th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment,

-"15th July, 1921."

-Yes.

-So he re-enlisted?

-He re-enlisted.

Wow, he went back.

That's a territorial unit.

That was probably the very first opportunity Edwin had to

rejoin the Army and he took it. He maybe felt like he missed out.

Wow. So the first chance he got he was back...

-He was back in.

-..in the Army, wow.

THAT I didn't know either.

Interesting that he pretty much entirely missed

the First World War, which is lucky for him,

but also interesting that he chose to re-enlist as fast as he could.

So that tells us a little something about his character.

It's fascinating.

Martin's come to the Imperial War Museum in London to investigate

Edwin's career with the Territorial Army.

Edwin's never had a chance to tell his side of the story.

Maybe he re-enlisted to get away from something!

-Hello there.

-Terry.

-Pleased to meet you, Martin.

Hello, Terry. I'm Martin.

I'm trying to find out about my grandfather Edwin

and he was demobbed from the Royal Marines in 1919.

And the first available opportunity, he joined the Territorial Army.

The Territorial Army reformed in 1920

and there was quite a large, er, recruitment campaign

launched by the Government to bring the Territorial Army up to strength.

The inducements, as we can see, were to have sports,

the summer camp, sailing - a rather idyllic picture of life.

-Spend the night in a bell tent with a dog!

-Dog, yes.

-Yeah.

-It's a nice poster, isn't it?

-Mm.

-And there they're all having a wonderful time by the sea.

-Fabulous.

In the 1920s, the Government began a recruitment campaign to

attract working men like Edwin to bolster the Territorial Army.

Times were tough and the promise of a two-week-long paid summer

training camp was highly appealing.

These part-time volunteers were trained just like regular soldiers,

but primarily for home defence.

They proudly called themselves The Terriers.

So here is a copy of your grandfather's Service Record.

Oh, look at that!

He clearly didn't miss an annual training from 1921 right

the way through to 1932. He never missed one.

And beyond.

What does that say?

"Re-engaged for four years on the 6th July."

That was the day before my father's birthday.

The day... Oh, really?

Mm. Maybe he just enjoyed being a soldier.

Maybe it was just as simple as that.

He just liked being a soldier, he liked the life.

But you could argue from his wife's point of view that this man

-had a family.

-Yes.

-Yeah.

-Yes.

And what is interesting, and of course, we get nothing of it

from here is that here, round about 1930, is approximately

when he left my grandmother and my father and my aunt.

-He just went off.

-Mm.

My father never spoke of him, or hardly ever.

When Edwin signed up for four more years of military

service in 1930, he and his wife Alice, had two young children -

nine-year-old Lily and Frank, who was just seven.

Martin believes it was around this time that his grandfather

left the family.

Martin can track Edwin's movements through his Service Record.

-Now it says here "embodied".

-Yes.

What does that mean?

Well, it means, it means he was called up for service.

-For actual military service?

-Yes.

And you see the ominous date there, the 1st September, 1939, the

day that the Germans invaded Poland and two days before we declared war.

Yes. Now what's...? What's this one here? 378 SL.

Which now reveals that he was a member

of a Searchlight Detachment, the 378th Searchlight Battery.

"Mustered in the Royal Artillery at Sheldon",

which is a suburb of Birmingham.

Suburb of Birmingham, yes.

So he was really keen.

I mean, he was 40 years old here.

Once war comes, I mean, the importance of men

like your grandfather was the fact that they had served for so long...

-Sure.

-..had acquired so many military skills.

Yes. Fascinating.

It sort of begs the question - what did that entail?

Martin's heading to his home town - Birmingham -

to investigate 40-year-old Edwin's role in the defence of the city.

Growing up in Birmingham, you just got used to bomb damage,

you didn't even think about it.

The war was everywhere in my consciousness

for the first...probably ten years of my life.

My first acting experiences were with a group called the

Pied Pipers, where we did improvisation on the bomb sites.

Pied Pipers was glorious fun.

We would just go through the streets and gather up

a train of children and passers-by, and when we'd got enough to

constitute an audience we'd sit them down on the bomb site and perform.

If you could improvise for an audience of children on a bomb site,

you can handle almost anything.

PHONE RINGS

That's me, I'm afraid.

Yeah, it's my phone.

And here we are - city of my dreams.

Typical Birmingham day.

"Train manager speaking.

"We will shortly be arriving into Birmingham New Street,

"where this service will terminate."

Martin's come to the Library of Birmingham to meet

military historian Spencer Jones.

-Hello.

-Hello, Martin.

-Spencer.

-Good to meet you.

What have we got here?

Well, we have here some copies of the War Diary for 378 Battery,

to which your grandfather was attached.

Wow, that's brilliant.

This is the Order forming his troop into a special detachment.

And there he is, Troop Sergeant Major Shaw, EJ. Edwin James.

Troop Sergeant Major means he was the senior non-commissioned

officer of the entire Battery.

-Right. Yeah.

-He'd have also had responsibility

to visit the Searchlight and Gun Detachments

to convey orders and ensure all was operational.

And does the Battery consist of all of these people here?

-Yes, it does.

-That's... Well, that's a lot of people, yeah.

It is. About 60 men.

Your grandfather Edwin would have been on the front lines

of the defences of Birmingham itself,

particularly in defending Birmingham's war industries.

Birmingham was one of Britain's most important industrial centres,

and at the start of the war, many of its factories had switched to

military production.

But this concentration of war industry made the city

a prime target for the German Air Force.

To defend the city,

anti-aircraft guns were deployed to protect the most likely targets.

And Searchlight crews, like Edwin's, worked alongside them.

It was their job to pinpoint enemy bombers in their powerful beams

so they could be shot down or forced to change direction.

The Battle of Britain was at its height and we actually

know what target your grandfather Edwin's detachment was defending.

-Oh, right.

-The Castle Bromwich factory

had been turned over to Spitfire production,

and we have here this wonderful album of photographs

of the factory in operation.

-Look at the size of that.

-Mm.

Amazing.

Absolutely enormous, that factory, isn't it?

-Oh, yes.

-Incredible.

What great photographs.

Extraordinary. And all these people, of course,

would have been in grave danger of being bombed.

Must have been terribly frightening.

On the 13th August, 1940, 30 German bombers

took off from northern France,

each loaded with two tonnes of bombs.

Shortly before midnight, the enemy planes were spotted

approaching Birmingham from the south-east.

The German aircraft were heading straight towards Edwin's

position in Sheldon, guarding the Castle Bromwich Factory.

This is an air-raid map for the raid of the 13th August with bomb sites

marked for high explosives, bombs that didn't explode

-and incendiary bombs.

-Oh, right.

-Your grandfather's Battery would have been deployed in the Sheldon area here.

-Right.

The German bombers would have been coming in from the south

and south-east aiming at the Castle Bromwich Factory,

which was in this vicinity here.

So they'd have been passing right over the head of him and his men.

-So they were right in the thick of it.

-They certainly were.

They were right under the bomber stream.

So presumably the Battery would be trying to intercept them

-before they got to the target?

-Absolutely right.

This would have been quite harrowing

for your grandfather and his men

that they knew that these bombs were landing in their city

where they had family, where they lived themselves.

That must have been extremely stressful.

-Very trying on the nerves.

-Yeah, it must have been, yeah.

It's incredibly interesting to me that Edwin, our Ted,

is here in Sheldon with this Battery.

This cluster of activity here for this particular raid,

this is where my mother lived with my other grandparents, right there.

And there's Alleyne Grove, right there,

right in the middle of all this bombing.

And over here in Winson Green, not that far away,

is where my grandmother Alice lived, Cuthbert Road.

And this is where my father would have been

living as a teenager at the time of this raid.

So you've got my father here, you've got my mother here,

and you've got Ted over here in Sheldon.

Extraordinary.

SIRENS

Edwin and his crew of approximately 60 men worked at their posts

all through the night.

But despite the brave efforts of the anti-aircraft Batteries,

some enemy bombers still got through.

11 high-explosive bombs fell on the Castle Bromwich factory

that night and many more on the surrounding area.

German bombers scored some hits on the Castle Bromwich factory,

which are recorded in this photograph album.

Oh, right. OK. Ooh, yeah, that's quite messy, isn't it?

It seems to have been quite a night.

-Now these look like military personnel here.

-Mm.

So I suppose there's some kind of remote possibility

that my grandfather could be in one of those photographs?

Yes, absolutely.

Edwin's city was under siege.

Over the next three years, Birmingham was raided

by the German Air Force 77 times.

But despite the devastation, the efforts of the anti-aircraft

crews did much to raise morale at this time of crisis.

What I find really fascinating is that Ted was defending

Castle Bromwich aerodrome, which is a quarter of a mile from where

my mother was living at the time and where my father was soon

to meet her.

And geographically, everybody was so close.

Ted's much less of an enigma now.

So it would be good to fill in some of the personal blanks,

now that we have his military service.

Martin's heading to Winson Green,

the area of Birmingham where his grandparents once lived.

I'm really interested in finding out the background to his leaving

the family around about - anecdotally -

round about 1930, when my father was eight or nine.

I think he left Alice for another woman...

..and I'd love to know what happened.

-Hello.

-Hi. Good to meet you.

Martin's meeting legal expert Rebecca Probert at a local church,

where his grandparents were married.

So we have here the Register of Marriages for Christ Church

and there's one here you might be interested in.

OK.

"November 8th, 1919, Edwin James Shaw, Alice May Eaborn,

"aged 21, both 21."

Does that fit?

-Edwin said he was born Christmas Eve, 1899.

-Mm.

So he wasn't 21.

-He wasn't 21.

-He's 19.

-Mm.

Wow!

Yeah, so he's not telling the truth about his age.

We've also got the birth certificate for Alice.

OK.

Gosh.

So "28th February 1900, Cuthbert Road."

-Her father is also called Edwin.

-Yes.

And her mother is Mary Ann Eaborn.

28th February...

1900.

Well, that doesn't stack up either, really.

Wow, so she's 19.

How extraordinary.

-So they both lied about their age.

-Mm.

Well, I'm flabbergasted. I didn't know anything about that.

-OK.

-Well, there's a... There's a reason

why they might have upped their ages.

-Well, they probably... Maybe they didn't have permission to marry.

-Absolutely.

That would be the only reason for putting yourself down as 21...

-Sure.

-..if you weren't.

-The age of majority.

-Yeah. Yeah.

So if they claimed to be 21, then they avoided awkward questions

about whether your parents have consented.

So why wouldn't their parents consent?

Well, there's a possible clue, perhaps.

There's actually here another birth certificate for...

-Auntie Lily, yes.

-..Lilian, yes.

9th June, 1920. 1920.

You might want to count back to the date of the marriage!

Interesting! OK. Yes. November 8th, all right.

-That doesn't quite stack up either, does it?

-No, it doesn't.

-Alice is clearly a couple of months pregnant...

-Yes.

-..at the time of the marriage.

-Wow!

See, THAT I never knew about my grandmother.

Mmm.

OK.

So we've got a very young couple...

-Yeah, a very young couple, kind of a shotgun wedding.

-Mm.

-Yeah.

They went to some lengths to disguise this.

Mm. Mm.

Well, presumably that was to avoid the disgrace

of the child born out of wedlock.

-I mean, it's just so sad that it was so stigmatised then.

-Mm, yeah.

And there's something else that suggests they were...

They were trying to keep that particular indiscretion quiet.

-Go on.

-We've got here the Register of Baptisms for the church

in which they got married.

This is 1920.

Well, I can't see them. No Shaws there.

No, she's not there.

-They didn't bring her back to the church to be baptised.

-Mm.

We haven't found a record of her baptism anywhere.

-So they had to register the birth, you had to do that by law...

-Yeah.

..but they perhaps didn't want to bring to the attention

of the community just how soon after the marriage she had been born.

How interesting.

The fear that they must have undergone.

-The sort of shame and pain that must have existed in the family, you know.

-Mm.

It explains a lot.

Family secrets. It's just...bizarre, isn't it?

A lot happens in a very short space of time.

Yes.

And as far as I know, anyway,

they...they separated round about 1930,

so maybe they were just

forced together, you know, when they didn't really want to be.

Who knows what they were like together?

Well, we've got some additional evidence

of where they were living around 1932.

So this is the...

-..electoral roll...

-Uh-hm.

-..for Cuthbert Road.

-Right, well, there's... There's my grandmother...

-Hm-mm.

..Alice May with her mother, Mary Eaborn.

And then...over in Winson Street,

not very far away...

There he is. Edwin James Shaw.

I didn't realise they were living so close together.

Obviously, when the marriage broke down they each went back

-to their respective parents.

-Yes.

So this raises the question of what happens next.

Because the family history says that Ted went off with somebody else...

but we don't know when or whether they married.

I mean, that's all in the, the fog of war, of marital war.

So, we need to look first to see whether there was a divorce.

Absolutely.

Well, I'm assuming there was unless...

CHUCKLING: Unless they compounded

the felony by living in sin thereafter, I don't know, but...

-Well, we can look into that.

-OK.

-It'll take a few days to find

out from the Royal Courts of Justice.

Oh, great. Well, thank you very much, Rebecca.

Well, I do feel a great deal of sympathy for Edwin and Alice.

I just feel very sorry for them.

They tried hard to make it work, they were together for ten years.

What made them separate? We don't know.

Certainly this... This photograph...

..none of them look very happy,

and Edwin's not here, and we know now that Edwin was gone by 1931...

and they were just living almost within yards of each other.

And that explains my father saying it was painful for him

to see his father with another woman, you know.

But then he would because he would have seen them

almost daily, I'd have thought, cos they were living so close together.

My grandmother Alice, I knew her very well and was close to her,

and I'm sad that she clearly had so much pain to contend with.

My grandmother would come from here on the bus and visit us

once a week and bring me a Mars bar.

A Mars bar was an ENORMOUS treat, a massive treat.

I would be thinking about that for a long time.

And they were bigger then, too,

unless it was me that was smaller, I'm not sure.

But a Mars bar was something very special.

She always had it with her.

I'd love to find out more about Alice and the Eaborns.

I'd like to find out more about all of them now.

You've got me really intrigued.

So I'm trying to find Edwin Eaborn who was my great-grandfather,

my grandmother's father.

Search.

Search.

AMERICAN ACCENT: Ain't nothing happening here!

It's me!

CHUCKLES

IMITATES SPITTING

IMITATES KNUCKLES CRACKING

So...search...search...

A photograph.

Edwin Eaborn.

It's quite an elaborate one.

It's a very fashionable Victorian moustache.

I recognise that photograph, funnily enough.

Because now I remember that my grandmother had this photograph

and one of her mother, um, on the wall.

And there she is, Mary Ann.

How extraordinary.

The beautiful black lace that she had on and the earrings.

I remember these photographs, I mean, literally, literally,

as if it was yesterday.

They always seemed very grand in this little terraced house

in Winson Green.

They almost look like paintings because they've been colorized.

It's probably more than 50 years, getting on for 60 years,

since I've seen these photographs.

Ha! I'd forgotten that.

Martin's discovered that his great-grandfather,

Edwin Eaborn, was born in Birmingham in July, 1857.

He and his wife, Mary Ann, had 12 children,

including Martin's grandmother, Alice.

To try to find out more about the Eaborns, Martin's arranged to

meet historian Chris Upton.

So, Chris, this is my great-grandfather, Edwin.

Yes, he worked in the brass industry in, in Birmingham, and brass

was one of the biggest trades, particularly brass bedsteads.

That's sort of it.

There's not a great deal to be said about Edwin.

But, in looking for Edwin and his story, er,

the generation before that becomes much more interesting.

Oh, go on, then.

So this would be your great-great-grandfather.

-OK.

-And...

..here's a document I think you'll be interested in.

And this is a census entry, 1851.

Right, I need to go...

..even more...magnified.

Oh, that's better.

OK.

The challenge of Victorian handwriting.

Yes. That's calligraphy, that's not handwriting, it's lovely.

-OK. So, we've got an Edmund Eaborn here...

-Hm-mm...

Edmund... Edmund's 33, Eliza was his wife, was 31, and one, two,

three, four children.

Four children, plus...

um...if you can see this last one...

-A servant?!

-Yes. So they have a...

-Hannah Lawrence.

-..they have a domestic.

-They're not doing too badly, then?

-Yes.

It's somebody who's going places

and can now afford a live-in servant as well as a growing family.

For Edmund here, it says, "Rank or profession",

and I can't read that one.

Can you see what that one says?

Machinist, that's somebody with an expertise of handling steam engines.

And anyone with mechanical skills like that would be perfect for this,

this city which was industrialising at breakneck pace.

Of course.

Well, 1851 was when it was all happening big-time, wasn't it?

Absolutely, yeah.

Upsurge of the Industrial Revolution.

They called it a "city of a thousand trades".

Come to Birmingham. If they're not paved with gold, the streets

show promise, so...

-Paved with brass!

-Paved with brass.

Victorian Birmingham was expanding fast.

Located at the centre of a network of new canals and railways,

its population and economy boomed.

And this created opportunities for young men like Edmund Eaborn,

eager to make their name.

-Then...

-More?

-..this turned up.

This dates from 1855 and it's an advertisement from a newspaper.

Oh, wow! Gosh.

"Eaborn and Robinson, Engineers, Millwrights and Machinists.

"Clement Street, Birmingham.

"Manufacturers of all kinds of steam engines."

How wonderful.

So he's... He's top man, he's got his... He's got his own company now.

Got his own business.

"These are the best construction of engines made, occupying little

"space, are most effective and least liable to DERANGEMENT or wear."

-Had a slightly different meaning, then.

-Yes, yes.

"All kinds of machinery,

"repairs and jobbing work expeditiously executed."

-That's great, isn't it?

-Marvellous.

So, to follow on from that I've got another

document from the London Gazette, which was obliged to publish

all patent applications, and this is just the year after that advert.

"To Edmund Eaborn and Matthew Robinson, Engineers, trading as

"co-partners and carrying on business in Clement Street, Birmingham

"in the County of Warwick, for the invention of, quote:

"Certain improvements in machinery

"to be used for confectionary purposes."

There's a specialism that's developed here,

-which is engines for a sweet factory.

-Oh.

So that's where my Mars bar came from

that my grandmother brought me every week - how lovely.

It just goes to show that your great-great-grandfather hasn't

just set up in business, he's bought into the full entrepreneurial dream.

That is brilliant.

Good for him.

By the 1850s, the "city of a thousand trades"

was one of the most dynamic in Britain -

its steam-powered factories and workshops

producing everything from brass bedsteads to chocolate bars.

It would be great to go to Clement Street and see

if there's anything left of Eaborn and Robinson.

I mean, what are the chances? Negligible I would have thought.

But it would be really nice just in case there's some wonderful

Victorian place there.

Anything that's an actual tactile connection, you know,

with the ancestors, that would be nice.

Edmund Eaborn and partner Matthew Robinson

established their steam engine factory at 10 Clement Street,

just behind the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal.

Obviously not much in the way of Industrial Revolution

architecture here, but...

..I can see an old building down here...

..so I've got high hopes.

I know it's number ten.

Wow!

That's number ten.

How incredible!

That's brilliant. It's the only one left - how brilliant.

I'm just absolutely deeply thrilled for a variety of reasons.

Not just because, you know, it's my...

ancestor's business which is top of the list, but also because some

of old Birmingham has survived the ravages of...

Hitler and architecture.

I love it.

See that's... That's what I'm looking at there, letters.

How amazing.

It's even got the same...

It's even got...even got the cobblestones.

Oh, wow!

Look, I mean, this was clearly a yard where...

..where the horses would

have brought the goods out and taken them on the canal and to distribute.

I love it that all this is still here.

Big horses' hooves have being...clopping on that.

Now, that's absolutely thrilling, isn't it?

Eaborn and Robinson must have been doing incredibly well.

This is a really substantial building.

It would be fascinating to know what happened next.

To find out more about the fortunes of Eaborn and Robinson,

Martin's going to meet historian Jennifer Aston.

Well, we've found this, which might fill in the next part of the story.

OK, so that's Matthew Robinson.

Oh, Matthew Robinson died...

on the 3rd August, 1858...

aged 32.

Oh, he actually died in Clement Street.

-He died actually at work.

-Died at work.

Tubercular disease of lung and bowels.

That's a shame.

-This was a really common illness at the time.

-Right.

And you see that although we sort of associate tuberculosis with

-being a breathing disease...

-Yeah...

..actually can spread throughout the whole body.

-Terribly young - 32.

-Mm, 32.

-Yeah.

So what happened to Edmund Eaborn? Do we know?

-Yep.

-I suspect you're going to tell me.

Well, this is the next, the next clue.

A notice here, it's in the Birmingham Mercury...

right down at the bottom.

Wow, that's tiny writing.

"On the 26th inst..."

So, we're in June, OK, 1857.

"..after 12 months' illness,

"Mr Edmund Eaborn of the firm of Eaborn and Robinson in this town."

Wow!

Wow! So they both died.

How sad.

-If we look here, this gives a few more clues.

-Yeah.

Edmund's death certificate.

He was 39.

Cause of death...

Phthisis. Wow.

-Yeah, phthisis is another name for tuberculosis.

-OK.

Um, but in this case it's pulmonary tuberculosis,

so Edmund just had the disease in his lungs. Um, but...

Do you think one might have infected

the other or did just everybody have tuberculosis?

It's entirely possible. They...

There are some estimates that up to 90 percent of the urban

-population actually carried...

-90 percent?!

-..the bacteria that causes tuberculosis.

-Really?

But it could remain dormant for years and years and years.

It does suggest from the newspaper notice that says that Edmund

was ill for 12 months, that he gradually became sicker and sicker.

Yes.

It's such a tragedy, isn't it? That two young men, one 39,

one 32...

..should be just cut down like that,

all that talent and inventiveness and forward-thinking just gone...

..with a bacterial disease, which could so easily be treated...now.

And the impact on the families as well.

-Do we know where Edmund was buried?

-Yes.

Edmund is buried at Key Hill Cemetery, which is in Birmingham.

All right.

-And we've also managed to find Edmund's last will and testament...

-Oh, Lord!

We thought you might want to take, take with you.

Gosh.

Well, thank you.

It's going to be the next quest.

With the untimely deaths of both its founders,

the Eaborn and Robinson stock was auctioned off in 1859.

Martin's heading to Key Hill Cemetery

where his great-great-grandfather Edmund was buried.

I can see we're heading into the Jewellery Quarter.

This is interesting because...

..not only is it around by Clement Street

where Eaborn and Robinson was, but I also worked here when I left school.

I worked at Hockley Chemical Company Limited in Hockley Hill,

which is around here somewhere.

And I worked in the sales office.

Now...

I think that might have been it there.

Yeah, that's it. I think that was it there.

I think we just drove past. Or was it there?

Hang on.

We were very close to it.

I think that even might be it.

Well, that's...

OK, now that's really spooky

because I've just seen Key Hill.

You are kidding me!

That's, like, 100 yards from where I was working.

Come on.

And there's the cemetery.

HE CHUCKLES

OK, thank you.

Thanks.

Key Hill Cemetery opened in 1836.

Edmund's grave no longer survives, as part of the cemetery was

later cleared to make way for a new tramline.

But Edmund's life IS remembered here.

There he is.

Well, there's lots of Eaborns here.

So...

Eaborn, Edmund.

We know he died on the 26th,

so that must have been the date of the funeral.

And here's his wife Eliza, 1896.

She survived him a fair while.

Well, there they all are.

They seemed to have been all put in the cemetery, the same cemetery.

And all of their graves gone, which is a shame, really.

So, this is a copy of the will that Jennifer gave me.

"In the name of God, Amen.

"I, Edmund Eaborn, machinist,

"being of sound and disposing mind,

"memory and understanding, do this 24th day of June,

"1,857."

He made this will on the 24th June...

..and died on the 26th.

So, he knew. He knew he was going.

He made the will two days before he died.

And then there's poor old Edmund's signature, which is very, very shaky.

And that's one of the most touching things about it... He's...

He's very, very ill.

And you can see how ill he is from his signature.

What a time they lived in, eh?

"I give, devise and bequeath unto my dear wife Eliza Eaborn the half of

"my share of the trade or business, tools, stock and assets thereof

"in the business and partnership firm of Eaborn and Robinson.

"And at, and after her death, the residue thereof..."

HE CHUCKLES

That's hopeful!

"..that shall then be and remain,

"shall be distributed between my children,

"and the child or children of which my dear wife now travaileth."

What does travaileth mean? It should mean "working".

Does it mean...? Does it mean pregnant?

She was pregnant.

Wow! "And of which I pray God in safety to deliver her."

Of course.

So she was pregnant - God Almighty.

And he made this two days before he died.

When 39-year-old Edmund Eaborn died of tuberculosis on the

26th June, 1857, he left a pregnant widow, Eliza,

and four children.

Their fifth child was born a week later.

His name was Edwin - Alice's father.

I mean, poor Eliza. She must have been devastated.

She lost everything.

And that's, er, that's my grandmother's grandmother, isn't it?

Yes.

And my grandmother Alice never knew her grandfather.

Martin's now returning to his investigation into his

grandmother Alice's separation from her husband, Edwin Shaw.

Their marriage broke down around 1931,

but what happened next remains a mystery.

When we left off, Alice had gone back to live with her mother...

Edwin was 100 yards away.

HE CHUCKLES

And my father often talked

about seeing his father "walking out", as he said, with another woman.

What other circumstances there are, I've no idea.

Martin has come to the Law Courts to meet up again with Rebecca.

Ha! Hello, Rebecca.

-Hello again.

-Nice to see you again. Wow!

-The Cathedral of the Law!

-Fantastic stained glass.

Mm. Now where do we go from here?

-Over in Court 3.

-Thank you.

So, the last time we met we saw that Alice

and Edwin were living separately in 1931,

and I was going to look into whether there was a divorce.

Right.

-And we now have the evidence.

-Right.

In the High Court of Justice. High Court! Wow.

"On the 28th day of January, 1935,

"Shaw, AM against Shaw, EJ"

So it was adversarial.

"Whereby it was decreed that the marriage had solemnized

"on the 8th day of November 1919 be dissolved by reason that since the

"celebration thereof the respondent had been guilty of adultery."

Ah, naughty Edwin.

Well, that confirms the family legend.

Well, at the time the only ground for divorce was adultery.

-Was adultery, yes.

-So we know they were living separately, we know

the marriage had broken down. If there was going to be a divorce...

That was it.

..one of them had to allege that the other was guilty of adultery.

Hm-mm.

In the early 1930s, the law did not allow divorce by mutual consent.

Instead, it required proof of adultery.

Sometimes it suited both parties for one to admit infidelity,

whether or not the act had ever taken place.

So then we need to look at what happened...

-What happened next?

-..to them next.

Um...

So I think this is Alice.

There you go.

On the 20th June, 1936, Alice gets married.

So Arthur was 42, Alice was 36.

-It's got... It's quite interesting how they describe her here.

-Yes.

"Formerly the wife of Edwin James Shaw from whom

"she obtained a divorce."

-It's very much positioning her as the innocent party.

-Yeah.

And we also have...

..this for Edwin.

OK. Oh, right.

Ah. Now, this I knew nothing about at all.

So Edwin James Shaw married Annie May Walker.

Children's nurse.

And Edwin by now was a gas meter inspector.

And Edwin married in 1935.

Yeah, so slightly before Alice.

Yeah, a year before Alice, just a year and a month before Alice.

Well now, there you go.

And there was one final development.

-Oh, come on, a birth certificate.

-A birth certificate.

I guessed this was coming.

OK.

On the 17th March, 1937, Gabrielle Ann Patricia -

what a nice name.

Wow, that's amazing.

Well, well, well.

So this would be your father's half-sister.

Yes.

-Well, Gabrielle is still alive.

-Is she really?

She is.

Wow, how extraordinary.

And she would like to get in touch but privately.

All right.

Well, that would be lovely. Yeah.

Well, she might be able to tell me something about Edwin.

Yeah.

OK, that would be interesting.

It's been very interesting.

There's been a lot of things that I didn't know about

because Edwin on my father's side was hardly ever mentioned,

and even then very briefly.

And now I gather I've got a half-aunt.

So this is from Gabrielle Shaw.

It says, "Dear Martin, I am very pleased that

"you are looking into my father Edwin's life.

"From what I remember of him he was a very popular and loving man."

That's nice.

"I was told that my dad's first wife fell in love with a neighbour

"who died...

"..before she could marry him."

"And then she wanted my dad back, but he had met my mother by then."

That's really not the family history that I know.

Um, my father was absolutely clear about,

and my grandmother as well, is that he left.

Also, from what I remember of my grandmother...

I mean, you can never tell, you don't really know people, do you?

Not really, really, really, but from what I remember or

know of my grandmother, she absolutely wasn't the type to

do what Edwin said that she did.

Fell in love with a neighbour.

Gabi's story is extraordinary.

I mean, that comes as a huge, huge surprise.

And I'm... You know, I'm tempted to say, "No, no,

"that's not the way it was,"

but how can we ever know that?

You know?

I mean, who are we to judge?

I have a totally different story.

It's kind of like a novel, isn't it?

"I'm enclosing some family photos for you to see

"and I've included one from their wedding taken in my grandad's

"garden and one taken in my dad's arms not long after I was born.

"Also one of him in uniform during the war.

"I would love to keep in touch with you

"and tell you what I remember about him.

"Love, Gabi."

So these are photographs, presumably, of my grandfather.

So all I've ever seen of him are those...

Is that, yes.

That's all I've ever known, Edwin in his uniform at the age of 18

at the end of the First World War.

Wow!

That is so weird!

Extraordinary to have a grandfather you've seen for the first time!

Yeah, you can kind of...

You can kind of see the grown-up version of that.

And this one is Edwin with Gabrielle when she was a baby.

He seems like a happy and a contented man, which is lovely.

There he is...

Ted, during the Second World War, doing his anti-aircraft duty.

There's a slight sense of my father there.

A serious frown on that one, it's a bit like my dad.

Well now, bugger me, as they say,

how amazing is that?!