John Bishop Who Do You Think You Are?

Comedian John Bishop was born in Liverpool.

He worked as a sales director for a pharmaceutical company

before deciding to reinvent himself as a stand-up comic -

a step that would change his life.

I tried the session with a personal trainer.

NEVER get a personal trainer.

Never. This personal trainer had me doing a thing called lunges.

This is a lunge.

Coming to things later in my life has been important because

it's meant that I have got a sense of perspective, I am very grounded,

and the family's definitely the mainstay of that.

Obviously, you know, my whole life has changed dramatically

in the last five years

but me relationships, certainly within the family, haven't.

A temporary break-up with his wife Melanie

prompted the change of career.

We'd been married for six or seven years, I think, then we split up.

So what I ended up doing was, er,

looking for things to do that I could on me own.

I went to a comedy club.

I turned up. The guy said it was an open mic night

which I didn't even know what that meant,

but he just said that if you get up you don't have to pay to get in.

I said, "I can't walk."

He said, "That's cos you've been exercising muscles

"you don't normally use."

I said, "I'm 43, if I don't use them, I don't bloody need them!"

After that first initial fear of 30 seconds,

I just thought, "I want to do this again."

Come here!

'It was just something that I felt I had to do.

'I couldn't imagine now how I would feel had I not made that decision.'

I'm curious to see how far back the family goes

in terms of its relationship with Liverpool,

cos it is a port, so we could have come from anywhere.

I'd be interested to see as well if anybody in my family

in the past did anything like me, if anybody worked in show business,

as it was, or if anybody has made those decisions in their life -

to change their career and move in a different direction.

What I learnt so far came from being on a quiz show

and they did a bit of research.

So far, I know that my dad - his dad worked as a warehouseman.

And then his father, who would be my great-grandfather,

Ernest Charles Bishop, worked his way up to be the head waiter

around the pubs and hotels in Liverpool and Chester.

My great-great-grandfather Charles Bishop,

he's down on the Census in 1861 as a Lay Vicar,

living at the time in Chichester.

I really find that interesting

because I don't know what a Lay Vicar is,

and at some point it would have been him or his son that moved north.

I think the year of his birth is about 1825

in Paddington, London.

Might find out he's a bear!

So we've got...

..a Charles Bishop married to Catherine Bishop,

born about 1825

and residence in 1861 in Chichester.

Catherine...

So this is my great-great-grandmother,

is from Armagh in Ireland.

(IRISH ACCENT) Armagh.

Now that John has Catherine's name, he can search for a marriage record.

Ernest was born around 1854, so if I look for a marriage certificate

around about 1852 to '53,

because we don't stand around in our family!

Soon as you're married you get knocked up.

OK.

So that first one, 1846, no good.

There's a second one, Charles Bishop, Catherine Evitt,

married in 1852, Montreal, Quebec.

That's a long way from Armagh in Ireland.

John's great-great-grandparents' marriage record reveals

that Charles Bishop was a Lance Sergeant in the Army

when he married Catherine in Montreal in Canada.

So how did he then go from there into the job

that he's got as a Lay Vicar ten years later?

So it's an interesting evolution.

What I'd like to know is when he joined the Army

and when he left the Army, because that will possibly give me

an insight into what made him change his life and change his career.

John has come to London to meet military historian Andy Robertshaw.

Hello.

Thanks for seeing me.

Not at all.

-Cos I've been doing some research...

-Yeah.

..into one of my relatives, Charles Bishop.

And what I found is that he was a Lay Vicar in the Census in 1861.

-Right.

-But prior to that he was in the Army.

-Yep.

-And I can't work out what happened in-between.

Well, what we can do is use this material here.

These are the quarterly pay lists for an infantry regiment,

and your relative, Charles Bishop, joins as a boy soldier.

Um, and, er, there he is.

And he's being paid at basically fourpence a day,

not a full rate of pay, because he's actually only 14 years old.

And he's also only 4 foot 11 inches high.

Where's the 4 foot 11 inches?

Well, that's his height. 4 foot 11½ inches tall.

He's a foot smaller than some.

Yeah, isn't he?

When we next find records of him,

it was getting married in 1852 in Quebec.

Is there anything that fills in the gap between 1838 and '52?

Well, by 1841 the regiment's moved to Bermuda.

Bermuda?

So he's gone to Bermuda. And look at this one here.

"To pay at one penny extra from the 30th June."

Why is he getting a penny extra?

-"Band."

-Yeah.

-He's in the band.

-He's in the band.

He's in the band in Bermuda.

Yeah. Yeah.

So what he's done, he's now not just an infantryman,

he's now in the band.

And obviously, the music's really important for regiment, ceremonials,

parades, marching. He's now getting extra pay cos he's in the band.

Do we know what he played in the band? Have you been able to find that out?

That's one we don't know.

We just don't know what he's doing in the band.

He was in Bermuda, it was probably the triangle! Eh?

Oh, leave it! What? Come on!

No, is it that type of show? We're having a giggle.

It could well be. I don't think it was a steel band, though.

But then what happens is that it gets better from there,

because he does so well that by 1849...

I thought so, he's the lead singer!

Ah, no.

He goes to Corporal, OK, in the band, yeah.

Which, again, is even more money.

Then the unit then moves round Canada into Ontario

and eventually up to Montreal.

And at that point he marries a girl who was the daughter of a soldier.

He then comes back from Canada, yeah, back to the UK.

And the last one gives some useful information, abbreviation,

Sergeant...

"Leader of the band."

Yep. He's actually the band Sergeant.

He is now in charge of the band.

No longer just a musician, he's the band Sergeant.

There he is again, 1st July to 30th September,

but you'll see his name's crossed out in red.

-"Discharged."

-Yeah.

"30th September on payment of £5."

It's the equivalent of today between £8,000 and £10,000.

He pays the Paymaster to leave the Army.

So he bought himself out?

He bought himself out.

And the critical thing about that is, that he would have been

entitled within six years to a pension.

So he's gone...

But that wouldn't give you more of an incentive to stay in?

There must have been something that said that it's time to get out now.

But it's a hell of a risk.

There must be a reason for that.

And as to what his wife thought, I don't know.

She's heavily pregnant on that voyage all the way back.

So he left the Army...

Yeah.

..just when he needed the security most.

-Yeah.

-And he actually paid the bounty to do that?

Correct.

But we don't know why.

The shock is that he joined the band, but obviously the band

seemed to be the vehicle to moving forward in the ranks.

But what I find crazy is that

he then goes to Canada, marries Catherine,

comes back to England, has a baby, and then a couple of months later

pays what would have been a king's ransom to then leave the Army.

And that's the bit that intrigues me.

I want to find out more about what would have motivated him

to make such a massive decision.

The last information that I know is that in 1861 he was in Chichester,

so I think the most sensible thing is to go to Chichester and perhaps

look at church records and try and fill in some gaps in-between.

John is meeting organist Alan Thurlow, to find out what

would have brought an Army band leader to Chichester Cathedral.

What we have here are the Chapter Minutes

and what we managed to find is October in 1853...

Would you like to read that?

"Charles Bishop was admitted as a..."

Probationer, that's...

Oh, "probationer for the office of a Lay Vicar of this Cathedral."

But of course Lay Vicar is a deceptive title.

It's actually a musical job.

He came to sing in the choir.

So that title of a Lay Vicar means that you work within the church

but you're not necessarily...

Yes...

..a religious person.

One would hope that the people who come and sing in the choir

-have some feeling for what they're doing...

-Yeah.

..but the requirement of the job is a musical one,

and it's quite a dedicated team.

It's a small team with just six men, two altos, two tenors,

two basses, and they're making music daily on a very high standard.

What I'd love to do is, if it's possible,

is to see where he actually sang.

Yes, absolutely, that's downstairs in the Cathedral.

Shall we go down and look at that?

THEY CHANT EVENSONG

The Cathedral dates back to the 11th Century,

and Evensong is still sung daily, as it has been for hundreds of years.

To be honest, I think that was quite an emotional experience,

because it wasn't till I heard them sing that you realised

not only how brilliant they are as singers but how different they are.

You know, there were six men there with different voices,

so he would have had to have filled the gap that was available.

But to actually sit there and listen to the song resonate,

and I think that he would have been singing it.

He would have been singing like that.

I don't know, it's like, it is... You can almost touch it.

The lady I was sat next to said that there's a saying

that the walls here have had 900 years of people singing

and people laughing and people crying.

And when you sit here it's just your turn to share it.

And I...

That's... That's what it felt like.

It felt like my turn to be in the same place that he was in.

I mean, the atmosphere in this place is gorgeous

and I would imagine the difference is that you're a musician first,

whereas in the Army you're a soldier first who plays music.

And he's in the band here, you know, that's your job to be a musician.

That was obviously what he loved doing.

So I think that gave him that sense of following his own...

I suppose his own passion, which is really odd

when I think of me own journey,

because he came to music relatively late in his Army career.

He was in the Army for seven years before he appears

to be in the band, and then he decides to take a big chance

by leaving the Army to carry on being more of a musician

than a soldier, which does mirror, to some extent, my own life.

But there was another side to Charles' musical career.

Alan is taking John to Chichester's Assembly Room.

So this would have been the main place for him to come and play?

Yes.

It was here that Charles was able to break away from church music

and make his mark as a popular musician and entertainer.

The Assembly Room was at the heart of Chichester's lively social life,

where fashionable society would gather for dances

and to hear some of the most famous musicians of the day.

And we know this is the place, for example, um, they had

balls to celebrate the Battle of Trafalgar

and the Coronation of William IV.

It's a great social centre as well as being used for all the concerts.

But we've got in here some documents,

some of the concerts that Charles Bishop took part in.

So shall we just spread those out, if we put ourselves down here.

And this first one, Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle,

and if you look here, there is a little bit about the concert and Charles Bishop.

"There was a concert on Monday night.

"Not the least pleasing feature of the entertainment was

"the performance of two songs, on the Cornet-a-Piston,

"by Mr Charles Bishop, the newly appointed vicar of the Cathedral.

"The audience was not large but fashionable."

That's a wonderful end, isn't it?

I've done loads of gigs where the audience hasn't been large.

-But fashionable.

-But certainly not been fashionable, either!

And then there's another one, there's one here.

The next one is in 1859.

Oh, "Goodwood races closed, as usual, with a ball,

"which was given Friday last,

"in the Assembly Room under the most distinguished patronage.

"Dancing commenced early and was kept up with spirit until the morning.

"The entire arrangements were under the superintendence

"of Mr Charles Bishop, and gave great satisfaction."

That's rather nice, isn't it?

Yeah, it's a better review than some of the ones I've had!

-That is great, that, isn't it?

-Yes.

But actually, I mean, his reputation might have been slightly wider,

er, than that, um, because he also composed some music.

And we've got some copies here of some of the works.

There's The Watergate Polka, and that's the original size of it.

"A Lay Vicar of Chichester Cathedral.

"A professor of the cornet-a-piston."

But what instrument is this written for?

This is actually written for the piano.

Oh, right. I mean, can...can we hear this?

Do you want to hear a little extract from it?

Let's move across to the piano.

So this is just the opening of it.

It starts with an introduction.

JOLLY-SOUNDING INTRODUCTION

And then a kind of theme that comes and goes during the piece.

And that gives you a kind of flavour.

It's all sort of dancey type music.

You can imagine in this room people dancing to that.

Yes. Yes, indeed.

In the style of... It's a bit breath-taking,

-because it's like hearing his voice, hearing his music.

-Yes.

As you're listening to it,

it's impossible not to go, # Ding, ding, ding, da-ding, ding. #

-Yes. Yes.

-Oh, fantastic. That was beautiful.

-Can I keep that?

-Yes.

But the surprising thing I think, to us, is he'd moved here, he'd got his

family and bringing them up here, and then in 1864 he moves away.

Um, and it's perhaps slightly a mystery because the chapter minutes

show that he was actually given his notice by the Cathedral. And...

So he was sacked.

And there's no reason given at all as to why.

So we're...we're left wondering, er, what...what happened,

why did he fall out of favour, and why did he decide to move on?

Hm.

Coming here has been fascinating, and to hear the music

was brilliant, it was something to think that he put it together

and you could see his name in the corner, Charles Bishop.

But, like all of this, it's got more questions than answers now,

because I've filled in that gap of what he did when he came

here in 1853, but to leave in 1864 and to be given notice...

Now, I don't know what that notice was served on

and whether that was something that he wanted to happen,

whether it was something that they...decided to get rid of him.

I don't know. And that's the next stage, really, is to try

and find out what happened next.

I can't imagine that they would have upped sticks from Chichester.

As much as anything, the job came with a house, he would have had to

find a house, he would have had to find some other form of employment.

Got some newspapers down here as well,

so I'll just go and get the volume.

John decides to search local newspapers,

with the help of archivist Nicola Court.

I'll just put this out here for you.

This is the West Sussex Gazette,

which we might be able to find something out

about your ancestor in here. Um...

1865.

Yeah.

Oh. "Mr C Bishop, having received the appointment of Lay Vicar

"in York Cathedral, begs to announce that he will give a farewell

"concert on Thursday, 3rd August, on which occasion

"he will be assisted by the Lay Vicars of Chichester Cathedral."

So that's pretty good, York Cathedral.

Bit of a step up from Chichester, I would think. Lay Vicar at York Cathedral.

So...he obviously left Chichester Cathedral on good terms?

Looks... Well, yeah.

If the Lay Vicars of Chichester Cathedral are going to do it...

And the organist, yeah.

..and he's giving a farewell concert, which means

-he obviously feels that there's an audience to say farewell to.

-Mm.

So he's definitely leaving Chichester with his head held high.

-Definitely.

-Is there any other information that we can look at as to what happened after this bit?

Obviously, we know now that he went up to York Minster,

so we could perhaps go and do, er, some searching on the internet and

try and pick up some newspapers for the York area and see if we can find

any information about what happened to him after he left Chichester.

So we know he went to York,

so it might be worth maybe searching for York Cathedral.

York Cathedral.

We know when he left, which was... August 1865, to start from.

Maybe give it five years, so maybe try to the end of 1869

or something and see if that...see where that picks up.

OK, '69.

"The Freeman's Journal under Published Amusements in Dublin."

Dublin?

"The Queen's Minstrels, the accomplished vocalists,

"dancers, comedians and humorous,

"beautifully harmonised quartets and choruses, screaming comic acts,

"grotesque and eccentric dances and comic songs and sayings."

Minstrel.

Minstrel!

These are the...ba, ba, ba... No way.

I don't believe it.

And in the bass section we've got "Mr Charles Bishop,

"Late Bass Profundo of York Minster and Chichester Cathedral."

Late. Which seems to suggest that he's left York Minster.

So he's 50, and he's jibbed his job to almost run away

with the circus to join the minstrels and get on the road.

Black-faced minstrels first appeared in Britain in the 1830s,

and were hugely popular until the turn of the century.

The tradition began in America,

with white performers blackening their faces with burnt cork.

But after the Civil War

several all-black companies toured both Britain and America.

The minstrel shows drew on Afro-American music,

as well as European jigs and reels.

Although the shows caricatured life on the slave plantations, some of

the traditions came from the slaves making fun of the plantation owners.

Shows would feature stock comic characters,

female impersonators and wild novelty acts.

Oh, hang on, there's more here!

December 13th, 1867, Theatre Royal, Hull,

where I've actually gigged.

Oh, there's another one. "Sam Hague's Minstrels.

"This clever company of Negro minstrels enters upon

"the second week of their engagement at St George's Hall."

I've gigged there as well!

Wow. "Yesterday evening, there was a very full house."

There was when I was there! "From first to last, the audience

"is kept well-entertained." Can't say the same when I was there!

"And the songs by Mr Charles Bishop

"and Master Pearson were much applauded.

"Mr Sam Hague's minstrels are certainly deserving of a visit.

"They are probably the best as well as the most numerous troupe

"that has been seen in Bradford."

Blinking heck, Charlie!

He is in a travelling minstrels' show!

This is a man who was a boy soldier, and when he gets to his 50s, thinks,

"No, I now want to be part of a Negro minstrel group."

That was it... He got blacked-up and sung on the stage!

I think that's just unbelievable!

I wasn't expecting any of that, I've got to be honest with you.

That's a complete curveball!

I had this view of Charles Bishop as a stern...

When we were playing his music and getting a view of his life,

I almost thought if he walked down the street I would recognise him.

I wouldn't if he was doing this! Not a chance! I wasn't expecting that!

Top boy. Well done, Charlie!

How you lived your life!

I don't know how I'll explain this to me kids.

Or me dad!

John is on his way to St George's Hall in Bradford,

a theatre where he and his great-great-grandfather,

Charles Bishop, have both performed.

The weird thing about coming to Bradford is...

take the next link in the chain with Charles Bishop's life to find out

what his life would have been like as this performing minstrel.

And whether it was a good position to be in.

I'm looking forward to filling in those gaps, really,

and just getting a better sense of him as a man.

This Victorian theatre has changed very little

since Charles Bishop appeared here in the 1870s.

I've gigged here and I've loved it.

Every time I've come, it's just so brilliant.

This is one of the first big theatres

when I kind of like made the breakthrough.

I remember saying to my tour manager,

"You're not going to beat that for a gig."

To think that he was there, performing, is just mind-blowing.

This is dressing room number one in St George's Hall in Bradford.

So I've sat there, at those seats, prior to going on the stage

and performing, and, er, for all we know,

Charles Bishop could have sat there as well, in exactly the same seat.

The backstage may have changed,

dressing room one definitely would have been the same.

But definitely to go from dressing room one to get on the stage,

you walk straight out that way,

which is I think where we should go, and follow definitely his footpath.

Up here.

There we go. Look at that.

John is meeting theatre historian Jim Davis.

-Nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you.

-What a beautiful place.

Staggering, isn't it?

So, I believe, Jim, you know a little bit of what

my great-great-granddad's life as a minstrel might have been like?

What would the show have been structured like?

Well, it would have been a good family entertainment evening

first of all, and it would have been incredibly lively.

So for Charles Bishop to join a minstrel group,

he would have definitely had a black face when he was singing?

Yes. And I've got a picture here which you might be interested in.

-It's a picture of Sam Hague's Minstrels.

-Oh, right.

-And I think you can take this book away with you.

-Oh, can I?

He's probably somewhere in there, within that picture.

The troupe is represented,

and he would have been a member of that troupe.

So that gives you a bit of an idea of...

That is brilliant! That's better than some of my tour posters!

-And he's mentioned in the book as well.

-In this book?

Yes. There we are.

Ah! OK. In the year 1880... 1880!

So he was still at it in 1880. He was born in 1825.

So he's 55 years of age.

"Charles Bishop, a powerful basso profundo.

"His favourite battle horse was the old song of

"Every Bullet Has Its Billet...

"..who remained with the company for many years."

So he was still with the company after 1880?

Sounds like it.

Would that have been a good career move?

I think it probably was, actually.

Er, because people think of minstrels as being, er,

-rather like music hall performers...

-Yeah.

-..as itinerant performers,

but the best minstrel troupes in the 19th century,

the best British minstrel troupes were actually highly respectable.

They were one of the few forms of popular entertainment

that clergymen would take their wives and families to.

-Oh, really?

-Children were taken.

The better minstrel acts were considered highly respectable,

and there's no vulgarity, as there was in music hall, in their acts.

So he's performing to the higher end of society.

Would that have meant that he was getting well paid?

I think it would.

It was probably one of the best ways for anybody with singing talent,

um, and musical talent to make a living outside the concert hall

or the opera stage.

So I suspect it was a much more lucrative profession

than working for the Church.

You might also be interested in this picture, which actually shows

Sam Hague's Minstrels performing in St James' Hall in Liverpool.

Oh, St James'!

And Sam Hague's troupe based itself in Liverpool for many years

in the latter part of the 19th century.

That may well explain the next stage in my family's heritage.

That's the thing I've not understood

all the way through this process.

I was expecting just to have a long line of...

of people leading to Liverpool from Ireland

or...I was not expecting to have a Lay Vicar turned minstrel.

But the minstrel path is what took him to the city of my birth.

It was probably a very good place to live in this period.

It still is.

Liverpool in the 1880s was one of the wealthiest

and most important cities in the world.

As the British Empire's second largest port,

it was the gateway to America and beyond,

and had a vibrant entertainment scene to rival London.

Its theatres drew huge international crowds passing through

the city, who in turn brought musical influences

from Italian opera and sailors' sea shanties

to Irish ballads and Negro spirituals.

For anyone with a love of music, it was the place to be.

John knows that Charles Bishop first came here with

Sam Hague's Minstrels.

He wants to discover if this was

when the family put down roots in Liverpool.

He's come to the Victorian Playhouse Theatre

to meet local historian Frank Carlyle.

And I have a couple of play bills, and here they are.

This was the most-seen show in Liverpool,

and you had a full orchestra, you had up to 60 chorus people,

so it was a very spectacular event.

"Messrs Ferguson and Mack in their Irish eccentricities."

So they might have been the first Riverdancers.

-We don't know, do we?

-We'll never know.

That might have been their Irish eccentricities!

And also here as well, "Professor Evans

"and his wonderful performing dogs, goats and monkeys."

Yeah, well, I'll just show you them, John, they're up at the back here!

But exactly, this is what kind of a show...

So it was a proper family show.

It was family-orientated,

and everything was geared up to entertain.

And if you have a look, just there, see?

Oh. "Bass Song. Rocked In The Cradle Of The Deep, Mr C Bishop.

"Special attention performance on New Year's Day at 3 o'clock."

Well, this is it, it was a matinee.

You know, there was no holidays for these people.

They must have been absolutely shattered.

But that's just the way it is.

It is, though, you're working when everyone else is out,

-but that's obviously the life he chose.

-Yeah.

How long was he with Sam Hague's group, do you know?

Well, he was under contract for 14 years.

However, by 1882, he actually went to America to tour.

Touring?

Touring in America in 1882.

John has come to Liverpool Library to see

if he can find any information about Charles' American tour

and whether he then settled in Liverpool.

Roger. John Bishop.

He's being helped by researcher Roger Hull.

New York passenger list.

Charles Bishop,

arrival date into New York was the 12th September, 1882.

He was aged 57.

These are some reviews of the minstrel company in America.

-Hague's?

-Yeah.

"British Operatic Minstrels opened a week's engagement last night.

"The entertainment furnished by this company is somewhat

"different from that which is usually given by minstrel troupes

"and free from jokes of a questionable character."

Questionable character!

"The music is of good order." That's good!

"And the solos are well rendered.

"And in the choruses the voices blend harmoniously."

So he was over there as one of the singers with the Americans,

in New York.

Big Charlie went to break America.

Top lad.

Finally, we've got his obituary here in another paper.

He obviously had an interesting life,

so I'll leave you to read through that.

-All right, thank you.

-Bye.

-Thanks a lot, Roger.

He was 74, and he was obviously very well-respected.

"General regret amongst a large circle will be created

"by the announcement of the death in Liverpool,"

so he came back from America,

"the death in Liverpool of Mr Charles Bishop,

"long and honourably identified with music in various phases

"as a bass singer of considerable power.

"Latterly, he settled in Liverpool and has been a welcome guest

"at musical gatherings besides being attached to the choirs

"of St Margaret's and St Dustin's churches."

Yeah.

He had a good life.

John is on his way to the Great Western docks,

where Charles would have travelled from.

Performing was the big thing that he was after and also what's

great for me is the fact that he was doing it in his advanced years.

You know, I came to my life, this life late,

and I always wondered how long my career would be,

but it's nice to think that when he was in his 60s he was still at it.

I've got a real sense for him now as an adventurous bloke

and fun-loving.

You've got to say he had... he had something about him,

that definitely I can relate to. Definitely.

I always thought I was the first person in our family

to go into show business, and I clearly wasn't.

And to be fair, you know, I didn't...I haven't done it

as long as he's done it and to the level that he's done it.

I think that's been an education.

That's opened the doors to me.

Because it's made me think that, yeah,

that feeling that I get on the stage of thinking, this is where I was

meant to be, was obviously exactly the same feeling that Charles got.

And that's why he kept on changing his path to follow his dreams,

which is brilliant.

I wish I'd have met him. I think we could have had a laugh.

Now I know why Charlie brought the family to Liverpool.

I know that his kids then stayed, particularly my dad's granddad,

Ernest, he was the one who really established them in Liverpool.

What I don't know is my dad's grandmother, Ernest's wife,

I don't know what the link is there and what the Scouse connection is.

And that's the next stage of the journey, really, trying to tie that up.

John is now interested in looking at the other side of his father's

family and finding out where his great-grandmother,

Elizabeth Beaton, came from.

He returns to London to meet Roy Stockdill

at the Society of Genealogists.

We've got here the birth certificate of your great-grandmother,

Elizabeth Beaton.

I think you'll find it interesting, so I want you to have a look at it.

And if there's anything you'd like to ask me about it,

-I'd be delighted to see if I can help you.

-OK.

She was born in 1862, Landport, Southampton.

Mother's name's Elizabeth. Thomas Beaton was her father.

I'm trying to find out what brought her to Liverpool.

Well, bearing in mind that her father was in the Navy,

there is a possibility that Portsmouth was a huge naval base

and Liverpool was a port as well, maybe that's where the connection is.

Can you explain what this says here?

-Ah, that is her father's occupation.

-Occupation.

-He was a stoker on Her Majesty's Ship Pigmy.

-Oh.

What would I do if I want to get some further research?

Well, I think possibly what you need to do is go online,

look at various websites that have the, you know, naval records,

Royal Naval records, and see if you can find him in those.

Ah, there he is.

Thomas Beaton.

"We've examined the before-mentioned boy as to

"his fitness for Her Majesty's Navy.

"He is a well-grown, stout lad of perfectly sound

"and healthy constitution and intelligent,

"and we consider him fit in all respects."

John has discovered that, as Charles Bishop had joined the Army as a boy soldier,

Thomas Beaton also joined the Navy young, when he was just 17.

Look at that. Look at that.

That's his mark.

Oh! He received a medal, a Crimea Medal.

He was in the Crimean War serving on a ship called "Harpy".

Medal was delivered on board to Thomas Beaton.

Don't know what it says he's got the medal for.

Mm.

Well, it looks here that on this ship,

on the Tiger,

he was court-martialled for something.

April '55 is the date of the court martial.

He's on a ship called Tiger

and then he has a court martial for which he goes to prison.

But why?

That'll be worth looking into.

What I find quite interesting with these two stories is Charles

went into the army at 14

and seems to have worked through the ranks and is clearly,

by the time he's an adult man, he's educated.

Thomas signs with an X, so to me it appears that he was

a man of little choices or didn't feel he had any choices.

But that's a story to find, isn't it?

John has come to Portsmouth to meet naval historian Andrew Lambert on board HMS Warrior.

He hopes to find out more about Thomas' life as a stoker in the Victorian Navy.

-Ah, Andrew.

-John.

-Hiya.

-Good to meet you.

-Nice to meet you.

-Thank you. Lovely ship.

-Yeah, it's magnificent.

So I wanted to meet you because I'm looking into my great-great-granddad, Thomas Beaton.

I've got some of his service records.

The thing that stood out to me, really, he's got a court martial

and then spends a period of time in prison.

So I wanted to try and understand what had gone on there

and also, really, what his life would have been like on a ship,

cos he's listed down as being a stoker.

I mean, my impression, in all honestly, is he's joined the Navy

because he didn't have much else to do in terms of options.

Is that a fair assessment, or was joining the Navy a good...

a good opportunity for somebody?

This is going to be a really aspirational thing to do.

First of all, it's going to teach him to be a sailor, then it

teaches him to be a stoker, which is a skilled and very demanding job.

To be a working-class man in the mid-19th century,

a skilled man in the Royal Navy, is about as high as you'll get.

This ship, it really sums the whole thing up.

This is a ship that he would have seen during his service career.

-We can go below and have a look at where they live.

-Oh, brilliant, yeah.

Thank you.

So we're going down now into the stokehold,

and when Thomas comes on duty, coming down this way,

he'd have found that the heat would be rising up from the engines.

You've got a huge amount of coal being burned.

Why would you pick to do this, then,

cos this seems like the most grimmest job on the ship?

-Extra money, shorter shifts, it's got potential.

-Oh.

And here we are. This is the stokehold.

-Wow!

-The sheer scale of it, you know, you've got ten boilers,

six in this boiler room, four in the back boiler room,

each of them with two fronts, and they're using so much coal

they need these mechanical hoists to get the coal out of the bunkers

fast enough for the stokers to ram it into the stokehold.

Working the ship's engines was intensive and back-breaking work,

shovelling coal in stifling heat for hours at a time,

and with the risk of serious burns.

There was no ventilation in the stokeholds, and the temperature

of the furnaces could soar to 100 degrees, causing men to pass out.

But coal-fired steam propulsion gave the Royal Navy's warships a military advantage.

No longer dependent on prevailing winds, they could now take

direct routes with increased speed and manoeuvrability.

Stokers like Thomas were at the heart of this new technology.

So how many men would work in a space like this?

40 men, stoking.

And stoking's basically shovelling coal in?

It's a combination of getting the coal in there

and then making sure it burns efficiently.

So you've got this huge grate area here

and the air is coming in the bottom, it's going through the coal

and the hot air is then heating the water up here.

So this is your boiler, this is very hot.

You don't want to be touching this when the boiler's running.

It's about 120 degrees Fahrenheit down here

when everything is running at full speed.

-I'm going to do what me great-great-granddad did?

-Yeah, absolutely.

-I mean, just doing that...

-Yeah.

-How long would he be down here doing this?

-Shift, four hours.

-It's a hell of a workout, innit?

So for Thomas and making that decision to be a stoker,

and to join the Navy, has it been a positive step up?

Yeah, absolutely. He's joined the most important military organisation in the world

and he's made a choice to move from being a sailor, old technology,

to being a stoker, new technology. So he's...he's going with the flow.

But then I've still got this... this blip on his career

when he's had this court martial and put in prison.

Have you got any... any explanation for that?

Um, I think there's a good place we can look

and we might be able to get to the bottom of that,

because the Navy's pretty good at keeping records.

-So we'd better head for the library.

-Oh, OK.

Shall I turn the fire off?

So, this is the Crimea at the time of the Crimean War,

and while it's called the Crimean War, it only actually

happened down here, this little bit around the Naval base at Sevastopol.

In 1854, the Crimean War began when Britain and France

declared war on Russia in an attempt to hold back Russian expansion.

Thomas Beaton was serving at the time on HMS Tiger,

one of the ships sent as part of the mission to capture Russian ports in the Black Sea.

But things did not go according to plan.

The Tiger, with two other ships,

had been sent from the fleet to put a blockade on Odessa.

Now, I think things start to go badly wrong when they get here.

-Why?

-Why?

The ship was lost.

So our man is in a major naval disaster, he's in a shipwreck.

They'd run aground in a thick fog, they were under a high cliff

so they're in a very bad position, they could be fired down on

and they desperately needed to get off that beach as soon as possible.

But the problem is the Russians are going to be along pretty soon

and critically, um, this is the account of Alfred Royer,

he was the senior surviving officer of the ship.

And you can see here.

"A small boat with two oars pulled across our bows,

"close along shore towards the city, evidently intent upon giving

"notice of the catastrophe, while just above, on the cliff,

"through the slowly disappearing fog, we could discover

"the well-known figure of a Cossack on horseback..." What an image!

"..with long lance in hand, galloping off to announce the news

"to his superiors of the grounding of a steamer on the coast."

"To increase, if possible, the interest of the scene,

"we could discern two ladies with pink parasols,

"promenading in their garden, which reached the edge of the cliff."

What an image!

I mean, that just gives you such a...

such a sense of what was going on.

This idea of a Cossack with a lance in hand who just happened

to be riding around, and there's ladies with pink parasols,

whilst downstairs Thomas would have been

working his socks off along with everybody else

-under the constant threat that they'd have been targeted.

-Yep.

And then we've got a contemporary Illustrated London News recap of the scene.

Here's the Tiger, hard aground under the cliff.

This is probably the house of the garden of the ladies with the famous pink parasols.

The Russians brought up an artillery battery onto the cliffs,

they opened fire and before the sailors on the ship could

get the ship off the ground and away, the ship was badly damaged.

The captain was mortally wounded, several other men were killed

and they had to lower their colours and surrender.

Why would being in a shipwreck mean that you get a court martial?

In the Navy, if you lose your ship, you have to account for it.

A court martial is a standard procedure at which the survivors

of any shipwreck have to account for the loss of their ship.

So let's just have a look. So...

"The rest of the crew, about 200 in number, remained prisoners

"and taken to Odessa, where they were treated with great respect."

News accounts of the time tell a dramatic story.

Captured, and then released in exchange for Russian prisoners,

Thomas was still facing court martial

when he was ordered into the Naval Brigade.

These brigades were detachments of sailors who supported the army on land.

Thomas found himself in the middle

of one of the most notorious battles of the 19th century.

So what we've got here is the French forces in blue,

the British forces in red, and in the middle of the British position

is the sailors' camp.

So our man is now at the siege of Sevastopol.

He's in the sailors' camp, he's building batteries and he's

helping to man and fire heavy artillery, bombarding Sevastopol.

So it's a big camp. It's not just a couple of them, is it?

Well over a thousand men, about 1,400 men at most.

And were they regarded as making a valuable contribution?

The Naval Brigade was absolutely essential to the siege of Sevastopol.

Without their guns, without their skills and their fire power,

Sevastopol would not have been taken.

So he sees all of this through from the autumn of 1854

to the late spring of 1855.

It's just a critical phase with the Crimean War.

-And it was for this period that he received his medal?

-Yeah.

-So you've been effectively a prisoner of war...

-Yeah.

..released, you come and then spend the year fighting the enemy,

laying siege, winning, but then when you sail home

you face a court martial for losing the ship.

And the court martial is held in Portsmouth.

That's a nice return, isn't it?

It seems a little bit harsh.

It's quite interesting, really, because what today's taught me

is that Thomas was serving on a ship and, through no fault of his own,

it would appear the ship ran aground.

He ends up being a prisoner of war and then ends up in the...

in the Naval Brigade, fighting the war in the Crimea,

which I didn't actually even know that the Navy did that.

So, he was amongst a thousand men in a significant siege.

And it just gives you a sense that that commitment that they made

when they joined the Forces was...was total.

What I, as yet, don't understand is what actually happened during the court martial.

Because by all the reports and all accounts

him and the others stokers performed well.

John is on his way to meet Portsmouth curator Matthew Sheldon on board HMS Victory,

Admiral Nelson's famous flagship from the Battle of Trafalgar.

It has also played its part in Thomas Beaton's story.

Matthew. Thanks for seeing me.

-John, welcome aboard HMS Victory.

-Thank you.

We have here, um, a document that shows that he was on board.

Thomas Beaton, stoker, and he's here with lots of his mess mates,

awaiting trial by court martial for the loss of HMS Tiger.

So I thought perhaps I'd show you where he would have lived while he was on board.

-Yeah, if you could, please.

-If we go on down...

-Impressive ship, isn't it?

-It is fantastic.

Three full gun decks, and he was on the lower gun deck.

So I have to take you all the way down.

How many people would live on here?

-It would have been about 800 people on here.

-Oof!

Absolutely crammed in.

-So this is... would have been his quarters?

-Yeah.

This is the lower gun deck, this is basically where the men ate

and slept and lived on board.

How many would have been here when he was here?

So he'd have been here with about 300 to 400 men.

-400 men?

-Yeah.

You got, I think, 14 inches to sling your hammock and you had to

do everything here - you had to eat, you had to do your washing,

get up at six in the morning, get to work, clean the decks.

And so, in terms of his life here, how long was he here?

He was here for six weeks.

Six weeks, and this is all waiting for this court martial?

It is, yeah.

-So, what is this?

-This is a great cabin.

This is where the court martial would have taken place.

I mean, this was the quarters of Nelson when he was on board.

So they would have been brought in here.

Presumably this would be the first time they'd seen anything like this?

-Yeah, this was the most formal, most important part of the ship.

-It's impressive, innit?

Yeah, it is. Um, it was literally a court.

You'd have had about ten captains all assembled

and formal charges would have been read and so on.

But this is the thing for me that I can't get my head around -

he's a stoker, I can't understand why he's getting court-martialled

for something that's completely beyond his control.

He wasn't deciding the direction of the ship, so why is he getting a court martial?

You had to inquire into what happened

so that he might have known some details of what happened.

But the people who were really responsible were the master,

who had to navigate, and the lieutenant.

So fairly quickly the court decide

that no blame was imputable to any of the prisoners.

So Thomas is acquitted.

The other thing that doesn't make sense to me then

-is on his service records it's got listed that he was in prison.

-Mm-hmm.

But not for this?

Not for this incident. For something that he alone did.

Um, and we've got some documents that will show us exactly what he got up to.

We've got him here, Thomas Beaton.

And this is a time when he's gone back out to the Mediterranean

on a merchant ship,

and we can see here he spends a period in Corradino Prison.

Where's that?

It is actually out in Malta, which was the headquarters of the fleet.

This is Malta at the date that he was there.

Oh! Oh, it's a proper picture.

Pull it all the way out.

Wow!

You can see this is called "Ricasoli to Corradino",

so right at the far side here is Corradino.

And that's where they built the prison.

Do we know why he was in prison?

What's most likely is, it's just when he's gone out to Malta,

and he probably was distracted by the delights of a run ashore.

Went ashore in Malta, maybe had too much to drink

and then was days late reporting back.

And the captain can award up to 28 days, and he does that,

and he then spends his time in this prison.

So did this have a detrimental effect on his career, then?

Cos I know that he stayed in for a long time afterwards.

Yeah. I don't think it did.

We've got his latest service career here

and he's serving on the Victoria and Albert.

And, as that sounds, it was the Royal yacht.

-Oh.

-Still a stoker.

She's a paddle ship, you can see, she had engines on board,

but a very smart vessel.

Well, that's a surprise.

And the kind of turnout of the crew was really important.

So you have an image here of what the crew looked like.

They're in really quite smart gear.

-Yeah.

-You know, they have kind of square rig whites as it were.

I don't think we've got Thomas in the picture here,

but this is absolutely the same date as this ship was being sailed.

We know that the date that he was on board, September 1868,

Queen Victoria and her family actually do come on board.

That's fantastic.

-So he finished at the top.

-Mm.

Well done, Tommy!

It's been an interesting journey, because I started off

wanting to find out where our family link with Liverpool came,

and that obviously came via Charles Bishop going there in his career as an entertainer.

And then if you look at both men, Thomas and Charles,

living as they did in the 1840s, '50s and '60s

when there was lots of changes going on in society,

and they basically had a better life than what was allotted to them.

They both became educated by joining the Forces,

they were both at the top of their game.

I mean, the fact that Thomas served on the Royal yacht,

he couldn't have got a better job.

And from Charles' point of view, he followed his dream,

he found his love of music, he then developed that into a career

as a Lay Vicar, and to be good enough to then tour in America.

You know, the lesson I've learned from it is it doesn't matter

where you're from, what matters is to make the most of your life.

None of us are here forever, so you've just got to try and be the best that you can,

and I think in their case they both definitely did it.

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