John Humphrys Coming Home

Making the journey from his home in London to Wales

is presenter and journalist John Humphrys.

Here in search of his Welsh ancestry.

The host of the BBC's toughest quiz...

Hello and welcome to Mastermind with me, John Humphrys.

..his career has been driven by usually serious minded

and sober journalism on Radio 4's Today programme.

Good morning, this is Today with John Humphrys.

These words alone

have struck fear into the hearts of many a live guest.

His no-nonsense interviews mean he's never far from the headlines.

John's journalism began in Cardiff,

becoming a reporter on the Western Mail newspaper,

and now he's back on the same beat to trace his family ancestry.

There is a degree of curiosity now on my part

to find out quite where or what I come from.

And that curiosity will lead John to learn how on seas far away,

the sinking of a sailing ship

would change the course of his family ancestry forever.

As John Humphrys is coming home.

John Humphrys was just two years old when the war ended in 1945.

He grew up in Splott.

His parents were mum, Winifred Matthews, a hairdresser,

and dad, Edward Humphrys, a self-employed French polisher.

With his pale complexion and blue eyes,

John always felt there was something different about his dad.

There's nothing Welsh about...

there WAS nothing Welsh about my father's appearance at all.

And this is a story he would love to resolve.

John's journey begins here in Cardiff Bay.

He grew up in this area in the 1950s.

There's little left of the busy docks he remembers as a boy.

But there is one place that is familiar.

The iconic Pierhead Building, opened in 1897.

It stood at the entrance to the old docks

and was the grand offices of the harbourmaster.

Today, this building is open to the public.

And it's where John has arranged

to meet with genealogist Mike Churchill-Jones.

-Hi, John.

-Mike.

Welcome to the Pierhead Building in the heart of Cardiff docks.

I feel I should be welcoming you here. I've been coming here a lot longer than you!

I know it's familiar to you.

We've been doing a lot of research into your family tree.

And this is what we've come up with.

My word, that's impressive.

On John's paternal line, the story in Cardiff starts with

his great-great-grandparents, John and Elizabeth Willey.

In 1849, they arrived in Cardiff docks from the West Country.

They had five children, including Sarah Willey,

who would grow up to become John's great-grandmother.

Ah! Now, Sarah. I'd heard of a Sarah.

-She was born 1849 in Cardiff.

-Right.

John may have a vague recollection of Sarah Willey's name,

but he knows nothing of her real story,

a story that will come to dominate his journey into his family's past.

As well as his father's side of the tree,

John will be following his mother Winifred Matthews' family line.

On this side, both John's grandfather Thomas Matthews

and great-grandfather William Matthews worked in Cardiff docks.

All kind of labouring...

A lot of working-class occupants.

A lot of working-class. Not a lot of academics, or...

or figures?

Why did I know it was going to be humble? But there we are.

We can be proud of that, can't we? They were survivors.

But there is much that this tree has not yet revealed to John.

And, by unlocking its mysteries,

he will discover an ancestry he knows nothing about.

First, John is off to learn more

of his mother Winifred Matthews' side of the family tree.

His great-grandfather William Matthews

worked in the heart of Cardiff docks, loading ships.

His job involved only one precious cargo.

Coal.

He was a so-called coal trimmer, as historian Nigel Bevan can explain.

William would have worked in the hold of a ship

as it was being filled with coal.

And the coal trimmers manually shifted the coal,

using large, leaf-shaped shovels

to distribute the coal evenly in the hold of the ship.

In order to prevent ship listing and most importantly

to prevent the cargo shifting when the ship was at sail.

-If that had happened, it would have been disastrous.

-Indeed.

It's dangerous work.

In many cases, you could say

they were brothers in arms with coal miners.

Coal trimmers, like coal miners,

were exposed to dangerous levels of coal dust.

As trucks were emptied into the hold,

they released clouds of coal dust. Lung conditions were common.

And this appears to have been the cause of William's demise.

Bronchitis. Oh, there we are.

-He had a chest condition.

-That's it. A chest condition.

They would have been ignorant of the serious dangers caused by coal dust.

Of course.

Despite the terrible working conditions, there was

no shortage of men prepared to take on this hazardous work.

By the early 20th century, a coal trimmer could earn 10 times as much

-as a casual labourer on the docks.

-Really?

The union also provided death benefits and accident benefit.

It was not a militant union. They didn't have a strike front.

And for the Great Dock Strike of 1911, the coal trimmers were

actually six weeks late in joining the strike, compared to the others.

So they concentrated very much on pay, and terms and conditions.

They didn't worry too much about health and safety.

I bet they didn't. Things were rather different then.

John's maternal family story now moves forward one generation

to his grandfather, Thomas Matthews.

He appears to have escaped his father William's fate

by becoming a railway guard in the 1890s.

At Bute Street's Cardiff Bay station,

expert John Buxton explains more.

He obviously escaped from the lifestyle that his father had,

which was no mean feat in the time because obviously

-he must have been numerate...

-And literate.

-And literate.

And, as a result of that,

he got quite a responsible position in the railway.

John's grandfather Thomas Matthews and his family

appeared to be finally moving up in the world.

His job as a guard on the railway was a far cry from the coal dust

that had killed his father William.

So he had a pretty cushy life, right?

He stayed with the railways

presumably for the rest of his working life?

No, actually, he didn't. And I can reveal from this census...

-Another one of these forms!

-This is from 1911.

The census of 1911 reveals Thomas was in the docks

-working as a coal trimmer.

-As his father was.

-Absolutely.

So he left the railway.

-In his late 30s?

-In his late 30s. Probably about 39, we think.

And he became a coal trimmer.

So, the very job that had killed his father William,

Thomas was now prepared to do himself.

So he left behind all his smart clothes,

presumably his pension and the situation...

A fairly cushy job in a way. Well, "cushy" isn't fair.

He had a lot of responsibility, but he was in a very respected position.

So why? Seems a very odd thing to do.

It does seem at first thought a rather odd thing to do.

Because of the almost exponential rise in the export of coal

through Cardiff docks and the other docks in the area,

there was a tremendous demand for coal trimmers.

And as a result of that, their wages increased quite dramatically.

So I think he traded in the position he had, the responsibility,

the respect probably that he had from his family and colleagues and friends

for a rather more arduous and less healthy existence as a coal trimmer,

primarily, I would think, because he was able to earn more money.

John is heading to St Mary the Virgin's Church in the heart of Butetown.

He's now on the trail of

his father Edward Humphrys' side of the family tree.

His paternal great-great-grandparents

were Elizabeth and John Willey.

They left the West Country for Cardiff docks in 1849,

along with their family, in search of a better life.

But sadly, their arrival coincided with a family tragedy.

The records show they lost their youngest daughter, Emma,

as Mike Churchill-Jones is about to reveal.

-Ah. A death certificate.

-Mm-hmm.

And this is Emma Willey, died of cholera.

-How very sad.

-It is very sad.

-Yes.

Hard to...

Hard to comprehend it, but that was the reality of life then.

-And presumably, cholera wasn't that rare...

-Wasn't that rare, no.

-..in the middle of the 19th century?

-No. No.

Across the next three years,

there would be more tragedy for the family.

Elizabeth's husband John Willey also died.

And then a second child, John, aged two.

It's a lot to happen to someone in that space of time.

Don't you agree?

It's quite hard to comprehend, isn't it?

Yeah.

She must have been a very tough woman.

But, in June 1856, Elizabeth did at last have something to celebrate.

She was here in this very church

for the marriage of her eldest daughter, Louisa.

Also here, Elizabeth's younger daughter, Sarah Willey.

Sarah Willey would grow up to be John's great-grandmother.

-Well, that was something to celebrate.

-It was.

-She needed a bit of that, didn't she, poor woman.

-She did.

After this brief moment of happiness,

sadly, John's great-great-grandmother Elizabeth,

less than three weeks after this family wedding, was dead.

She had died from lung disease aged just 40 years old.

This meant John's great-grandmother Sarah Willey,

at this time just six, was left an orphan.

But what happened to her next?

Your great-grandmother was six years of age.

Right.

And what? I'm about to find out what happened to her?

-The next stage of her life, yeah.

-To my great-grandmother?

-Indeed.

I'm not sure I want to know.

Now John is off on the quest to try to resolve

the mystery concerning his father Edward Humphrys' ancestry.

Cardiff docks drew in people and goods from around the world.

Timber from Scandinavia was imported for pit props for the coal industry,

and some were used to build

the original Norwegian Church here in Cardiff Bay.

Now John is heading for something of a surprise

and the truth about his father Edward Humphreys' ancestry.

He's visiting the lightship Helwick in Cardiff Bay.

Here to meet expert Dr Nicholas Evans,

who's been burning the midnight oil

to find the answer to a long-held family mystery,

which John can now explain.

When you look at my father,

his blue eyes and his whole appearance...

There's nothing Welsh about...

there WAS nothing Welsh about my father's appearance at all.

-Did you know your great-grandfather was born in Finland?

-I had no idea.

-OK.

-Finland?! No, I've never heard of Finland...

I mean, I've heard of Finland, but I've never heard of any family connection with Finland at all.

He was originally called Johannes Vilhelmsen.

But he rapidly changed his name, like many immigrants,

to John Williamson.

So that answers a question that's puzzled me for many, many years.

-So when did he come here?

-He came, we believe, after 1862.

And the reason we can date it from then,

he was born in a place near Tampere.

So what we find is that he is provided with an opportunity

not to live in Finland, but to actually go abroad as a mariner,

and he entered a life at sea from this inland waterway area.

And we're assuming the railway opened up the opportunity

to go not just to Helsinki, but to the world.

And, from 1862, there were regular shipping connections

between Helsinki and Cardiff for coal.

-Oh, I see.

-Because of this railway.

-We used to sell them coal.

-We used to sell them coal.

-Right.

-They would export timber

and they would return with coal for the expanding railway of Finland.

In the 1870s, sailing the trade routes

was a cargo ship very much like this one, called the Patriotess.

On board was one Herman Haverin and his good friend Johan Vilhelmsen,

John's great-grandfather,

who later Anglicised his name to John Williamson.

You may be able to find your ancestor's name on there.

Yeah, there he is. John Williamson.

And you can see here, Finnish and able seaman, 21.

By 1876, the Patriotess was no more.

She had sunk, but her crew were saved.

After losing their ship, it appears that John Williamson

and his good friend Herman did not return to Finland.

In fact, in the 1870s, when not at sea,

they were living at the sailors' home in Cardiff docks.

We've been able to find a photograph of that sailors' home

where he lived in the 1870s.

And this was just round the corner from the dock,

in a place where lots of the mariners would have met.

So this was probably the temporary home of John and Herman

when they were onshore.

Whilst in Wales, John Williamson met and married Mary Williams.

And if you see here, when your ancestor married in 1874...

As you can see here,

John Williamson was at the sailors' home, here in Cardiff.

But look at who was the witness.

Herman Haverin, the same man who was on the...

So, they must have maintained...

-They've stayed together, mustn't they?

-Exactly.

Presumably they wouldn't have spoken English or Welsh, obviously, so...

This was a very important point.

They were Finnish-speaking, not Swedish-speaking,

because there were Swedish-speaking Finns,

-so it's almost like having an English-speaking Welshman.

-Right.

And then there were Finnish-speaking Finns,

who were like Welsh-speaking Welshmen, very proud, patriotic,

great interconnection with their song,

with their culture and preserving that heritage.

So they'd have felt at home, in one sense, in Wales.

-They would, but there were very few Finns.

-Exactly.

And, in the 1871 census, so the year that this Patriotess sailed,

there were only 11 Finns living here in Cardiff, of which,

two included Herman and his friend, John Williamson, your ancestor.

Well, well done, you've solved the mystery for me.

Something that's puzzled me for many, many years.

It falls into place. Fascinating.

Clearly, John's father never shared with his son

the story of their Finnish ancestry.

He passed away at St David's Hospital in Cardiff.

John knows this place well,

but is about to learn it had a much earlier connection to his family.

Originally, it was the Cardiff Union Workhouse,

and it was here that Sarah Willey, John's great-grandmother,

was sent after being orphaned at the age of six in 1856.

She had not been able to live with her sister Louisa,

who had recently married.

So, it was to the workhouse six-year-old Sarah was sent,

as expert Peter Higginbotham reveals.

-It was the Cardiff Union Workhouse.

-Ah!

And I had no idea that it was connected with my great-grandmother.

-Yeah.

-And she was taken there when it was a workhouse.

Who would have actually put her in the workhouse?

-Who would have taken that decision?

-That's a very interesting question.

Louisa, the eldest, had just got married, and it may be that

her husband wasn't prepared to take on this young child.

She wasn't old enough to contribute to the family income,

but still at an age where she needed care and attention.

-Absolutely, she did.

-So, it would have placed a drain on the family.

-We don't have a responsibility for her.

-Exactly. Yeah.

As a result of this decision, Sarah would live

in the Cardiff Union Workhouse for the next eight years.

And what were conditions like in the workhouse?

The workhouse was intended to be a deterrent place,

to put off people who didn't...

Ah, I see.

Well, you can sort of see that, brutally cruel, but you can

see that for adults, but for children?

Peter has unearthed a record of the daily routine for children

in a workhouse such as Cardiff's.

Up at six in the morning, making beds, cleaning shoes, washing.

They were essentially producing fodder

for the domestic service market.

So it would have been assumed that she would leave the workhouse

-eventually, and go into service.

-Yeah.

And, as time went on, the girls would contribute more

-and more to the actual running of the workhouse.

-Ah.

They would make uniforms, for example.

I'm puzzled as to why Sarah didn't go into an orphanage.

Why a workhouse?

The workhouse often ends up picking up the pieces of what

-we might call problem families.

-They were the sort of last resort?

-Yes.

But, I mean, unto here, I'm trying to defend my ancestors!

But, they hadn't been, as it were, problem families.

They had been hard-working people, so far as one can tell, and

they had had absolutely vile luck and terrible things had happened to them.

John wants to travel to see the workhouse for himself.

On the way, he reflects on Sarah's story.

There was a woman who had nothing, absolutely nothing.

Her mother had died, her father had died, and at the age of six,

even her oldest sister didn't want her.

And you imagine a six-year-old and you think,

what does a six-year-old want most of all? And they want...

love. They want affection, at the very least.

It's hard to imagine that Sarah spent

so much of her childhood in this place.

But there is still more for John to learn of her life.

John's off to discover a little more of the history of an area that

was very important to his family.

Cardiff's old docks and Tiger Bay.

In the 19th century, what began as a salt marsh

went on to become the biggest coal-exporting docks in the world.

John meets up again with historian Nigel Bevan.

When did Tiger Bay become Tiger Bay, as it were?

Late 19th century.

Essentially, people were following the Imperial trade routes

back to Cardiff, so Tiger Bay develops as this unique,

multicultural community, just adjacent to the docks.

The story of Tiger Bay is the story of people who came here

from around the world in search of a better life.

Including John's own ancestors.

Very much a melting pot, and a unique culture described,

perhaps jokingly, as Afro-Welsh, or Indo-Cymraeg!

JOHN LAUGHS

Migrant men arriving in Cardiff for a better life

-and marrying local Cardiff girls.

-Right, right.

Tiger Bay, with its mix of dock workers, sailors and incomers

from all over the world, also became known for its nightlife.

A draw to the teenage John Humphrys.

It was a pretty risky place when I was a boy.

We used to come down here when I was a teenager and,

it's rumoured that occasionally, we would have a few beers as well...

-Good grief!

-I know, I know!

And I do remember fairly often, reeling my way home from Tiger Bay.

It was a pretty rough area. But great character.

John is now back on the trail of his great-grandmother, Sarah Willey.

After leaving the workhouse, what became of her?

At the age of 15, Sarah had finally left to become a domestic servant.

At St Mary the Virgin's Church in Butetown, Mike Churchill-Jones

has a record of Sarah's marriage in 1872

to John's great-grandfather, one Josiah Humphrys.

-Right, ah, this is where Humphrys comes from.

-Indeed.

So she met Josiah and he was 21, she was 22, when they got married.

-Josiah was a blacksmith, by trade, yes.

-Good job.

-Indeed.

It appears that Sarah had been condemned to

a life in the workhouse when her older sister Louisa

and her husband Edward Sparks had refused to take her in.

But what became of them?

Edward Sparks died in the Cardiff Royal Infirmary aged just 39.

Now, that is probably the moment where Louisa has tried to find

her sister, wherever she may be, and this brought them together.

When Louisa Sparks marries for the second time,

-and the witness is Josiah Humphrys.

-My great-grandfather.

Oh, so that sort of brings the family back together. That's nice.

-Good. Nice to have a bit of good news.

-Absolutely. Absolutely right.

Now, your great-grandmother's married Josiah.

They've had 12 children in total, so they had a busy time.

They had a busy time.

So, it appears that, despite everything that Sarah had

suffered, she'd been prepared to forgive her sister, Louisa.

But what toll might those early years have taken on her life?

What she'd have lost at the beginning,

what she'd not have had at the beginning of it, was love.

To be dumped in a workhouse at the age of six.

Maybe she did have regular food, and she was taught to do a job,

and taught how to become a domestic servant and all that,

but you imagine, not just no love, but no affection.

She was just a number,

she was just one of the inhabitants of that workhouse.

And I can't imagine how a child of six copes with that.

But the fact is, she did cope with it, didn't she?

She went on to lead a decent and fulfilled life.

So, I'm actually rather proud of the old girl. She was a survivor.

I bet she was tough.

I'd love to have met her.

John has learned so much about his family ancestry.

His brother, Bob, a well-known face on BBC Wales, passed away in 2008.

John's childhood home in Pearl Street may still be standing,

but the docks of the 1950s that he remembers as a boy

have all but disappeared.

The houses demolished, the people gone.

There is little evidence left of his childhood.

But there is at least one person for whom all those memories are still very strong.

His older brother, Graham.

Today, Graham lives in Dorset,

but is making a special journey to Cardiff

to meet up at their childhood home.

First to arrive is Graham,

who hasn't been through this front door since he was a boy.

And it instantly brings back memories.

So this is the living room, where we had a bath every Saturday night.

And Dad would go and get the hose and the zinc bath...

off the wall out there, fill it down here

and, as John was the youngest, he always had the first bath,

then Anne had the second bath and I was the one who tipped it out

cos I had the third one in all the dirty water!

But that was life in those days, wasn't it?

But it was a happy life, so...I'm not complaining.

Graham returns to the bedroom he shared

with his younger brother, John.

Cor, blimey!

So this is where John and I slept all those years ago.

How times have altered it.

Do you know, John and I slept in that bed...

and, um, I used to suffer with heat bumps

and the bugger used to scratch them for me and would charge me a penny!

And, um, that's why he's rich today.

This is where I was born and spent the first, er...whatever it was,

12, 13 years of my life. Pearl Street.

Which, er...was sort of...

I suppose, "respectable poor" in those days.

Yeah, that's not a bad description of it. We liked to think that this...

this was the smart end

and, the further down you get towards Splott Road, it got a bit dodgier.

Whether that's actually true or not, I'm not sure, but that was how...

We felt we were slightly grand

because we lived at this end of Pearl Street.

Notwithstanding the fact we didn't have an indoor loo

or anything like that. You know, none of those luxuries.

Cos that was our toilet,

and can you imagine coming out here in the middle of winter?

Or with snow and ice on the ground?

And you had to go and sit in there, in the freezing cold,

and then, on a Saturday morning,

John and I would have to cut the newspapers up into little squares

and put them on a nail at the back of that door.

Graham has quite a story to catch up on with his brother.

Starting with their great-grandmother, Sarah.

The really interesting thing about Sarah

is that she had an incredibly tragic early life,

because her mother died, her father died, her brother died and so on

and, at the age of six, she went into a workhouse.

-Oh, blimey!

-Yeah.

-Blimey.

-Yeah, I know.

And guess where the workhouse was? It was St... Well, it's now -

or was until recently - St David's Hospital. And that was a workhouse.

-And that was where Dad died.

-Exactly, and where...

This journey into his past has been very important to John.

I've learned more about my ancestry

in the last however many hours that is

than in the previous 60-some-odd years of my life. And, um...

I'm slightly overwhelmed.

Did you meet him? You must have met him, of course you must.

-Josiah George?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Once you start to become familiar with a little bit of it,

you want to know more then.

I really, really wanted to know what happened to Sarah

after she left that awful workhouse.

I really wanted to know what happened to her.

The connection goes way back to that workhouse,

where our great-grandmother was taken.

It gives you a... It gives you another perspective.

I think that's the point of it.

You feel differently, not just about the lives of your ancestors,

but you feel a bit differently about your own life, I think.

That's the impression that this experience has made on me. And, er...

..I'm awfully glad I did it.

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