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Record #3925
Name :
: Agnes Louise BICKERSTAFF (1858 - 1934)


Father
:
Mother
:
BMD and other details
Date of Birth
: 31 Mar 1858

Marriage (1)
:
Marriage (2)
:

Date of Death
: 31 Dec 1934
Abode (1) : Place of BirthEngland, Oxfordshire, Thame
Abode (2) : Place of Death / Burial
Sailing Information
Date of Arrival
: 11 Aug 1872
Country
: Canada

Ship
: Peruvian

Placement Family
:
Homes / Agencys
Institution (GB)
:

Agency
: Maria Rye
NotesAgnes Louisa and Thomas Bernard Bickerstaff

I didn?t actively pursue our family?s genealogy until long after all my older relatives were deceased. Despite a fairly good recollection of past events and family discussions, my mother was unable to provide much information on her paternal grandfather, Thomas Bernard Bickerstaff. His mother?s name was known but not his father?s. I could not locate Thomas on the usual passenger list indexes. He?d come from England with his sister Agnes, perhaps from an orphanage, and they had no known relatives. ?Aunt Agnes? had at one time written a family history in a little black book but, of course, no copy of it could be found.

Thanks to a television program on Home Children that jogged my mother?s memory, and the discovery of my mother?s cousin?s correspondence with the last-known living Bickerstaff relative in England, John Eric Wolfe, I was finally able to pinpoint the family residence in England and follow the trail of the Bickerstaff siblings.
Agnes Louisa Bickerstaff was born 31 Mar 1858 and Thomas Bernard Bickerstaff 21 Dec 1860 in Thame, Oxfordshire, England to Hannah Bickerstaff. On their birth registries, a line was drawn through the box for their father?s name. Hannah was the daughter of Richard and Mary Bickerstaff, the youngest of 10 children. Hannah had 2 illegitimate children (her older sister, Eliza, had 5 illegitimate children).

Hannah gave birth to Agnes probably while living at home with her parents. She then moved in with her married sister, Elizabeth Bateman, where Thomas was born (1860). Three years later, Hannah died in the Thame Union Workhouse of a 12-month illness, leaving her 2 young children [ages 5 and 3] in the care of the Workhouse. Her father was already deceased; her mother was living with her newly married sister Eliza and Eliza?s 3 [living] children; her sister Elizabeth had 5 children [still living] of her own to care for. It does not appear that there were any other living siblings, or at least none that were able to take in Hannah?s children.

In 1871, Thomas at age 10 was still residing at the Workhouse; Agnes, age 13, had been sent out to board as a ?scholar? at Towersey Road Cottages. The following year Agnes, her friend Emma Baldwin and one other ?pauper girl? agreed [per Thame Workhouse Minutes] to be sent to Canada in the care of Maria Rye?s agency. Thus, on 7 August 1872, Agnes ?Beckertoff?, ?spinster? age 13, sailed on the SS Peruvian to Ontario, Canada. It is not known exactly where she was placed, but she maintained a life-long correspondence with a Mary Jane Wynes of Ontario, who has been located in earlier Canada censuses residing Sunnidale township, Simcoe North, Ontario.

Thomas Bickerstaff evidently remained at the Workhouse in some capacity. Included in the Thame Workhouse Minutes of 1878 is the following reference to Thomas:

Thame Union. Copy From the Masters Journal Dec 12 - 78:
I admitted on Tuesday Last Sarah Green and her Child, from the
Parish of Brill, Sent by Wm. Foulger.
The man that brought them behaved himself very abruptly, and on leaving refused to give his name at the Gate. Held his large stick up and threatened to smite Thos. Bickerstaffe.
[J.I.?] Henly Esq.
I have the Honeur to be your
Obdt Servant
Geo. Simmonds

Agnes resided in Canada until 1878 when, at age 20, she moved to the United States. Her brother joined her in Elmira, [upstate] New York, the following year at age 19 (October 1879). They resided Elmira through approximately 1887, then lived in NY City for approximately 3 years before moving to Massachusetts.

A letter from Agnes [probably in NY City] to Maria Rye published in Miss Rye?s Annual Report of 1889, follows:

New York, U.S., Sept. 1889
Dear Miss Rye,
Have you another lot of girls over yet? If so, will you please write and tell Mrs. G.; she wants one about fifteen or seventeen years old, a good healthy honest girl. I know she will have a good home, and the best of care if she is sick, and she will never want for anything if she behaves herself. Now my business is done, I will tell you a little about myself. I am well and have plenty of work. You do not know how much good your last letter done me, it is so nice to feel you have someone who has confidence in you. How I should like to see you; I look at your picture almost every day, it was so kind of you to send me one. My friend Mrs. T., wanted me to ask you if you would send her one; she was E.B.* before her marriage. I hope you are well, and wish very much indeed that I could see you. My brother has been very sick with exema in his face, but he is getting better now, he sends his best respects to you. Hoping it is not too much if you would write me once in a while, if only a few lines. I remain
Yours respectfully,
A.B.
[Notes added to report by Miss Rye:] This girl came from Thame Workhouse in 1873*-- also E.B.**
The brother alluded to followed his sister, on account of the pleasant letters she wrote him.
* date is wrong---should be 1872
** E.B. is Emma Baldwin, Agnes' friend from the Workhouse
who emigrated to Canada with Agnes.

Here was a young woman tough enough to have weathered 6 years as a BHC in a foreign land; self-sufficient enough to emigrate to America by herself, and then engineer her brother?s emigration. Yet she was also basically alone in the world; so much so that at the age of 31, she sought praise and affection from a woman who was basically a stranger to her.

Contrary to the seeming majority of BHC experiences, it appears that Agnes? time as a BHC was not unpleasant. In addition, over the years she was able to stay in touch with her family in England. She kept a daily journal that, although dry in tone and lacking in personal details, faithfully recorded her correspondence with various English cousins. In 1910-1911, when her nephew Richard Bickerstaff [my mother?s father] traveled to Europe in the service of the Merchant Marines, he stopped in England and visited with some of those cousins. A couple of years later Agnes returned to England where she hoped to file a claim in chancery court against the estate of a man she believed to be their father. Thus Agnes had been given sufficient information by family in England not only as to the probable name of her and Thomas? father, but also his date of death and chancery court date. Per the 1980?s correspondence between my mother?s cousin and John Eric Wolfe in England, Agnes lost the case and ?20,000 pounds went to Chancery?. [I am told this was not unusual as illegitimate children would not have a legal claim to a supposed parent?s estate.] [Nothing further has been found as to this court case, although the man?s surname was supposedly Bernard or Burnard.]

Agnes Bickerstaff never married. Thomas married Emma Eliza Borden [distant cousin of the infamous Lizzie] in Fall River, Massachusetts in 1891. They moved shortly thereafter to Nantucket island, where Emma?s grandparents lived, and had 13 children, 10 of whom lived to adulthood.

While Thomas Bickerstaff was living in NY City in the late 1880?s and before he moved to Massachusetts, family history has it that he boarded with the Morrell family. Years later, Thomas?s son Richard Bickerstaff visited the Morrell?s in NY City, where he met and married their granddaughter, Clara Cramer. Richard and Clara Bickerstaff were my mother?s parents.

Agnes Bickerstaff lived nearby to her brother in Nantucket and remained very close to his family. When she returned to England for the court case, she was accompanied by her niece and namesake, 17-year old Agnes Bickerstaff. Agnes [Sr.] worked over the years as a nurse or companion, sometimes working temporarily in NY City, when she always took the opportunity to visit with her nephew Richard and his wife Clara on Long Island.

Agnes died 31 Dec 1934; her brother Thomas died 22 Sept 1940. Thomas?s wife Emma predeceased them both, dying in 1927; all three names are engraved on one headstone in Prospect Hill Cemetery, Nantucket.

Many thanks belong to the following people for their assistance in finding the above information:

Chris Sanham, UK
Gail Collins, Canada [Rye Children database]
John Eric Wolfe (deceased), UK
Bob Bickerstaff, Rhode Island

Kim Danielsen [*]
Yuma, Arizona

[*]E-mail removed in accordance with RootsChat policy 
ContributorsCreated : 2008-07-25 11:25:06 / From original database

Last Updated : 2015-09-02 22:46:22 / alanmack

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IDNameDOBPlace of birthArrivals & ShipsDest.AgencyFamily links
3925 BICKERSTAFF, Agnes Louise1858ENG, OXF, Thame Aug 1872 : Peruvian CAN Maria Rye