Bigamists & Bastards

I have just watched the latest episode of Who Do You Think You Are? which featured Kim Catrall’s search for her maternal grandfather who had deserted his family in the late 1930s and was never heard of again.  I found it very moving to watch and it also had an element of personal interest for me in that the absent George Baugh turned out to be a bigamist.  In some ways his story mirrored what I know of my own grandfather James Henry.   What struck me most forcibly watching Kim Cattrall’s family was how raw the pain of their father’s desertion was for her mother and aunts 70 years after he left.  Unlike a death it was something that had never been resolved; they had had 70 years of wondering where he went and what happened to him.

My grandfather Jim Henry was born in 1906 to a family that seems to have lived pretty much on the breadline.  The week before he was born his eldest sister died and his mother had registered both the death of one child and the birth of another on the same day.  Life was not easy, Jim was the middle child of 9 and there was not enough to go around.  A few years ago I visited the place where he was born and at the time the local school was celebrating an anniversary; they had published a book which detailed the history of the school.  At around the time my grandfather and his siblings were of school age it was a requirement that to attend school you had to have a pair of shoes.  At the back of the book there was a list of children who had attended regularly and out of 9 children only one of my grandfathers siblings attended regularly enough to make it onto the school register, the youngest child Ellen.  My grandfather wasn’t illiterate but he was always very ashamed of his poor handwriting.

Jim’s mother died of TB in 1918 when he was just 12.  I don’t know exactly when his father died, the latest reference I can find is in 1924 when Winnie Henry emigrated to the US and named him as her next of kin.  Jim’s younger brother Michael died of TB in 1928 and it seems that during the 1920s the various siblings left Ireland.  Some went to the US and the rest went to the UK.  I know that at some point before he met my grandmother Jim married and had 2 children but I have no idea whether he married in Ireland or once he came to England.  He must have met my grandmother in the late 1930s as their first child. Michael, was born in 1940.  By this time my grandfather had changed his name and was going by his mother’s maiden name of Groark.  Altogether my grandparents had 3 children and finally “married” in 1945.

I confess I am a little baffled by the marriage.  Both of them had previous marriages and, as far as I know, this was no secret between them.  My grandmother had married very young and had problems conceiving.  She said that her husband had left her for another woman but at some point she had some kind of operation which was obviously successful.  Also my grandparents didn’t marry until my grandmother had converted to catholicism and they were married by a priest however if religion was so important to my grandfather it seems hypocritical given that both he and his bride were legally married to other people and had 3 illegitimate children!  In addition to changing his name he added 5 years to his age on his marriage certificate.

Having said all that, I don’t think he was a bad person and undeserving of sympathy.  I have no idea at all of the circumstances surrounding the break-up of his first marriage.  I do know that he was a good husband and father to his second family; he worked hard to provide for them.  I also know that although his first family was out of sight, it wasn’t out of mind.  During the war my grandfather and his family lodged with a widow near Bristol, Marian Williams.  Her husband and children had been killed during an air raid early in WWII.  They ended up becoming friends and Marian came to live with them when they moved.  She told my mother that Jim had once said to her something to the effect of  “At least you know where your children are, I have know idea where mine are or how they are.”

I have often wondered too about his first family.  I would love to find them but have always known that doing so might stir up a whole hornets’ nest of emotions.  Watching last night’s programme made me realise just how hard it might be for them.

August 13th, 2009 | Tags: bigamists, Henry | Category: General | Subscribe to comments | Both comments and pings are currently closed