52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 15. Brick Wall

 The infamous     BRICKWALL

I have already written about one of my Brickwalls that came tumbling down several years ago. My Great Grandfather, George Arthur Pye/Perry was my first post in the 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks challenge of 2021.

GEORGE ARTHUR PERRY 1851-1934: WHO ARE YOU MR P? (mypynthdev.blogspot.com)

Another of my ongoing Brickwalls is Valentine Muller, who I have already written about too.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 6. Valentine (mypynthdev.blogspot.com)

A third brickwall which has also crumbled is that of George Richard Westcott, the first husband of my 3x Great Grandfather's 2nd wife, who appearred to disappear off the face of the earth, but once I found him, I found him associated with a theatre family. His story is written here.

George Richard Westcott 1831-1882 & Sarah Hall 1833-1902 (mypynthdev.blogspot.com)

As I feel it may be cheating to use any of these people who I have already written about, in blog posts, I will write about my 4x Great Grandfather, George Randolph, a work in progress and a Brickwall that may be of my own building. My intention has been to prioritise this man in my research this year, 2021, but here we are in mid April and other ancestors have stepped in his way.

GEORGE RANDOLPH died 1800.

So what do I know about George, other than his death in 1800, in Lydd Kent. His burial is recorded in England, Select Burials and Deaths on 24th February 1800. Someone has taken the time to transcribe the Lydd, Memorial Inscriptions, but sadly there is not one for George. However, there is mention of a grave with an unreadable stone within railings, I have a feeling that this may be his. What makes me think this? Well, it is amongst stones of internments at a similar time and George was a fairly affluent gentleman.
He married a Kentish maid (colloquilism not an actual maid), Catherine Lepper from Lydd in 1796, surprisingly the marriage is documented twice, once within the Lydd parish register on 23rd August 1796, a marriage license obtained from Canterbury on the 22nd of that month, This documents that the groom is from the city of Glasgow, this information is countersigned twice on the document.

and from Scotlands People

The latter document indicates that George is a 'Grocer' in Glasgow. The birth of their child, John in 1797 then gives George's occupation as a 'Grocer & Tobacconist.'
Further research using various publications indicates that George had a Tobacconist business in King St Glasgow alongside his business partner, Thomas Randolph. My supposition to date is that they could have been brothers. So whilst the business is found in both their names before 1800, later dates indicate that Thomas continues with the business after.
George Randolph & Co tobacconists produced their own farthing tokens in 1799. On one side are 3 tobacco cannisters and on the reverse tobacco leaves and a slave. This of course got me thinking in relation to the name, Randolph and the William Randolph who emigrated to Virginia, US towards the end of the 17th century.

With the more recent discussions related to slavery there are many more documents being published on-line, which I need to review to understand better, the relationship between the Tobacco industry, slavery and the city of Glasgow. But on a simplistic level I believe that during the 18th century, Glasgow grew, in size and wealth with the importation of tobacco. In the 1740's the French monarchy granted a monopoly for the importation of tobacco from the French Territories to Glasgow. The so called 'Tobacco Lords', of the day, a group of Glasgow merchants made their fortune from the triangular trade routes, sending supplies to West Africa in exchange for slaves and then shipping them to the Americas returning with tobacco. The deepening of the River Clyde in the late 1760's allowed for larger ships to make these crossings. It was around this time that the relationship with the colonialists and the Glasgow merchants began to break down. The Glasgow merchants were 'all powerful' and were able to name their price, or as the colonialists accused, 'manipulated the prices'.

From wikipedia-

Thomas Jefferson on the verge of losing his own farm, accused British merchants of unfairly depressing tobacco prices and forcing Virginia farmers to take on unsustainable debt loads. In 1786, he remarked:

A powerful engine for this [mercantile profiting] was the giving of good prices and credit to the planter till they got him more immersed in debt than he could pay without selling lands or slaves. They then reduced the prices given for his tobacco so that…they never permitted him to clear off his debt.  

However we can see the George Randolph & Co was trading in the last few years of the century, on his marriage record in 1796, his trade is given as a Grocer, on his son's birth record he states he is a Grocer/Tobacconist. Historically these dates are after the huge money making era of the tobacco trade, many merchants had, by this time, moved into the importation of cotton. In newspaper archives Thomas Randolph appears to have remained in the tobacco trade for some time, as on 10th Feb 1817 there is a notice as to him being elected as treasurer to the Glasgow Tobacco Traders Protecting Society.

So how did Catherine and George meet? Was George originally from Kent and sought his fortune in Glasgow?  If they met in Scotland, how did they meet and in what circumstances would Catherine have been there? All these questions with very little success in discovering the answers.

Many descendants on 'Ancestry' have a birth for a George Randall (Randolph) born to William Randolph of a nearby parish to Lydd. I am not disputing this being a possibility but I would like to be a little more certain of this assertion. These trees then link William Randolph to the Randolphs of Biddenden Kent. Again I do not dispute this, but there is a document published by the Kent Archealogical Society in 1954 citing the research of Mrs Charles Hall, who herself died in that year. Mrs Hall was the owner of Birchley, Biddenden and it's 350 year history. Birchley being the family seat of the Randolph family. Again on a simplistic level her research utilising the local archives and wills, suggest that the male line of the Randolph family died out with Birchley then passing to the female line with Abigail Randolph, a 60 year old spinster, selling the property to the Brockman family, whose male line also died out.

This document is quite difficult to follow, switching between generations from will to will and needs a quiet review and to make attempts to source what I can online. A long time ago a lady in Australia shared information she had sourced via a genealogist. It was my intention to follow this up with a trip to the Kent archives. However events took over and for several reasons inclusive more recently the pandemic restrictions, I have been unable to do this, but alongside this information I have been aware of Mrs Hall's research and therefore had this niggle in the back of my mind regarding these family links.

Randolph is equally a Scottish name, after all the Randolph surname is related to Robert the Bruce, who made Thomas Randolph, his nephew, the first Earl of Moray. But a basic search of Scotlandspeople website does not indicate any associated hits for a birth for a George Randolph. However recalling the incidence of Scottish family names amongst the children of George's son, John and his wife William Mary, discussed in a previous 52 ancestors 52 weeks blog. 

52 Ancestors in 52 weeks: Week 3. Namesake (mypynthdev.blogspot.com)

There are the names Blizard and Chisolm which are not accounted for, could this be another clue to George's origins? They certainly do not appear to feature in Catherine's Lepper ancestry.

OR am I pedantically building my own brick wall? 

Whatever the answer there is a lot more to follow up in order to understand and be assure of who George Randolph was.