Another conundrum from my friend.... He is interested in the chap mentioned on the tobacco box in the following link: Code: https://www.walpoleantiques.com/engraved-brass-tobacco-box 'William Bracewell Caistor' are the names. Beneath them is engraved a lancer on his mount, a racing greyhound and a fallen gladiator beneath the 'All Seeing Eye of God'. All three names are engraved in a different script, Bracewell being the most prominent. It could be that he was William Bracewell of Caistor (Lincolnshire or Norfolk - take your pick ). However, it may be that his surname was Caistor. I have had a rough search for just William Bracewell as first names but there are millions of them! (Slight exaggeration...) The box is dated about 1830. Any help is gratefully received.
I’m probably barking up totally the wrong tree but.... In the 1851 census there is a William Bracewell, watchmaker, lodging in Caistor, born Burnley c1826 HO107/2114/191/17 There is the death notice of a William Bracewell in the Leeds Times of the 27th June 1863 On Wednesday week, aged 58, Mr William Bracewell, watchmaker, Scarborough. That would make him a prime candidate for being the other William’s father. Watchmakers would need to be able to do engraving, so could the box be a sort of sideline? I haven’t delved any further, thought I’d run it past you first
I think you might be on to something, Ann - though I read the Caistor one's birthplace as Oldham (and in the light of the following I'm not sure how accurate it is anyway). 1841 - HO107/1266/8 fo40 p29 Bracewell family in Scarborough with William, "35", Watchmaker; also a William aged 15, quite probably a son, born in county 1861 - RG9/3619 fo53 p6 William Bracewell, 56, watchmaker, with wife, son and daughter, all born Scarborough I haven't found William senior in 1851, or junior in 1861, but didn't spend long looking. As for the box itself, since there's an assortment of styles, I wonder if it's one of those pieces that apprentices did to show off their skill? Maybe one for sale would have been in silver, but a test piece wouldn't need to be. Having said that, we haven't yet found anything to link the Bracewells to Caistor before 1851...
Where did I get Burnley from? This heat is addling my brain And I thought the same about the box - showing off various engraving skills.
In 1851 William senior and his large family are to be found in Scarborough HO107/2368/428/4 with William claiming to have been born in Beverley
@AnnB and @arthurk you are both brilliant! The coincidences are far too strong not to be the right chap. I did see them in passing but the heat has definitely got to my brain and frazzled it, so I dismissed them. Will follow through.... Thank you both!
I've just been looking at some old directories, and the watchmakers listed in Caistor were: 1828-9 (Pigot): William Pybus, Thomas Wigelsworth 1835 (Pigot): William Pybus, Thomas Wigelsworth (senr & junr) 1841 (Pigot): William Pybus, Thomas Wigelsworth (one only) 1856 (White): James Bartle, William Pybus 1861 & 1868 (Post Office): Pybus x2 1872 (White): John A Page, George Parker, John Pybus So was William Bracewell just an apprentice? It makes me wonder if the date given for the box (1830s) might be wrong and it's the work of the son, who would have been an apprentice around the early 1840s. William Bracewell junior looks to have married Elizabeth Barker (widow) in Scarborough in 1845.
Thanks @arthurk - the date of 1830 is an approximation and so I reckoned that the son completed it in the early 1840s as an apprentice piece. Thank you for the marriage information. Edited to add that the William Bracewell in Caistor in 1851 is recorded as unmarried...
I found William Pybus too and have been looking for anything in the papers which might state he had an apprentice, but no luck there I did find this Code: http://www.caistor.co.uk/caistor-j-q/caistor-p/pybus/ which tells something of his life and premises. I saw that William was ‘unmarried’ in 1851 - maybe as he was working away from home, it was assumed (or he led people to believe) that he was unattached……
There's an Elizabeth Bracewell (mother-in-law, married) in a Cornforth household in Falsgrave (part of Scarborough) in 1851 - HO107/2368 fo532 p2. She's age 55, so quite a lot older than William junior. I haven't found her in 1861 or 1871, nor William, but there's a death for an Elizabeth in Jun qtr 1876 that would fit (from FreeBMD). William senior appears to have died in 1863 - there's a grant of probate to his widow Jane.
I have passed on the information to my friend, plus a baptism and details of the censuses, and he is most chuffed! He says to thank you very much.