Thurlby Anecdotes & Stories

• From the Grantham Red Books (19th century almanacs.)
  27th December 1895.  A most distressing incident occurred at Buckminster when Ernest Richard THURLBY aged 15, his brother Arthur Henry THURLBY aged 13 and their friend Frank John William ALLEN aged 13, were drowned whilst skating on a brickyard-pond just outside the village.  (In March the following year, Wilfred PRAEGER, who made a gallant attempt to rescue the boys, was  presented with a testimonial from the Royal Humane Society).

   

• ........talk has it that a THURLBY female had an illegitimate child and was 'outed' from the family and sent to live out in Bicker Fen.  She then changed her name to THORLBY and later married a DAWSON.  When our generation tried to question this, a block was put on us by the older members...........

• When Charles Watkin Thurlby's father died (only six months after marrying so Charles Watkin  never knew him), Charles Watkin's mother 

  bought a department shop in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and named it "THURLBY". It sold dresses, coats, hats, drapery and materials. Apparently 

  this was an unheard thing for a woman to do back then. We know the shop was still operating under the same name in 1915. Charles Watkin 

  Thurlby was educated from the age of 7 to 19 to be a Priest boarding at Ampleforth Monastry in York. It was run by the Jesuits and according 

  to Charles, were very severe. However, he disappointed his family by not becoming a Priest as he did not want a life of celibacy. One of 

  Charles Watkin Thurlby's uncles owned a sugar plantation in the West Indies. When the Civil War ended in America his uncle could no longer 

  afford to pay the negroes wages so he sold his plantation and bought the "Black Swan" Hotel in Yorkshire. Charles Watkin Thurlby visited his

  uncle in his hotel and said it was famous because King Charles was hidden there when escaping and he scratched his initials on the window

  pane with his diamond ring.

   

• Joseph Thomas THORLBY born 2 May 1879 used to amuse himself  by drawing beautiful anatomically correct pictures of horses on his slate.  Jennifer Dancy´s  husband still has many of his grandfather's carpentery tools engraved with the initials JT.