In Search of John Readman or re-writing the story.

From being very young we always had a family tree of the Readman Family. My dad, William Sneath Readman to give him his full title would take me on his knee and show me a sheet of  paper on which was written a family tree.  It didn't look like a tree as far as I was concerned, it was a load of names connected with lines. But then I saw a John Readman on it, that is Readman pronounced like the colour, "red", not like the water plant, "reed. This John Readman was a waggoner, born in Selby, Yorkshire in 1735 and died in 1752. This was as far back as this "tree" went. After his death in 1752, his wife, Ann Readman, maiden name Thompson, re-married and emigrated to Canada. The tree showed a number of children including a George, then a William, and finally another John, born in Sheffield, Yorkshire in 1809. As you can see from the tree above written by my father in 1972, in his not so easy script, This John married a Louise Wilson, in 1830 and then John died in Grimsby, Lincolnshire in 1870. As well as having the tree my dad wrote notes about many of the people in the tree and this was said about this John Readman. "He became quite a local celebrity. He was apprenticed to the engineering trade as a "machinist" and became interested in the then new beginning of the railways through the influence of his wife (Louise Wilson). He became in the 1840's an engineer on the Manchester Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway the proposing  an extension from Retford to Grimsby in 1845,  he surveyed the route,  helped the passing of the Bill through Parliament, designed and built the railway and drove the opening train in 1848. The picture in the Illustrated London News of 1848 showing a train under Deansgate Bridge, Grimsby is reputed to be of him. 

He was originally a millwright, but jumped on the "bandwagon" of the new railway industry. He met George Hudson, the Railway King who introduced him to the Directors of the railway to Grimsby. His wife,. Louise was the daughter of E. B. Wilson, of Leeds, whose firm built many of the early locomotives"
 In October,1995, when our son, Simon married, dad gave him a copy of this tree, typed by my brother Tim. In that year, in June, my mother Freda Readman nee Doughty had died. I wanted to talk to my dad about the family tree, and as we were living in Grimsby at the time, I went to the local library and wrestled with a microfilm reader to search for this John Readman, who dad told me lived in Silver Street. I looked in the 1851 Census, but no John Readman in Grimsby at all,same thing in 1861, but in 1871, there was a John Readman, born Selby, 1846,  a proprietor of a music shop in Freeman St, the road leading down to the fishing docks. There were more public houses in the street than anything else, and certainly no more music shops. So I discounted this John Readman and searched the index of names and found a Thomas Readman living in Garibaldi Street, an engine driver, born Scarborough, Yorkshire. His wife, Elizabeth was born in Selby, and they had children William, Joseph & Arthur; An Arthur was my dad's grandfather! Gradually things fitted into place, I sent for birth records of these children, the marriage record of Thomas & Elizabeth in Selby,

and finally the death record of Thomas in 1879,

 with John Readman, the music shop proprietor being present at his father's death and informing the registrar of his father's demise. A story started to emerge, John  Readman, not an engine driver but a pianist, music teacher & piano tuner, who went blind & died in Manchester. His father, Thomas, born in Scarborough Yorkshire, moved to Leeds, then Selby, then New Holland in Lincolnshire and finally ended up in Grimsby, dying there in 1879.His father, John, born in Scarborough, a  plumber & glazier turned joiner who worked for the railway in Leeds moved to and died in Hull.
So when I asked my dad how had the tree come about his was non-committal,  I discovered that he and his cousin, called Raymond Wilson had tried to prove they were the beneficiaries of a long forgotten will, in the name Readman & Wilson. They engaged a researcher, told him a few stories and he concocted the tree. None of it was true. It was such a disappointment, but it has sent me on a trail, where I would do the research & not rely on anyone else's stories.