Introducing the Doughty Family

My mother was Freda Doughty, born in 1914 & died in 1995. It was her death that prompted me to start researching my family history, not the best time to do start you might think, but you see on my mother's side we were very fortunate in having a relation who had spent many years researching his family tree. In fact I have letters from Mark Doughty who lives in Canada that he sent to my mother, my aunt Marjorie whom we all knew as Wib, my aunt Enid; Mark had been researching thanks to the help of one of his aunts. I remember these trees being produced, quite amazing to see the name Doughty going back into the late 16th Century. Mark later told me that he came to England, and went to Ulceby near Grimsby, and was left alone with the parish record books whilst he searched them all for the Doughty family names, something that would never happen now. Mark's research was in the very early days of a sort of computer, but more type writer & letter writing, no E-mails, electronic resources, and loads of family letters. Mark was born in 1921, in Kingston-upon-Hull, or Hull as it is more usually known. In 1963, he and his wife and family emigrated to Canada on board Empress of England to Montreal, where he took the post as Professor of Chemistry at Loyola College, (later Concordia University). He had been a bomber pilot in World War 2. Currently he still lives in Montreal. So when I started my own research, I contacted Mark, who readily passed to me all his information on the Doughty side of the family. I have been able to increase the Doughty knowledge quite a bit particularly in Canada & the United States. I have also found another related Doughty family here in England.Our oldest surviving Doughty is our Uncle George who lives in the Adelaide, South Australia which is quite a centre for Doughty relatives. George Harry born 1920, was named after his uncle George Harry who was killed in World War1. One of the stories told me by Mark was that a nephew of his called Richard Doughty, now the Director of the Cutty Sark Trust, having qualified, took up a post with the Grimsby Fishing Heritage Museum, which had then only just been opened. On looking around Grimsby he found that at the museum itself was the Doughty Collection, including models of ships, trawlers, various types of crockery etc. Then near the Town Hall there was a road called Doughty Road, and nearby a plaque describing its opening by Sir George Doughty, newspaper owner, trawler owner and local Member of Parliament where he was the minister for Fishing. There was a big house in Waltham, Lincolnshire called Waltham Hall, the home  of this Sir George Doughty. Richard asked his father Gregory, was he by chance related to this man, and was told, Yes he was, but that George came from the other side of the family, but they were all related to another Richard Doughty born 1781 in Ulceby, Lincolnshire who married an Elizabeth Holt, and they both came to live in the village of Broughton, by Brigg, Lincolnshire, where, he Richard was a woodsman in the woods belonging to the Earl of Yarborough of Brocklesby Hall. Richard & Elizabeth had 15 children, and Richard of the Grimsby Museum was descended from their ninth child called Richard, born 1818,where as Sir George was descended from their first child John 1802. So in the period between 1890 and 1920, the Doughty family was very well-known in Grimsby-the local newspaper was owned by them, Sir George used the newspaper to promote his ideas and successes, mind you after his death in 1913, when his widow was cited in a divorce case, the rival newspaper in Hull reported the matter, but not Sir George's paper then run by his son Wilfred.

So when my mother, Freda Doughty married my father, Bill Readman, in 1941, his mother Florence, my grandmother, could finally say she had made it in Grimsby society! The same newspaper reported all the marriages, funerals etc in great detail, which is a real bonus for the family history researcher. One of the marriages, my grandfather, Stan Doughty, who married in Grimsby in 1906, the newspaper reported all the wedding presents and the name of the guest who had presented it!

So I hope you will enjoy as I take you on the Doughty journey, which starts in 1584 and is still going!

Just to bring this piece of the Blog up to date now in May 2017; Mark Doughty & George Doughty in this extract are both deceased. Mark died in 2016, George as well.