I immediately searched for records of the Roaf family, members of which I knew to be buried in section Q, plots 69-70, at the Toronto Necropolis, not realising that the volunteer indexers had also transcribed details of the plot owners. In addition to the Roaf burials, two unexpected records were returned: burials of William H. and John Whale in 1862, both in section Q89 & Gore, the plots being property of Mr Roaf.
There was only one Roaf family in Toronto then, or indeed, ever: let's face it, it's not a common name. There were, however, two possible Mr Roafs, father and son, both named John. My feeling is that the Mr Roaf named here is the son, as the father was the Congregational church minister and was recorded elsewhere in the burial registers as "Rev Mr Roaf". Also, Rev Mr Roaf died in the autumn of 1862 and both his obituary and his entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography refer to his decline in his later life which, although it not preventing him from continuing to own land in the cemetery which might have been purchased years earlier, still leads me to feel that it was his son whose name was in the register.
Either way, the fact remains that these two boys were buried in the summer of 1862 in land owned by the Roaf family. The register reads:
Toronto Necropolis
No. 4336
Name: Wm H. WHALE
Age: 4
Where Born: Toronto
Where Died: Toronto
When Died: 1862 May 1
When Placed in Vault:
When Interred: 1862 May 2
What Disease: Accident
Where Interred: Q No 89 & Gore
Ground Property of:
Medical Attendant: Mr ROAF [sic; should be in line above]
Officiating Minister: Revd Mr FISH
Sextons No: 5026
Toronto Necropolis
No. 4421
Name: John WHALE
Age: 6
Where Born: Toronto
Where Died: Toronto
When Died: 1862 July 6
When Placed in Vault:
When Interred: 1862 July 8
What Disease: Typhoid fever
Where Interred: Q No. 89 & Gore
Ground Property of: Mr ROAF
Medical Attendant:
Officiating Minister: J.M. LEVELL
Sextons No: 5111
The monumental inscription reads:
In memory of
Daniel WHALE
Died April 4, 1914 aged 83 years
Ann, his wife
Died Aug 11, 1891 aged 61 years
Their sons
Willie H.E.
Died May 1, 1862 aged 4 years
John
Died July 6, 1862 aged 6 years
The monumental inscription is for a grave at section I-78 rather than Q-89 & Gore, the latter of which is not included in the OGS transcription -- the numbers go from Q-86/87S to Q-90a, so there is no monument at Q-89 & Gore. A further result from the burial registers appears to show the reburial of the two boys, although it says that they were removed from Potter's Field which was a separate, older, cemetery from which about 900 reburials took place between 1855 and 1881:
Toronto Necropolis
No. 4593X [inserted between other records]
Name: WHALE children of Daniel
Age:
Where Born: removed from Potters Field
Where Died:
When Died:
When Placed in Vault:
When Interred: 1862 Oct 14
What Disease:
Where Interred: I-78
Ground Property of: Daniel WHALE
Medical Attendant:
Officiating Minister:
Sextons No:
Since I-78 is where the marker for William and John is now found, and the reburial so close in time to their original burial in Mr Roaf's land, I believe that the October 1862 record refers to removals from within the Necropolis itself and not from Potter's Field.
I've done some basic background research on Daniel Whale and his family. He was a carpenter, born around 1831 in Cornwall and he married Ann Lean in 1854. On 19 March 1855 their first known child, Daniel George, was born in Montréal and christened there at the Mountain Street Methodist Church on 27 May 1855. The family were living in St John's Ward, Toronto in 1861:
1861 Census of Canada West
Roll: C-1106-1107; Page: 255; Registration District 32 Ward of St John; Enumeration District No. 2
York County, Canada West
Brick 2 storey house, 2 families living
Daniel WHALE, Carpenter, born England Cornwall, Methodist, 28, Male, Married, family member
An [sic] WHALE, born England C., 31, Female, Married, family member
Daniel WHALE, born Montreal, 6, Male, Single, family member
John WHALE, born Toronto, 5, Male, Single, family member
William WHALE, born Toronto, 3, Male, Single, family member
Cellenia An WHALE, born Toronto, 1, Female, Single, family member
1 female birth in 1860
Another child, Elizabeth, was born in Toronto around 1864, and can be found back in Cornwall by 1871 with her mother and siblings:
1871 UK Census
RG10/2248, Folio 61, Enumeration District 6, Page 11, Schedule 54
Church Bridge Cottage, Blisland, Bodmin District, Cornwall, England
Ann WHALE, Head, Married, Female, 40, Carpenter’s Wife, born Cornwall Egloshayle
Daniel WHALE, Son, Unmarried, Male, 16, Carpenter’s Son, born Canada Montreal (British Subject)
Selina WHALE, Daur, Female, 11, Scholar, born Canada Toronto (British Subject)
Elizabeth WHALE, Daur, Female, 8, Scholar, born Canada Toronto (British Subject)
The next household was that of Richard and Sally Whale, Daniel Whale's parents. Daniel was in Toronto in 1871 while his family were abroad, and his death was registered in Toronto on 1 April 1914. I couldn't find the registration in Ontario of his wife's death on 11 August 1891.
I didn't want to invest too much time researching the Whale family without knowing whether or not there was a connection to the Roafs. The reason I did this much is because of two far earlier records:
St John the Baptist, Margate, KentJohn WHALES of this Parish & Sarah ROAFF (ROAF) of this Parish were married by Banns 1 April 1762. Witnesses: Robert WILSON, M. TRAPP Parish Clerk
19 May 1779 John COLLAR of St Mary, Dover and Smith ROAF of this parish, minor, by licence with consent of her father. Witnesses Henry ROAF, John WHALES
Sarah Roaf was the daughter of Henry Roaf (or Ruffe) and Frances Sackett, and was baptised at St John the Baptist, Margate on 13 November 1741. Her elder brother Henry, baptised 8 October 1728, was a carpenter and cordwainer, as well as the parish clerk who helpfully gave extra details for entries in the church registers relating to his family! Henry married firstly to Smith Laming on 26 January 1755, and secondly to Mary Day on 9 March 1782. Smith Roaf, who married John Collar in 1779, was Henry and Smith's daughter, and niece of John and Sarah Whales.
I have not found other records of John Whales and Sarah Roaf in Margate other than John's presence at the marriage of their niece in 1779. I know nothing of his origins or occupation, other than that he was "of this Parish" when he married at Margate in 1762.
So what I have are two Roaf-Whale(s) connections: one in 1762 when John Whales married Sarah Roaf in Margate, and one in 1862 when two sons of the Methodist Daniel Whale were buried in land owned by the Congregationalist Mr Roaf in Toronto. Henry Roaf, brother of Sarah, was a carpenter and cordwainer; 100 years later, Daniel Whale was a carpenter.
However, Daniel Whale was from Cornwall and John Whales from Kent. Although both are on the coast, regular contact between the two locations was hardly expected, and after Henry's generation, the Roafs left Margate and moved inland to London, Shropshire, Staffordshire and Lancashire, and then to Canada. The Whale family appears to have been in Cornwall for generations, back to the late 1600s, and I cannot find a rogue branch settling in Kent. Even if there had been, and if John Whales and Daniel Whale were distant cousins, the likelihood of two families separated by so many generations and geography managing to keep in touch for a century is slim to non-existent.
A possible connection could be through the Royal Navy. On 12 July 1796, John Roaf of Margate, son of Henry, joined the Navy as a ship's carpenter. According to family stories, he was encouraged to do so by an "uncle" (relationship not confirmed) by the name of Sir Philip Sidney, who became guardian of Henry Roaf's children following Henry's death in 1785 after fracturing his skull when thrown from his horse near Waldershare on the road to Dover. Roaf's Naval record shows that he served as a ship's carpenter aboard five vessels:
- HMS Hound, 12 July 1796-1 February 1798
- HMS Isis, 2 February 1798-11 April 1800
- HMS Polyphemus, 12 April 1800-20 November 1806, during which time he served in the Battle of Trafalgar and was aboard during the return of Nelson's body to Gibraltar
- HMS Ildefonso, 21 November 1806-18 February 1807
- HMS Utrecht, 19 February 1807-19 February 1807
In 1807 Roaf returned to Margate, where his wife, Susannah (née Cock) and two sons, John Jr and William, were living. Roaf became the Churchwarden at St John the Baptist, a position he held for the next five years during which time he was training to become a minister -- but not in the Church of England for which he was working. In 1813 he was ordained as a Minister of the Dissenters at Sutton Valence, Kent, to which the family removed for the next nine years, and during which time his daughter Susannah was born. His two sons followed him into the ministry; Susannah married a doctor. The Roafs left Kent for Ellesmere, Shropshire and then Kingswinford, Staffordshire, where Roaf continued his ministry until his death in on 3 February 1850 at the age of 82.
If, and it is a very big if, Roaf had served as a carpenter in the Royal Navy, and if (another very big if) some of the Cornwall Whale / Whales family of carpenters had served at the same time, their children might have known one another or at least known of one another, especially if they had cousins in common through the marriage of John Whales and Sarah Roaf. Roaf's son, also the Rev John Roaf, joined the Congregational Colonial Missionary Society and sailed aboard the Pennsylvania with his family from Liverpool on 27 August 1837, arriving at New York on 23 September 1837 and journeying overland to York (Toronto) where he would begin his North American ministry. Daniel and Ann Whale of Cornwall arrived in Montreal between 1854 and 1855, moving to Toronto very soon afterwards. Any new immigrants would have been grateful to have a family connection in their new country, however remote.
It all seems very unlikely to me, and yet neither surname is particularly common. Was "Mr Roaf" being generous in letting someone else use his grave temporarily until they could be removed to another part of the cemetery? If so, were the families friends or was there a closer relationship? At the very least it's an interesting coincidence. I'd welcome any thoughts.
No comments:
Post a Comment