Twelve Bishops

I have once again been discussing family history with my cousin Wendy, who sent me this photo of our grandfather (on the left) with five of his brothers. 

The brother missing from the photo is Charlie, who emigrated to Canada as a Methodist minister (a missionary) and  in 1912 married a girl called May Wilson, who had followed him to Toronto. They later moved to Alberta and in 1996 I met a few of their descendants in British Columbia.

Because I tend to mix them up and get the names wrong, below is the correct list of names and dates-of-birth for this remarkable family whose parents were married in December 1873. My great-grandfather Benjamin spotted his wife Catherine Willis (whose ancestors were another interesting family) singing in a Darlington Methodist chapel choir during a long walk north from Somerset, and to judge by the frequency of their children's births, it was obviously a love-match. Benjamin senior, whose family were iron-foundry engineers, died in 1904 and his son Benjamin (my grandfather) died in 1940.

The Bishop siblings, as recorded in the "Family Register" and "Family Events" pages of the Bible they kept at home:

Will, b. October 1874 (musical director of a theatre company)

Ben, b. March 1876 (choirmaster at the Chapel, and a painter-decorator by trade)

Kate, b. September 1877 (she never married, became a formidable nurse instead)

Alice, b. March 1879 (did not marry either; lived to the age of 99)

George, b. August 1880 (see below)

Charles, b. November 1881 (see above)

Nell (Helen), b. March 1885 (directed a Secretarial College which employed her brother Walter)

John, b. July 1886 (his son is still alive in his late 90s)

Lil (Lily), b. June 1888, a teacher, married name Hardy

Ethel, b. September 1889 (a milliner), married name Blaylock 

Fred, b. July 1891 (a stationer), father of my aunt Ruth who married her cousin, my uncle Frank

Walter, b. 1896 (the only one of the brothers to go to university)

This is the whole family in a photo taken around 1901:

Left to right, back row—Ben, Lily, George, Helen, Charles, John; middle row—Kate, Benjamin Senior, Walter, Catherine, Will, Alice; front row—Ethel, Fred.

George was imprisoned during the 1st World War for being a Conscientious Objector. In spite of this he had a tremendous sense of humour (he was my mother's favourite uncle). At one point in his life he tutored Aldous and Julian Huxley when they were boys, I forget why and for how long.

Lily had one child, Douglas, who died as a young, pacifist member of the Friends' Ambulance Brigade in China during the 2nd World War. I wrote a blogpost about Douglas in November 2010.