Category Archives: The Stockley’s

Clara Winifred Stockley 1899-1986

Posted on by under The Brennan's, The Stockley's

 For a year I have been trying to get a separation allowance for my wife having forwarded Marriage Certificate and Birth Certificate to Ottawa.  It is not that I want the money. But would like our marriage accepted by the military authorities. [i]

Daughters of the Empire insignia

Daughters of the Empire insignia

Will Brennan’s application for an allowance for his young wife, Clara Stockley b. 1899 was written 95 years ago at the time of this post and gives an interesting insight into attitudes towards the military and towards asking for financial help from the military. Perhaps the request was written to make an impression on the authorities, perhaps and most likely it was Will’s pride, or perhaps this is just what one had to say to get their application for an allowance considered. In any event, the record exists.

Clara Stockley was just 18 years old at the time of her marriage to Will Brennan. Clara was the youngest daughter of Mary Eastwood and Moses Stockley II whom you met in the previous post. She had been in Canada for five years arriving in Saint John in 1912 with her parents Moses Stockley II and Mary Eastwood. The family worked in the cotton industry in Manchester, England for many years and immigrated to Saint John to take up the same work in there.

Clara’s mother, Mary (Eastwood) Stockley died in 1915 of the Spanish Influenza, and after WWI ended, her sisters Mary and Grace returned with their soldier husbands to England.  Only Clara and her brother Moses Stockley III remained in Saint John.

At the age of 32 years, Will married Miss Clara Winifred Stockley, February 16, 1917 in St. Luke’s Anglican Church.  John F. Petrie and Margaret Mary Hall stood up with them for the nuptials. They resided at 228 Brussels St. Saint John and by 1919 were residing at 250 City Rd., Saint John.[ii] Later they lived with Aunt Susie (Proud) and Frank Murphy on Sandy Point Rd. Saint John, NB.

Unable to work in his electrical trade due to his War disability, Will found work as a caretaker for the Bank of Canada while the family lived in an apartment below the bank. In 1940 Will bought a farm, although he had never farmed his whole life he moved the family to Midland, Kings County, just outside of Norton, New Brunswick.  In this photo, Clara’s sons James and William are showing off their catch at the farm in Norton.

James19 and Billy 17

Will died in Norton on February 26,1943 from heart failure and complications of pneumonia.  Following his death, Clara sold the farm and moved back to Saint John. By this time her daughter Evelyn was married to Gerard (Red) Flemming and James (Jimmy, my father) was serving overseas with the remaining children living with her until their marriages on Saint David Street and then at 233 Main St. In Saint John.

Clara Stockely Brennan Clara maintained her close ties with England and with her family in Manchester over the years.  In this picture, taken in the late 1960’s, she is pictured on the left in the front row, when she was elected Vice President of the Daughters of the Empire.

During WW II her son James, a Gunnar in Third Canadian Regiment, spent time with the Madden Family  in England and kept up connections with Cecilia Madden throughout his life.  Similarly,  Clara’s sister Mary Dixon’s sons spent time with her in Saint John. This was because the Dixon’s served in the Navy and spent time in port in Saint John during the war.

Will and Clara had 10 children:

­   Josephine Evelyn (1918-1991)

­   James Arthur Douglas (1920-1990)

­   William Stanley Edward (1922-1962)

­   Lydia Clara May (1925-2021)

­   Constance Lillian (1926-2010)

­   Mary Margret Elizabeth (1927-1992)

­   Clara Winnefred (1931 – 2018)

­   Robert Francis Tucker (1933-2005)

­   Grace Louise (1934-

Lawrence Windsor (1937-1994)

 

 

 

[i] Proceedings on Discharge, Certificate to be signed by soldier upon discharge, February 19, 1918.

[ii] Service Records, National Archives of Canada, William James Brennan, Reg. No. 22709

Private Moses Stockey, 47th Regiment of Infantry

Posted on by under The Stockley's
Johanna Kearney wife of Moses Stockey Married 1848 in Conmel, County Tipperary Ireland

Johanna Kearney wife of Moses Stockey
Married 1848 in Clonmel, County Tipperary Ireland

Moses Stockey, my great, great grandfather, was born in 1821 in the Heckingham Workhouse near the town of Loddon in Norfolk England. From these humble beginnings, Moses at the age of 17.5 years joined the 47th Regiment of Infantry on the 17 of January 1838.
Moses was a trade laborer before joining the 47th Regiment where he loyally served just short of 19 years before he was discharged due to disability.
His service record describes him as : 5 foot 9 1/2 inches tall, dark complexion, brown eyes, dark brown hair.
His service record also states he served:

  • 6  years 3 months in  the Mediterranean
  • 2 and 1/2 years West Indies
  • 2 years 8 months in  British Guinea
  • 5 months in Turkey
  • 8 months in the Crimea

During his enlistment, No. 1261 Private Moses Stockey received three good conduct badges, a Crimean Medal, and three clasps for Alma River Sept. 20, 1854, Inkerman Nov. 5, 1854, and Sebastopol, Sept 25 1854 to Sept. 8, 1955.
He was wounded at the battle of Inkerman in the Crimean War 5/11/1854 which was the first battle that Florence Nightingale appeared on the field.
Moses met and married his wife Johanna Kearney in  1848 in Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland.  He was discharged from the army in 1857 from Famoy, County Cork, Ireland.

Moses Stockey/Stockley Portlaw, Waterford, Ireland

Moses and Johanna had eight children including a son Moses Stockey born in 1860 in Portlaw, Waterford Ireland who later immigrated with his family to Saint John, New Brunswick , Canada.  It is likely that following his discharge Moses may have found employment in the cotton industry at Portlaw. Raw Cotton from the Confederate Southern Sates was being blockaded by the Union North, and this resulted in an economic depression in all the textile trades by the early 1860s – a period known as “the cotton famine”. This created great economic hardship in Portlaw for the cotton industry and Portlaw became the main port for the blockade runners.  In any event the family moved to the  Manchester area in England sometime after 1868 when their last child was born.  They do not appear in the 1871 census for England so it is likely they returned to England after 1871. In the 1881 Census, the family is living in Eccles, outside of Manchester, England

Background to 47 Regiment 
In the 40 years before the outbreak of the Crimean War, the 47th  Regiment was only in England for four years. The Regiment otherwise served in overseas garrisons, guarding British trade routes and the frontiers of the rapidly expanding colonial Empire. Its stations spanned the world, from the West Indies to Gibraltar, Malta, and the Ionian Islands, and on to Arabia, India, and Burma. Ireland counted as a home posting, as indeed it was for many of the officers and men.  Overseas tours in the early 19th Century were frequently very long, and when the  1st/47th sailed from Cork in 1806 they were not to return to Britain until 1829, having in the meantime served in South America, South Africa, India, the Persian Gulf, and Burma.

The Crimean War

A Times correspondent wrote of the winter of the Crimean War:

The condition of our army was indeed miserable, pitiable, heartrending.  No boots, no greatcoats – officers in tatters and rabbit skins, men in bread bags and rags; no medicine, no shelter; toiling in mud and snow week after week, exposed in open trenches or in torn tents to the pitiless storms of a Crimean winter.

Reference notes to this post:

  1. Copy of  Discharge Paper  No 20,074 Forty-Seventh Regiment of Infantry Fermoy Barracks 3 November 1857′ Private Moses Stockey.
  2. 1871-1901 Census, United Kingdom
  3. Stockley spelled with “L” starts appearing in the 1901 UK Census.  It is unclear why this change occurred it may have been simply a recording error by the Census taker and then continued on through various official and unofficial documents.