Are you from respectable stock? Are you sure?

I thought mine were until my cousin, researching our family history, discovered that we come from a fairly disreputable background. Here are just two clips from newspaper that she found:

From the Hull Packet and Advertiser 13 March 1885 Police Court Report

'John Henry Thompson Barber of West Dock Avenue , charged with receiving a quantity of stolen tobacco.'

(It seems that my grandmother always said he was a rogue – but my granddad wasn't much better, having a mistress for most of his life.)


From the Hull Packet and Advertiser March 7th 1834 Inquest Report

'John Thompson Master of the Sloop 'Dunn' a trader between Hull and Sheffield

John Thompson Master of the Sloop Dunn was found drowned in the Old Harbour.
The vessel was tied up at Chapel Lane staithe. George North publican of the Black Boy said the deceased had been in his pub worse for drink the previous night. He had been warned against returning to his boat, the night being so windy. His body was found in the Old Harbour having received a severe blow to the head. The body was removed to the Black Boy Public House. Verdict Accidental Death.'


This John Thompson had formerly been a whaler and we thought that he had been lost a sea in Greenland.


The strange thing for me is that, in my youth, I too have been the worse for drink in the Black Boy in Hull (and other dockland hostelries) – I even have the scars from some fights I got into with trawlermen on benders, as in Mike Waterson's song 'Three Day Millionaire'.

Is being disreputable bred into you? Thankfully, one of my sons has become a policeman!