When I first started off researching a girl John what I was finding out that he
you know you lived in a poor area and he wasn't really in a good a good way for
his wife and having a young baby so I was a bit concerned about that and and
what happened thereafter and to find out that actually it improved is such a an
amazing thing to witness and to discover and I feel like in a way that's kind of
what happened with me so I relate to the fact that you have to you know hard work
pays off Cheryl knows that John and James set
sail for Quebec in Canada in August 1857 it was a journey that could take several
weeks she's searching local newspapers for information about their voyage
oh here we go okay here we go the 6th of March 1858 the LaBelle Lane master
sailed from Kubek on the 10th of November for London was spoken in the
14th of November between grouse and Korean island and has not since been
heard of there's obviously a problem their vehicle on LaBelle's return voyage
John and his brother James would have sailed up the scent Lawrence River past
grouse and crane islands and out towards the North Atlantic
Cheryl's arranged to meet dr. Simon wills at the watch house Museum near
North Shields to find out what the newspaper report means so I have this
couldn't from the newspaper which is quite concerning really ma'am I don't
start understand all of the language I was
hoping you can help me with hmm well well spoken on in Victorian times ships
captains when two ships past each other they'd hail each other and so captain
Lane would have shouted out Lebel from shields heading for London and the
captain of the other ship would make a note of that and when he got to port
he'd report that he'd seen Lebel mace it was just a way of keeping track of
ships in those days because there wasn't any other means of communicating your
radio or anything like that this is a list a crew list of everyone who was on
that voyage of Lebel mm-hmm yeah okay so this says port of Shields account of
crew foreign warship should be delivered at the end of the voyage John would lean
chins lean it says deaths at the top so they all died they did I'm afraid what
happened is the insurance company usually decided after a period of time
that the ship would be written off and that's when the men would be formally
declared as dead some of them are so young as well look this champion Robert
Roberts only 17 so your ancestor was pretty much the oldest person on board
at 32 very sad and it just furnished how long would a ship take just to sink like
that I don't depends on what happened it could be as
little as fifteen minutes half an hour really but even if they were thrown
overboard or managed to get off the ship the waters that tells you it was
freezing cold so they wouldn't have lived very long
LaBelle was the only Shep John ever captained it disappeared while on its
return journey to England John James and the entire crew were lost in the mid
19th century being a mariner was a treacherous job there were over 800
shipwrecks a year off the coast of Britain alone and transatlantic voyages
such as LaBelle's were even riskier ships could be blown hundreds of miles
off course and many like LaBelle were never heard of again
Caroline was left a widow with no financial support and a young family to
bring up
Carolyn would have only been 29 and on the family tree I have made
great-great-great-grandfather is another John woodland I've got something that
can help you here it's a birth certificate yeah Sean woods boy father
John Wood Lane mother Carolyn and 1858 me LaBelle left England on the 19th of
August 1857 so she was actually pregnant the whole time Wow and she'll never saw
either a boy I know that's so sad and I really wouldn't die well : and
what she went on to be and do we know from the 1861 census that Caroline went
on to become a charwoman do you know that yeah what's the job well sort of
like an odd jobs lady really she'd taken sewing and do laundry for people and
cleaning so it was quite a comedown for her having been a captain's wife at the
bottom of the ladder really in terms of income at the time she actually came
from poverty and then I guess she went back to poverty got something else to
show you this is a memorial card an affectionate remembrance of John Drury
Lane but this have been belong to Coraline yeah I think she would have
heard that made it's very expensive thing to have made as well at a time
when she had very little money it's been so well kept in the ship labelled he
went to sea and thought not what his end may be now he lies buried in the deep
and has left his wife and children to weep though the regions say over his
body roll do their Lord Jesus receive his soul I
was hoping that he had a long and successful career because of how hard
it'd work to get there and that the kids would have been okay and and set up for
life and Caroline would have been good yeah I just feel I feel sad now I feel
like I got to know John and Caroline I feel like I did get a sense of them even
as a couple the way she's holding him know he's holding her I just sense that
they were really really madly in young love and it's it's a lovely feeling
you