My grandfather,
James Pearson Shepheard, was born on 12 March 1891, in Torquay, Devon, during
the height of a major weather disruption. I wrote about this event in an
article published in the March/April 2021 issue of Your Genealogy Today.
The piece described the events and ramifications of the Great Blizzard of
1891 that struck Southwest England on March 9th and which
wreaked havoc across Cornwall and Devon for several days.
The story might be
subtitled, You never know what can happen during a storm!
The town of
Torquay itself received a heavy snowfall with substantial drifting. Areas along
the shoreline took the brunt of the winds, causing damage to buildings and
infrastructure.
The Torquay Times, the local newspaper, reported (13 March 1891, page
2):
A snowstorm and gale of unprecedented fury
has been experienced in Torquay this week, in common with all South Western
parts of the Kingdom. . . Five weeks of
glorious weather with cloudless skies, but frosty mornings and evenings, seemed
to be an ideal spring, and although the adage that “March comes in like a lion,
and goes out like a lamb,” was realized, so far as the advent of the month was
concerned, no one was prepared for what followed. . . An easterly gale
commenced to blow, and the snow continuing to fall with increased vigour.
Tuesday morning revealed to the gaze of the astonished Torquinians a “world of
white.” In the town, the snow was nearly a foot deep, and in the more exposed
parts it had drifted several feet deep. . . The wind was very
boisterous, and great damage has been done in all directions. . . The snow
continued to fall heavily throughout Tuesday, but it cleared soon after
midnight, and on Wednesday morning a cloudless sky and warm sunshine showed
that a return had been made to the normal condition of the town.
Flying Dutchman, behind Great Western Railway No. 2128, Leopard
class engine, derailed near Camborne, Cornwall on 9 March 1891 (retrieved 3
February 2020 from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BASA-3K-7-518-56.jpg)
It appears our family was not seriously inconvenienced, and no injuries or deaths were reported among them. But I do wonder if the stress of the weather prompted my great-grandmother to go into labour. James Pearson Shepheard was born at home, perhaps an indication that, even though home births were not uncommon, it may not have been convenient or easy for his mother to get to a local clinic or hospital.
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| James Pearson Shepheard, 1891 photo and birth certificate |
At the time of the
storm, my grandfather’s grandfather, John Shepheard, was the proprietor of a
dairy business in Torquay. One can only imagine what the difficulties were in
getting the cows milked and the milk delivered that week.
I write and talk a
lot about the impact Mother Nature has had on communities and families in the
past. This is just one little event my ancestors had to get through. Others
were not so lucky.
On land, several
people lost their lives having been trapped in the open during the blizzard.
Many others were injured by falling trees or parts of buildings collapsing on
them, or from the effects of frost bite. At sea, 17 ships were wrecked along
the coasts of Devon and Cornwall with the deaths of 79 sailors. Businesses were
disrupted for weeks and farms suffered terribly from the loss of hundreds of
cattle and sheep.
Regarding my
grandfather’s birth, was it initiated by a storm or was it just coincidence?
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