Audrey Allis and "The Cyclist" magazine

 Some letters for sale on ebay recently caught my eye. They were to Audrey Allis from some servicemen and addressed to contact corner at "The Bicycle" magazine.

It seems that Audrey was a pen-friend to a large number of serviceman interested in cycling during WW2 and after the war she organised a large gathering or gatherings of those friends.

She was mentioned in the Daily Mirror of 6 April 1946 as the hostess of the "contact corner" party at Bayswater, and a photograph was included. A note about the party in "The cyclist" of June 1946 says that her uncle was the writer "Ragged Staff" aka Reginald Burgess "Rex" Coley who wrote a great many articles and some books on cycling. Rex was born in Walsall in 1898 and married Annie Palmer in 1929.

Who was Audrey? There are few candidates but after the party mentioned she seems to have disappeared with no references back to the magazine.

A wedding notice from 1837

 A marriage notice from the Yorkshire Gazette of 8 April 1837 was a little out of the ordinary:

"The blooming bride has withstood the blasts of upwards of fifty winters, whilst her lord has not yet escaped from the thraldom of his legal infancy,—being, we understand, above thirty years her junior."

 

Love as a surname or forename

 Having an ancestor's surname as a christian name is obviously useful in following family lines and can provide useful pointers.

Having come across Love as a surname (7114 of them in 1881 and well spread across the country) could Love as a forename indicate a family connection, or is it a christian name in its own right? (In 1881 there were 344 instances).

If used as a middle name is that more likely to be a naming after an ancestor?

Nurse children and Chrysome children

 I have found a number of burials in Essex for "Nurse children" (example: Roydon in the 1600s). I have seen an article on this but it still did not really explain how the children came from London to certain parishes in Essex or why. Can anyone help?

Another reference in a parish was the burials of some "chrysome" children. I have just found this: A child who has died before it's mother was "churched" and the Chrisom cloth (placed on the child at the time of it's baptism becames it's shroud. The entry in the parish register was then for a "Chrisom child" [source: The local historians glossary of words and terms by Joy Bristow]

I don't remember seeing these terms in any Lincolnshire parish register.

Goodman Allis

 In searching some parish registers for Essex, England I came across some people referred to as goodman or goody in the 1600s. One entry for Waltham Holy Cross in 1634 is an example "Richard Wesley the grandchild of goodman Allis of lipats hill was buried the 9 day" (June 1634).

I had not heard of this term before (let alone see it in a parish register) but it was apparently fairly common in the 1600s in puritan circles and was also used in America at the same time according to this web-site

https://donnagawell.com/2017/08/14/if-you-were-a-puritan-what-would-be-your-title/

A more thorough treatment is given in a paper by Norman H. Dawes, "Titles as Symbols of Prestige in Seventeenth-Century New England" from The William and Mary Quarterly,Vol. 6, No. 1 (Jan., 1949), pp. 69-83 (available via JSTOR).

As far as England goes was it a term just used in places with a strong puritan following or did it have more general use? I have not seen it in Lincolnshire parish records and in Essex it wasn't used in that many parishes. Interesting...

Essex, a soldiers burial

 Essex, England

In looking at the parish registers for West Tilbury, Essex there were a number of burials in the 1700s of soldiers from the fort which guarded the Thames. One very noticeable and sad observation was that they frequently had no names, just a note in the register saying "a soldier from the fort was buried on [date]" and sometimes followed by "another soldier was buried...."

Why did they have no names, especially since they were our soldiers? 

Quite a few soldiers buried were named and with rank, so what set the others apart?

John Alliss of Newark to Australia

 Has a loose end been tied up? 

A John Allis was baptised at Newark, Nottinghamshire on the 26 August 1809  the son of William Allis, a carpenter and cabinet maker, and his first wife Mary. No other records have been found for him.

So it has been until a notice in the London gazette caught my eye. It was for a Mary Amatt Jowitt (1844-1923) who died intestsate and the notice in 1926 (25 June, page 4169) was a call for any claimants on her estate. The short note at the end said 

"Note.—The intestate was the only child of John Jowett and Emma Jowett, his wife, formerly Emma Alliss, Spinster. A maternal uncle of the intestate named John Alliss, born in 1809, went to Australia many years ago."

 Emma Alliss' brother was the missing John, so it seems he went to Australia.

At St Pancras, Middlesex in 1831 John Alliss married Eliza Vandercom who, with their four children, emigrated to Victoria, Australia in 1849. In the 1841 census at St Pancras John was not from Middlesex and he was a cabinet maker, but nothing else to indicate where he came from. He was also born in 1809 or 1810 which was confirmed from the passenger list and his age when he died.

This sounds very much like John from Newark who could well have learnt carpentry from his father. He also uses the Alliss spelling. When his father moved from Lincolnshire to Newark he tended to use the double-s spelling.

It's compelling but it would be helpful to have some more evidence this is the same person.

Interesting how a chance note many years after an event can spark some connections.

UPDATE:

I have been contacted by relative of John and shown a copy of his death record along with a second marriage both of which state he was born at Newark. That's great news and many thanks to Merran. Your help was greatly appreciated.