dan without doubt
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- liverpool
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- Wales
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Help Requested – Researching the Reid Family Behind a Worldwide Postcard Archive (c.1904–1921)
- Thread starter caffa
- Start date
dan without doubt
Member
- Location
- liverpool
- From
- Wales
gibbo
Loyal Member
- Location
- queensland
- From
- Australia
How nice for someone now to have them and is interested in putting their story together and archived. They won't be forgotten
Bootzy
Loyal Member
- Location
- Queensland
- From
- Australia
Dan,
I'm curious.. any idea from family as to what happened to John/Jack jnr after his mother died... he would have been around 9... as he doesn't appear on any census until 1921 with his cousin William Hughes..
regards
Val
I'm curious.. any idea from family as to what happened to John/Jack jnr after his mother died... he would have been around 9... as he doesn't appear on any census until 1921 with his cousin William Hughes..
regards
Val
dan without doubt
Member
- Location
- liverpool
- From
- Wales
i dont but i will ask.
WOW !
Thank you Val , your hard work and attention to detail is outstanding and has helped me so so much with this project. beyond words
What has really emerged from the postcards is the scale of your family’s maritime story. Captain John Henry Reid wasn’t simply travelling occasionally—his life was tied to the great sailing routes of the Edwardian world. In November 1901, while commanding the Aigburth, she grounded on the South Arklow Bank in the Irish Sea. The Board of Trade inquiry suspended his master’s certificate for three months, although he was allowed to serve as chief mate. Then, on 2 August 1904, the Aigburth was wrecked again—this time on an uncharted reef near Rook Island, New Guinea, while carrying coal from Newcastle, New South Wales, towards Java. The crew abandoned ship in four boats; one boat’s men reached Rook Island, found help through local people and a Chinese trader, and eventually made their way to safety. It is an extraordinary survival story.hi everyone, can confirm these are my great and great,great grandparents, this is quite a find as i was pretty close to my great grandparents and heard many tales as a kid
The postcards then allow us to follow the family through that maritime world almost as if we were travelling beside them. We have correspondence from Newcastle and Woolwich in New South Wales, Iquique in Chile, Port Said and the Suez Canal, Colombo, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. Some cards travelled many thousands of miles before reaching Liverpool, only to be redirected again to Hendre, Gwalchmai, Anglesey. One Colombo picture card was actually carried onwards and posted from Yokohama; it then crossed the world to Liverpool with tax and postage-due marks before being forwarded again. Every cancellation, handwritten redirect and postal charge remains on the cards, creating a physical record of the routes followed by Captain Reid and his family.
The period from December 1906 to May 1907 is especially moving. On 7 December 1906, John and Emma were welcomed back to Tenterfield, New South Wales, after serious illnesses, at a civic reception attended by around 250 people. A postcard was then posted from Woolwich on Christmas Day, sending festive wishes back to Liverpool. By 18 January 1907, the trail had crossed the Pacific to Iquique, Chile, where consecutive cards say, “From Jack to Emma & Jack” and “All well. Jenny & Jack.” Then, on 17 April, a family postcard sent to Miss Crosbie contains the anxious words: “There was a mistake in the name of the ship. No news yet of the Toxteth.” Only twenty-three days later, Captain Reid died at Stuyvenberg Hospital in Antwerp while master of that ship.
The remarkable thing is that the postcards continue the story after his death. The correspondence shifts towards Emma, young Jack, Maggie and the Hughes–Crosbie family, recording their movements, illnesses, visits and everyday support for one another. After Emma’s death in 1909, a 1911 postcard from Maggie in Ottawa is addressed directly to Jack at 283 Walton Breck Road. So the collection doesn’t merely record Captain Reid’s voyages: it follows the family through shipwreck, illness, bereavement and survival, then into Jack’s own life and maritime career. By combining the postcards with the Board of Trade inquiries, shipping records, newspapers and family research, we are reconstructing a family story stretching across oceans and generations.
Looking for Help Interpreting a Newly Discovered Source
I thought it was worth raising this here, as we’ve recently uncovered a newspaper article that introduces a question none of us had anticipated.
Over many months, with the help of members of this forum—and especially with the invaluable contribution of Jack Reid’s great-great-grandson, Dan—we’ve pieced together what we believed was a well-supported history of Captain John Henry Reid (Master Mariner) and his son, John Henry “Jack” Reid (1899–1993).
Together we’ve worked through official records, newspaper reports, census returns, shipping records and certificates, and it felt as though we’d reached a sound understanding of the family’s history.
A recently discovered newspaper article has now introduced one point that we haven’t yet been able to reconcile, and we’d very much value the forum’s thoughts.
The established timeline
We have evidence that Captain John Henry Reid married Emma Hughes at Norwood Congregational Chapel, Liverpool, on 2 April 1894.
Five years later, on 9 December 1899, John Henry “Jack” Reid was born aboard the Liverpool sailing ship Otterspool while she was crossing the Pacific Ocean.
His birth certificate records the ship’s position as:
Latitude 33 degrees 31 minutes North
Longitude 126 degrees 38 minutes West
On the face of it, everything fits perfectly.
The newly discovered source
We’ve recently obtained a copy of the Liverpool Echo article “The Ancient Mariner,” written when Jack was 92 years old.
This wasn’t simply a newspaper feature compiled from secondary sources. Jack supplied the photographs used in the article, brought along his own birth certificate, produced an earlier newspaper cutting relating to his father’s shipwreck, and is quoted extensively throughout. Many of the facts contained in the article have already been independently verified during the course of this research.
However, the article contains the following sentence:
“His mother, Elizabeth, was on the three-masted cargo vessel Otterspool when she went into labour on the voyage from Australia to South America.”
This has given us pause.
If Captain John Henry Reid married Emma Hughes in 1894, then Emma would ordinarily be expected to be Jack’s mother.
Yet the article, apparently based on information supplied by Jack himself, names his mother as Elizabeth.
Why this has caught our attention
Ordinarily we’d be inclined to dismiss this as a newspaper error.
However, because Jack supplied the photographs, brought along his own birth certificate, and appears to have been the source of much of the information in the article—and because we’ve independently confirmed so many other details—it seems difficult to believe that he would have identified his own mother incorrectly.
That doesn’t mean the article must be right, but it does make us think there’s something here that we don’t yet understand.
We’d really appreciate your thoughts
Has anyone come across this family before, or seen anything that might help explain this?
Could Emma Hughes also have been known as Elizabeth? Is there a birth-at-sea record or another contemporary document that identifies Jack’s mother? Or is there another explanation that we’ve simply not considered?
We’ve come a long way together in reconstructing this family’s history, so it seemed only right to bring this latest discovery back to the forum. We’d genuinely welcome any thoughts, ideas or suggestions that might help us better understand this newly discovered piece of evidence.
I thought it was worth raising this here, as we’ve recently uncovered a newspaper article that introduces a question none of us had anticipated.
Over many months, with the help of members of this forum—and especially with the invaluable contribution of Jack Reid’s great-great-grandson, Dan—we’ve pieced together what we believed was a well-supported history of Captain John Henry Reid (Master Mariner) and his son, John Henry “Jack” Reid (1899–1993).
Together we’ve worked through official records, newspaper reports, census returns, shipping records and certificates, and it felt as though we’d reached a sound understanding of the family’s history.
A recently discovered newspaper article has now introduced one point that we haven’t yet been able to reconcile, and we’d very much value the forum’s thoughts.
The established timeline
We have evidence that Captain John Henry Reid married Emma Hughes at Norwood Congregational Chapel, Liverpool, on 2 April 1894.
Five years later, on 9 December 1899, John Henry “Jack” Reid was born aboard the Liverpool sailing ship Otterspool while she was crossing the Pacific Ocean.
His birth certificate records the ship’s position as:
Latitude 33 degrees 31 minutes North
Longitude 126 degrees 38 minutes West
On the face of it, everything fits perfectly.
The newly discovered source
We’ve recently obtained a copy of the Liverpool Echo article “The Ancient Mariner,” written when Jack was 92 years old.
This wasn’t simply a newspaper feature compiled from secondary sources. Jack supplied the photographs used in the article, brought along his own birth certificate, produced an earlier newspaper cutting relating to his father’s shipwreck, and is quoted extensively throughout. Many of the facts contained in the article have already been independently verified during the course of this research.
However, the article contains the following sentence:
“His mother, Elizabeth, was on the three-masted cargo vessel Otterspool when she went into labour on the voyage from Australia to South America.”
This has given us pause.
If Captain John Henry Reid married Emma Hughes in 1894, then Emma would ordinarily be expected to be Jack’s mother.
Yet the article, apparently based on information supplied by Jack himself, names his mother as Elizabeth.
Why this has caught our attention
Ordinarily we’d be inclined to dismiss this as a newspaper error.
However, because Jack supplied the photographs, brought along his own birth certificate, and appears to have been the source of much of the information in the article—and because we’ve independently confirmed so many other details—it seems difficult to believe that he would have identified his own mother incorrectly.
That doesn’t mean the article must be right, but it does make us think there’s something here that we don’t yet understand.
We’d really appreciate your thoughts
Has anyone come across this family before, or seen anything that might help explain this?
Could Emma Hughes also have been known as Elizabeth? Is there a birth-at-sea record or another contemporary document that identifies Jack’s mother? Or is there another explanation that we’ve simply not considered?
We’ve come a long way together in reconstructing this family’s history, so it seemed only right to bring this latest discovery back to the forum. We’d genuinely welcome any thoughts, ideas or suggestions that might help us better understand this newly discovered piece of evidence.
The Ancient Mariner
By Vic Gibson
OLD sea dog Capt John Reid proudly boasts that he’s got rum in his veins.
Of the navy variety, of course.
And when he paid a nostalgic visit to the Tall Ships, the real-life Ancient Mariner brought along a picture—and his birth certificate—to prove his point.
For Capt Reid, now a still-sprightly 92, was actually born aboard a Liverpool sailing ship, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, in the last month of the last year of the last century!
His birth certificate gives the exact location as latitude 33 degrees 31 minutes North, and longitude 126 degrees 38 minutes West.
It is dated Saturday, December 9, 1899.
His mother, Elizabeth, was on the three-masted cargo vessel Otterspool when she went into labour on the voyage from Australia to South America.
Capt Reid, from Crosby, who provided this picture (inset right) of his first voyage, says:
“I spent the first seven years of my life at sea—and I must be the oldest Cape Horner alive.”
He was a guest of honour aboard the huge Russian vessel Kruzenshtern, at Birkenhead’s Vittoria Dock, at a reception by Liverpool solicitors Hill Dickinson Davies Campbell, who are working for the Grand Regatta Columbus.
Capt Reid, who was accompanied by his daughter Vivienne, adds:
“It is a shame we don’t see ships like these more often.”
“They have become a thing of the past—like me.”
“But when you were on the ships, you didn’t like any part of the damn things.”
“Anyone who says they enjoyed it is a liar. You had to work too hard!”
Capt Reid also brought along a cutting from the Liverpool Echo dated November 21, 1904, headlined:
“Liverpool Crew and the Cannibals”
It told how his father, also called Capt John Reid, and fellow survivors reached land five days after being shipwrecked off Papua New Guinea.
By Vic Gibson
OLD sea dog Capt John Reid proudly boasts that he’s got rum in his veins.
Of the navy variety, of course.
And when he paid a nostalgic visit to the Tall Ships, the real-life Ancient Mariner brought along a picture—and his birth certificate—to prove his point.
For Capt Reid, now a still-sprightly 92, was actually born aboard a Liverpool sailing ship, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, in the last month of the last year of the last century!
His birth certificate gives the exact location as latitude 33 degrees 31 minutes North, and longitude 126 degrees 38 minutes West.
It is dated Saturday, December 9, 1899.
His mother, Elizabeth, was on the three-masted cargo vessel Otterspool when she went into labour on the voyage from Australia to South America.
Capt Reid, from Crosby, who provided this picture (inset right) of his first voyage, says:
“I spent the first seven years of my life at sea—and I must be the oldest Cape Horner alive.”
He was a guest of honour aboard the huge Russian vessel Kruzenshtern, at Birkenhead’s Vittoria Dock, at a reception by Liverpool solicitors Hill Dickinson Davies Campbell, who are working for the Grand Regatta Columbus.
Capt Reid, who was accompanied by his daughter Vivienne, adds:
“It is a shame we don’t see ships like these more often.”
“They have become a thing of the past—like me.”
“But when you were on the ships, you didn’t like any part of the damn things.”
“Anyone who says they enjoyed it is a liar. You had to work too hard!”
Capt Reid also brought along a cutting from the Liverpool Echo dated November 21, 1904, headlined:
“Liverpool Crew and the Cannibals”
It told how his father, also called Capt John Reid, and fellow survivors reached land five days after being shipwrecked off Papua New Guinea.
Attachments
Bootzy
Loyal Member
- Location
- Queensland
- From
- Australia
UK Registers & Indexes of BDM passengers & seamen at sea – 1891-1922 definitely has:
ship Otterspool - official no: 91173 – dob 9/12/99 – Joh Hy Reid m John Henry Reid Master of ship Otterspool (to San Franscisco) & Emma Reid nee Hughes – father’s nationality = Isle of Man last place of abode = ship – Nationality of mother Liverpool last place of abode = ship
The National Archives; Kew, Surrey, England; BT 334: Registry of Shipping and Seamen: Registers and Indexes of Births, Marriages and Deaths of Passengers and Seamen at Sea; Piece Number: 4
UK, Registers and Indexes of Births, Marriages and Deaths of Passengers and Seamen at Sea, 1891-1922
ship Otterspool - official no: 91173 – dob 9/12/99 – Joh Hy Reid m John Henry Reid Master of ship Otterspool (to San Franscisco) & Emma Reid nee Hughes – father’s nationality = Isle of Man last place of abode = ship – Nationality of mother Liverpool last place of abode = ship
The National Archives; Kew, Surrey, England; BT 334: Registry of Shipping and Seamen: Registers and Indexes of Births, Marriages and Deaths of Passengers and Seamen at Sea; Piece Number: 4
UK, Registers and Indexes of Births, Marriages and Deaths of Passengers and Seamen at Sea, 1891-1922
dan without doubt
Member
- Location
- liverpool
- From
- Wales
I’m pretty sure it was an error in the article. I have a vague memory of it being talked about but can’t be sure
Hi ,
Not sure if this helps but my grandfather was George Reid raised in the Greg ny Baa hotel Isle of Man. His father was Frank Reid from Liverpool. George was married to Edith Reid né Dunning whose family were from Liverpool but originally from Anglesey .
Not sure if this helps but my grandfather was George Reid raised in the Greg ny Baa hotel Isle of Man. His father was Frank Reid from Liverpool. George was married to Edith Reid né Dunning whose family were from Liverpool but originally from Anglesey .
