From Wivenhoe to our friends in Stockton, Durham.

For anybody researching their Family History in the Stockton,Durham area this grave stone in Wivenhoe, Essex. Church yard may be of some help.

John Burniele bn. 1792, Captain of the ship Friends Adventure of Stockton, Durham.found drowned in the river Colne 8th July 1830.  He was aged 38. This memorial was erected by his friends having been a constant trader from Sunderland to this port of Wivenhoe for a period of 24 years.

If I am right John was actually John Burnicle baptised on 31/7/1792 in Marske in Clevelend in what is now North Yorkshire. This is just down the coast from Stockton. He was the son of Robert and Sarah.

 

I’ve attached two cuttings for you. The first one says Robert which was actually his father’s name. The second has John and shows him in a different light from the mention on the gravestone! I found two other references tying Friend Adventure to Captain Burnicle, both in the Durham Advertiser. 5/5/1827 they had arrived in Sunderland from Colchester, and 1/11/1828 arrived in Sunderland carrying ships materials.

 

In the first attached article it says he had just received a letter about his mother’s death. She was buried in Marske in Cleveland on 4/7/1830 so I think I have found the right family. There are a lot of register entries for ‘Burnicle’ in Marske in Cleveland and at least one refers to a mariner so I suspect that John had brothers. Certainly the newspaper archives has mentions of several vessels with a ‘Burnicle’ as captain from 1800 onwards. All seem to be basic traders not colliers. Cargos vary but include timber and wheat. When the papers note vessels arriving and leaving port they seem to lump all the colliers together without naming them. I found one reference to the Friends Adventure arriving in Stockton in 1775 with a Captain Burnicle but didn’t note the reference. Perhaps his father was a mariner as well and it was a family boat? This could tie in with John trading in Wivenhoe for 24 years, making him 14 when he first came – presumably as a boy or apprentice.  Confusingly there was another Friends Adventure carrying general cargoes up and down the East Coast at about the same time. The Captains name was Copeland.

 

I have not found John’s marriage but am fairly certain his wife was called Ann as there are a series of baptisms of children to John and Ann in Bishop Wearmouth Durham. The dates of the children’s births suggest a marriage around 1814/15. The article says there were eight children but I have found ten suggesting that one had died as the tenth child, Elizabeth Cooke, was baptised on 20/4/1831, listed with both parents names. Assuming the baptism was at least a month after her birth this could fit.

Dates are baptism dates.

Ann     29/12/1815

John Carter     1/6/1817

Sarah     17/1/1819

Robert Lawson    22/11/1820

William Carter    16/6/1822

Thomas    16/6/1824

Hannah    31/1/1827

James    28/9/1828

Lawson    1/4/1830 (probably christened just before dad left on his next trip!)

Elizabeth Cooke    20/4/1831(Mum’s address was Sunderland Street and she was still there in 1841.)

 

There was nothing on the merchant seaman’s records that I have.

 

All information supplied by Mary Norris, West Sussex. Many thanks , John.