anton söderman ~ charles antony sederman 1833 - 1910
Great-grandfather to the generation of Sedermans, Bushes, Bushells, Roberts and Baishes born between 1938 and 1953.
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Anton Söderman (Anton the 3rd) was born on 23rd October 1833, in 37 Storgatan (Main Street) in Gamla Karleby, Finland, which is on the Gulf of Bothnia, the inland sea between Sweden and Finland, and which is now called Kokkola.
Finland was originally part of the Kingdom of Sweden, and was annexed into Russia in 1809. Gamla Karleby (Old Karleby, GK) was an important Swedish port and town for centuries, and there was an established Sailors Union, the Sjömanshus, still working as a ‘home port’ for Swedish sailors in the 1820-1900s. The official records of Anton’s travels as a mariner, and his father and grandfather, are recorded there, and in a few other Sjömanshus in Sweden, on the west side of the Baltic Sea (the Ostersjön).
Finland was originally part of the Kingdom of Sweden, and was annexed into Russia in 1809. Gamla Karleby (Old Karleby, GK) was an important Swedish port and town for centuries, and there was an established Sailors Union, the Sjömanshus, still working as a ‘home port’ for Swedish sailors in the 1820-1900s. The official records of Anton’s travels as a mariner, and his father and grandfather, are recorded there, and in a few other Sjömanshus in Sweden, on the west side of the Baltic Sea (the Ostersjön).
Home, Family and Godparents
Anton was the first born son of Coopvardie Kapitain Anton Söderman (Anton the 2nd) and Brita Catharina (Caisa or Cajsa) Jessberg. His father was from the parish of Öregrund, on the east coast of Sweden, the west coast of the Baltic Sea, where a lot of people with the same surname lived, nearly all mariners and their families. His mother had been born in Gamla Karleby, and her family is in the Finnish records several generations back, from when the town was Swedish. The little red house above is what it looks like in 2014, changed little from the original house. Brita's family, the Jessbergs, were also mariners, and lived on the same street, on the opposite side and down a bit. More about the family home can be read in the pages about his father and mother and family. The tree shows him as firstborn, followed by his siblings Wicktor (b. 1835), Anders (b.1837, d 1840), Maria Mathilda (b. 1839), and then another Anders (b.1841, his slight indent in the tree picture is due only to the shortcomings of the picture software!). |
Anton was christened (just Anton) on 29th October 1833, by the priest Frederic Stenhagen; he had ten godparents: (ref. Kokkola Syntymeet, 1812-1834, pic 152)
Handelsmannen[1] Carl Adrian Sovelius and his wife Wilhemina; Fabriqueoren[2] Johan Henric Weklund; Enka (widow) Maria Eliza Jessberg, his grandmother; Coopvardie Kapten[3] Jacob Jessberg (his uncle) and his wife C. Charlotta; Coopvardie Kapten Henric Jessberg (his grandfather); Demoiselle[4] Brita C Peitzius; Coopvardie Kapten Anders Weklund, and Demoiselle AM Söderman (probably Anna Maria Söderman, possibly an aunt).
The number of sea captains suggests the family was well established in the town, and we have dated father Anton’s residence there back to possibly 1822, or even 1819. Carl Adrian Sovelius, a Merchant in the town, died in 1843 of a stroke at the age of 44. As I haven’t found any other ‘Carl’ in the family at all, I am venturing that Anton might have called himself Charles after his first godfather, as this is on his marriage certificate in 1869.
Handelsmannen[1] Carl Adrian Sovelius and his wife Wilhemina; Fabriqueoren[2] Johan Henric Weklund; Enka (widow) Maria Eliza Jessberg, his grandmother; Coopvardie Kapten[3] Jacob Jessberg (his uncle) and his wife C. Charlotta; Coopvardie Kapten Henric Jessberg (his grandfather); Demoiselle[4] Brita C Peitzius; Coopvardie Kapten Anders Weklund, and Demoiselle AM Söderman (probably Anna Maria Söderman, possibly an aunt).
The number of sea captains suggests the family was well established in the town, and we have dated father Anton’s residence there back to possibly 1822, or even 1819. Carl Adrian Sovelius, a Merchant in the town, died in 1843 of a stroke at the age of 44. As I haven’t found any other ‘Carl’ in the family at all, I am venturing that Anton might have called himself Charles after his first godfather, as this is on his marriage certificate in 1869.
[1] Handelsmannen = Merchant
[2] Fabriqueoren = Manufacturer (tbc)
[3] CoopvardieKapten = pron koffericaptain, a captain on a merchant vessel, possibly cooperatively owned?
[4] Demoiselle = tends to be used as a title for an older unmarried woman.
[2] Fabriqueoren = Manufacturer (tbc)
[3] CoopvardieKapten = pron koffericaptain, a captain on a merchant vessel, possibly cooperatively owned?
[4] Demoiselle = tends to be used as a title for an older unmarried woman.
Finnish Household Records
The records (below) for the little red house (above) where Anton Söderman & Brita Cajsa Jessberg lived from 1832 show Anton added to the list as he is born in 1833, followed by his siblings Wicktor (b. 1835), Anders (b.1837, d 1840), Maria Mathilda (b. 1839), and then another Anders (b.1841).
Finnish Household Records
The records (below) for the little red house (above) where Anton Söderman & Brita Cajsa Jessberg lived from 1832 show Anton added to the list as he is born in 1833, followed by his siblings Wicktor (b. 1835), Anders (b.1837, d 1840), Maria Mathilda (b. 1839), and then another Anders (b.1841).
The next record for 1847-1853, below, has the head of household as his mother Brita Caisa, as Anton's father died in 1842. Only she, Wiktor and Anders have annually dated entries, and Anton is listed with no entries against his name, and we know from Sjomanshus archives that he was at sea from 1846, until he appears on 17th August 1851, that is to say he was seen by the priest and took communion. This can be read alongside the fact that he had 'enrolled' to sail on the Hesperus, on 11th August. It probably means that he took communion in readiness to leave on the voyage, as he is only one seen by the priest that day (his family were all recorded as having been seen on the same day, ie. when the priest would have come to the house on his rounds). The record states that he is able to read, to recite the Lutheran catechism, and is numerate.
Later, in the 1855-1861 lists Brita Caisa is there with her sons Anton, Wicktor (with a cross next to him (dead), and an L (left?), and Anders, with an L in the margin.By now, of course, we know that Anton is living in Britain, working for the ships of the English Merchant Navy, but it's not until the next set of records, 1862-68, that Anton is listed as "rymd", that is 'disappeared', alongside Brita Caisa's entry. Notes have been set underneath his entry - indecipherable!
But we are jumping ahead here.....
But we are jumping ahead here.....
Anton's early working life
Anton started his seaman’s career at the age of 12, as a lårling, an apprentice or a trainee, on a brigg called Orion out of Gamla Karleby. He was on board from 28th September 1846, on the ‘East North Sea’ until 30th August 1847, under Capt. Carl G Sundbeck. An apprentice was on only trial, and he must have been a good seaman as almost immediately on returning, he was signed up to sail back to the North Sea as a kajutvakt - cabin boy - on the bark Wånskapen under Jacob Eklund. He was 13, and remained on board from 13th September 1847 until 5th October 1848.
Aged 15, he is also a kajutvakt on the skepp Furst Menchikoff, sailing out of GK again to the North Sea on 21st May 1849, returning on 8th July 1851. The captain of this ship is Johan Edvard Lalin, a boat owner as well as captain.
It is worth noting that Anton's brother Wicktor also was a child sailor on both of these boats under the same captains, in 1848 on the Furst Menchikoff aged 12, and in 1852-53 with Eklund on the Wånskapen, aged 17.
The clippers, steamers, barks, briggs, and other sorts of ships that he and his father, his brother, his uncles, worked on went around the Baltic coastline, and out via Denmark to major ports in Britain such as Hull, North Shields, London, and over to America. Cargoes were timber, and iron from the Öregrund area, which would have come out of Gävle, a major port north of Öregrund. This area is full of iron foundries or bruks as imported by Walloons in the 16th century and using familiar methods (to us from Cardiff) like the Bessemer process. Öregrund Iron was world famous for its quality, and went to Sheffield especially, also playing a massive part in wartime ship and tank construction. It seems fitting that some of Anton’s descendants worked in the steel industry in Wales, his adopted home!
Previous cargoes for the Furst Menchikoff (taken from the "Sound Dues" records at Öresund, between Sweden and Denmark), included tar being carried between GK and London. Tar, furs, lumber, salt, iron, all were valuable cargoes for the Finns... and not only the small boat owners from Gamla Karleby. Finland at the time was a Duchy of Russia, and operated as the merchant mariners for the Russian trade. Indeed more than 75% of "Russian" ships were owned & operated by Finns from the western coast of the country. This has a significance beyond what might appear to be a tiny detail, in the story of our great-grandfather...
Stranded ...
On 11th August 1851, when Anton is 17, he is a Konstapel on the Hesperus (under Capt Clasén), apparently a position of responsibility related to ordering the provisions for the crew. His salary was 5.50 roubles (a day?). This was a significant voyage for him in the light of history, because ... well, because he didn't ever go home after this journey...
I am following the ship and its voyages, which are chronicled on the page Hesperus 1851-1854.
Britain declared war on Russia in March 1854, giving Russian/Finns merchant ships a window of 6 weeks to get back to home ports, or be impounded. Many ships were sold, cargo and crew, to other nations, to prevent this happening. Often the captains of the ships did not know a war had begun until they reached land, and Brits, Swedes, and other neutral nations, bought the ships at a knock-down price. The GK Sjomanshus records for Clasén and all the crew say the Hesperus was sold "in Corfu" on 8th March 1854, and its crew was signed off... though we know not where, yet. Corfu was a British protectorate, and was the place where the Greek shipping industry burgeoned in earnest, mainly related to insurance! It appears that the sales of many ships from Gamla Karleby were processed through Corfu at the time...
The other consequence was that the British Navy ignored the six week window, and newspaper reports start to appear in which War Prizes are listed, mainly Finnish boats, again with crew and valuable cargoes. 'Alien' crew were allowed to leave the ships if they wished, as long as they promised not to work for the Russians, but they also risked imprisonment. Many stayed on their ships and began to work for their new owners, often finishing the voyage for which they were contracted.
We as yet don't know which course Anton took - until a few weeks later when, according to his own records, he sailed out of Shields on a UK boat listed as a Swedish national!
Sailing the new home waters
From the UK National Archives records at Kew we see that Antony first sailed out of Britain on 17th April 1854, on a boat called Mary from Shields, returning on 17th October 1854. He is Able Seaman Antony Sederman, and his career takes off, becoming Boatswain, Second Mate and eventually First Mate. The records that he filled in when going for his Second Mate exam in 1864, and then his First or Only Mate exam in 1866, mainly out of Bristol or Cardiff Seamens’ houses, gives us an almost complete picture of his voyages up to 1866. Glasgow, Greenock, Sunderland, London, Bristol, Irvine, Liverpool, Whitehaven, quite a lot from Exeter and Plymouth. Further down the certificates page, a timeline shows more info, which I am updating as I find more facts!
While occasionally there are gaps in his service, 6 or 8 weeks, possibly with enough time for him to get ‘home’ to Sweden or Finland, we don't know if he did. It will be valuable next to search for records from 1866 to 1869, maybe concentrating on Bristol as he clearly meets his future wife in that area or city, and on his Mates certificate applications they show he was in Bristol and in Cardiff over those years.
Also on his application papers he gives his home town as Öregrund in Sweden, not Finland. On our visit to Öregrund in 2013, Björn Lindström, the marine historian from Öregrund was of the opinion that in 1854 Anton might have left Finland as he was already working on ships that went to the UK, at the time the Crimean war approached, making it difficult to go back. Now we know that this is the most likely reason - he had simply taken his father’s family home town as his birthplace, given that he would have been there, and his name was recorded as being from there, even if in a previous generation (or two).
His change of name is another question. In October 2014 I found the log book of his second ship in the UK, in the National Archives: he boarded the Maxwell, out of Glasgow, on 31st October 1854, under Robert Mill. He is named as "Antonia Soderman", a (male) Swede aged 21, whose previous ship was the Mary of Shields. We have speculated that a Swede/Finn accent being heard in a Humberside seaport might have rendered his name different from the "Anton Suerderman" that Swedes say nowadays to pronounce the name; possibly the additional of a Geordie or Glaswegian added a 'yer' to the English form of Anton-y, and developed his surname into the written form of Sederman. Given that he would not want to give the game away, that he was in fact a Finnish-Russian, he might have felt that it was easier to take the name given to him. Interestingly, Sodermans lived in the UK and still do, so this can possibly be the only explanation, not wanting to make a fuss about it for fear, as a young man, of being imprisoned as one of the enemy.
A trawl through the records of the Maxwell shows that was a ship that was often away for two years, passing through several ports in the UK, going to the Americas, via "the Brazils". As Anton, he was used to long North Sea voyages between the Baltic, the USA and London, so we can hope that he was just very pleased to be out of the way of the Russian War. In July 1854 there was a massive battle in the harbour mouth at Gamla Karleby, with the Royal Navy sustaining defeat by the Finns and death to its sailors. The small boat that was captured is still "a prize" in the English Park in Kokkola, housed in a protective shed, and occasionally subject to fruitless "negotiations".
A change of circumstance
By 1869 Antony is 35 and in London, marrying 22 year-old Julia Hubbard in a sailors’ church in Shadwell. She goes back to her mother's home in East Brent (near Bristol) and has a daughter, Ellen Maria, three months later. He goes back to sea. It’s on his marriage certificate (below, from the registrar's book) that he seems to first use ‘Charles’ as well as ‘Antony’. On his actual marriage certificate, the Antony had been inserted, which makes me wonder if he called himself Charles to appear less foreign. But in 1894, on his Mate's reapplication, he is using ‘Antony’, and crosses out the ‘h’ that has been added by the official.
By 1869 Antony is 35 and in London, marrying 22 year-old Julia Hubbard in a sailors’ church in Shadwell. She goes back to her mother's home in East Brent (near Bristol) and has a daughter, Ellen Maria, three months later. He goes back to sea. It’s on his marriage certificate (below, from the registrar's book) that he seems to first use ‘Charles’ as well as ‘Antony’. On his actual marriage certificate, the Antony had been inserted, which makes me wonder if he called himself Charles to appear less foreign. But in 1894, on his Mate's reapplication, he is using ‘Antony’, and crosses out the ‘h’ that has been added by the official.
Caught by the 1871 Census
In 1871 aged 37 he is registered in the Pool of London in the Census on the night of 2nd April, as the Mate on a ship called The Queen of the Clippers, with Captain William Lay. The research I did about this boat shows it was a London-based clipper plying its route between London and Bermuda, taking six months to get there and back. The lengths of Anton's stays at sea have that in common, from Exeter and London especially.
His place of birth is given as Sweden, and there is a curious abbreviation next to it - is it 'sub natz' or 'not natz'?
In the column heading it tells the Enumerator "if born in Foreign Parts, write the particular state or country, and if also a British Subject, add 'British Subject' or 'Naturalised British Subject' as the case may be." Sub Natz might be a different way of saying that he was a naturalised British Subject, but even the archivist at the National Archives in Kew had not seen this before. If it is Not Natz, then this might be that he is not naturalised. TNA Kew could not find naturalisation papers for him; he is married to a British woman, so maybe he takes on British nationality through Julia?
A young fellow Swede, Gustaf Sand, is on the same ship, with the same abbreviation next to his name. There are a few other nationalities in the crew but none has this note appended. Even more curious is the fact that the words have been transcribed as Notnate, seemingly a place in Sweden, in the Ancestry.com record. Needless to say there is no such town!
Update: In 2015 correspondence with David Annals (TNA) he confirmed that the words were "not natz", that is, not naturalised.
Family Life in the UK
At the moment we have his UK mariners records from 1854 to 1866, details of some ships in 1881, and then again from 1890 (list of boats on next page). In 1894 the Cardiff coal ship Clytha, of which he was the Mate, sank on collision in the Bristol Channel and he lost all his possessions, including his Mate’s certificate. Aged 61 he was at the Seamen’s House the very next day applying for a new one, so that he could get back to work. The contemporary account in the Western Mail is here.
At one point we thought we had found him back in Sweden in 1886; A.Söderman was registered in the Hudiksvall Sjömanshus, coming from Öregrund. The 2014 trip to the archives for Hudiksvall (in Härnosand) shows that it wasn't him, but another Anders, captain of the schooner Martha, along with a son Joseph Albert - possibly a Swedish cousin?
Antony and Julia's children came along quite regularly, every eighteen months to two years or so. After Ellen Maria (East Brent, 3 July 1869), Bertha was born in July 1871, Francis Anthony in January 1873, also in East Brent. Then Florence Mathilda was born in Nailsea/ Bedminster, April 1876, as was Victor Ernest, April 1878 (died 1880), and Charles Victor, Jan 8th or 9th 1881, all in the west country of England.
By April 1887, when their last child (my grandmother) Lilla Elizabeth Lang was born, they had moved to Cardiff, in Wales. It's clear that Antony used some of his family names for his children (Victor, Matilda, as well as Anthony), and of interest might be the Swedish use of a 'pet' name here, for the last child, the baby, was typically called "lille' or 'lilla', eg. little Elizabeth.
I surmise that Lang was used for Lilla, as it was her grandmother's maiden name (Charlotte Lang). At first we assumed that it was from Swede-Finn Anders Lang, but then realised that it was also in Julia's family - her uncles also had Lang as a middle name - and therefore a more likely source. Maybe Julia was determined not to have any more children, and gave Lilla this name as she was the last one! Lilla called her own second daughter Marjorie Lang (Bush), and it is to our regret that none of us asked her where it came from!