A Potted History of My Family from Poland to Stoke-on-Trent
By Martin Morris
Hon. President of The Stoke-on-Trent & North Staffordshire Hebrew Community
I'm not much of a wordsmith, but I'll do my best to give you a brief précis on each photograph to explain what the relevance of them is to me, without being too boring. The first picture is of my paternal great grandparents from about 1880 in a tiny little village called Bolimów situated in Central Poland. It was located about halfway between Lódź and Warsaw, but I think that at this point in time, the area had been annexed by Russia and was under the rule the Tsar. To my limited knowledge, Tsar Nicholas the first of Russia was also the Grand Duke of Finland and King of Poland (which seems quite greedy.) At some point around 1830, advisers to the Tsar decided to have a census to properly determine the population and it was decreed that everybody should have a surname for identification purposes. In reality, it was almost certain it was for taxation and more devious reasons.
This was when Michael and Sarah decided they would name themselves as Posnansky, "From the city of Posnan." This, upon investigation by me, was somewhat odd, because Posnan is 250 kilometres from Bolimów and Lódź is a closer city, which is only 80 kilometres from Bolimów. Even Warsaw, which is a really big city 65 kilometres away. Though technically, they should have picked their own village and named themselves after it and the surname would have been Bolimowsky. Perhaps as some passive show of defiance, they chose a city in Poland that was NOT under the Russian heel.
These two images are also of Sarah and Michael, they are aquatints, which are just hand colourings in paint over a photograph and I currently have these on the wall of my flat.
One of their children, Simon (the oldest son), decided that living in Bolimów was not for him, as on 26 August 1827 Tsar Nicholas introduced the edict of military conscription "Ustav rekrutskoi povinnosti" which required Jewish boys to serve in the Russian military for 25 years from the age of eighteen.
He upped sticks and made his way over to England, arriving in Manchester and joined a firm of tailors. His surname somehow changed from Posnansky to Simons upon immigration, as we believe he just didn't understand the questions that were asked of him. So he became Simon Simons. Co-incidentally, a few years later, Maurice (his younger brother and my grandfather), avoiding the Tsar's army and at the age of fourteen, walked from Bolimów to Great Britain, learning his trade on the way.
He already knew how to sew, as Michael Posnansky was a cap maker and he made tailoring his profession, doing running repairs to fellow traveller's clothes, as he learned his craft, to earn his passage and pay for his lodgings as he travelled the 1,925 kilometers to Liverpool. He finally arrived in 1899, gave his name to the Immigration Officer, who couldn't understand his strong Polish accent, asked him to repeat his surname. Apparently, even as a young man, he had very little patience and in a story that may well be apocryphal, he pointed to the fellow in front of him (a Welshman) and said "Same name as him!"
That man was called "Morris" and as a result of that, he now became known as Maurice Morris... Later changed to Morris Morris, because he couldn't read or write and if he had to sign his name, he learned how to write Morris and then just repeated it. I was told by my father, that if you interrupted him halfway through his signature, he had to rip it up and start again, because he didn't know where he'd go up to.
With the help of his older brother, Maurice gained employment at a large, well-respected tailoring firm in Manchester, called Beaty Brothers. They had two branches in the city and others in Lancashire, most notably out in Bolton, where Simon had a senior position as a bespoke suit maker.
This photograph of the work room at Beaty Brothers shows my grandfather (extreme left) in 1902, with all the other members of staff, preserved for posterity in the very early twentieth century. I'll have to presume that the three children in the photograph are there to do menial tasks, such as sweeping up, etc:- I think it highly unlikely that they have just joined their parents for the picture, or have finished school early.
Unfortunately, I have no personal recollections of my grandfather, as I was only eighteen months old when he passed away in 1957 (aged 74), though I do have stories that my father passed onto me, confirming his personality, short temper and Polishness.
The next picture is not one of my own, but gleaned from the internet, shows the only know photograph of the Beaty Brother's store on the corner of Market Street in Manchester. My research shows that this image would have been produced about 1888, when the city's tram service had become a viable prospect in Lancashire as Manchester Corporation adopted a resolution to take over the tramways and to operate them as an electric system from 1895. The last horse drawn trams in Manchester were in 1903.
Maurice worked hard and by 1903, had become the best man at Beaty Brothers and the powers that be, put forward a proposition to the young immigrant. "We're opening a new branch in Hanley. Do you want to be the “manager”? My grandfather still apparently very foreign at this point in time and inside his head, he thinks to himself "Henley. Henley-on-Thames. The Big City? I'll do it!" and that's the true story of how Maurice Morris ends up in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, running a tailor's shop.
The studio photograph below, taken in 1899 is of Simon (Posnansky) Simons (aged 22), Maurice (Posnansky) Morris (aged 16) and their mentor, known simply as "Little Uncle", his given name has vanished into the mists of time, my late father only knew him by that strange sobriquet and never thought to ask his real name, as everybody in the work room called him Little Uncle. He was only young and never had the courage to ask.
My grandfather was only about five feet three inches tall, his older brother was an inch or so smaller, so presumably, Little Uncle was even shorter than that, we do not have any photographs of a standing Little Uncle to determine his actual height.
One of the things that my father did recall about Little Uncle, was that every week, on a Tuesday, he would go out to the cinema for the evening matinee, to see whatever feature was playing for that day. Then on the following day, in the workroom, with all his colleagues paying attention, he would describe every scene from the movie and take great pleasure in the details of grisly murders. He wasn't a happy man if there was less than three stabbings.
After five years of loyal service to the firm, David Beaty and William Richard Beaty of 412 Stockport Road Manchester (trading as Beaty Brothers), went into administration, as they say today.
In 1909, I think that the system was somewhat more lax than it is today and twenty six year old Maurice Morris, as an enterprising young immigrant, took the proverbial bull by the horns and commandeered the premises as his own and "Morris Morris Outfitters Limited" was brought into the world as an existing business under new ownership.
Fortunately, it seems that he had established himself a rather nice tailor. Having creating a very decent repeat customer order book (as every single man had a suit in those days), even a poor man needed a dark one for funerals and weddings.
That small rented property in Percy Street, stayed there as his own business for some 48 years, protected (he used to joke with my father), by the Green Man. It's a carving dating back a thousand years or more, often displayed on both secular and religious buildings, initially as "Man o' the Green", from pagan worship of nature and is frequently on public houses of the same name, probably as a tribute to Bacchus, god of the vine and general party animal for the Roman gods (or Dionysus if you prefer the Greek version). That image is still on the building today, it adorns the pillar between a Vape shop and what used to be a Wool and knitting store from years ago (as I recall.)
One of the items that I have found amongst all the old photographs, are my grandfather's old travel documents from when he made the journey from Poland to the U.K. You will immediately see that they are NOT printed in Polish, due to the annexation by Russia, during their attempt to build an empire by conquest and subjugation... much as they are doing today under President Vladimir Putin.
These papers are (apparently) in a very old style Russian dialect and not too easy to translate into standard English, especially not by me, with my limited language skills and use of Google. It seems that these papers give him limited permission to travel within the area up until 1902... the other details are unknown.
My paternal grandfather Maurice Morris, finally got married on 16th August 1910 to Rachel Getzig, who resided at the same house in which he lived (#12 Gladstone Street, Hanley.) I assume that this was arranged in some way with her father, as you don't normally just marry the landlord's daughter, unless one is way behind in the rent. As the current archivist for the Jewish cemetery, I see no record of anybody with the surname "Getzig" buried here, which is a little strange, so maybe all the family moved to a different city with a much larger Jewish community. Now that I have discovered this, further investigation will have to be carried out at some point in the future.
This photograph of the happy couple was taken in the Hanley police yard, as it was the largest undercover space to shoot a full wedding party and fit them all in. This is where the Town Hall is now and if you look really carefully, you'll see an arched glass framework on the other side of that large wooden gate, it proclaims that it is "The Hanley Ice-Skating Rink."
Prior to this, it was Dimmock's Albion pottery works (demolished in 1904), a bit of research showed me an old picture of the chimney coming down, it was treated as a big local holiday and postcards were sold of this event. After the Ice Skating Rink shut, it was replaced by a Cinema (which I don't remember) and in much later years (1965, I believe), this site would become the beloved C&A store, which finally closed in 2001 (free local history lesson.) This is now the Wilkinson's shop at top of Stafford Street, I have done a bit of checking and found that the company rebranded to "Wilko" in 2014 (My OCD coming out.)
The group photograph is of the whole wedding party, the only ones that I can identify, are my grandparents and a few others. Sitting next to the bride is (I'm guessing) her mother and standing directly behind her (with a hand on her shoulder), is Phillip Getzig, her father and not (as my father always told us as kids), Captain John Smith of the Titanic infamy. Next to the bride's mother is Little Uncle and kneeling down at the front is David Cohen (who was supposedly), the tallest man in Stoke-on-Trent at seven feet four inches.
Below is a copy of my grandparents wedding recorded in the register of which I now have control, being the Marriage Secretary is another of the hats that I have to wear. You can see that there are a number of curious details that don't quite tie up with facts that I have already mentioned. The first says his name is "Morris Posnansky", yet he changed his name eleven years earlier and it should say "Maurice Morris." Secondly he states he is 24 years of age, it means he was born in 1886 (he was actually born in 1883). It states that his father's name was "Judah Michael Posnansky", which is news to us all and finally "X" his mark, as he was still illiterate.
The following year (1911), these two Aquatints were produced of Maurice and Rachel, to show how properous they were becoming, photography was still relatively expensive at this time, so this was very much an image thing and a vanity project on his behalf.
Presumably to send copies out to relatives, as some means of showing off to them and proving that he was able to make something of himself in this strange foreign country. I guess that he was told by others to NOT travel all the way across Europe in such dangerous times to England, as they were probably worried that their young relative would never be seen again.
These two coloured and painted photographs are almost certainly not a true accurate representation of their images, as they were very unlikely to have been able to afford the jewellery that Rachel is wearing. We are fairly certain that we know this as a genuine fact, because none of their children were left any of this jewellery by their mother when she passed away at the tragically young age of just forty nine in 1939.
The first of Rachel's five children was Rebecca (Becky) born in 1911 and two years later, her sister Esther (Essie) made her appearance in 1913. The new family unit was captured on camera for the premier appearance (see below) then they took a decade off from breeding. Presumably, when they could afford more, the family was then increased by Michael in 1915 (known to the family as Monty, for some unknown reason), he ended up in Singapore during WWII as part of the Army Pay Corps, then emigrated to Australia, which I suppose is another story in itself for another time and place. Harold Sidney (my father) was born in 1925 and the last of Maurice and Rachel's brood, was Arnold in 1926. (Becky and Monty shown below, 1916)
The document shown below, is grandfather's "Certificate of Naturalization" and in itself is an interesting scrap of paper, more so to the family, as when I looked at it, I found several inconsistencies with the family knowledge and all the stories that I had been told over the years.
It states that he was living at "45 Mayer Street, Hanley" at this point in 1912, this is something that I did not know, but it still exists on the other side of the A50, running parallel with Upper Hillchurch Street. He has told them that his birthdate is 4th August 1886... it was actually 1883, he has informed them his place of birth was Blonne (Blonie), which is really thirty eight kilometres from Bolimów, where he was born.
Furthermore, his mother was called Sarah Posnansky, Minnie was her middle name, so we don't know why he said that..... I think that he was just impatient and wanted to be done with the whole affair. My father always told me that he was constantly amused by my grandfather's total lack of any patience and he believed that this stemmed from no parental influence on him, as he traveled all the way from Poland to England. Nearly three years of fending for himself from the age of fourteen, had given him a strong sense of Independence and an unwavering belief that he was always right, unfortunately for everybody, it also had not made him a mature character at all.
Saying that, when the time came, he heeded the call to action and joined up for military service. The photograph below, shows him with his regiment, the Royal Fusiliers Depot 38/40 (whatever that means.) Private Michael Morris (J6844), seems to have got confused (yet once more) and has given his first name as "Michael", which was his father's name.
You can see from his "Certificate of Employment" (dated 1918) after it was all over, that he was designated as a Tailor, so at least he got that right. He is the one seated at the right with a pipe clutched between his teeth and behind a suspiciously feminine looking Fusilier. We've all decided that the troop has somehow smuggled a woman into the unit and onto the photograph.
He returned to civilian life physically unscathed and we have to presume he was psychologically fit to carry on in society, as his business thrived and he produced more children as mentioned earlier.
