The Kingswells in Kingston

My great-grandparents Charles and Frances Kingswell left England in 1885 arriving in Quebec City on 3 July 1885. From there they headed to Ontario where they settled in Kingston, at the time a city of approximately 16,000 inhabitants. The 1887 City Directory described Kingston as “… being the soundest city financially, its merchants being considered the most prudent and safest men to deal with”. Further, “The Limestone City, as it is sometimes called, is also the cleanest and healthiest city in Ontario, being built on solid rock”. The city must have been welcoming to English emigrants with a newspaper named The British Whig. The nearby village of Portsmouth (home to the Kingston Penitentiary) would have reminded Charles of the Isle of Wight where he was born and raised. The Kingswells settled in the working class neighbourhood of Williamsville.

Newspapers helped me get a fuller picture of the lives of the Kingswells. One of the first articles I found was in The Kingston Whig-Standard’s 26 December 1888 issue: 

This was actually Charles'older brother Edward who sailed from Liverpool in 1874, landing in Quebec City on 21 May with a destination of Quebec. 

I wasn’t able to locate Edward in Kingston until he surfaced in the 1881 census so he may have remained in Quebec until that time. Edward hadn’t married and he must have been terribly lonely in this city far from home. There was only two years difference in age between Edward and Charles and they were likely close. It made sense that Edward encouraged his brother to relocate his young family to Kingston. This answers the question of why Charles and Fanny emigrated to Canada though we may never know what prompted Edward to leave his home. 

The 1887 Kingston Directory listed both brothers but the following year Edward returned to England, no doubt homesick for his family. 

Seven years later the following sad report appeared on 11 July 1895 in The Kingston Whig-Standard. 

Edward had been living his parents and working as a gardener. The coroner's inquest found the incident was a pure accident and that death resulted from a severe concussion. Membership in the Ancient Order of Foresters guaranteed Edward a proper burial. The Kingston piece exaggerates a bit. According to a piece in The Isle of Wight County Press Edward fell 14 feet and about 200 brethern attended the funeral.

This was just the start of a streak of bad luck for the Kingswell family. The following report appeared in the 22 February 1896 Kingston Daily News: 

I was surprised to find out that a disease like diphtheria was still common almost at the turn of the 20th century. In the late 1880s a new 120 foot steel water tower had been constructed in Williamsville, new iron pipes had been laid and new pumping stations built in an effort to improve working class living conditions. Unfortunately these provisions weren’t enough to save the Kingswells as the highly communicative disease spread through their home. The first to fall to the disease was young George, the eldest Kingswell child who had made the trip from the Isle of Wight.

  

 

He was only 11 years old. William (9), Ernest (8), Lizzie (6) and Olive (2) survived the disease but young Charles aged 3 died on 25 February in Hotel Dieu after the article was published. To add to the stress Fanny was pregnant. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy on 8 March 1896 and named him George after his deceased brother. 

 

The family moved house yearly for the next few years no doubt trying to find a safe home for their growing family that they could afford on a working man’s salary, moving from Victoria Street, to Stanley Street, to Fifth Street finally settling at 783 Princess Street in 1898. 

This was the year the family made another dramatic appearance in the local papers captioned as “Trouble in Williamsville”

Henry Thomas Barnes was a local businessman who operated a blacksmith shop at 787 Princess Street and lived next door at 789 Princess Street according to the 1898 City Directory. This made him a close neighbour to the Kingswells. The first indication of the “Trouble” was reported in the October 28 issue of the Kingston Daily News. Mr. Barnes filed a complaint against young Willie Kingswell.  The following day Willie's mother marched down to the News office to deny the confrontation. Though she couldn’t prove or disprove the stone throwing incident she had witnesses to prove that Barnes pulled Willie from the streetcar and roughed him up so much that he had to be rescued by bystanders.  

The case came before the court on the following Monday, October 31. Witnesses claimed that Barnes dragged young Kingswell off the car striking and kicking him and dragging him through the mud. All agreed that the boy was “treated roughly”. Willie’s dad testified to seeing the boy’s bruises. Barnes admitted to seizing the boy but as the latter squirmed and kicked he had difficulty holding him. In the counter suit Willie denied throwing the stone. The Magistrate had no patience with the conflicting evidence given and dismissed both suits but not before chastising Barnes for his behaviour about which others had complained.

This incident was no doubt the talk of the neighbourhood for some time. Problems with neighbours is obviously nothing new! The Kingswells continued to move residences, sometimes on a yearly basis. From Princess Street they moved to Durham Street, Nelson Street, Stanley Street and Albert Street, all in Williamsville. They spent two years in Portsmouth before returning to Kingston in 1911 settling at 13 St. Lawrence Avenue. Hopefully their neighbours were more congenial than Mr. Barnes! 

 

Kingston Collegiate

 I found more mentions of the Kingswells after the Barnes incident but most were for happier reasons. There was some trouble. In 1901 William and his friend Harold Doyle were charged with stealing another young lad’s rooster. I couldn’t find a resolution for this matter, perhaps it was dismissed. In 1916 Alfred, who had “filled up on American Old Tom” was fined $15 for being drunk and interfering with the police. But no major problems.  All the Kingswell children did well in school, passing their exams and moving along to the Collegiate. They attended church picnics and outings, funerals and weddings.

My grandmother Gertie was mentioned a number of times in the papers. The first was a dog bite on 4 April 1912 and then an illness on 1 November 1918. Wonder what she had? 

By the time my grandparents married in 1921 all the Kingswells had relocated from Kingston to either Toronto or Buffalo. My grandmother had fond memories of her childhood home though many of the locations she recalled were long gone by the time we visited when I was a child. I've plotted out the various landmarks on this map.