hi folks, my grt grandad Francis Joseph Clarke, joined the navy 24 Mar 1876 - curiously his birthday is also 24 Mar but in 1858.  We;d never found birth lines for him, he doesn't appear in the FreeeBMD and i've been though FH sites birth GRO records page by page without finding him. I only discovered this date through receiving his service record through NA.   I'll be able to follow that one up and see if he was born then Anyway, what i;m really interested in at this moment is that I find that he was a bit of a wild sailor and much of his record is concerned with his being in the cells!  Sometimes it's a prison hulk i.e. Duke of Wellington, but others it is a mainland jail if i'm reading this doc right. Curiously, he can be down as 'VG' [Very Good?] or 'fair' in his character column, then in a neighbouring column, he's in the cells.  ie: 'D?' to Portsmouth Gaol 21.7.1880 and the neighbouring column appears to say "8 days L* 17/69 for?  [while on the Excellent 24Oct'79 - 8Jan '80] 28 days Imp NDA    [while on the D of Wellington 14Aug'80-18 Sep '81] It's hard to say which of the preveious two statements refers to the Portsmouth Goal one if in fact the two relate to each other as the Portsmouth entry appears to cover two lines of writing. *the 'L' I believe stands for 'list' relating to the ship Later on he appears to have been sent to Winchester Goal [HAM ?] on 29 Mar '82, from the Duke of Wellington while serving on the Serapis so presumably though officially on the serapis, he was sent to the Duke to serve the sentence then ends up in a mainland jail: Character: Indifferent D Wellington for 12mths 'imp & dismissal per CM'.  remarks col.: ?Pte Winchester Goal from Duke of Well List 18/953 on 29 Mar '82  [Ind] Presumably the Duke of Wellington was docked in Portsmouth at this time  could 'imp' = imprisoned? He was also in Lewes Goal a couple of times but i don;t know if that was a ship or a mainland jail.  Other occasions it just says Cells so i don;t nkow if that was on his own ship or somewhere else.  Are there any local Hampshire records which would cover such events?  Not all his terms on the Wellington appear to be spent in the cells, it seams that he served on it too.  There are also 2 ships, The Juno & the Serapis [a troopship], where he almost invariably ended up in the cells.  Can't figure if it was the type of ship it was or if he just had more problems leading to trouble with the authority on those particular ones.  The Serapis berthed periodically at Portsmouth but I haven't discovered so far if the Juno did.  Other ships he sailed in were the Boscowan, Impregnable & Implacable but I've yet to find if they relate to Portsmouth. Thanks for any help anyone can offer.  le durachd Fionnghal

Wonder if he lied about his age. When did he pass away? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Duke_of_Wellington Edna - Ottawa ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fionnghal" <fionnghalnicphadraig@yahoo.co.uk> To: <hampshire@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 10:03 AM Subject: [HAM] Portsmouth Goal & HMS Duke of Wellington hi folks, my grt grandad Francis Joseph Clarke, joined the navy 24 Mar 1876 - curiously his birthday is also 24 Mar but in 1858. We;d never found birth lines for him, he doesn't appear in the FreeeBMD and i've been though FH sites birth GRO records page by page without finding him. I only discovered this date through receiving his service record through NA. I'll be able to follow that one up and see if he was born then Anyway, what i;m really interested in at this moment is that I find that he was a bit of a wild sailor and much of his record is concerned with his being in the cells! Sometimes it's a prison hulk i.e. Duke of Wellington, but others it is a mainland jail if i'm reading this doc right. Curiously, he can be down as 'VG' [Very Good?] or 'fair' in his character column, then in a neighbouring column, he's in the cells. ie: 'D?' to Portsmouth Gaol 21.7.1880 and the neighbouring column appears to say "8 days L* 17/69 for? [while on the Excellent 24Oct'79 - 8Jan '80] 28 days Imp NDA [while on the D of Wellington 14Aug'80-18 Sep '81] It's hard to say which of the preveious two statements refers to the Portsmouth Goal one if in fact the two relate to each other as the Portsmouth entry appears to cover two lines of writing. *the 'L' I believe stands for 'list' relating to the ship Later on he appears to have been sent to Winchester Goal [HAM ?] on 29 Mar '82, from the Duke of Wellington while serving on the Serapis so presumably though officially on the serapis, he was sent to the Duke to serve the sentence then ends up in a mainland jail: Character: Indifferent D Wellington for 12mths 'imp & dismissal per CM'. remarks col.: ?Pte Winchester Goal from Duke of Well List 18/953 on 29 Mar '82 [Ind] Presumably the Duke of Wellington was docked in Portsmouth at this time could 'imp' = imprisoned? He was also in Lewes Goal a couple of times but i don;t know if that was a ship or a mainland jail. Other occasions it just says Cells so i don;t nkow if that was on his own ship or somewhere else. Are there any local Hampshire records which would cover such events? Not all his terms on the Wellington appear to be spent in the cells, it seams that he served on it too. There are also 2 ships, The Juno & the Serapis [a troopship], where he almost invariably ended up in the cells. Can't figure if it was the type of ship it was or if he just had more problems leading to trouble with the authority on those particular ones. The Serapis berthed periodically at Portsmouth but I haven't discovered so far if the Juno did. Other ships he sailed in were the Boscowan, Impregnable & Implacable but I've yet to find if they relate to Portsmouth. Thanks for any help anyone can offer. le durachd Fionnghal For FREE online parish register transcriptions and other information visit www.knightroots.co.uk. Please trim ALL messages to a minimum & remove the footer as this is added automatically at the end of all messages. Thanks To subscribe or unsubscribe please send a message to hampshire-request@rootsweb.com with the appropriate subject header.Thanks ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to HAMPSHIRE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message