Perim Island
The Morris Family on Perim
Introductory note by Ingleby Jefferson.
Early in June 2011 I began exchanging e-mails with three female descendants of several of the Morris family who had been on Perim working for the Perim Coal Company (PCC) from 1883 onwards. Individually they had each contacted Peter Pickering to see if he could help them in their researches into their ancestors.
Over the past six weeks or so we have pooled our information and have been able to make quite a lot of progress, but I fear that the full picture is out of reach. Nevertheless what we have gleaned is important in the context of the limited information that there seems to be about who was working on Perim 100 plus years ago. The reader should always bear in mind that the number of British personnel working for the PCC in the period covered was never much more than 20, sometimes less, and between three and five at any one time were from the Morris family.
I remember when I was about nine years old I was given a very interesting jig-saw puzzle of a wartime convoy, the main subject being the famous tanker the San Demetrio; the problem was that about 40% of the pieces were missing! Due to the fact that so few records on Perim survive I am afraid that the story of the Morris family on Perim is another San Demetrio situation.
Edward Perim Morris seated next to his uncle William and William's two sons Lionel and Ronald. Photograph taken around March 1923.
Whereas formal records of births, deaths and marriages were kept in Aden, on Perim no records were maintained and very few people are mentioned by name in the extensive Aden Residency files held in the British Library, only a very very small percentage of which deal with or mention Perim.
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Until May this year I had noted only one mention of the name ‘Morris’ on Perim. In 1885 the Assistant Resident had listed by name all Europeans on Perim working for the Perim Coal Company (PCC), together with their employment. One of the 17 employed by the PCC was a ‘Mr Morris’, listed as being the ‘2nd Engineer’.
In May I had come across two with the surname ‘Morris’ as being signatories to a request in 1907 for the cemetery on Perim to be extended. Fortunately initials were included: one was A R Morris and the other and W A R Morris. With reference to the UK census of 1871 and those up to 1911 one can be certain that these two were Alfred Redman, born 1852, and his much younger brother William Arthur Redman, born 1868 – whom I propose to deal with first although he was the last on whom I found definitive evidence of his connection to Perim.
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William married a teaching assistant and had a son Arthur Lionel born in the UK around 1903. Of particular interest is that a second son Ronald William is listed in the 1911 UK census as having been born on Perim in 1909. Incoming passenger lists show that ‘Mrs W A R Morris’ (Gertrude) and Lionel, plus an ‘infant’ (Ronald) returned to the UK from Perim in August 1909. Another incoming list has William coming home by himself on leave in June 1907. The probability is that his wife Gertrude together with Arthur Lionel went back with him to Perim later that year and remained there until a month or so after Ronald was born. Equally importantly the 1911 census shows that William in 1911 was the ‘Accountant & Cashier’ of a ‘coaling & salvage contractor in a British possession’ – in other words the PCC. One more incoming passenger list has William arriving in the UK from Perim in February 1923, when the manifest lists him as being a ‘manager’. This would be a natural progreesion from being accountant, but he was never the manager on Perim.
Next to be looked at is Alfred Redman. All the evidence points to him being the ‘Mr Morris’ who was the 2nd Engineer in 1885. In 1874 he had married Elizabeth Preece who between 1876 and 1881 bore him three children. Family lore has it that the two sons Alfred Henry (1876) and William J (1878) worked for the PCC at some stage, the former as an engineer and the latter as a salvage diver. As yet nothing has been found to support this.
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Moving on to the 1911 census is no surprise to find that both Daisy, now 15, and her sister Phyllis, now 11, are living in Bristol with a maiden aunt (Sarah Ann Morris, their grandfather having died.) Of their mother there is no sign and the inference is that, assuming she was still alive, she was on Perim with her husband Alfred, now 58 years old.
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Sometime in early 1911 Alfred died on Perim of ‘heatstroke’. Bearing in mind that his brother William had recently taken his family back to England and that Alfred’s three children from his second marriage were also absent, one cannot help thinking that he must have been depressed at the time of his death and that perhaps overindulgence of alcohol was a contributing factor. After all he had lived on Perim for most of the previous 27 years without succumbing to heatstroke.
Alfred had been hoping that Edward would eventually take over from him as an engineer with the PCC. However Edward was devastated at his father’s death and decided not to return to Perim at the end of his leave, going instead to sea when he left the PCC. This brings us to look at another photograph from the Morris family archive. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, there are no names. I am confident that the four in the photograph are Edward and William, his uncle, together with William’s two sons Arthur and Lionel. Looking at the uniforms and the ages of those involved, the date is definitely around March 1923, soon after William has arrived in the UK.