Family History 1.5

Charles as a Young Man

Living in London in the fifties one could not help being an admirer of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband. Charles clearly was: he called his first son Charles Albert.


Great Exhibition building, "Crystal Palace", main entrance

One of the reasons Prince Albert was so popular at this stage was his patronage of the Great Exhibition of 1851, and like almost everyone else in London Charles went to see it.

The exhibition was housed in an amazing cast iron and glass pavilion built in Hyde Park in a few months, and designed by Joseph Paxton, who was a garden designer and builder of glasshouses. Paxton had some help from the famous engineer Brunel. After the exhibition, the building was taken down and re-erected in a park in the part of London known ever since as Crystal Palace, until it burnt down in 1936.

The exhibition was full of working machines, scientific inventions, wonders brought from all over the world, including the Kohinoor diamond. The first America's Cup race was held in conjunction with the exhibition. For ordinary people, it was possible later on in the year to go in to the exhibition for one shilling (10 cents).

Charles was as bowled over by all the magnificent exhibits as everyone else; the family remembered his visit even after he had died.

A year or two later he thought about going to the Crimean War. By now he was 20 years old. As the youngest son he would have to think about how to earn a living; no doubt the business was already supporting some older brothers. The best way to make money as a saddler was to gain contracts from army provisioning departments, and the current war where they needed his skills was in the Crimea.

Charles would have had some idea of the geography involved from his map-work at school. The Crimea is a peninsula that sticks out into the Black Sea to the south of Russia. The Crimean War is famous for several things: The Charge of the Light Brigade, and the poem about it, which skirted around the mistakes made by the generals at the time, by Alfred Tennyson; Florence Nightingale and her invention of modern nursing practice; and the Raglan-style overcoat after one of those generals.

He decided not to go there, maybe because the war finished before he was ready, or perhaps because he was getting involved with a lady.

Alice Clark was a young lady who lived in the Red Lion Square district, not far from Hyde Street. She was three years older than Charles; he obviously fell hopelessly in love with her. He became involved with the church Alice went to: Eagle Street Baptist Church, also known as Red Lion Square Baptist Church, where the minister was Rev Joseph Ivimey, who was Alice's uncle.

By the time Charles was ready to sail for Auckland they were married with three children: Charles Albert, Alice, and Amelia.