Monthly Archives: July 2019

Emily’s Great-Grandfather, the Master

Emily’s maternal great-grandfather, Daniel Graisberry was chief printer to Trinity College in the early 1800’s. Having been made a Freeman of Dublin, in 1798 in that capacity. Freemen were usually tradesmen and craftsmen, which included weavers and tailors, shoemakers, stationers and printers to mention but a few. They usually served as apprentices, just as Daniel Graisberry. His father was also conferred as a freeman, serving as apprentice to the King’s printer, Hugh Greirson.

A printing press from the early 1800’s, the kind the Graisberrys would have used. Curtesy of the National Print Museum, Dublin.

A freeman was a recognised citizen, which afforded him the right to vote and a few more similar privileges that the general public did not avail of. Interestingly his great granddaughter, Emily, who campaigned for votes for women did not get the right to vote until it was granted in 1918. She was over fifty at the time.

Saunders’s News-Letter 20 October 1820

Sources

Saunders’s News-Letter 20 October 1820

A Dictionary of Members of the Dublin Book Trade 1550-1800By Mary Pollard, Guild of St. Luke the Evangelist, Bibliographical Society (Great Britain), Guild of St Luke the Evangelist (Dublin

Fortunes and Misfortunes of Mary M’Arthur

As did Emily’s fortunes rise and fall during her life, so did her ancestors. In fact is was a way of life for them most of the time. Sometimes they were rich and other times they were plunged into financial ruin.

When Emily’s grandfather Richard M’Arthur died in 1829 leaving a wife and two small children under three, at least they were left as “fund holders”, as documented in a later census. However, as few years later Mary M’Arthur was back at ‘work’ in the old family business of selling books and stationary. Mary may not have had the same business sense as her mother, the resourceful Ruth Graisberry, who ran the family print business, for twenty years after her husband died.

In March 1854, the notice below appeared in Halifax Courier:

Halifax Courier 18 March 1854

It appeared that Mary M’Arthur was bankrupt. Somehow she paid her creditors. She did not live long enough to regain her ‘fortune’. She died exactly one year later.

Sources

https://www.findmypast.ie/transcript?id=GBC/1851/0013988887;1851 England, Wales & Scotland Census

Northumberland, Durham & Yorkshire, Slater’s Royal National Commercial Directory, Vol 1, 1854-1855

Halifax Courier 18 March 1854

28 July 1855 – Worcester Journal – Worcester, Worcestershire, England