Irene S.

Lisa - I have sent you a personal message just in case you do not see this . Like Al, I had been wondering what had happened to Jean. We had been Facebook friends and had had some conversations but not for some time. My condolences to you and your family. Six recordings of Jean playing are available on the website of the International Concertina Association, and are downloadable. They can be found at numbers 2-7 on this page. https://concertina.org/sound-library-old/son-of-readers-tapes/

Following on from sadbrewer's comments about the Workhouse Records, I have continued the search which I had started earlier, and found further records via Find My Past which had not been particularly obvious. Two of them probably clear up the weirdness of the age at date of death on the death certificate. Quite clearly both John and Sarah had arrived at a state of poor health and financial constrictions . The Liverpool Workhouse records show an admission Dec 8th 1910 of a Sarah Maccann ,discharged from the workhouse on 10 December. She was admitted from 182 Kiln Lane. Whilst it is not clear whether this is Sarah, John'e "wife" the age is about right, being 38 years old on date of admission. So there is a question mark on whether or not this is Sarah Jane (see below, however). However, on 6 September 1913, John McCann, shown as 68 years old and described as "old and infirm" was admitted to Liverpool Board of Guardians Workhouse. alongside his wife ,Sarah McCann, 42 years old (which would be the right age) described as Temporarily disabled. Sarah is shown as having previously received Parochial relief (which might well suggest that the 1910 entry is indeed for her), whereas John is shown as not having been in that position. The addresses that they were admitted from were different. John was shown as Long House, Daulby Street, whereas Sarah's is shown as 21 Bridport Street. Both were discharged on 8 September 1913. As you might expect, given the way that workhouses at the time operated they were admitted to and discharged from different wards from each other ... but are specifically shown as husband and wife in the records. There might be various reasons for the odd discrepancy in John's given age - might he have provided that to the governor of the workhouse under whose auspices they were both admitted- or did the governor just record the wrong age, which was then carried through onto the 1915 records? Interestingly John's description is given as "street singer", so no longer working the halls but presumably down to begging on the streets/football matches or in pubs to make ends meet? Which would fit with that description mentioned earlier in this thread from 1950 (?) of him having died in poverty. Following his death Sarah was again to enter into the workhouse - Sefton General Hospital, Toxteth Park Workhouse on 11 October 1916, her address being shown as that of her sister, Emily Brown at 1 Toxteth Place. She is described as "Phthsis and Dest (ie destitute), Phthsis other wise being tuberculosis. She was to remain in the hospital for quite some time, being discharged on 30 August 1917, but was readmitted on 31 December just 4 months later with what was described as acute bronchitis. Her final entry for date of death was 14 May 1918, where her condition was described as pulmonary tuberculosis. Her entry showed her as being a widow, and her sister as being her relative, and also recorded that her husband John was a musician. (She had again been admitted from her sister's address in Toxteth Place). The records for the workhouse showed a variation in entries for her date of birth that in 1916 showing it as 27 August 1873, that in 1916 giving it as May 27th 1872. (Well at least the entries both agreed on it being 27th! ) So all three of his wives, actual or bigamous, died in straightened circumstances Elizabeth died in Devon County Asylum in Exminster in 1914 having being admitted there on 27 January 1914, Minnie died in the workhouse in 1908, and Sarah who outlasted them all died in poverty and ill health in Liverpool Workhouse in 1918 .

A bit strange as your first post actually quoted my own! LOL Thanks for the link. On checking it I see that it is a website for people to deposit their family trees, which explains why the details are identical to those on Ancestry - same individual has obviously posted. As before, it is unfortunate that people often get their details wrong - there are several people on Ancestry for instance who have showed his death as occurring in West Ham in 1917. Certainly a John Maccann, but a completely different one. As I said , that is the information that a gentleman living in Australia (I'd need to go back to Ancestry and check that it wasn't New Zealand! )had posted up on Ancestry some while ago. I had already posted up the details of the workhouse entry for Sarah's two week stay in the surgery yesterday, but have just noticed that you have posted details for an entry in workhouse records for 1918 - I was about to search for more detail about Sarah, but as far as I can see that is new information to the thread. At first I thought you had got details of a strange individual by the name of Nok (and went off piste thinking about Nog in Star Trek !) - then realised that it was probably short for Next Of Kin (hadn't come across that designation before) (so have edited my previous post to acknowledge what appears to be a find (without having gone through the whole of the thread again ... 🤣 ... it's getting late at night and I need to retreat to bed ... LOL) The obituary for the death which was tracked down by Crane Driver about 8 years ago had already established the year and month of death as October 1915. There wasn't really uncertainty about that as the details in the report made it quite clear that the individual being discussed was John Hill Maccann the concertinist. What was missing was the death certificate which had not been traceable, which pins down the exact date, place and cause of death which were missing. Trying to find it on Ancestry or Find My Past proved somewhat problematic, but using information from Free BMD and the approximate date of death which had been established I was able to order the certificate. This had already been attempted through a different source several years ago. Have a read of the full thread! You can thrill to speculation that he might have been abducted by aliens, or went down with the Titanic, that he might have been a roller skating specialist (not proved, but the jury mostly thinks not), read about an apparently shortlived duo with his sister as a vocalist, about Minnie attempting legal action against ladies making comments about her (would love to know what those were), about Minnie dying in the workhouse, and JHM's "marrying" Sarah very shortly afterwards and falsifying entries on the wedding certificate. It's all there ... (Without trawling back through the thread I think you will find that Sarah's date of birth had also been established.) 🙂

Errmm ... yes you are rather repeating information already on this thread, the addresses from census returns have all been posted up as far as members have managed to track them down (and more from other sources than census) and if you care to read my post before yours you will see that I now have his death certificate - his date of death was actually 12 October 1915, and not 10 October 1915 as the contributor of your information posted. The summary you have posted is information from a family tree posted on Ancestry, and as with so much family tree information posted there it is not to be relied upon entirely I'm afraid (although looking at it the format looks slightly different, but the provider of the information is quite clearly the same one in view of both the information provided, and the title heading on his family tree page - which made me laugh. ) . A lot of the information that the individual who posted it put up was actually gleaned from this forum discussion as far as I could see when I was looking at it during the week. As an example of divergent information, the the date of death there is shown as 10 October 1915 (although with no indication of any evidence for using that date), and age at date of death as 57, both in the same entry... both wrong unfortunately as in 1915 Maccann was actually 55. It looks to me as though some information which was already on the family tree was altered later, since we have date of death shown before date of obituary. Contributors to this thread and an earlier one have provided a lot more detailed information (it's worth reading in full). The "marriages" to Minnie (who died in the workhouse in 1908) and to Sarah Jane Kennerley (the marriage certificate makes interesting reading) were both bigamous as his wife Eliza was still alive and kicking, and undivorced until she died in 1914. It'll take a while to read through the whole thread, but I think you will find the twists and turns of the research that members have carried out interesting. His life would make an interesting film script I reckon, although somewhat depressing in some areas. (I have by the way, messaged the Ancestry contributor eaerlier today with updated information about date, place and cause of death as he had obviously not already got that.) PS Where did you actually find that detail?

I have just been re reading some of the earlier parts of this thread, and notice that 8 or more years ago I was trying to track down the date and place of Professor Maccann's death (alongside several others), and I gather from a conversation with Stephen Chambers elsewhere on Facebook this week that a death certificate had still not been tracked down (someone having tried but being told a death certificate for a date recorded in 1915 was untraceable.) Having taken up an interest again, I'm happy to say that I have just been staring at a copy of the death certificate which I have obtained for John McCann, musician, in Liverpool Workhouse on 12 October 1915, which accords with the dated obituary of 14 October 1915 recorded earlier in this thread. It may be that some early research was scuppered by assuming that the date of December 1915 in some records was the month of death, whereas in the records it records the end of the quarter in which the death was registered. I think, also, that some assumed that the date of death given of 69 meant it could not be the same person. The professional geneaologist of my acquaintance (40 years' worth of experience of tracing even the most notoriously difficult to find individuals!) assured me before the certificate copy arrived that the date of death on a certificate is only as good as the knowledge of the informant. In this case the informant was the Governor of the Workhouse. (Said geneaologist snorted and indicated that she was not surprised at the inaccurate information - informant not a relative, and maybe noone else available to provide the information. ) So, all said and done,it wasn't aliens after all. The details are as follows: When and where died : Twelfth October, 1915 Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary U.D Name and surname : John McCann Sex: Male Age: 69 years Rank or Profession: Musician of 35 St Anne Street U D Cause of Death: Bronchitis (2) Cardiac Dilatation Certified by F J Devlin MB Signature ,Description and Residence of Informant: W Bray ... Governor Liverpool Workhouse When Registerd: Nineteenth October 1915 I just had a look at the images of the address given in St Anne's Street on Google maps, which now appears to be a multistorey car park (not sure about that) on a dual carriage way, although there is a Victorian building standing on the opposite side of the road ... but everything else on the Street is modern. So, although the age at date of death on the certificate is quite clearly an inaccurate one ... all the facts fit ... date of the obituary which clearly shows that the Maccann /McCann who died had played in exalted circumstances in his earlier years, but had by the date of his death been reduced to playing in front of football crowds and in pubs and was obviously in reduced circumstances (as evidenced by his "wife" Sarah's residency in the workhouse for a fortnight in 1913. They had obviously had to move from their address in 1913 (always assuming that Sarah was still with him in 1915). I was interested to check up on cardiac dilatation - it seems that among the symptoms are tiredness, shortness of breath, swelling in legs, ankles, stomach, chest pain etc. There are apparently a number of possible causes of the illness, hereditary tendencies being one. Interestingly, given some of the speculation on the thread, one of these can be alcohol misuse and one of the risk factors for the condition can be longterm excessive alcohol use . However, having said that there are many other possibilities. Whatever the case he was clearly in a very poorly way If I was closer to Liverpool I would love to make a visit to the local record office concerned to see if there were entries for him in the Workhouse records to flesh this out a bit, but if there is anyone who is able to do this, I would love to see what came of it. What a sad end. From "King" or "Champion" of concertina players, playing in front of Royalty , making trips around the globe as a celebrated concertinist to playing in the pubs or at football matches, and then dying in the workhouse.

I've been absent from this thread for rather a long time, and for some reason the other night started delving into John Hill Maccann's online records. Having posted up one or two facts that had leapt at me from some stuff on Ancestry on Facebook Stephen Chambers alerted me to the fact that he had already posted up about Maccann's sojourn in St Georges Hospital, transfer to Bethlem etc. Strangely, not having looked at this thread in over 8 years I had forgotten a lot of the information on the thread, although I was obviously a part of it at one point!! (Must admit I have been absent from Cnet for quite a long time). However, in the course of some later digging around in the online resources, I came up against some information which I don't think has actually been recorded here anywhere. (It is a rather long thread, so I may have missed it.) I've long been fascinated by that marriage record from 1908 and the subterfuge of the false entries, not to mention the family background (like father ,like son). So this evening I decided to have a look for any information on Sarah Jane Maccann ... and a search on Find My Past threw up just two entries at time of search (the search engine always seems a little quirky and can provide alternative information on further attempts). And what it threw up was a couple of entries for the lady which showed that she was admitted to the Liverpool Workhouse on 17 May 1913, where she is recorded as 42 years old , and the wife of John Maccann ,musician from the address 53 Kempston Street in Liverpool. She was discharged from the Workhouse on 30 May 1913 (so a stay of just under two weeks).The record shows where she was located in the house as "Surg", which I take to be "surgery" although without access to the actual records of the inmates I have no idea whether that guess is accurate or not. The records show that her husband was resident at the same address. if this information is already on this thread - apologies. If not, it would appear that at least we know that the aliens had not yet abducted Professor Maccann. I have googled the address and looked at the online image of it as it is now - looks a pretty ribby district now, and the address currently houses what looks like a rather rundown music venue "Round the Corner". A lot of the windows in the houses at the location have been bricked up in the past. Heaven knows what it was like in 1913. I became interested in the fact that in December 1913 at a degree ceremony of Liverpool University an honorary degree was awarded in recognition of of eminent public services to Professor John Maccunn (which the Newspaper library had flagged up as John Maccann) ... a bit disappointing, but clearly two different surnames! 🤣 Sits back and waits for somebody to tell me that this information is on this rather long but fascinating thread already!

More information - the music was written by Philip Green, a well know TV and film producer, and he used local tunes etc in the composition for the film https://ipswichmaritimetrust.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Newsletter-28-Jan-2015.pdf

You'll find your answer in these comments by Cyril Tawney 🙂 It was indeed Alf Edwards https://mainlynorfolk.info/cyril.tawney/songs/theballadofsammysbar.html

Gazza??

I was about to make the suggestion that the autograph was a more florid/flamboyant version of the signature inside the instrument... very similar features such as slant of the writing, various loops etc. but see that it has already been suggested. ?

I'm pretty sure the answer to that one is No, Al. I got to the end of it, and rather wished that I had spent the whole session there rather than at the song session! But didn't see anyone else recording anything. I could be mistaken, of course.

Al, I scoured the Various reader's submitted tapes for Duet players several years ago, and there are certainly about 4 on there of Jean playing - I am not, however, aware of any with a lot of laughter on them, so I suspect the answer is it is not on the ICA selection.

Having been brought into the fold of Maccann players by the splendid Ralph Jordan,Maccann player extraordinaire, and studio engineer and studio manager equally extraordinaire for the BBC, I was educated to understand that sound qualities of mp3 recordings are not as good as CD quality. I rarely purchase mp3 recordings online = CDs every time for me.

He's around ... generally just not posting. As far as I am aware he is aware of this thread by the way.