More Rowbothams found..... David Grant Rowbotham aka Rowe and his sister Peggy Grant Rowbotham

David Rowbotham and Cousin Cpl Leighton Rowbotham

After I found the Rowbothams in Canada Found.... The Rowbothams of Ontario, one son, Alfred Rowbotham, intrigued me. There was much sorrow in his life. His parents died when he was young and then he followed his siblings to Canada to live in 1905. His marriage to Charlotte Grant ended in three babies dying as infants and poor Charlotte dying of TB a short while later. 

I feel that he was sponsored to Canada by a rich uncle who was in the building industry in Warwickshire as there were plenty of opportunities for building in the expanding Canadian provinces and the US territories. As such he had contacts and opportunities in both countries and back home in England.

Next this young widower is found in England as a 33-year-old married to Margaret Robotham (nee Scott) with a child, Peggy Grant  Robotham, in the 1921 English census. Peggy was born in Manchester in 1916.

Rowbotham family 1921 Census

It seems Alfred returned to Canada shortly after the census to prepare the way for his little family. In 1922, Peggy and Margaret  travelled to Canada to make a new home with Alfred. They lived in Canada from 1922 to 1926, and after a visit back home to England, returned in 1926 to Toronto. Peggy had many trips back and forward to visit her grandmother in England. Presumably they must have been able to afford frequent 5 day travel across the Atlantic. Little Peggy has travelled backwards and forwards with or without her mother between Canada and her grandmother's back in England. Her grandmother is Janet Scott, living in Nottingham Road, Mansfield. She is familiar with her home country.

Reading between the lines, it seems Alfred and Margaret split at some time during his time in Toronto. 

Further investigations show a marriage between Alfred  and  Verea Carr, previously Simmons. When at 40 years of age, he married on the 1st of March 1929 in Detroit, the marriage certificates states he has been married twice and now divorced and has no legal wife living. She is also a divorcee. This marriage lasted from the 27th of July 1929 to the 13th of October 1930, when final divorce papers were issued. They had in fact parted in April 1930.

Passenger papers show him in a 1930 border crossing from USA to Ontario to his brother's place from Detroit.

Next Alfred married another Margaret, Margaret M Adams in October 1933 in Rumford, Essex. A son, David Grant Rowbotham, was born in London on the 23rd of July 1934. They lived in London. It seems Margaret may have died in childbirth a year or so later. This is according to an article accessed regarding little David Rowbotham.

Alfred and David in 1939 Register

This is backed up by the War time 1939 Register record, where Alfred and a minor are living in London. Alfred is a  widowed father. David was told stories by his dad about living in Canada and of his extended family who had settled there in the 1900s.

David's life was almost as tragic as his father's.....

A few years later, London and other parts of England were hit by the Blitz. The Blitz was a surprise attack bombing campaign by Germany and Italy  during WWII for eight months, from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941. It was mainly a night campaign on London, Liverpool and other port  and industrial cities.

At some time during the Blitz, David and Alfred's house/home was hit. Details of what happened next are a little sketchy. It seems Alfred was seriously injured, possibly killed, and/ or was unable to care for his son. Records at the time are sketchy due to the carnage.

Newspaper reporting says that David was orphaned or considered as such. He was taken in by Mr. and Mrs. Frank Taylor of Brighton Sussex, adding to the six orphaned children they had already taken in, because of the London Blitz. 

Some years later, luckily for David, his cousin, Corporal Leighton Arthur Rowbotham, had arrived in London in November 1945 after war service in Germany.

He had enlisted and spent three years in Germany with the Canadian Army. He had received a letter from his family, asking him to trace his little cousin, David. By this time, David was 11 and still living with the Fraser's in Brighton. Leighton set about obtaining legal custody and offering David a home in Belleville, Canada.

“I want to give David a good education and the opportunities which I think Canada can offer him" said Leighton in a newspaper article. Leighton’s parents were George and Florence Rowbotham. 

George was Alfred's older brother. Florence was ecstatic. She was the mother of 13, (10 living) children. Adopting one more was no problem to her. She had four grandchildren living nearby and was looking forward to taking in the son of her husband's brother. “This is a children's country and we know that David will be happy here” she said.

Back in England, the magistrate commended Corporal Rowbotham for his appeal to others to adopt orphan children into Canada. David himself was happy to go back to the place his father had talked about. "I think I would like to be a farmer or a railway man, but anyway, I'm going to be a good citizen of Canada" he said. People have described him as a red head who was a well-mannered boy. He was also a very good singer. He lived with his father’s brother and family in Kern County.  

And what became of Peggy?

Peggy Rowbotham married in 1933 in Detroit. Her marriage too was short-lived, divorcing in February 1938. One child had resulted; George W. Day Jr  was born on the 22nd in 1935 in Detroit and it wasn’t a happy marriage. It seems he may have stayed with his father.  Peggy appears to have returned to England possibly with her father. There looks to be on a 1939 record with her pursuing a career in nursing.

She married Alexander McDougall in 1944 in Surrey. She doesn't appear to have had any more children. Peggy Grant McDougall died in 1981 in Camden, Greater London. Due to the circumstances, she probably wasn't very close to her little brother David, who came along after her father's divorce from Verea Carr and his fourth marriage to Margaret Adams in 1933.

What became of David?

He moved to Toronto,  married Vivian and had two children.

In 1950, he joined the Black Watch Army and was in Korea in the early 50s. When he came back to Canada, he packed his family up and followed Uncle Art (Leighton Arthur Rowbotham) and  Aunty May (Martha Laing) to Bakersfield, California. He died on his birthday in 2002.

He was a home repair handyman and personnel manager at the White Front Store in the early 70s and a driver for Orange Belt Stage Lines for 10 years. At some stage he changed his name to Rowe.

His obituary notes him as  a member of the Stein Road Baptist Church. “He had a servant's heart and left his world after spending several days working on a church at the Eagle Mount Indian Reservation.”

He was survived by his wife Viviann Rowe, son Brian, daughter Janet and grandchildren.