Richard William Soal

Richard William Soal was born in July of 1846 in St. Peter, Thanet, Kent. He was 5 foot 8, had blue eyes, a fair complexion and dark hair. He was baptised on July the 30th 1846 in St. Peter, Kent, England, about 6 years after the end of the Industrial Revolution (1760-1840).

His parents were Richard John Soal (1807-1885) and Ann Jordan (Born 1809). They were agricultural labourers who lived in a farmhouse at Joss Farm, Rose Lane in St Peter, Thanet. He also lived with his older brother, Edward Thomas Soale (1844-1917).

Richard's father unlike his grandfather who fathered many children, had only two sons who he could barely afford to keep fed. 

By 1861, Richard's mother, Ann Jordon had left the farm house. Both Richard William Soale and his brother Edward Thomas Soale had left their father at the farmhouse on his own.

Richard William Soale left the farmhouse to work as an apprentice for a blacksmith called Peter Young. Peter Young had four daughters and no sons and accommodated Richard as his servant. 

Along the coast of Kent there were popular places for sailors and mariners who were in need of blacksmiths to repair and build ships. 

Richard W Soale, now a blacksmith, perhaps saw an opportunity to employ his skills for shipbuilding, which brought him into contact with a mariner's daughter, Eliza Ann Forwood. 

On the 31st of March, 1868, he married Eliza Ann Forwood (1847-1933) in Ramsgate, Kent. They were both witnesses to the other wedding taking place that day. 

This marriage cemented the Soale family's roots in sailing and ships which would be passed down onto the next three generations of Soales. 

In 1868, they had their first child Harriet Eliza Soal, who died the year she was born.

Following the death of Harriet, Richard, Eliza, Richard's brother and his father made plans to move to London.

There were better work opportunities available in London than in the farmlands of Kent at the time. Eliza's father was also a mariner, so likely had connections in sailing and shipping. 

In 1868 they made the journey to London with Richard's father, possibly by Victorian steamboat from Ramsgate to London as there were such trips at the time. 

Following their arrival in Dalston, London in 1868, he and his wife had their first son Richard John Soale (1869-1923) in Hackney. 

In 1871 he lived on Holly Street in Dalston, London, and in June 1873, he and his wife had a daughter named Annie Elizabeth Soale (1873-1919). 

By this time, Richard William Soale was a wine cooper, whereas his brother, Thomas, was a wine porter. Richard and Thomas both worked for a wine merchant, with Richard in charge of the wine cellar and Thomas in charge of loading wine caskets onto docks.

In September 1875, he and his wife had Helen Elizabeth Soal in Hackney. Five years later on the 10th of August 1878 they would also have William George Soale (1878-1906) in Hackney. 

In 1881, Richard William Soale, his wife and his children moved to live on Blackstone Road in Dalston, Hackney, London. 

Richard W Soale's father lost his job as a Laundreyman. No longer being able to financially support himself, he was forcibly admitted to the Hackney Union Workhouse on the 13th of May, 1885. 

In September 1885, Richard's father, Richard John Soale died at the workhouse. Following this, there may have been a rift between Richard William Soale and his brother Thomas. 

As a result, Richard William Soale moved his family from Hackney to Walthamstow in Essex, London.

By 1891, Richard William George Soale put his son William in charge of weaving and pattern card making. These activities included making baskets and containers for wine. 

On the 25th of December 1897, two arranged marriages involving William George Soale and Richard John Soale were organised by Richard William Soale and his wife. 

William George Soale would be married to Esther Ann Popkin (1874-1903), daughter of a stoker and engine driver for a steamship, who he married at St Michael and All Angels in Walthamstow on the 25th of December 1897. His brother married Elizabeth Bullock, daughter of a mariner on the same day. 

In the 1890s, Richard WG Soale's daughter, Annie moved to Margate, Kent where she met her next door neighbour, Alexander Fossey, a merchant marine. Alexander's role as a merchant marine had lead him on voyages to parts of the world such as Florida in the United States. 

By 1901, Richard W Soale had moved to Hervey Park Road in Walthamstow with Helen replacing William's role as a weaver and pattern card maker. 

Richard W Soale remained a wine cooper, but now with both his sons William and Richard collaborating as wine cellarmen to follow in his footsteps.  

This working relationship became very fractious and resulted in both Richard W Soale's two sons going separate ways from their father. 

Richard John Soale left his father's arrangement to pursue a role in painting. William George Soale, on the other hand continued as a cellarman but without his father at the helm. 

By 1903, William George Soale's two children and wife had all died, and there was already a rift between William George Soale and the rest of his family. 

On February the 11th 1903, Annie married Alexander Fossey. Richard John Soale made an appearance at the wedding, but William George Soale did not, and made his way back to his roots in Hackney where he had been moved away from. 

At this point William George Soale appears to have cut off all connection with the rest of the Soale family. 

Shortly after the marriage of Alexander and Annie, they both emigrated to Miami, Florida where they set up an orchard which became a very profitable real estate business. 

In 1906, William George Soale married his second wife and died shortly afterwards, but it is not known how. He was thought to have gone missing after his wife became pregnant with William Charles Soale (my great grandfather), but was not declared dead until several years after his disappearance. 

Impressed by the success of his daughter, on the 8th of October, 1907, Richard William Soale and his wife left Walthamstow to board the Lucania ship to Buena Vista in Miami, Florida.

By 1908, Richard William Soale was a farm gardener and had settled in Dade, Miami, Florida, along with his wife and daughter, Helen, who would marry Richard Tattam, a former British soldier who had served in India and left for Florida.

Richard William Soale died in 1913 in Dade, Miami, Florida. The funeral would not be held until two years later in 1915. The funeral report in the The Miami Herald that his funeral in 1915 mentions William George Soale in present tense, which infers that the Soale family were unaware of his death in 1906-1907. That there was no communication between the Soale family and William George Soale's widowed wife likely meant that they were not aware of his son, William Charles Soale, and therefore when William Charles Soale was eventually orphaned in 1916, they would not have been there to contest his adoption. 

Following the death of Richard William Soale, his wife Eliza Ann Forwood returned to the UK to live on Windus Road, London until her death in 1933. Helen also returned to the UK with her husband Richard Tattam and their children.

Annie Elizabeth Soale died from breast cancer in 1919 leaving her husband Alexander with their four children. Alexander struggled financially during the Great Depression of 1929, but became Commissioner of Dade from 1933 to 1935 and Mayor of Miami from 1935 to 1937. 

His life spanned the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), The Opium Wars (1839-1860), The Revolutions of 1848, The Crimean War (1853-1856), The Indian Rebellion (1857-1858), The Italian Unification (1861-1867), The Transcontinental Railroad (1863-1869), German Unification (1866-71), The American Civil War (1861-1865), The Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), Russo-Turkish War (1877-78), The First Boer War (1880-81), The Mahdist War (1881-99), The Sino-French War (1884-85), The First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), The Spanish-American War (1898), The Second Boer War (1899-1902), The Russo-Japanese War (1904-5), 1878 Treaty of San Stefano, 1879 Zulu War, 1885 Third Burmese War, 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian War, 1898 Annexation of Hawaii, Russian Revolution of 1905, 1895-96 Italo-Ethiopian War, The Balkan Wars (1912-1913), The Sinking of The Titanic 1912 as well as the reigns of the British monarchs: Queen Victoria, King Edward VII, George V British Prime Ministers: Russell, Smith-Stanley, Hamilton-Gordon, Temple, Disraeli,  Gladstone, Cecil, Gladstone, Cecil, Primrose, Cecil, Balfour, Campbell-Bannerman, Asquith US Presidents: Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan, Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft.