~ Chapter Two ~
Man of the Sea
Charles was the first-born of George and Mary Gisby, who had married the previous year when they were both in their mid-twenties. George was a cordwainer, a leatherworker making shoes and boots, a trade he had gained from his uncle, Thomas Gisby, for whom he also worked.
Before young Charlie was two years old, he had acquired a sister, Anne, and the family had moved from Alkali Row, which only a few years later was to become the site of a Victorian soup kitchen. Their new home was in another narrow backstreet on the other side of King Street called Love Lane. It was a busy, little street, with a public house at each end of it, a brewery and a grocer’s store. It was also where George’s Uncle Thomas carried out his boot-maker’s business.
By 1871, when Charlie was almost twelve, the family had grown substantially. Although little Anne didn’t survive, Charlie now had three brothers and another sister. The family had also moved again, this time to the wider and more affluent thoroughfare of St John’s Road. Their new address in the community around the Church of St John the Baptist was only a ten-minute walk up the hill from Love Lane, but it must have seemed a world away from the rowdiness and squalor of that place, which would be condemned as a slum shortly after the turn of the century.
When he became old enough to work, Charlie did not take up his father’s trade. Forsaking the mundane and undoubtedly softer occupation of a leatherworker, he chose instead the perils and hardship of life as a fisherman. He left the family home to move a few miles down the coast to Ramsgate, which was a larger fishing port than Margate and thus offered more opportunities for work. In 1881, at the age of 22, he was living in St Lawrence, Ramsgate, lodging in the High Street with the young Gander family, whose head of household was also a fisherman.
The harsh realities of a fisherman’s existence at that time are depicted in the following extract from an eloquent address by Prince Alfred, the second son of Queen Victoria, to the International Fisheries Exhibition held in London in 1883:
Before young Charlie was two years old, he had acquired a sister, Anne, and the family had moved from Alkali Row, which only a few years later was to become the site of a Victorian soup kitchen. Their new home was in another narrow backstreet on the other side of King Street called Love Lane. It was a busy, little street, with a public house at each end of it, a brewery and a grocer’s store. It was also where George’s Uncle Thomas carried out his boot-maker’s business.
By 1871, when Charlie was almost twelve, the family had grown substantially. Although little Anne didn’t survive, Charlie now had three brothers and another sister. The family had also moved again, this time to the wider and more affluent thoroughfare of St John’s Road. Their new address in the community around the Church of St John the Baptist was only a ten-minute walk up the hill from Love Lane, but it must have seemed a world away from the rowdiness and squalor of that place, which would be condemned as a slum shortly after the turn of the century.
When he became old enough to work, Charlie did not take up his father’s trade. Forsaking the mundane and undoubtedly softer occupation of a leatherworker, he chose instead the perils and hardship of life as a fisherman. He left the family home to move a few miles down the coast to Ramsgate, which was a larger fishing port than Margate and thus offered more opportunities for work. In 1881, at the age of 22, he was living in St Lawrence, Ramsgate, lodging in the High Street with the young Gander family, whose head of household was also a fisherman.
The harsh realities of a fisherman’s existence at that time are depicted in the following extract from an eloquent address by Prince Alfred, the second son of Queen Victoria, to the International Fisheries Exhibition held in London in 1883:
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Charlie had chosen to be a man of the sea. That life of “most unremitting toil” described by Prince Alfred would be his for another decade and more, during which time he would meet and marry his first wife, Amy.