ANZACs

Yes, it's a very long time since anything was posted on here, but as a result of my daughter Abby finding a website called Shadow Battalion, we discovered that according to their records not only was Frank Hannagan (my great-uncle) present during the First World War - he died in 1917 at Passchendaele - but two other relatives appear to have served there at some point: Albert Alexander Hannagan, and John Blaney Francis Hannagan.

Albert was my great grandfather's nephew - the son of Charles Hannagan Senior (I've listed him as 'senior' because my own grandfather was also Charles). John Hannagan was Albert's brother.

Another chess photo

Back in January 2009 I received an email from Paul McKeown, which included the photo shown below.  I'd meant to include it in the blog but for some reason it slipped my mind.  Coming back to it the other day, it turned out that the photo had been found for Paul (who was in the process of writing a biography of Robert Wade, another chess player) by Bob Meadley, who's recently been in touch with me about my father, Frank Crowl.  Frank is in the front row, second from the right.  Note that only a couple of other players are in both this photo and the one published in the last post. 

Standing left to right: official, Maxwell C Salm, Frank L Vaughan, Harry Klass, Martin Green, Daniel McGrath, Arthur C Harris, Maurice E Goldstein, Aubrey G Shoebridge, Allen L Miller, official, James Stewart (official);  Seated left to right: Charles GM Watson, Stefan Lazare, Cecil J S Purdy, Garry Koshnitsky, Lajos Steiner, Robert G Wade, Frank A Crowl, A R de Coek (official).

Update on Chess Championship Photo

Back in August 2009, I published this photo on this blog, and a few days later attempted to interpret my father's scrawl on the back of the photo in order to give some idea who these various chess players were.  (My father was Frank Crowl.) That was as far as things went until late last year when a chess player and musician from Australia called Nigel Nettheim picked up on the photo and said he would attempt to let me know who the various men were.  However, he was short of time, and passed a copy of the photo onto Bob Meadley, who is an Australian chess historian (he may be an actual historian as well; I'm not sure about this).

Bob has written to me twice since then, and has filled in some details about my father that he had to hand, and that I hadn't heard before. He's also sent me a letter with information about the men in the photo.  He's concentrated on getting the names right; the additional and almost illegible information my father put on the back of the photo is in the earlier blog post.

Here is what Bob has told me:
Here are the names from the left as I see it:
Front row: Vladimir Bagirov, Yuri Averbakh, Brian Harkin, Karlis Lidums, ?McAuliffe.
2nd row: Cecil Purdy (arms folded), Garry Koshnitsky, A. Cuntala.
3rd row: (3 at left and 2 at right) Lucius Endzelins, Karlis Ozols, Ortvin Sarapu, P. Purkalitis and Phil Viner.
4th row: (2 only) W[olfgang]. Leonhardt, John Hanks.
5th row: John Purdy, Frank Crowl, Emmanuel Basta, A[rthur]. Teters, Vas Lapin, L. Cohen.
6th row: R. Stalley, A.L. Miller, (and over on the right) W.J. Goss.

Bob writes that he is awaiting confirmation of these names, and he adds: I may have some wrong.  There are 24 people and 23 played in the tourney.  There are 3 officials - Harkin, Lidums, and McAuliffe, so 2 players are not in the photo.  One [of those] is Dr P. Kalinovsky, and the other is Peter Wren. 
My father had written about the 'pin-up boy' and the 'conveyor of Crowl from Griffith to Adelaide and back'.  Bob writes: The pin up boy would be John Purdy.  [He was Cecil Purdy's son and became a Family Court Judge.]  The player who gave your dad a lift is Phil Viner.  

Frank Hannagan

This following three links are to pdfs on Scrib.com relating to the Debt of Honour Register in which the details of where Frank Hannagan is buried in the Tyne Cot Memorial Cemetery in Belgium.

Page 1.

Page 2.

Page 3.

Hannagan family photos

While sorting out something or other recently we came across a photo album in which someone had put some very old family photos. I've been trying to scan them onto the computer this afternoon, but the programme my printer insists on using is not easy to use, and it's taken me a lot longer than I anticipated.

However, here are the first batch:


This is Tess and Frank Hannagan (two of my grandfather's siblings) - Frank was killed at Passchendale. The top of the photo has been torn badly.

This next photo includes some of John and Bridget Hannagan's family:


According to some notes my mother has made on the back, the boys are Frank, Dan and Charles (he's the baby). The girls are Catherine (Kit) and Rose - she thinks.

This next photo came from a newspaper cutting dated 1993 - the For Sale sign on the right has been partly cut off in this scan.


This is the first house Charles and Flora Hannagan owned and lived in. It's still standing, and has been restored to a degree in the last few years. The next photo is 7 Stanley St, which many readers of this blog will remember. It's no longer standing, and was replaced almost 25 years ago by a bland house and an even blander garden.


The last two photos are of Nan (Flora) and Pop - she leaning out the window at the Elgin Rd house (I'm guessing) and he at a picnic.

Mini-reunion, and Frank Crowl

There hasn't been much happening on this blog recently, nevertheless I haven't forgotten about it!

We had a mini-family reunion in Mosgiel for Paul Stokes' 60th birthday some months after the actual event: it was to have been in September (which was still late) but the Christchurch earthquake interrupted Mary Fraher's preparations, as well as the fact that she got swine flu in that month. It finally took place in November, with a smaller number of people than originally intended. It was still a good catch-up, and invariably on these occasions bits and pieces of family history and small events from our various lives are shared.

On another tack, I received an email the other day from the Canadian, Alan McGowan, a chess player and chess historian who writes for a magazine called Chess Scotland. Alan and I had had some conversation on an earlier occasion about my father and chess, but this time he was alerting me to an online article that Edward Winter, a chess historian, had uploaded. It included the myth that Frank Crowl had been born in Melborne and brought up in Shanghai - where he learnt chess. There was a statement towards the end saying that he hadn't been born in Melborne, but Surrey, England.

I wrote to Edward and told him about the fact that my father had grown up in London, attested to by his brother, Reg. Edward came back wondering if I knew my father's birth date, (he knew the year, 1902) as it wasn't mentioned in any of the information he had. I discovered it wasn't on the family tree, which surprised me, and I thought I didn't have it.

This morning I woke up and thought: I've got my parents' marriage certificate; the birthdate will be on there. Nope, it wasn't, only the fact that my father was 40 when he married, in 1942. Searched through the various papers in the old tin box that such stuff has been kept in for as long as I can remember, and found...my father's birth certificate. Born on the 24th August, 1902, in the registration district of St Pancras, with the sub-district of Kentish Town. I have no idea why I haven't put this information on the family tree before....just one of those things!

Furthermore, on the birth certificate, it says that his name is Frank, rather than Francis, which I'd assumed.

But wait! There's more...

Sorry, found another three...

Dad on the right, and Max Green, the chess player on the left. Note on the back says, 'taken at Bot[anical] Gardens Lake, 30 Dec, '34, by Bobbie. {Another chess player.]


My mother and father on their wedding day. This appears to be the full photo of the one that is in an earlier post. It was taken by Artophot, 276 Lonsdale St, Melbourne. The woman in the background would have been the bridesmaid, most likely. If my memory serves me rightly, her name was Molly, and she and my mother wrote to each other for years.


This is also a wedding day photo. Even though Mum appears to be wearing different clothes - at first glance - she is, in fact, in the same dress and hat as in the previous photo. There's no indication what studio this was taken in.

A couple more...

Last for tonight, a couple more photos.


This is Reg(gie), my uncle, at 8 years of age, but you'll notice someone (possibly Reg himself, at a later point) has put a query as to whether it might actually be his brother, Frank. This was taken by the USA Studios, who had branches all over London, and out in the 'provinces.'


My grandfather again, this time with a fancy hat. This is also on a postcard, and was produced by Hayne, The Broadway Studios (Next to the Bethel, Tooting, SW17). Phone Streatham 3498. (Celia and I lived in Tooting Bec when we were first married.)

Crowl Family Photos (again)

I'm posting these photos in order, partly, to protect them. I feel they're fairly vulnerable to damage, so want to preserve them as best I can.


This photo is either of Reg or Frank (my uncle and father respectively). It was taken at the [J.W.] Gorsuch studio, 48 Junction Rd, Upper Holloway. A note on Flickr.com says: John Willliam Gorsuch was based at 48 Junction Road, Holloway, Islington from 1891 - 1911. He apparently gambled away earnings from studios at horse races around the country.


This is my grandmother, Karolina Brock again - or, as my uncle (or father) has written on the back: Mother (Mrs K.T.Crowl)


Frank and Reg again; probably Frank is the one on the right.



This is Uncle Will, according to the back of the photo. Presumably that means this is the gent with the extravagant name of William Thackeray Brock. The written 'signature' at the bottom says, Wykeham - the studio was The Wykeham Studios Ltd, 165 Victoria Street, SW1, and also at 133 Streatham High Road, SW161, and 67 Balham High Road, SW12. (The link to Wykeham Studios may only be temporary - it goes to a eBay page where someone is selling an old photo also produced by Wykeham.)

More Crowl Photos

More Crowl family members - or at least more photos of them...


My father, Frank Crowl, taken in Melbourne. The photo was reproduced on a post card with the stamp: Artophot, 276 Lonsdale St, Melb. C.I. Phone C 4123. It looks as though he's dressed up for something; perhaps his wedding day.


My paternal grandfather, Arthur Crowl and his wife, Karolina (nee Brock) with her parents, Francis William Brock and his wife (whose name I don't know). Karolina, my grandmother, (spelt Karolena on my father's death certificate) was born in Germany in 1873, and died in England in 1962. Occasionally I received letters from her. I don't know anything about her parents, except that two of their boys had interesting names: George Washington Brock and William Thackeray Brock. The two boys are my father and my uncle, but I'm not sure which is which.


This is 'loving sister Milly' according to the back of the photo. She was my great aunt, and the sister of Karolena. She died aged 21, but I don't know anything more about her. On the back of her photo it says: Chaffin & Sons, Photographers, Cheap Street, Sherborne, Dorset.


This photo is a mystery. I don't know who it is, and there's nothing on the back to give any indication. Perhaps it's Milly again. The photographers were Bender & Lewis, 126 George St, Croydon - facing East Croydon Station. The had a 'Day and Electric Light Studio' and were 'Patronized by H.M the King, the King of the Belgians, the King of Portugal, etc, etc.' If there was an English King patronizing them, then this must have been at the beginning of the 20th century, I suspect, since Victoria would have been on the throne before that.

Some more Crowl portraits

My uncle Reg in boy scout uniform - and in the bath.


Reg as a young man with his Grandfather Brock.


My father on a horse? Bet it was just a pose. I've never heard of him riding a horse...
Though when you blow up the picture, he looks perfectly at ease, and even has the trademark cigarette holder in his mouth.



My father as a youngish man.

Some Crowl relatives

Some Crowl relatives:



Grandfather Brock - my great grandfather on my grandmother's side, about whom I know very little.



My grandfather, Arthur Charles Crowl.



As you can see from the scribble at the bottom, this could be either my Uncle Reg, or my father, Frank.



This photo has my father, Frank, in it. He's up the very back on the left, with glasses and a cigarette holder (his trademark). He's beside the fellow with the big grin. This set of men were amongst the best chess players around, in their day. They were attending the Australian Chess Championships, in 1960; this was five years before his death, so he would have been around 58 at the time. The next picture shows what's on the back of the photo (in my father's virtually illegible handwriting). Unfortunately it's not as clear as I'd like, but there were definitely some Russians amongst this group. If I can get the time, I'll type out what I can make out of it in due course. One person is described as someone's Pin Up Boy

Frank Hannagan & Passenger lists

Still trolling through the Web and found something else of interest. My great-uncle, Frank Hannagan, the brother of my grandfather, Charles, was killed in the First World War.

I've just found a reference to him (!) in a roll of honour of those killed on the 12th October, 1917. (I'm not entirely confident about this date; it may just be when these men were listed.)

He's shown as the son of John and Bridget Hannagan, of 97A, Harrow St., Dunedin, and he's buried in the Tyne Cot cemetery, Belgium. There are several abbreviations which I don't recognise; someone else may be able to help with these. He was Private 24433, and the letters OIR (Otago Infantry Regiment?) and KIA (Kiwi Infantry something?) are alongside his name.

The Roll of Honour takes up innumerable pages of the Web, and is part of someone's enormous genealogical site.

On a separate subject, this is an index to Unassisted Inward Passenger Lists for British, Foreign and New Zealand Ports 1852-1923
It would be interesting to know if any of these people were kin! (It comes from a search done on the public record office of Victoria.)

Family Name	First Name	Age	Month	Year	Ship	Port	Fiche	Page
HANNAGAN	---- MRS	49	NOV	1875	ALBION II	N	139	001
HANNAGAN	BESSIE	15	NOV	1875	ALBION II	N	139	001
HANNAGAN	F	24	SEP	1866	OTAGO	N	069	001
HANNAGAN	G MISS	11	JUL	1921	OMAR	B	946	002
HANNAGAN	MARY	18	NOV	1875	ALBION II	N	139	001
HANNAGAN	PAT	28	MAY	1857	POMONA	B	125	004
HANNAGAN	W	53	NOV	1875	ALBION II	N	139	001
HANNAGAN	WILLIE	8	NOV	1875	ALBION II	N	139	001