Company

Having woken up to a horrible chesty cough I decided to slow down, stay home and rest up. By the end of the day this meant I was combing the mantlepiece for objects I hadn’t blipped yet, and I thought this one would provide a nice postscript to yesterday’s trip to Liverpool.

At the risk of mixing up my generations (Sister #1 will put me right) 2x Great Uncle Richard Hughes made good as the owner of a modest coastal shipping line out of Liverpool (roughly 1885-1932). I stumbled across this German cigarette card on eBay a couple of years back (#218 from a series of 396 Merchant Navy shipping flags) displaying his company flag: Richard Hughes & Co., with a rose. Most of his ship’s names had ‘Rose’ in their name. 

Needless to say, whatever money he made didn’t filter it’s way to our side of the family :-) but his main legacy to us growing up was the Gronant Village Institute &  bowling green which he built for our home village (and which was only somewhat controversially recently sold off and turned into flats).

I think this Richard Hughes was the brother of 2x Grandfather Joseph Hughes the grocer (also featured in a recent blip), but again I may have that slightly mixed up.  I also have a couple of postcards featuring ships from the line somewhere, including one the Gronant Rose, named for his and our home village. I probably need to bring a bit more coherence to these scattered treasures.