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Author: harrietsnape
Surnames: Capper; Jaques; Snape; Corbett; Bullen
Classification: queries
Message Board URL:
http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.capper/27.30.1.3.1/mb.ashx
Message Board Post:
Don't know if anyone's now following this Thread. I came across it some time ago
but then my collection of famjly papers, which includes letters and photographs relating
to my (great) uncle Dick, was in storage. Dick was Cawthorne Capper (23 Jun 1892 - 11 Sep
1968). His sister Jean Snape (9 May 1895 - 13 Sep 1970) was my grandmother. When I was a
child Dick stayed with us at least once but I remember him only very vaguely. Now my
papers are back, I've taken out the folder which contains Dick's WW1 letters to
his parents (Henry Capper (1 Nov 1860 - 24 Feb 1940) and Amy Elizabeth Jaques) and re-read
the one dated 6 May 1915 in which he recounts his experience of the German Army's
first large-scale chlorine gas attack. On 22 Apr 2015, 168 tons of chlorine was released
opposite Langemark-Poelkapelle, north of Ypres. Dick's account of the attack is
consistent with other accounts to be found on the Internet.
In the same folder are letters to Amy Jaques from her nephew Maurice Jaques and from her
husband's nephew (Herbert) Vincent Corbett (20 Jan 1893 - 17 Oct 1918), both of whom
were killed in action. Maurice's father, known in my family as Uncle Eddie, is the
Edward Jaques referred to in other postings. He emigrated to Canada as a young man and
prospered in the grain trade. As already mentioned his other sons were Hugh, Lovel and
Jim (short for James).
On the name Cawthorne, the following is from some undated notes which my father Martin Guy
Snape (6 Mar 1929 - 28 Mar 2010) wrote for Tim Bullen's brother Paul. As a commentary
on some notes about her photograph album written by Dick's sister Joyce (11 Nov 1892 -
9 Mar 1984), of which there's a copy in my papers.
`. . .`Dick' I lived with in Montreal from 1942 - 1945. His mother (ie Amy Capper née
Jaques) was amusing about his real name, Cawthorne. It was an old Capper family name,
suggested by his father and accepted by her with some reservations. On visiting some old
Quaker aunts of her husband's, she was surprised to be asked, "Thou art not
afraid to call thy son by the old name?" She asked why she should be afraid, and was
told, "Hast thou not heard? A Cawthorne Capper never dies a natural death."
Her husband poured scorn on the tale, but admitted that one of that name had been killed
by Chinese pirates. Some kind relative then sent her a book with this man's name
inscribed in it, followed by a note, `Dearest Caw never received this book'. In any
case it seemed a hard name for a boy to bear, so when Aunt Joyce as an infant began to
address her elder brother with a noise like `dk', their mother seized upon Dick as a
suitable nickname.'
Could the man in my great grandmother's anecdote said to have been killed by Chinese
pirates be the Captain Cawthorne Capper (16 May 1813 - 14 Jan 1844) who's buried in
Macau? Sounds plausible, but we can never know for sure.
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