“As I’ve got older, I’ve become more curious about what came before me – why I am this person, how did I end up like this – and just wondering if any of that is from my past and my relatives,” Mel C says at the start of her episode of Who Do You Think You Are? “I’m excited about what we’re going to discover.”
Mel C, aka Melanie Chisholm, is famous as Sporty Spice from the Spice Girls. She begins her family history journey by wanting to find out more about her great grandmother, Mary Bilsborough. All she has to go on is an old photograph, which she thinks makes Mary look like a strong woman who “you wouldn’t mess with”.
Mel is a proud Liverpudlian, having grown up in Whiston on Merseyside, and she returns to the city to start her search. She meets historian Rebecca Probert, who shows her Mary’s entry in the 1911 census records. Intriguingly, Mary is recorded as married under the name Mary Nunnery, but her husband isn’t on the record. She is living with her father Patrick Flaherty, a dock labourer, in impoverished courtyard housing in Liverpool.
Records show that in 1908 Mary married Joseph Nunnery, a soldier who’d gone AWOL to marry her. By 1909 he was with the army in Karachi, which was then in India. Between 1914 and 1917 Mary gave birth to three children. They all have the surname Bilsborough, but Mary’s name on the birth certificate is still Mary Nunnery. The children’s father isn’t named, but this suggests that she has begun a relationship with Thomas Bilsborough, who would become Mel’s great grandfather. In 1918 Joseph Nunnery died of pneumonia and Mary married Thomas. Altogether, the couple had nine children.
In the 1939 Register, Mary’s profession is given as “Money Lender”. Mel wants to find out more about it. She meets historian Pat Ayers, who tells her that lending money and charging interest was a way for women to make a profit and establish independence. However, money lenders were criticised at the time for bullying clients who couldn’t pay back money.
After the passing of the 1927 Moneylenders Act, money lenders were required to hold a licence to operate. By 1939, records show that Mary had successfully obtained a licence. When she died in 1973, Mary left a substantial sum of £3028 – more than £46,000 in today’s terms – in her will.
“I actually feel really close to her, even though I never met her,” Mel reflects. “She came from nothing. She was a completely self-made woman. She, kind of against the odds, achieved something that was really difficult for any woman in her position.”
Taking her family tree back further, Mel learns that Patrick Flaherty’s parents were called Patrick Flaherty and Catherine Byrnes and came from Croom in Limerick, Ireland. Why did they leave?
Travelling to Croom, Mel learns that Patrick was a smallholder farmer. But tragedy struck when the Irish Famine hit. In 1847, Patrick’s landlord sold the farm, leaving Patrick and his family homeless. They were forced to move to the city of Limerick.
In 1855, the birth of Patrick and Catherine’s son Edmund is registered in Liverpool. Like many others, they came to Britain fleeing the famine in search of a better life. Sadly, Edmund died at just eight months old.
Mel now turns her attention to her mother’s side of the family. She meets genealogist Rachel King, who shows her her family tree. As Mel expected, it has “lots of Liverpool”. However, her 4x great grandfather Thomas Keef was from Devon.
Thomas was born in 1818. Both his parents died and he grew up in the workhouse. By the time of the 1851 census, he was married with three daughters and working as a baker. But by 1858, he is the manager of an insurance company in Bristol. In the 19th century, insurance was a growing business and the job offered Thomas a chance to better himself. However, old newspaper articles show that in 1860, Thomas was charged with embezzling from his employer, but the charges were dropped.
Thomas moved to Liverpool, where he adopted the surname O’Keef. He continued to work in insurance, but was also a well-known activist, campaigning for restrictions on alcohol and universal male suffrage.
Mel says she’s proud of both sides of her family: “They’ve overcome so much against the odds at times. They’ve been hardworking, they’ve stood up for themselves, they’ve stood up for what they believe in, and I like to think that I have some of that in me too.”