New posts coming soon, guys. So much crazy stuff has happened, I don’t even know where to start. As soon as I can get to a scanner, I’ll fill you in.

So, I’ve finally decided to post this. My research has been shaky, but I’ve found multiple sources that seem to support my theory, so to hell with it, I’m putting it out there. I know who Beth is.

So let me begin by talking about some of the things I got wrong. After reading the diary, I had assumed that T.B. and Beth were married. I guess I just assumed that two upper class people in 1887 would be married before they started having sex. But nowhere in the diaries does it say that they were married. 

This preconception effected much of the research that I’ve done since then. And It kept me from finding the real Beth for quite a while. So when this thought came to mind, I decided to go back and look at all of the clues one by one, and here’s something I found. On the photo, I though one of the initials was “E.B.”, well I was wrong, I had just assumed that Beth and T.B. would share a last name and I had glanced over it (I was being a bad investigator basically). The initial actually reads “E.P.”. 

And that reminded me of something. William Pearce’s wife was called “Dinah Elizabeth Pearce”. So I did a bit of looking around, and I hit something. Beth was Elizabeth Pearce. Born in 1862. Child of William Pearce. 

But according to wikipedia, the Pearces only had one child, a son. Well, here’s where things get a bit less rooted in fact, and more into speculation. But in my opinion, there are too many coincidences to be ignored.

I found some information about Elizabeth Pearce. According to this web page, her parents were “unknown Pearce” and ” Elizabeth Dally”. When I first saw the mother’s name, I was disappointed, and I didn’t think that it was Beth, but having thought about it a bit more, I have two theories about how this could be Beth.

1. W.P. cheated on his wife, and had two illegitimate daughters. This could explain why his first name isn’t on the birth certificate, and it might explain why Beth seemed to be living in Glasgow while he was living in London. 

2. And this one is really out there. I’m only really putting it here, so I’m not outright calling W.P. a cheater, to be honest. Dally is Dinah’s nickname, and somehow it was put down on the birth certificate incorrectly.

Yeah, it seems like W.P. was a cheater. But get this, so was Beth. According to that information, Beth married Albert Whitehead in 1887, and then had a daughter in 1888. So Beth could have been pregnant before she got married. Or she and T.B. could have been having an affair. Either way, Beth must have been seeing Whitehead for a while before they were married. So I believe that she and T.B. were having an affair.

So we don’t really know if Beth’s child (Elizabeth Whitehead) is T.B.’s daughter, or Albert Whitehead’s.

The thing that is bothering me the most isn’t anything to do with this however. Why would somebody send me a letter inviting me to investigate some Victorian love affair? I don’t yet see the purpose of all this.

But I’m not giving up. I plugged Elizabeth Pearce, T.B. and Sir William Pearce into my college’s library database, and they have a book that mentions all three names. I have it on order, and they’re bringing it out from storage for me as I type this. The book is called “Maritime Engineering; A History”.

I’ll find the relevant pages in the book, and hopefully I’ll know more by tonight, or tomorrow morning. 

Wish me luck,

Until next time,

-Luke

All right. I’m convinced. Not only is the 1956 envelope real, but so is everything in the 1887 envelope. 

I’ve been up all night doing research, and I’ve finally  collected enough information to be sure. I know who W.P. and Beth are. First, W.P. Warning, this gets a little bit complex.

So here’s what we knew about W.P. from the diary entries:

1. He had a wife, a son and a daughter.

2. He lived in London.

3. He met T.B. in a shipyard.

4. He visited Glasgow.

5. He was AT LEAST in his 50s in 1887 (judging from the photo)

So I spent a bit of time Googling around, and I’m almost certain I’ve found W.P.

W.P. is Sir William Pearce. Pearce was born in 1833 and died in 1888, making him 54 at the time of the photo. He was the Chairman of the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, who designed and built ships at the shipyard in Govan, now part of the City of Glasgow! The Fairfield Shipping and Engineering company was the leading shipbuilding company in the world, and they had a lot of high profile clients including… yup, The New Zealand Shipping Company. There’s the connection to the envelope. 

Pearce lived in Glasgow for many years, but ended up moving to Picadilly in London to pursue his political aspirations. So far it matches up with what we know from the diary. 

Pearce died the next year, in 1888 in his London home. There is currently a statue of him in Govan, commemorating his life:

But there are things that don’t match up. In particular, the photo and the diary don’t match Pearce’s story exactly. For one, it says that he posed in the photo with his son and his daughter. According to Wikipedia, Pearce had only one son, whose name was William George Pearce. But the diary clearly says that he posed with his son and daughter. Well, I have an explanation (although it involves a bit of assumption), but I’ll get to that in the post about Beth, because it’s more about her, than it is about him. For now, let’s look at another inconsistency. 

The initials in the photo say that the son’s initials are C.P., right? Well, actually, no, they don’t. This is totally my bad. The initials are pretty worn away, and as I’ll explain in the next post, I actually got more than one of them wrong. Mostly because of my own poor investigating skills, and silly assumptions. 

The initials actually say G.P. Which would make sense. William George Pearce, the son, was probably called George by his family, so they could be told apart. That makes sense, right? G.P.

But what about his daughter? According to Wikipedia he only had a son. Well, here is something that might be a bit of a game changer. Based on the information I have uncovered, I believe that William Pearce had two daughters, but he was unrecorded on their birth certificates, because of a mistake involving a nickname. I know, right? This is a lot to take in, so I’ll leave all of that information until the next post. It might take me a while to write up, but I want to get all of the facts right.

Until then,

-Luke

Guys, remember before when I said that I was freaking out a little? Well now I am freaking out a LOT. The letters are real. There’s no other explanation. My friends could not have done this.

I guess I should stop jumping ahead. I’ll take you on the extremely worrying journey that I just went on. So… oh God. Right. Here’s what I found on the second envelope:

This is the larger of the two envelopes. The 1887 envelope was inside this one, along with a note that read:

“Mr. Healy,

Consider this an invitation to investigate

-B.J.”

Unlike the smaller envelope, this one is not browned from age. The paper is originally brown. It looks like a pretty common A4 envelope, but it most definitely is not.

My name and address are typed on the envelope (which I have blocked out from this photo). The characters are fairly worn, but I’m almost certain that they were done using a type writer. The same type writer used on the note from B.J. Nothing too unusual about that. Type can be easily faked. Then we move on to the stamps.

The stamps are from the USA. I had a look into the specific stamp online by looking for “Patrick Henry Postage Stamp” on Google. It turns out that this stamp was only ever issued in 1955! The stamps look like they’ve been stuck to a white envelope before and they were individually clipped off and re-stuck onto this brown one. Used copies of these stamps are only worth 0.15 cent so it’s not unbelievable that some of my friends could have acquired them. EXCEPT WAIT, there are two rubber stamps made by the post office which read:

“SAN-FRANSISCO

1956

USA”

So, holy hell. this letter, and yes, this letter, not the original in the white envelope, was sent in 1956. I know this because one of the rubber stamps runs on to the brown envelope. This letter was sent in 1956 to a person and address that didn’t even exist!

So there you go, I’m freaked out. For real this time. If any of you guys are responsible for this then; good one, you got me. Now please tell me if it was you, because I’m beginning to lose sleep over this.

So what if this letter was sent in 1956? Where the heck has it been? What happened when they tried to deliver it to the middle of a field? Well, I think I have an answer for that too.

There is a red stamp on the envelope that reads;

“Missent to Cuba”

Although why it was sent to Cuba, I have no idea. This thing somehow ends up going from San Fransisco to Cuba in 1956. Which just happens to be in the middle of the flipping Cuban Revolution! And it’s just before the USA declared an economic embargo on the Cuban Government. Of course the Cubans aren’t going to be delivering American Mail. So what? This thing ends up in some mailing office in Cuba, presumably trapped there until now, when it gets forwarded to me ?

So who the hell is B.J.?! He’s either a psychic or a flipping time traveller. How the hell else could he know my name and address?!

I’m too on edge to sleep tonight guys, I need to find out more about these letters I’ve got enough information about some of the people from 1887 to make a decent attempt at finding who they are. I wish that I had any more information about B.J. Oh God. Wish me luck. 

Until the morning,

-Luke

The first envelope I’ll look at is the 1887 one. This one is so fragile, even more so than the diary pages. I guess whoever opened it didn’t understand the meaning of the word “safekeeping”.

The envelope didn’t have any stamp or address on it, so it must have been hand delievered. The top of the envelope reads “CONTENTS”. Just under this is a grid where one could have written the type and quantity of documents inside the envelope. Nothing is written in the spaces, however.

Just under the grid is written “N.Z. Shipping Co.”. It’s probably a company envelope, hence the whole “CONTENTS” thing. So I did some Googling, and I believe that this refers to the New Zealand Shipping Company. The company was established in 1873, and they operated routes between London and New Zealand. W.P. could have some connection with the company, considering the fact that he and T.B. met in a shipyard, and he lived in London. He might have been up in Glasgow for business.

According to some records that I found (by googling New Zealand Shipping Company Glasgow), the company definitely had some dealings in Glasgow.

In fact according to that website, the New Zealand Shipping Co. sold a ship called The White Eagle (renamed the Pareora) to a company called J.Livingston, in Glasgow in 1887. I looked into this transaction, but I couldn’t find much information on it. I did manage to find a picture of The White Eagle, however:

And I found a website talking a bit about one of it’s journeys (it’s pretty long, but it’s interesting). W.P. could have been in Glasgow selling the White Eagle for the New Zealand Shipping Company. I might be making a bit of a leap here, but it certainly would fit in quite nicely. Heck, that could even be a picture of the shipyard from the diary. Actually, that’s a silly thing to say. I’m getting a bit too into this.

I’m getting just a little bit freaked out again. These letters are either hugely coincidental, or very heavily researched. Like I said, slightly freaked. I guess I’m just an easy person to freak out, hehe.

There’s nothing too notable about the back of the envelope other than the opened wax seal. The seal was pretty messily applied, and most of the wax has worn away. A glob of it is still on there, though. It’s hard to tell when the seal was opened.

Right, guys. I am going to go and get some lunch, and then I’ll have a look at the big envelope. I’ve got a few ideas about what to research next, but I’d love your input.

Until after lunch,

-Luke