Having been spent a great deal of time researching my family history, I found one of the most interesting people to be my great grandmother, Rachel Shine.
Rachel Musaphia was born in Holland in 1844 and moved, when very young, with her parents to England where they settled in “London City”. She studied drama at college with the future great actress Sarah Bernhardt and joined her in many productions.
She married the boy next door, Nathan Shine who lived at 27 Dorset Street. They had four sons – Barnett, my grandfather born in 1863, Jacob in 1866, Joseph in 1868 and Nathan in 1870. Nathan, my great uncle, was named after my great grandfather who died of tuberculosis in September 1869 some months before he was born. This left Rachel a widow with four young children to bring up on her own. What was she to do?
Grandfather Barnett was the eldest of the four boys. He was placed by my great grandmother in the Jewish Orphanage in Norwood which had only been opened a few years before. They were prepared to accept him because of the difficulty Rachel would have feeding and bringing up four children on her own. When the orphanage children were taken for a walk on the heath on Saturday afternoon, Barnett used to slip away and catch the train to Aldgate to visit his mother. How he managed to do this without money I don’t know and no doubt he was punished each time for this escapade. All four boys are known to have been back living with her when they were older.
Family history has it that she earned her living from a cats’ meat round and received many a black eye for poaching on cats’ meat men’s territories. She was the first cats’ meat woman in London. Cats’ meat did not mean she chopped up cats but rather that she went to the butcher and bought all the left-over meat that people would not eat, to feed to the animals.
History adds that, on her rounds, her basket, filled with the cut meat, had strips of wood for skewers on one side and a copy of Shakespeare on the other. She would be studying for a production at the Bell Lane Club while selling her goods. It also adds that her son Nathan, aged 18, on September 30th 1888, had left a working man’s social club in Commercial Street, Whitechapel, at 1.00am. On Berner Street he reported seeing a man with a large narrow-bladed knife standing over the body of a woman later identified as Elizabeth Stride. The man ran away. Elizabeth Stride was murdered but not mutilated.
Many of the murders committed by Jack the Ripper were in and around Dorset Street. In fact the location of the murder of Mary Jane Kelly was 13 Miller’s Court which was a small collection of mean properties built in the back yard of numbers 26 and 27 Dorset Street. Fortunately, by that time Rachel and her family had moved away from the area.
In her forties Rachel remarried a Mr Van Gelder of Dutch extraction. When she died aged eighty four, in 1928, a full-length front page column appeared in the Sunday Dispatch on the day of her burial.
MME SHINE DEAD. ACTED WITH THE DIVINE SARAH BERNHARDT. EAST END FIGURE
Mme Shine, a colleague of the divine Sarah Bernhardt and an outstanding figure in the East End Theatre for more than fifty years was a household name east of Temple Bar.
She came from Holland as a child of two and lived in Spitalfields which was almost a Dutch colony. Here it was that she and her husband founded the Netherlands Club, Bell Lane, which still exists, and where last night many reminiscences of her dramatic triumphs were recounted. Her son said that she attended a college in Moorfields at the same time as Sarah Bernhardt and acted in many plays with her when she was young. He added, “She also played at the Pavilion, Whitechapel, Great Central Hall, Bishopsgate, Surrey Theatre, Blackfriars and many others in English and Irish dramas”.
The secretary of the Club added, “We used to perform two different plays a week on Saturday and Sunday night and Mme Shine won many triumphs. I remember her particularly in East Lynne and The Two Orphans. She was known all over the East End for her kindness as well as for her dramatic prowess. She was ever ready to help charitable objects by her talents.”
Barnett, my grandfather, had ten children, all of whom survived into adulthood - no mean feat in that period. My father, who was his seventh child, did not see Rachel, his grandmother very much. He remembered though, that his mother always spoke of her with reverential awe. When he was twenty-one years old she gave a recitation at my grandparents’ house in Old Ford. He was thrilled with the thought that she would be visiting and staying the night. He said, “That recitation was “The Fireman’s Wedding” but we had hoped it would be “Christmas Day in the Workhouse”. I can still see her arms extended heavenward towards that brave fireman rescuing the lass from the inferno and later making her his bride.”
She is to date, the most interesting member of the family although I think my father’s brother Joe could give her a run for the money. We are still looking into our family history and from snippets of information yet to be confirmed, I’m sure there are many more facts to come.
Rachel Musaphia was born in Holland in 1844 and moved, when very young, with her parents to England where they settled in “London City”. She studied drama at college with the future great actress Sarah Bernhardt and joined her in many productions.
She married the boy next door, Nathan Shine who lived at 27 Dorset Street. They had four sons – Barnett, my grandfather born in 1863, Jacob in 1866, Joseph in 1868 and Nathan in 1870. Nathan, my great uncle, was named after my great grandfather who died of tuberculosis in September 1869 some months before he was born. This left Rachel a widow with four young children to bring up on her own. What was she to do?
Grandfather Barnett was the eldest of the four boys. He was placed by my great grandmother in the Jewish Orphanage in Norwood which had only been opened a few years before. They were prepared to accept him because of the difficulty Rachel would have feeding and bringing up four children on her own. When the orphanage children were taken for a walk on the heath on Saturday afternoon, Barnett used to slip away and catch the train to Aldgate to visit his mother. How he managed to do this without money I don’t know and no doubt he was punished each time for this escapade. All four boys are known to have been back living with her when they were older.
Family history has it that she earned her living from a cats’ meat round and received many a black eye for poaching on cats’ meat men’s territories. She was the first cats’ meat woman in London. Cats’ meat did not mean she chopped up cats but rather that she went to the butcher and bought all the left-over meat that people would not eat, to feed to the animals.
History adds that, on her rounds, her basket, filled with the cut meat, had strips of wood for skewers on one side and a copy of Shakespeare on the other. She would be studying for a production at the Bell Lane Club while selling her goods. It also adds that her son Nathan, aged 18, on September 30th 1888, had left a working man’s social club in Commercial Street, Whitechapel, at 1.00am. On Berner Street he reported seeing a man with a large narrow-bladed knife standing over the body of a woman later identified as Elizabeth Stride. The man ran away. Elizabeth Stride was murdered but not mutilated.
Many of the murders committed by Jack the Ripper were in and around Dorset Street. In fact the location of the murder of Mary Jane Kelly was 13 Miller’s Court which was a small collection of mean properties built in the back yard of numbers 26 and 27 Dorset Street. Fortunately, by that time Rachel and her family had moved away from the area.
In her forties Rachel remarried a Mr Van Gelder of Dutch extraction. When she died aged eighty four, in 1928, a full-length front page column appeared in the Sunday Dispatch on the day of her burial.
MME SHINE DEAD. ACTED WITH THE DIVINE SARAH BERNHARDT. EAST END FIGURE
Mme Shine, a colleague of the divine Sarah Bernhardt and an outstanding figure in the East End Theatre for more than fifty years was a household name east of Temple Bar.
She came from Holland as a child of two and lived in Spitalfields which was almost a Dutch colony. Here it was that she and her husband founded the Netherlands Club, Bell Lane, which still exists, and where last night many reminiscences of her dramatic triumphs were recounted. Her son said that she attended a college in Moorfields at the same time as Sarah Bernhardt and acted in many plays with her when she was young. He added, “She also played at the Pavilion, Whitechapel, Great Central Hall, Bishopsgate, Surrey Theatre, Blackfriars and many others in English and Irish dramas”.
The secretary of the Club added, “We used to perform two different plays a week on Saturday and Sunday night and Mme Shine won many triumphs. I remember her particularly in East Lynne and The Two Orphans. She was known all over the East End for her kindness as well as for her dramatic prowess. She was ever ready to help charitable objects by her talents.”
Barnett, my grandfather, had ten children, all of whom survived into adulthood - no mean feat in that period. My father, who was his seventh child, did not see Rachel, his grandmother very much. He remembered though, that his mother always spoke of her with reverential awe. When he was twenty-one years old she gave a recitation at my grandparents’ house in Old Ford. He was thrilled with the thought that she would be visiting and staying the night. He said, “That recitation was “The Fireman’s Wedding” but we had hoped it would be “Christmas Day in the Workhouse”. I can still see her arms extended heavenward towards that brave fireman rescuing the lass from the inferno and later making her his bride.”
She is to date, the most interesting member of the family although I think my father’s brother Joe could give her a run for the money. We are still looking into our family history and from snippets of information yet to be confirmed, I’m sure there are many more facts to come.