The mysterious story of Robert Stafford 

Later history

Rob's later history is obscure. He did not remain much longer in the army and he more or less vanishes in the American west. He never returned to England because of his involvement with the Chartists, although Chartism was completely dead after 1848.

Old Jim's story now moves on to 1882, when an aunt came over from America to stay with his family at Bedlington. She was Rob's daughter. This was an exciting year for Young Jim. He was aged twelve and had left school to start work in the previous September.

The aunt stayed with the family over Christmas 1882, before returning to America in the January. Most of what Old Jim told me was learned from this aunt.

Although he regarded her visit as a family affair I cannot help suspecting it had something to do with her father's ancestry. Rob was by this time dead. It may have been the family gathering to decide whether they could make a last ditch attempt to gain reward from the inheritance which they believed, correctly or incorrectly, their father had been cheated out of.

It was clear the family had always known the place where Rob was born, though I do not understand exactly how this came about. When Rob's son was grown up he came back to England and visited the place of his father's origin.

Here again we are in difficulty with dates but, assuming the son was born at one of these western forts in the 1840's, this visit can scarcely have taken place before about 1865 and it may have been later.

Something like fifty years had therefore elapsed. Sproat had gone (probably dead) and no one could or would give any information about the incident. The trail was completely dead.

Rob's daughter claimed that her father had been cheated out of some inheritance. We must treat this with scepticism. For what her story was worth, the villain was said to be a man called JARLINGHAM -- at least that was how Old Jim pronounced his name. But Old Jim had a broad northern accent and what sounded like JARLINGHAM might have been JURLINGHAM or JERLINGHAM. An unusual name.

Jarlingham or Jerlingham was married to Rob's very much older sister. So much older that I wondered if she was really his stepsister, perhaps the offspring of a previous marriage?

Here we come to the only point of doubt in Old Jim's story. He wondered whether Jarlingham was not married to Rob's mother's sister, which would have made him Rob's uncle.

It was Jarlingham who had got rid of Rob. Without knowing the aunt, we simply cannot say whether she was a responsible person who would only have reported what she believed to be true or whether she was the type to spin a yarn. We can only leave her story on the table.

The missing photograph >