The Acali experiment 1973

Mary Gidley, an American mother-of-two, took part in the strange "Acali experiment", devised by eminent anthropologist, Dr Santiago Genoves. Five men and six women of several different nationalities set sail on a raft from the Canary Isles heading for Mexico, as an experiment in social behaviour. It was especially noted that key positions on the raft were given to women (remember, this was the 1970s). Mary Gidley herself was the navigation expert, and the captain was a Swedish woman.

The official description of the experiment follows:
"Eleven adult volunteers - six females and five males - were left on a small raft in the Atlantic in order to study interpersonal relationships affected by family patterns of behavior, attitudes toward sex, race and racism, nationality, verbal and nonverbal communication, personality and character, intelligence, language, religion, leadership roles, and space. We hoped to gain a better understanding of friction and violence phenomena. The Acali experiment grew out of the more limited raft studies of Ra 1 and Ra 2.
Intelligence and personality of the 11 members of the Acali raft expedition of 1973 were assessed by crew members and by shore-based scientists. Predictions concerning the Likely outcome of this long period of unavoidable proximity to 10 other individuals were made by a variety of scientists. Media treatment and views of friends and relatives were also studied. Some of the basic findings of the study were that assessments of both intelligence and personality carried out by these two methods were very different. Practising artists showed better predictive powers concerning the outcome of the voyage than either natural or social scientists. Media treatment influenced the views of the relatives of volunteers. It is suggested that laboratory assessments may not be related to assessed performances under stress, and that further progress in understanding human hostility will depend on a better knowledge of individual interactions."

It is not known how Mary Gidley fared. She would now (2009) be in her 70s, and was evidently one of the more adventurous Gidleys.

Multiple Gidley births

Raising twins was quite an achievement before about the beginning of the last century, and Gidley twins are rare before then. Martin Robert Gidley and Thomas May Gidley are, I think, the earliest pair I have spotted - they were born in 1909 in Dartford registration district. Daisy S Gidley and Eric A Gidley are a later pair, born 1919 in Birmingham. Since then there have been a few other pairs, but twins don't seem to run in Gidley families.
But.... were there triplet births in the June quarter of 1864 in Southampton registration district? The births of John, Mary Ann and Thomas Gidley were all registered in the same volume and on the same page. Sadly, they all died in that same quarter, and, again, their deaths were registered on the same page.
2012 stop press: yes, they were triplets, the oldest children of Albert Gidley (of my own Gidley family), then a Gunner in the Royal Navy (and later a coastguard), and his wife Agnes. The babies were born prematurely on 23rd April 1864 in Southampton and all died later that same day. Albert and Agnes went on to have four more children, of whom three survived to adulthood, and another daughter who died as a baby.
Much more happily, there is a set of Gidley triplets thriving in Texas. All girls, they were born in December 2007, and their mother is recording their progress on a blog, The Gidley Girls.

2018 update: I have been updating Gidley baptisms from the Devon Baptisms index on FindMyPast and have found what appear to be two earlier sets of twins.
In October 1681 twin boys, Henry and Robert, were baptised in Buckfastleigh, sons of Hercules Gidley.
In August 1736 two sons, John and William, were baptised on the same day in Spreyton to Bartholomew and Mary Gidley. They appear to be twins. John was the only one to survive to adulthood. William was buried 10 days after his baptism.

William Henry Clarke Gidley

Mystery surrounds this particular Gidley, a mariner of some sort, and his various marital arrangements.
In 1849 William Henry Clarke Gidley, a bachelor, of full age, a sailor, married Elizabeth Hannaford, a minor. William gave his father's name as Christopher Gidley, although I believe this was more likely to have been his grandfather. Christopher's son William born in 1795, a fisherman, was married to Agnes Gilley, and this couple was more likely to have been William Henry Clarke's parents. They did have a son William baptised in 1826, and Christopher's mother's surname was Clark.
In 1851 there was no sign of William, presumably at sea, and his wife Elizabeth was visiting her parents.
In 1861 Elizabeth is in Liverpool, a widow with a daughter, Eveline (I believe this is a misreading by the enumerator for Caroline). Again there is no sign of William.
In 1871 William C Gidley is in Liverpool, married, mate of a ship, with a wife Jane aged 34 born in Hull. There is no sign of Elizabeth and there is no obvious death reference for her. Their two daughters, Caroline and Mary Elizabeth, are lodging in St Marychurch in Devon.
In 1874 there is a marriage for William Hy C [sic] Gidley to Mary Jane Harvey or Earl. William describes himself as a widower. This time he gives his father's name as William Gidley, a mariner.
This situation only lacks a death reference for the first wife, Elizabeth, if you set aside the description of Elizabeth as "widow" in 1861 (and the enumerator had probably already made a mistake with the name of the daughter, and possibly missed off the second daughter from the entry).
However, I was surprised to find in the Civil Registration Indexes 1845-1958 from Ireland (available on FamilySearch.org) yet another marriage reference for William Henry Clark [sic] Gidley, this time in 1864 in Belfast. He certainly wasn't trying to hide his identity when he used all his Christian names. Perhaps this wife died before his third marriage, although possibly he was one of those legendary sailors with a girl in every port. There is a tantalising death reference to a William Gidley who died in Newry RD in 1884 aged 20. Was this a son of the marriage?

And then there is the puzzle of who is the William Gidley who married Harriet Caroline Burgoin in 1846 in the Newton Abbot RD? They move to London, where this other William from Torquay was a carpenter. I had thought this was William, son of William and Agnes, but it seems as though this was William Henry Clark Gidley, who has enough wives to keep him occupied. A marriage certificate will have to be purchased.

STOP PRESS November 2009- a baptismal entry for William Henry Clarke Gidley in Tormoham (Torquay) in April 1828 gives us the information that he was in fact the base son of Harriet Gidley of Torquay. Christopher Gidley was therefore his grandfather, and William Gidley his uncle. One mystery solved, but not his tangled matrimonial arrangements.

A FURTHER UPDATE May 2011
The burial records of Toxteth Park Cemetery reveal that William Henry Clarke's matrimonial arrangements weren't quite as tangled as I once thought. The records show the following burial in 1868:
GIDLEY Mary Ann 31 years Wife 201 Beaufort Street 16 December 1868.
I believe this is the wife he married in Ireland in 1864. Their son William Robert was born in 1865, and lived until 1871. William Henry Clarke then married Mary Jane (or Jane) Harvey or Earl in 1874.
I still don't have a death reference for his first wife, nor do I know why she was described as a widow in the 1861 census.

THE FINAL UPDATE July 2015?
And yet another wife for William Henry Clarke Gidley at the age of 50. I think this makes him the most-married British-born Gidley. This final? marriage took place in Durban, Natal, South Africa in October 1878. To match the last three wives, William married another Mary - to be precise Marie Estella Guient. And presumably the much-travelled William died in South Africa.

1911 census preliminary findings

I have had a preliminary look at the 1911 census, the beta test version of which was released for a week or so. I didn't purchase any vouchers to check full details, and only a few counties were available, but fortunately Devon was one of them. From the 484 Gidleys found so far, there are now extra people to add to most of the trees I have built up. A lot of the new names were of girls, so there have not been many families to follow through.

1) My own family: A daughter, Emily Bessie J Gidley, born 1908 and a son, James Albert Gidley, born in 1910 have been added to the family of Frederick James Gidley and his wife Lily of Exeter, making a total of 5 boys in the family. James Albert married in Wales, but I have not found any children. I have a newspaper article from about 20 years ago about this family in Exeter, which I shall post separately.

A son, Gerald Frederick Gidley, born 1910 in Devonport, was a surprise addition to the family of Frederick Samuel Gidley and his wife Elizabeth. Gerald's sister Dorothy was 15 years older than he was. Gerald married and had two daughters in Newton Abbot registration district.

There are two more children to add to those of Albert Samuel Gidley and his wife Annie Sophia in Birmingham. One was a daughter, Dorothy Lily Gidley born in 1902, and one was a son, Frederick Gidley, born in 1904. Frederick married in 1932 and had one daughter. He and his wife both died in the Penzance registration area.

Muriel Avis Gidley, born in the Totnes registration district in 1910, was the daughter of Frederick Martin Gidley and his wife Amy.

2) The Winkleigh (and Pedigree) family: another son for the children of William Osborn Gidley and his wife Etta, who later settled in Kingsbridge. This is William George Gidley born 1907 in the Okehampton registration district. I cannot find any marriage for him, but it looks as though he died in 1979 in the Plymouth area.

There are several girls to add to the tree, including two daughters of Sidney George Gidley and his wife Louisa Esther nee Chamberlain. There was no birth reference in England and Wales for the older daughter, Marjorie Dorothy Esther Gidley, so she may have been born in Scotland where both her parents were in 1901.

3) The South Devon family: Stanley George Gidley born 1908 in Greenwich registration district and his sister Olive Wilhelmina born in 1906 have been added to the family of Richard Abel Gidley and his wife Jane. Richard had died in 1910 and one daughter, Florence Irene, was in an "institution" in the Brentford area in the 1911 census, but I didn't check the details. Stanley George married in Lewisham in 1930, but I couldn't trace any family for him.

Another son for John Coulton Elliott Gidley and his wife Mary Adeline of Bristol. This was George Stuart Gidley born 1909, who married and had one daughter. There also seems to have been another daughter for John and Mary's family, Olive Gidley born about 1902, although I can't find a birth reference for her.

4) The "Plymouth James" family: William Henry Gidley and his wife Mary Esther had a son Arthur James Gidley born in Bristol in 1907. Nothing further is known about Arthur yet. There was also another daughter, Dorothy Winifred Gidley, born in 1905.

There are still some mysteries. Several children were found in households where there were no other Gidleys. A birth certificate may have to be obtained for Leslie Edward Gidley born in Greenwich in 1904, as in the 1911 census he is living in Surrey in the Kingston area, the only Gidley in the household. Ivy Whitmore Gidley born in Greenwich in 1895 could not be found in 1901, and in 1911 is also living in the Kingston area, again the only Gidley in the household.

There will be more to add to this 1911 thread as I continue to work my way through the entries, and as more counties are unrolled in the official release.

Visitors to the Gidley Profile page

I have recently installed StatCounter on the Gidley Profile page at the GOONS website. This has provided a wonderful source of information about visitors to the page, including how they were referred there - usually via Google of course. But their search terms are interesting - "churchwardens of Stoke Damerel", "Chudleigh family name", "Mrs Gidley MP", "Gidley Harold German" are some of them, also those who seek the meaning of the Gidley name (and one person who was looking for the meaning of the name Gidlow).
You can also see where the visitors are based and in the few daysI've had StatCounter installed, they have been from all over England, and also from Perth in Western Australia, and Montana, Massachusetts, Washington, New Jersey, California, and New Hampshire in the USA.
I wish more researchers would get in touch, as I'm sure they could add to the family trees.

The Gidleys of Shoreditch

More information has emerged on the Gidleys of Shoreditch, descended from Robert Pyne Gidley and his wife Ann Norton. Actually, nearly all the males of the family seem to have married an Ann, which makes life confusing. I know that there are several researchers interested in this family. Eight children have come to light so far, the first two being christened in Topsham, Devon. Then there was a move in about 1793 to Bermondsey, on the south bank of the Thames and a centre of the tanning industry, where Robert Pyne Gidley would have plied his trade as a cordwainer. A slight doubt exists over Fraser Gordon Gidley, christened in 1801 in Bermondsey, where his father's trade is given as "Excise, Dock Head". Caroline Snyeder Gidley was the seventh child, and I believe is the Caroline who married John James Brewer in 1826 in St Pancras. A mystery surrounds William Boyne (sometimes Bowen) Gidley, the fifth child, born in 1798. He married Ann Prosser in 1822, and Robert Gidley and Caroline Gidley were witnesses. This Ann seems to have been about 14 years older than her husband, and on the 1841 and 1851 censuses is possibly a female servant (1841) and living with a sister-in-law (1851). There is no sign of William Boyne/Bowen until a death reference in 1866.
At some point the family seems to have moved north of the Thames. The oldest child Robert, born in 1788, married Ann Knight in 1815 in St Anne's, Soho. His parents witnessed the marriage. No children have been found so far, nor any trace of this younger Robert and Ann couple.
Present Gidley representatives of the family descend from the eighth child, Bartholomew Gidley, who married Sarah Cox and whose children were all born in Shoreditch. He carried on the family trade as a cordwainer.
Robert Pyne Gidley died in 1846 and his wife Ann in 1847. Robert Pyne's address was given as 11 Cowper St, City Road, at his burial in Golden Lane Cemetery.

Gidleys in Marldon, Devon

On my last visit to the Devon Record Office in May, I was surprised to find a hitherto unknown Gidley family - that of John, described as "of Marldon" in the register when he married Mary Gale in 1792 in Kingsteignton. I found 4 children in the Marldon PRs until they became too faint to read easily. Son Samuel could possibly be the one who joins the Navy/coastguard service and marries Amelia Kearley in Hampshire. One of the daughters of John and Mary was Tryphena Gidley, who married in Berry Pomeroy in 1825, but by 1851 was living in West Teignmouth, where her sister Jane married in 1833. West Teignmouth looks a fruitful area to investigate next time, in the hope of finding a burial and/or possible ages for John and Mary, the parents.
The south coast of Devon seems to have been much more attractive to Gidleys from mid-Devon. Very few are to be found in Barnstaple or Bideford, etc. but most families seem to have a representative somewhere on the south coast, with Torquay being particularly popular.