WELCOME TO THE BAYLISS LINE. This blog has been created for my family. By "my family" I mean all those who are related to the Bayliss family either by blood, marriage or even relationship. There are, of course, other Bayliss families not related to us but this blog has at its heart a very specific family who had their origins in Gloucestershire. I am connected to that family because my mother was a Bayliss and it was her curiosity that started my research back in the early 1990's. So, what are you likely to see on this blog? Well, as it is a blog, I want it to be as entertaining as possible rather that a dry listing of facts (that is for Ancestry.com). I will, hopefully, be posting entries on our ancestors and relatives, on the places where they lived, and the historical times they lived through. I have an extensive collection of photographs of people and places which I will, of course, be sharing.

I'd like to ask anybody who reads this blog to give me some feedback. I'd really like this to be a two way thing. It sometimes unearths new information and, to be honest, it gives me encouragement. There will be two ways of providing feedback - either through the comment button (you will need a Google account for this) or via the e-mail address which appears on this page - alternatively, ring me. Now scroll down to read the latest entries.....and, of course, via Facebook.

Thursday, 3 May 2012

UPDATE

Sorry for the delay in posting a new article. I'm just about to start one on Charles Henry Bayliss - Uncle Charlie  to most of my generation. Hopefully this will appear within the week.



In the articles about my mother I mentioned that her husband - my namesake - had been involved with the fringes of London gangland.  According to my mother he had been a "runner" for a Jewish gangster named Alf Solomons who was a confederate of the notorious Darby Sabini. Often called Charles Sabini, Darby (a nickname that probably referred to him being left-handed) was actually Otavio Sabini and the leader of a gang based in Clerkenwell who preyed on the racetracks in the south of England.  I had only just finished reading a biography of Sabini (a very poorly researched and written one full of silly mistakes and a minimum of good research) when I became aware of the book illustrated above. Brian McDonald's GANGS OF LONDON superbly chronicles the story of London gangland during the first fifty years of the last century and will tell you more about Sabini in a few pages than the earlier book I'd read. The book features some fascinating pictures including one of Sabini as part of a group photo featured on the cover of the book).  Pictures of Darby are scarce although one of my correspondents recently sent me a (I believe) a hitherto unpublishe picture of Darby taken in Brighton towards the end of his life (see below). McDonald's book does have a picture of Alf Solomon as well as more notorious gangsters like Jack Spot, Billy Hill and Albert Dimes. My biggest surprise came in a section on a character called Ruby Sparks where it mentions a new recruit to his gang called...Ernie Harris!  Given Ernest's acknowledged involvement with characters like Solomons, Sabini and Billy Hill, it seems likely that this was indeed my namesake. I can recommend GANGS OF LONDON as a first class piece of research and a very entertaining read.

Darby Sabini, probably in his garden in Brighton, taken in the late 1940's.

Finally, I can now offer photocopies of many of the family documents I possess. More on this soon.
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1 comment:

  1. Ellie5 August 2020 at 07:01

    Hi Ernest,

    I'm contacting you about the above image of Darby Sabini. Do you have an email address so I can ask you about this further?

    Thanks,

    Ellie

    ReplyDelete

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