Person:John Henry Bellamy (1)

John Henry Bellamy was known as Harry. He was the son of a mariner and a laundress. His father, John Bellamy, died before 1861 so I presume he had very little influence on Harry's life. His mother, Mary Frances Parker, brought up her family, along with her widowed mother, who was also a laundress.

In spite of Harry's humble beginnings, he managed to get an education and was a school master at the age of twenty-two when he married Elizabeth Rason in Grimsby, Lincolnshire on May 27, 1880. Elizabeth was a school mistress and they both were teachers at a Board School on Wash Road in Kirton, Lincolnshire in 1881. They lived at the school and had their four children there until they emigrated to Canada in 1899.

Harry and Elizabeth must have been persuaded to emigrate to Canada by Elizabeth's family, but when they arrived in Toronto they discovered that Harry would have to take a six-month course to qualify to teach in Canada. This was beneath his dignity so he changed careers and worked as a motorman for the Toronto Street Railway.