Gillmore Goodland: A Second Look

We've already taken one look at the early life of Gillmore Goodland, brother of Joshua Goodland of our interest here. We've found that the ambitious young Gillmore was working [or attempting to work] for companies that mined gold and silver. Now, I know there were also copper and cyanide on the table in Mexico, at the very least, but is it wrong to suspect he may have had a consulting 'hand,' no matter how temporarily, in the mining of diamonds in South Africa?

Looking at the 1913 list of Fellows of the Zoological Society of London, we find Goodland's interests extend not just west and south, but eastward as well. We find he gives "Ekaterineberg, Siberia," [left, in 1910] as one of his addresses.

We recently looked at how construction of a railway influenced the development of gold mining in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), and how Goodland soon found himself in that steamy locale.

Similarly, in Ekaterinberg, we find a railway system beginning in the mid-19th century in Russia that concluded with an Ekaterinberg – Chelyabinsk line in 1897 that "allowed Ekaterinberg to join the general railway network of the country." The value of the commercial interests in Ekaterinberg was estimated at 25 millions of rubles per year with the advent of rail transport and its position as a geographically intermediate city between Europe and Asia.

As early as 1807, Ekaterinberg had become the mining center of Russia. Of the city's history, the website ekaterinberg-ural.com writes: "Ekaterinburg of Russia took the leading position in cast iron and copper production, guns and cannon-balls casting, cold steel manufacture, and other spheres. In addition, metallurgical and metal mining plants of the Ural and Siberia had their Headquarters in Ekaterinburg. The Headquarters had different names in different periods of time. It was called Siberian Supreme Mining Command, Ober-Bergamt, Ural Mining Administration. It comprised several structures: mining courts, mining police, central mining drugstore and the city’s garrison submitted to the chief of the mining plants of the Ural Mountains."

Between 1807 and the revolution in 1917, the population had grown from 10,000 to almost 72,000 inhabitants.

Still, in June 1909, when Gillmore became a member of the Zoological Society, he wasn't traveling in the Siberian summer, a time when one might think it would be best to visit the mines.

No, on 13 June 1909, Gillmore was crossing the Rio Grande into sultry El Paso, Texas, from Mexico, presumably traveling from the mining area of Batopilas in the mountains near the Pacific.

Goodland, 37, stood at the end of a line of Mexicans, just ahead of a German lawyer named Herman Gans. Gillmore was listed as a "mining eng." in "transit," his last permanent residence having been Chihuahua, Mexico. His destination was "New Quay, England," and his wife "Catherine Goodland" (actually "Kathleen").

Paperwork filed with the Immigration Service at the Mexican Border District on behalf of the Department of Commerce and Labor give some details of the appearance of Gillmore Goodland, a man quite a bit different from his diminutive, 5 foot 9 inch brother Joshua.

Gillmore stood 6'3" tall (although other manifests record him as merely 6'2"), with light brown hair (although on some manifests, he is blonde), blue eyes, with a light complexion and a mole over his right eye. He must have been an impressive man at the turn of the 20th century, and a veritable Goliath among the Indians in the mountains of Chihuahua.

He was carrying $200 and had travelled in the United States for the first time while making a trip from New York City to El Paso, on his way south, in May of the same year. Under Rule 41e, there was no "head tax" on Gillmore, and when asked about his physical condition, the words "Dr. Says Good" are transcribed, although we don't know if the physician or Gillmore himself uttered those words.

Gillmore then proceeded home to Newquay [right] aboard the Lusitania of the Cunard Line, sailing out of New York and arriving in Liverpool on 26 July 1910 (at immigration, the person behind him in line this time was another British citizen named Alfred Hitchcock, which may be of interest to no one but me). Gillmore had spent just a month in Mexico, but was calling it a "permanent residence." Then he spent well over a month trying to get home to England. What was his rush?

By this time, Gillmore had two daughters, Kathleen, who was born in 1901, and Joan Lillis, born in 1902. In the late summer of 1910, the Goodlands would have a son, registered at the time (Jul-Aug-Sep) as "Gillmore," but known in most subsequent records as "Desmond." The birth was recorded in Godstone, Surrey, indicating that in the year after Gillmore's return from Chihuahua, the family had relocated from Cornwall to Surrey.

Would I be wrong in assuming that such a geographical move may have been prompted by economic success?

What's unclear is why Gillmore would have set sail for Mexico with a pregnant wife if he had intended to return for the birth. Perhaps he didn't know she was pregnant when he departed. A close to full-term late summer birth would imply a winter conception. Pegging travel from Cornwall to Chihuahua via New York and El Paso at about a month, and knowing Gillmore passed into Mexico in May, he must've left England in April.

It's conceivable that Gillmore was unaware of Kathleen's condition—but she was probably 5 to 7 months pregnant at that point. Is it likely she herself didn't know? Or is it possible there were unexpected medical complications that were wired to Goodland, who originally had left fully expecting to miss the birth entirely ?

Anyway, by this point, Joshua Goodland had earned his Master's Degree in Law from Cambridge and was beginning his career as a barrister in London. He and his wife, Florence, may have been a help to Kathleen during that summer.

In fact, the Gillmore Goodlands time spent with their infant son, Desmond, would be quite brief. On 5 November, the S.S. Arabic, sailing from Liverpool, steamed into New York City together. Goodland, 39, a "consulting eng.," and Kathleen, 29, provided the name and address of their nearest relative as "Brother J. Goodland, 9 King's Bench Walk, London," [left] near the Temple. Their own home was given as "Woldingham," and their destination was "Mex."

Incidentally, Gillmore is listed here as being 6' 2½ ", and Kathleen as 5' 2".

Why Kathleen would have traveled with him at this point, leaving behind a son who could have been no older than 4 months, is anyone's guess. I suppose she might have been ordered to recover and get some "sea air," convalescing after a dangerous birth. What is clear is that barrister Joshua Goodland is now Gillmore's closest relative, and not merely geographically.

By the 1911 census, taken on 2 April, the Goodlands had not yet returned to their new relatively new home in Woldingham. The girls, Kathleen and Joan, are in Godstone, Surrey, according to the count, but we don't know exactly where. There ages were 10 and 9, respectively, so they may have been at boarding school.

The infant Desmond ("Gillmore") is found in Cardiff, Galmorganshire, Wales, fast approaching one year of age, and likely with his aunt, Grace Goodland, who was also living in Cardiff at the time.

It would be 5 July 1910 before Gillmore and Kathleen Goodand would set foot in Great Britain again, sailing out of New York City on the Cunard Line's S.S. Campania [right]. They didn't sail all the way to Liverpool, however, disembarking at Fishguard in Wales.

The Goodlands would have been soon reunited with their baby, Desmond, and presumably set off immediately to see their daughters back in Surrey after some 10 months away.

How long would the Goodlands be home in England after their long winter and spring spent in the Sierra Madre Occidental in Mexico? And what, exactly, happened there in Mexico?

We'll look at that next time.