STORM AND COMPANY
JACOB STORM's MEMOIRS
FOREWORD by Alan Storm
The decision to continue the admirable genealogical work of Jacob Storm and his grandson Raymond, my father, first bore fruit in the form of the Storm Book of 1982. There had been many encouraging - even eager - responses to my enquiries about the current state of the family, and when the book appeared it was so quickly taken up that I had to think almost at once about satisfying the unexpected demand. Many of those who sought copies were not Storms, but nevertheless sent information about connections, their own roots in Robin Hood's Bay and Whitby, and involvement with the sea.
The great interest displayed prompted further research, and that eventually offered a new, broader perspective. This present work accordingly represents an attempt to use a representative family and its kin to depict a remarkably entrepreneurial and self-reliant small community of some significance at a point where English local history and maritime history overlap.
There is no end to the history of a family and its interconnections, and because information comes in continuously and often in small quantities there are many loose ends here. But one has to stop somewhere, hoping that others will recognise where they might add to the picture, especially where the other typical Bay names are concerned. Experience so far suggests the larger canvas will support the old local saying, "Speak of one family and you speak of them all". Hence "Storm and Company".
The experience of Robin Hood's Bay raises the broad context of family history, regarding which Sir Anthony Wagner, author of English Genealogy, has said: "Since the number of the ancestors of each of us doubles in each generation we go back (save as modified by the marriage of cousins), most ancestries, if they could be carried back on all lines for eight or ten generations, would probably traverse a surprisingly wide social range. The exceptions would be the endogamous groups ... the dwellers in the lonely valleys and the far-off settlements and even these closed communities are far from being genetically watertight".
Robin Hood's Bay was not "genetically watertight", but although a wide social range is to be found if it is sought outside, the community was to a notable extent self-contained and equalitarian for much of its history. A most remarkable circumstance, however, is that despite its outstanding record of seafaring and enterprise in sail, the description "fishing village" has always been applied to it. No doubt this is an aspect of its isolation: people came to look, and saw fisherman about the shore, and knew nothing of the scores of men in faraway places and the shareholders and partners in the houses, cottages and inns carefully keeping simple accounts of the vessels in which their kin were serving. The uncovering of the misapprehension repays the investigation.
Another incongruity is th at while there is repeated evidence of an interest in Nonconformity, and behind the mechanism of kinship and partnership more than a hint of the earnest endeavour associated with it, there was also an involvement in smuggling. For all that much can be discovered about it, the village remains an enigmatic place.
Narrowing the view to that of the family, several features have been remarked upon, but two seem to be outstanding. There is the obvious unusual record of intense involvement with the sea, and the other is the example provided of a whole collaborative community being characterised by its inner "core", to the extent that Storm and Robin Hood's Bay might be deemed almost synonomous.
In a work involving the collection and presentation of so much detail, it would be unwise to pretend that there are no mistakes or omissions, but it is hoped that readers will concede in mitigation of error that the underlying account of the Bay community rings true. I leave you to enjoy:
JACOB STORM'S MEMOIRS
Jacob's Introduction
Chapter 1 Family
Chapter 2 Ships and the Sea
Chapter 3 Master Mariner
Postscript: A voyage in the Fylingdales