Pea-Bee was reminded of an old
genealogist’s maxim – always following the family. He had a mystery: a young
couple who started their lives in the 1840s in SE London/NW Kent and yet moved
to Gloucester in the mid 1870s to raise a family. There was no obvious reason
for the move. The young man was working in his father’s bakery in Chislehurst
and, it seemed, had every expectation of taking over the business. There seemed
to be no family link to Gloucester – neither sets of parents came from the West
Country. It was a mystery.
However they got there, the
couple’s life in Gloucester was eventful and there was enough information to
warrant a new Pea-Bee Blog about them.
Pea-Bee’s interest had been
sparked by the wife and he knew all about her family, but in preparing a little
background, Pea-Bee decided to go back to the husband’s family and look at what
happened to his siblings – and the link to Gloucester was eventually revealed.
So now there will be two blogs….
This is the story of Thomas Barham (1847-1935) and his wife Lydia Matilda Mayze (1840-1917) but
first, Thomas’s family…
The Barham Family
William Barham was born in the Twitton area of Otford, in the Darenth Valley, Kent, in about 1815, the son of Richard Barham. He started his working life as a gardener, moving between different villages in north Kent – Bexley, Farningham and Chislehurst – and it was in Chislehurst that he had settled by 1850 and where he eventually became a baker (by 1861) – and a fairly successful one it would seem, such that in the 1870s he was taking advertisements in a local directory.[1] [Fig 1]
While in Bexley in 1842, he married Eliza Beakhurst (or Beakhust)[2], a domestic servant, also born about 1815, but in Hampstead Marshall, a village near Newbury, Berkshire, who had been working in Foots Cray, close to Bexley, in 1841.[3] [Fig 2]
William and
Eliza had at least seven children:
7. George Barham, born in Chislehurst in 1858[10].
George died before adulthood, either in 1867 or 1870[11]
1. Sarah Ann Barham married a gardener,
John Nicholls, in 1866[12].
The family stayed in Chislehurst and, in 1881, lived next door to William
Barham’s bakery[13].
John and Sarah had at least 9 children.
2. Richard
William Barham became a baker like his father. In 1861 he was in Kensal
Green in the house of Mary Clunie, a baker employing one man (her son David)
and a boy: Richard was the boy[14].
In 1871, he and his sister Mary Jane Barham were in the house of his uncle and
aunt, William and Ann Evans, in Gloucester[15].
He died in 1886[16]
and it would appear that he never married.
3. Thomas Barham – of whom more in the
second blog
4. Eliza Barham married Jesse Hall, a
builder, in 1871[17].
Ten years later Jesse Hall was to act as executor for his father-in-law’s will[18].
Jesse and Eliza had three children[19]
5. Fanny Barham married Frederick
George Collison in 1878[20].
He worked as a baker with his father-in-law in 1881, but after William’s death,
he had a bakery in Eltham in 1891[21].
In 1901, however, he had become a house painter and the couple lived in Catford[22] and
in 1911 he was a caretaker of vacant houses and they were living in Blackheath[23].
Frederick and Fanny had two children in the 1891 census but one died in
childhood and in 1911 only recorded the living child.
6. Mary Jane Barham joined her brother
Richard in the visit to her uncle and aunt, William and Ann Evans in Gloucester
in 1871[24]. However,
she was to marry a Gloucester man, William Henry Woodward, in Chislehurst in
1878[25]
and then return to Gloucester where, in 1881, he was a beer house keeper[26]. However,
by 1891 William Woodward had become a solicitor’s clerk and the family were living
in Foots Cray[27].
In 1901 they were in Middlesex, first in Feltham[28], and
then (by 1911) in Ashford[29].
William and Mary Jane had 4 children, one of whom died young.
William Barham remained a baker
in Chislehurst until his death on 25 June 1881[30].
He left a personal estate of £170 0s 9d with his son-in-law, Jesse Hall, as one
of the executors[31].
His widow, Eliza, died in 1890[32].
Eliza’s maiden name is given as Beakhurst in both the 1841 census and
at the time of her marriage to William Barham, when she was described as the
daughter of William Beakhurst[33].
While most of the censuses in
which she appears give her place of birth as Newbury, Berkshire, one gives it
as “Hamsted”[34]
and there is a record of an Eliza Beckhust, daughter of William and Sarah
Beckhust, being baptised at Hampstead Marshall, a small parish close to Newbury,
on 7 January 1816.[35]
She had at least one sister, whose name was given as Ann Beakhust when
she married William Evans in Gloucester in 1840[36]. She
was described as being born in East Woodhay, Hampshire, in 1819[37].
(East Woodhay was just across the county boundary from Hampstead Marshall.) However,
when Ann and William had a son, he appears in the records as Edmund Breakhust
Evans, Edmund Beakhust Evans, and Edmund Beakhurst Evans[38].
Other researchers suggest that the
name was originally Beakhust and all other spellings are just variants.[39]
[1]
William Barham’s date and place of birth have been inferred from the five
censuses in which he appeared. The places where he worked have been inferred
from his children’s dates and places of birth. The censuses were: 1851 England Census Class
HO107; Piece 1606; Folio 490; Page 27; GSU roll 193505. (Ancestry.com 1851 census
Kent>Chislehurst>District 6a>image 28); 1861 England Census Class
RG 9; Piece 464; Folio 11; Page 15; GSU roll 542643 (Ancestry.com 1861 census
Kent>Chislehurst>District 1>image 16); 1871 England Census Class
RG10; Piece 876; Folio 51; Page 4; GSU roll 827772 (Ancestry.com 1871 census
Kent>Chislehurst>District 2>image 8); 1881 England Census Class
RG11; Piece 857; Folio 103; Page 18; GSU roll 1341203 (Ancestry.com 1881 Census
Kent>Chislehurst>District 3a>image 19)
[2] England & Wales, FreeBMD Marriage Index,
1837-1915 Dartford Q2 1842 Vol 5 p132 (via Ancestry.com); (for discussion on Eliza’s
surname, see footnote y)
[3] 1841 England Census Class HO107; Piece 481; Book 8; Civil Parish Foots Cray; County Kent; Enumeration District 11; Folio 10; Page 14; Line 12; GSU roll 306874 (Ancestry.com 1841 census Kent>Foots
Cray>District 11>image 8)
[10] England & Wales, FreeBMD Birth Index,
1837-1915 Bromley Q3 1858 Vol 2a p212 (via FreeBMD.org.uk)
[11] England & Wales, FreeBMD Death Index,
1837-1915 Bromley Q4 1867 Vol 2a p172 or Bromley Q3 1870 Vol 2a p211 (via
Ancestry.com)
[13] 1871 England Census Class RG10; Piece 876; Folio 37; Page 64; GSU roll 827772 (Ancestry.com 1871 Census
Kent>Chislehurst>District 1a>image 17); 1881 England Census Class
RG11; Piece 857; Folio 103; Page 18; GSU roll 1341203. (Ancestry.com
1881 Census Kent>Chislehurst>District 3a>image 19); 1891 England Census Class
RG12; Piece 632; Folio 129; Page 15; GSU roll 6095742 (Ancestry.com 1891 Census
Kent>Chislehurst>District 3b>image 16)
[14] 1861 England Census Class RG 9; Piece 785; Folio 45; Page 14; GSU roll 542700 (Ancestry.com 1861 Census Middlesex>Willesden>District
3>image 15)
[15] 1871 England Census Class RG10; Piece 2621; Folio 61; Page 28; GSU roll 835316 (Ancestry.com 1871 Census
Gloucestershire>Barton St Mary>District 13>image 29)
[17] England & Wales, FreeBMD Marriage Index,
1837-1915 Bromley Q2 1871 Vol 2a p473 (via Ancestry.com)
[18]
Ancestry.com England & Wales, National Probate Calendar
(Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966
1881>B>Ba image 63
[19] 1911 England Census Class
RG14; Piece 3596; Schedule Number: 25 (Ancestry.com 1911 Census Surrey>Richmond>District
16>image 50)
[20] England & Wales, FreeBMD Marriage Index,
1837-1915 Bromley Q2 1878 Vol 2a p547 (via Ancestry.com)
[21] 1891 England Census Class RG12; Piece 516; Folio 10; Page 15; GSU roll 6095626 (Ancestry.com 1891 Census London>Eltham>District
1>image 16)
[22] 1901 England Census Class RG13; Piece 552; Folio 27; Page 10 (Ancestry.com 1901 Census London>Lewisham>Lewisham>District
26>image 11)
[23] 1911 England Census Class RG14; Piece 2715 (Ancestry.com 1911 Census London>Greenwich>Greenwich
East>District 29>image 216)
[24] 1871 England Census Class RG10; Piece 2621; Folio 61; Page 28; GSU roll 835316 (Ancestry.com 1871 Census
Gloucestershire>Barton St Mary>District 13>image 29)
[25] England & Wales, FreeBMD Marriage Index,
1837-1915 Bromley Q3 1878 Vol 2a p576 (via Ancestry.com)
[26] 1881 England Census Class RG11; Piece 2537; Folio 140; Page 7; GSU roll 1341612 (Ancestry.com 1881 Census
Gloucestershire>Gloucester Barton St Mary>District 19>image 8)
[27] 1891 England Census Class
RG12; Piece 633; Folio 53; Page 18; GSU roll 6095743 (Ancestry.com 1891 Census
Kent>Foots Cray>District 4b>image 19)
[28] 1901 England Census
Class RG13; Piece 1171; Folio 87; Page 17 (Ancestry.com 1901 Census
Middlesex>Feltham>District 1>image 17)
[29] 1911 England Census
Class RG14; Piece: 6745; Schedule Number: 226 (Ancestry.com 1911 Census
Middlesex>East Bedfont>District 02>image 454)
[31]
Ancestry.com England & Wales, National Probate Calendar
(Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966
1881>B>Ba image 63
[33] 1841 England Census Class HO107; Piece 481; Book 8; Civil Parish Foots Cray; County Kent; Enumeration District 11; Folio 10; Page 14; Line 12; GSU roll 306874 (Ancestry.com 1841 census
Kent>Foots Cray>District 11>image 8); England & Wales, FreeBMD Marriage Index,
1837-1915 Dartford Q2 1842 Vol 5 p132 (via Ancestry.com) and copy of marriage certificate
Fig 2
[34] 1861 England Census Class
RG 9; Piece 464; Folio 11; Page 15; GSU roll 542643 (Ancestry.com 1861 census
Kent>Chislehurst>District 1>image 16)
[35] England, Select Births and Christenings,
1538-1975 7 Jan 1816 FHL File No 1279458 IT 25-28 (via Ancestry.com)
[36] England & Wales, FreeBMD Marriage Index,
1837-1915 Gloucester Q1 1840 Vol 11 p321 (via Ancestry.com)
[37] 1861 England Census
Class RG 9; Piece 1768; Folio 97; Page 18; GSU roll 542865 (Ancestry.com 1861 census
Gloucestershire>Barton St Mary>District 12>image 19)
[38] England & Wales, FreeBMD Birth Index,
1837-1915 Gloucester Q4 1846 Vol 11 p365; England,
Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975 31 Jan 1847 FHL File No
991283; England & Wales, FreeBMD Death Index,
1837-1915 Gloucester Q1 1910 Vol 6a p210 (via Ancestry.com)
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