Wroughton Family Tales I

Wroughton Family Tales I

Peabee’s latest piece of research had been into the relationships between four families who lived in adjacent houses in Priors Hill, Wroughton, Wiltshire, at the time of the 1841 census. But as the information kept coming, it was necessary to go back nearly half a century before the 1841 census and spread the net wider to a handful of other North Wiltshire villages in order to make sense of it all. So…

1. Morris Speck (1803-1881)

Morris Speck was, according to the baptismal records, the base-born son of Ann Speck, born on 1 July 1803 in Wroughton, and baptised some 10 years later, on 18 May 1813, on the same day as Thomas Tibbolds, the son of John and Ann Tibbolds[i]. This was no coincidence: Ann Speck had married John Tibbolds at Ogbourne St George in 1808.

The details in the marriage register are fascinating and worth quoting in full:

“Banns of Marriage between John Theobalds & Anne Speck both resident in this Parish were publish’d in this Church on the 2d, 9th & 16 Days of October. John Theobald (alias Tibbles) resident in this Parish Widower and Anne Speck of this parish (Her first Husband being beyond the seas (or deceased) being absent Ten Years) Married in this Church by Banns this seventeenth Day of October in the Year One Thousand Seven Hundred and Eight by me Robt Hardy Tucker curate

“This Marriage was solemnized between Us The Mark X of John Tibbles The Mark X of Anne Speck In the Presence of John Cockell [and] William Thomas”

Who was Ann’s absent first husband? If he had been absent since at least 1798, he certainly could not have been the father of Morris, as the curate of Wroughton noted at his baptism. One candidate stands out: he was Henry Speck and the following history explains at least part of the mystery.

On 24 April 1797, Henry Speck of Wroughton married Ann Bowsher (or Boucher)[ii] at Ogbourne St George and on the same day, an Order was made under the Poor Law for the removal of Henry Speck and his wife Ann from Ogbourne St George to Wroughton. This was because the Overseers of the Poor at Ogbourne St George deemed Henry and his new family would become chargeable on the rates – Ann was, after all, already pregnant at the time – and that as Henry’s place of legal settlement was Wroughton, any liability should be shouldered by Wroughton parish.

A few months later, Rosanna Speck, daughter of Henry and Ann, was born. She was baptised in Wroughton on 17 September 1797, but Rosanna died in infancy and was buried at Wroughton on 9 October 1799.

A year before the baby’s death, on 2 October 1798, at Wiltshire Quarter Sessions at New Sarum (Salisbury), Henry Speck was convicted of a felony – stealing a foul-weather great-coat and a rat-trap – and sentenced to seven years’ transportation. He didn’t get further than Portsmouth, where he was held aboard Capitivity¸ one of the prison hulks moored there, until he was pardoned on 21 December 1803. His pardon came because he had “volunteered” to serve overseas in the army.

Who the real father of Morris Speck was is not known, but when he had grown up, Morris went to live in Chisledon where, as “Maurice Bowsher” (using his mother’s maiden name), he married Hannah Looker, on 27 November 1826[iii]. In the Chisledon baptismal register, there are records of two girls born to “Maurice and Hannah (or Anna) Boucher” – Emma, born 18 February and baptised 25 March 1827, and Ann, born 14 November 1828 and baptised 8 March the following year.

 However, on 29 October 1829 an Order under the Poor Law was made for his removal from Chisledon to Wroughton under the name Morris Speck. The order included “his wife Hannah and two children, Emma (3 years) and Ann (1 year)”.

After the family’s move to Wroughton, another child was born, but when he was baptised, he was given the surname Speck.

The Wroughton Overseers of the Poor were obliged to pay Morris various sums as outdoor relief. In 1831, for example, he received, as “constant pay”, 3 shillings at the end of May and 4s 4d in June. After the summer harvest period, he received 1 shilling for the four weeks ending 2 October, 3s 4d in the period to 4 November, and then 4s 4d for each of the next two four-week periods. He also received in February and March four payments of 1 shilling as “extra pay”, and on two occasions he also received extra payment because his wife was ill: one of these payments (in May) was while Hannah was carrying her child, and the second, in December, more than a month after the child was born.

The child concerned was baptised Enoch[iv] Speck on 6 November 1831 at Wroughton.

Enoch’s mother died when he was very young – Hannah was buried at Wroughton on 14 May 1833.

In 1841, Morris and his three children occupied a house in Priors Hill, Wroughton, which was shared by Alice Page and two of her children.

It is not clear what the relationship was between Morris Speck and Alice Page. They were to live in the same house at least until 1871 and Morris may well have been the father of those of Alice’s children born in the 1840s.

Morris died at the beginning of 1881 and was buried at Wroughton on 31 January.

2. Morris Speck’s children

Emma (1827-1888), Ann (1828-1894), Enoch (1831-1888)

Although the three children of Morris and Hannah Speck were living with their widowed father in 1841, at the time of the 1851 census, the three siblings were lodging with their aunt, Binah Stone, (listed a Abinah) while their father, Binah’s half-brother, was still with Alice Page and her family. Also in the Binah’s house was Ann’s illegitimate son, Philip Speck, who had been baptised in Chisledon on 3 October 1847.

2a. Ann Speck (1828-1894)

On 4 September 1852, Ann Speck married James Andrews Bathe of Wroughton. The marriage was witnessed by James’s brother Thomas Bathe[v] and his wife Caroline (nee Vines). James became a carter, and moved the family around, living in Wroughton (1861), Avebury (1871), Pershute (1881) and finally Winterbourne Monkton (1891), where Ann was to die, aged 65, on 22 February 1894. James died shortly afterwards on 21 June 1894, aged 67.

Ann and James had three children of their own, all baptised in Wroughton:

Sarah Ann Bathe, baptised 7 August 1853

Twins Jesse and Tom Bathe, baptised 13 July 1856. Tom died when he was 7 and was buried at Wroughton on 6 December 1863.

Philip Speck continued to live with Ann and James until at least 1891 and then he moved in with his half-brother Jesse and his family in Winterbourne Monkton – he was with them in 1901, after which he disappears from the records.

2b. Enoch Speck (1831-1888)

In 1861, Enoch and his sister Emma formed a separate household but in the mid-1860s, both got married and started their own homes.

On 17 September 1864, Enoch married the girl-next-door, Jane Butler (see below), with his sister Emma was one witness.

Jane had already had three children (fathers not known), although Tom, the youngest, was baptised privately on 14 March and received into the church on 5 June 1864, the same year as her marriage. Whether or not Enoch was his father, Tom appears in later records sometimes as Tom Butler and sometimes as Tom Speck.

Jane’s other two children were Lucy Butler, who was baptised on 7 August 1853, and Mary Butler, baptised on 10 March 1861. Both were with their mother in the 1861 census but Mary died at the beginning of 1862, and was buried (under the name Mary Ann Butler) on 20 January.

Enoch and Jane had two other children – Charles Speck, baptised in Wroughton on 7 January 1866, and Mary Ann Speck, baptised on 1 September 1867.

Jane died in 1868 and was buried on 19 August.

In the 1871 census, Enoch was head of the household, a widower of 39, with three children, listed as Tom Speck (7) Charles Speck (5) and Mary Ann Speck (3), and also Lucy Butler (17), listed as “daughter-in-law”, a term sometimes used to mean a step-daughter.

Over the next few years, Lucy fell pregnant at least five times – and it must be presumed that Enoch was the father on each occasion. In the 1881 census, Lucy was described as Enoch’s wife – although they did not, in fact, get married until the end of 1883, just before the birth of a sixth child.

The children were:

Emily Augusta Butler, said to be the daughter of Enoch and Lucy Butler, who was baptised on 12 July 1873 at Wroughton. In both the 1881 census (when she was living with Enoch and Lucy) and in the 1891 census (when she was a servant in Wandsworth) her name was given as Emily Speck. However, when she got married, in 1901, she used the name Butler and said that her father was Enoch Butler.

Agnes Annie Butler was baptised on 27 January 1875 with only her mother, Lucy Butler, mentioned. Agnes died aged 7 weeks and was buried on 13 February.

Annie Augusta Butler was baptised on 25 December 1876, again with only her mother mentioned. She was 10 years old when she died at Ogbourne St Andrew and was buried under the name Annie Augusta Speck Butler in Wroughton on 19 January 1887.

William James Butler was baptised on 13 July 1879, once again with only his mother listed. However, in each census between 1881 and 1911, he was listed with the surname Speck – although in 1901 and 1911 he had dropped his first name and was known as James Speck.

Edith Hannah Butler, daughter of Lucy Butler, single woman, was baptised in Wroughton on 28 August 1881, but died within days of her sister Annie at Ogbourne St Andrew. She was buried under the name Edith Anna Speck in Wroughton on 5 February 1887.

Enoch and Lucy had two children after their marriage:

Ernest Jesse Speck, baptised 6 January 1884 at Ogbourne St Andrew

Elizabeth Looker Speck, baptised 24 April 1887 at Wroughton, Elizabeth’s second name being Enoch’s mother’s maiden name.

Enoch died on 3 May 1888 and was buried five days later. He left a personal estate of £18 1s 10d.

On 29 September 1889, Susie Augusta Speck, daughter of Lucy Speck, single woman, was baptised at Wroughton. The rector had entered the father as David Jefferies, but that name was deleted and Speck inserted as the surname.

Lucy later married David Jefferies, who was 12 years her junior, at the beginning of 1892. They were to have two more children:

David John Jefferies, baptised 10 July 1892.

Charles Frederick Jefferies, baptised 30 September 1894.

At the time of the 1911 census, the household consisted of David Jefferies and his wife Lucy; two of the three children he acknowledged, Susie and Fred; one of the children Lucy had had with Enoch, called James Speck (= William James Butler); and two of Lucy’s brothers/stepsons, Tom Speck (= Tom Butler) and Charles Speck. All these last three were listed as boarders.

Lucy died in 1912 and was buried in Wroughton on 18 May.

2c. Emma Speck (1827-1888)

Enoch’s sister Emma married Shadrach Vines[vi] on 4 December 1865 but he died nine years later and was buried at Wroughton on 22 March 1874. They had had no children. Emma died on 11 May 1888 and probate on her estate, valued at £80, was granted to her sister, Ann Bathe.

3. The Tibbolds Family:

When John Tibbolds died in 1833, he age was given as 67, putting his date of birth about 1766, although no record of a baptism in Wiltshire has been found. Ann Bowsher, the mother of Morris Speck, was baptised at Ogbourne St George on 8 April 1770, and was the illegitimate daughter of Elizabeth Bowsher. After they married in Ogbourne St George in 1808, the couple moved to Wroughton where they had two child baptised: Binah (also referred to as Abina or Sabina, although the baptismal record actually says Dinah) on 19 May 1811, and Thomas, who was baptised on 18 May 1813 at the same time as his half-brother, Morris Speck.

John Tibbolds died in 1833 and was buried in Wroughton on 6 October, aged 67. Ann died at the beginning of 1851 and was buried in Wroughton on 25 February that year.

3a Thomas Tibbolds (1813-1886)

Thomas married Sarah Maysey (or Maisey)[vii] on 4 February 1833. Thomas and Sarah Tibbolds had some seven children before Sarah died in 1877. Thomas had entered the Union Workhouse at Stratton St Margaret by 1881 and died there in 1886. He was buried at Wroughton on 25 March.

3b Binah Tibbolds (1811-1880)

Binah married George Stone in Wroughton on 19 August 1833, witnessed by her bother Thomas and his new wife Sarah.

George Stone remains something of a mystery. On 10 October 1833, the Wroughton Overseers obtained a Removal Order to Great Bedwin for George Stone alias Stanton, his wife Sabina and a male infant one day old. However, there was a note added: “The within named pauper Sabina Tibbles is unable to be removed by reason of being delivered of a child.”

The Removal Order was suspended until 7 November 1833, but, on 10 November, William Stone, son of George and Binah, was baptised at Wroughton.

There are no other records for George in Wiltshire, under either the name of Stone or that of Stanton, but Binah appears in the 1841 census, living with her widowed mother in the house next door to Morris Speck and his family in Wroughton. With Binah were her son William and another child called Mary Ann Stone, apparently born in 1840. There is no record of Mary Ann’s birth being registered or of her being baptised and when she married Joseph Withers on 29 January 1870[viii], her father’s name was left blank.

Binah Stone had two more children during the 1840s. For the baptism of the first, Elizabeth, on 8 October 1843, the entry said she was the daughter of George and Abina Stone, but in the record of her burial a little over three years later (10 March 1848), the name "Tibbolds" was written, but crossed out and "Stone" inserted. This alteration appears to have been contemporary with the initial entry.

John Stone was baptised on 2 July 1846, the son of Binah Stone, single woman. When John married Sarah Ann Grey on 24 December 1870, again his father’s name was left blank.

In later records, Binah was usually given the surname Stone, but in the 1861 census, both she and her son John were given her maiden name, although spelt “Tibboulds”. Finally, when she died, her death was registered as Sabina Stanton, but she was buried under the name Sabina Stone.

Binah’s household in 1851 comprised herself (her mother Ann Tibbolds having died not long before the census), her three surviving children, (William, Mary Anne and John), the three Speck children, described as her nephew and nieces, and the base-born son of Ann Speck (see above).

In 1861, Binah was with her son John and in 1871, with her son William. She died in 1880 and, as has already been mentioned, her death was registered as Sabina Stanton (an alias of her husband’s), although she was buried under the name Sabina Stone, on 4 August.

3c Binah’s children

William Stone (1833-1883)

William Stone married a widow, Martha Whale, at the beginning of 1874. They never had children of their own, but Martha had a base-born son, William James Whale, baptised on 5 November 1871, who took the name James Stone.

Martha was born Martha Rogers, the daughter of John Rogers and Sarah (nee Collier). In 1851, she had married William Whale and bore him three children before he died in 1863. William Stone died in 1883 and Martha in 1902, when she was buried under the name Martha Collier Stone.

Mary Ann Stone (1840-1908)

As mentioned above, Mary Ann Stone married Joseph Withers on 29 January 1870, with her brother John as one witness. They were to have at least five children and Mary Ann died towards the end of 1908. She was buried in Wroughton on 14 December.

John Stone (1846-1925)

John Stone married Sarah Ann Grey on 24 December 1870. They were to have nine children but only six were alive at the time of the 1911 census. Sarah Ann died in 1921 and John in 1925.

4. Alice Page (nee Moulden) (1802-1878)

Born Alice Moulden on 2 January 1802 at Highworth, the daughter of Thomas and Mary Moulden, and baptised three weeks later on 24 January, the woman who shared the house with the Speck family in 1841 had married Richard Page at Highworth on 24 November 1824 and they had had six children:

Sarah Page, baptised three months after the marriage on 11 February 1825 at Highworth

Mary Page, baptised at Swindon on 29 April 1827

Thomas Page, baptised at Swindon on 17 May 1829

Ann Page, baptised at Swindon on 9 October 1831

Richard Page, born about 1835, but with no baptismal record found

Alice Page, baptised at Swindon on 8 February 1836

While it is difficult to prove what happened to their father Richard (it is possible he died in 1838[ix]), certainly by 1840 Alice was living in Wroughton as a single woman. The fact that she never remarried might indicate that Richard was believed to be still alive.

Part of the problem is determining who Richard’s parents were. Most likely they were Richard and Sarah Page of Westrop, a hamlet in the parish of Highworth.

Richard and Sarah had a number of children baptised at Highworth between 1797 and 1819 – including John, baptised 17 May 1812, and James, baptised 16 Feb 1814, but the only child to be christened Richard died in infancy. This does not mean that they didn’t use the name for another child (there had been earlier John, baptised in 1810, buried in 1811), just that the second Richard was never baptised.

On 4 April 1837, five men – Richard, John and James Page, William Wheeler, and William Painter – were indicted at Salisbury County Sessions for stealing a copper furnace, which belonged to Richard Strange of Lydiard Tregoze.

William Miller, a ragman and dealer in old metal, bought 45lb (or 48lb, the newspaper reports vary) of the copper from Richard Page at 5d per lb, and said that John Page had offered to sell him some as well. Wheeler, who had received some of the money from Richard Page, turned King’s evidence and Richard and John were found guilty and sentenced to seven years transportation, while James Page and William Painter were acquitted.

The evidence that this is the right Richard Page comes from the details given in the Prison Hulk Register for Leviathan, moored at Portsmouth, in 1837 which lists Richard and John, stating that Richard was married with six children, and John was married with two.

John Page had married Edith Newman in Swindon on 8 July 1833, with Richard as one witness, and the couple had had two children: Phoebe, baptised 25 December 1833, and Thomas, baptised 29 May 1836.

After Richard and John were transported to New South Wales, leaving England on 2 November 1837 aboard Emma Eugenia and arriving on 9 February 1838, John and Edith’s children first lived with their mother, their grandmother Sarah Newman, and 97-year-old greatgrandfather John Newman in Swindon. Edith remarried at the end of 1841, and in 1851 Phoebe and Thomas lived with her and her new husband, Thomas Morse, plus several more children.

In Australia, Richard Page got his ticket-of-leave on 19 April 1842 and his certificate of freedom on 7 September 1844, while John Page got his ticket-of-leave on 8 September 1843 and his certificate of freedom on 20 April 1844. What happened to either man after that is not known.

At the time of the 1841 census, Alice Page was living in the house with just two of her children – Mary and Alice. The rest of the family was scattered: Sarah was living in Highworth with George Moulden (her mother’s brother) and his family, while Thomas, Ann and Richard were in Highworth Workhouse.

Alice was to have three children baptised in Wroughton with no mention of who the father was:

The first was Eliza Page, who was baptised on 6 September 1840 but died in infancy. When she was buried, on 6 December that year, she was said to be 11 months old.

Next was Harriet Page, who was baptised on 26 February 1843.

The third was born on 29 May 1845 and registered as Susanna Page, but was then baptised as Anna Page on 7 December 1845. In the 1851 census, the child was known as Hannah, and in 1861, when she was working as a servant in Latton, she was again called Anna. However, from at least 1866, she was called Susanna or Susan.

The second two children were born while Morris was “lodging” with Alice – and most probably so was the first. This lends weight to the idea that Morris was the father.

Also during the 1840s, one of Alice’s children by Richard Page, also called Alice, died. She was 5 years old when she was buried on 21 July 1841.

Besides the three children Alice Page was to have baptised in Wroughton with no mention of who the father was, her two older daughters each had two illegitimate children – Mary’s born in 1846 and 1848, and Sarah’s in 1847 and 1850.

In 1851, Alice Page’s household consisted of herself, her daughters Sarah, Hannah (Susannah) and Harriet, her son Thomas, two grandchildren (Sarah’s offspring Henry and Mary Ann), plus Morris Speck.

In 1861, the household was just Alice and the two grandchildren, plus Morris Speck, who was still there in 1871, when Alice had another grandchild with her – her daughter Harriet’s son Charles Williams.

Alice Page was 77 when she died. She was buried at Wroughton on 12 December 1878.

4a Alice’s children:

Sarah Page (1825-1911)

Sarah did not marry until 21 November 1864 when she was 39. Her husband was Thomas Hancock, who was 46. The witnesses to their marriage were Sarah’s youngest step-sister, Susannah Page, and Thomas Williams, who two year later was to marry another step-sister, Harriet Page.

Sarah and Thomas Hancock did not have any children of their own, but the two born to Sarah in the 1840s were:

Henry Page, born at Stratton St Margaret (probably in the Union Workhouse), who was baptised at Wroughton on 5 September 1847; and Mary Ann Page, baptised at Wroughton on 3 November 1850.

Sarah and Thomas lived in Highworth in 1871 and 1881 but by 1891 the couple had moved to Thomas’s native village of Blunsdon St Andrew. Sarah was buried there on 10 January 1911 and Thomas on 8 February 1913.

Mary Page (1827-1891)

Mary married James Jerome on 10 July 1848. Her children before she was married were:

Sarah Page, baptised 7 February 1846. Although the Wroughton register of baptisms records her name as Mary, she was referred to as Sarah Page Jerome in the 1851 census after her mother married.

Jane Page, baptised 5 March 1848, died when not two years old and was buried on 29 September 1849.

Mary and James were to have at least seven more children. James was buried on 8 January 1880 and Mary 21 years later on 6 May 1891.

Thomas Page (1829-1874)

Thomas Page married Ann Watts at Wroughton on 25 October 1855. The couple had at least 10 children of whom several died in infancy. The last child, John Thomas Page, was born in the summer following his father’s death, Thomas being buried on 5 December 1874. His widow Ann remarried, a widower called John Daniels. She died in 1904 and was buried on 19 March.

Ann Page (1831-?)

It has not been possible to trace Ann after 1841.

Richard Page (1835-1892)

Richard Page junior married Eliza Cook Daniels on 29 December 1855. They were to have at least nine children. Richard died in 1892 and was buried on 16 April. Eliza died in 1904 and was buried on 28 July.

Harriet Page (1843-?)

Harriet had a child before she was married. He was baptised Charles Page on 5 June 1864. He took his new father’s name when Harriet married Thomas Williams in Wroughton on 29 September 1866, the marriage being witnessed by James Butler and Susannah Page, who were themselves to marry two years later. Charles was with his grandmother Alice in 1871 and listed as Charles Williams (see above).

Harriet and Thomas had at least seven other children. It is not known when Harriet died.

Susannah Page (1843-1909)

Harriet’s sister Susannah had a child in 1866 – registered and baptised as Emma Page (baptised 8 July 1866), however her name was changed to Elizabeth about the time Susannah married James Butler.

Susannah and James had at least nine other children (see below).

5. The Butler Family

Sarah Hart had been born in Great Coxwell, Berkshire, on 7 May 1805, the daughter of Richard and Mary Hart. She was baptised there 11 days later. She married James Butler at Faringdon, Berkshire, on 18 September 1826. They were still living there when their first two children were born, the younger one in 1832, but had moved to Wroughton by 1836, when their third child, Charles, arrived. James was described as a maltster in the baptismal records for two of his children, but when the sixth and final child was baptised, on 4 May 1841, James was listed as labourer.

That date, 4 May 1841, was significant for the family as not only was the youngest son baptised on that day, but it was also the date of the burial of James, at the age of 39.

James and Sarah’s children were:

Jane Butler, baptised 11 May 1827 in Faringdon

William Butler, baptised 5 July 1832 in Faringdon

Charles Butler, baptised 21 February 1836 in Wroughton

George Butler, baptised 4 February 1838 in Wroughton, where he died when four months old. He was buried on 17 May 1838

Sarah Butler, whose birth was registered in the second quarter of 1839 (there is no record of a baptism).

James Edwin Butler, baptised 4 May 1841.

In 1841, Sarah Butler was living in the house next door to Binah Stone in Priors Hill, Wroughton. With her were her children, Jane, William, Charles, Sarah and James. There was also a 21-year-old lodger called Elizabeth Bedford.

Although Sarah had continued to live in Wroughton after her husband’s death, she returned to her home county where she married again – a Wroughton man called John Cook. The marriage took place in 1847, but there appears to have been at least two children born before the marriage.

In 1851, the Cook household was in High Street, Wroughton, next door to Thomas Tibbolds and his family. There were six children in the house: Sarah Butler Cook (12), James Butler Cook (10), John Cook (8), Mary Cook (5), Elizabeth Cook (2), and Emily Cook (10 months).

The older two were clearly children of Sarah with James Butler. Of her other children with him, Jane was a visitor in the household of George Smith in Wroughton; William had died the year before the census and had been buried on 17 February 1850; and Charles was a servant in the household of John Washbourn in the Overtown tithing of Wroughton.

There are records for the baptisms of the younger two Cook children at Wroughton – Elizabeth on 1 October 1848, Emily on 7 July 1850 – but no baptismal records for either John or Mary. John was born in Wroughton and his birth was registered as “John Cook Butler” and as “John Cook Cook” in the second quarter of 1843. Mary, however, was born in Faringdon towards the end of 1845 and was registered as Mary Butler.

Of Sarah’s children, Jane’s history has been recounted as part of the Speck Family saga above.

Charles Butler married Elizabeth Jerrom (Jerome or Jerrome) on 6 September 1856 and they were to have at least nine children.

Sarah Butler was working as a servant to Thomas Hapgood, an innkeeper in Barnsley, Gloucestershire, in March 1861 and it was later the same year, on 21 October, that she married George Thomas in Barnsley, where they continued to live at least until 1871, after which they and their three children disappear from UK records (presumably they emigrated).

James Butler married Susanna Page, the daughter of Alice Page (see above) on 21 September 1868. The witnesses were Shadrack and Emma Vines (nee Speck). They had at least 10 children. James died at the beginning of 1908 (he was buried at Swindon on 18 January) and Susanna died the following year.

Of Sarah’s children with John Cook, the last record found so far for John Cook junior is the 1851 census.

Mary Cook married Jonas Harper, who was an engine driver with GWR, in Swansea in the second quarter of 1867. Jonas had been born in Wroughton. The couple had at least eight children, the first two born in Swansea but the rest in Swindon. Jonas died in 1908, Mary in 1920.

Elizabeth Cook married Charles Earthridge on 30 November 1867 (Emily Cook was a witness) and they had at least eight children before Charles died in 1881, although three did not survive infancy. Elizabeth died in 1915.

Emily Cook married Mark Watts on 11 July 1870 and the couple went to live in Swansea, initially with her half-sister Mary and her husband (Mark also worked for GWR). They stayed in Wales for most of the 1870s – it was here that a number of their children were born – before they moved back to the Swindon area. The couple had 14 children but only seven were still alive at the time of the 1911 census. Mark died in 1916, Emily in 1940.

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[i] For consistency, Peabee is using the most common form of this family’s surname – but sometimes it appeared as Tibbles, Theobalds or Tibboulds.

[ii] Ann was the daughter of Elizabeth Bowsher, and was baptised in Ogbourne St George on 8 April 1770. Elizabeth herself had been baptised in the same village on 10 December 1752, the daughter of John and Jane Bowsher (or Bowshier). It would appear that Elizabeth was unmarried when she had Ann, but she later married John Vyse (on 10 May 1779) and they had a son, also called John, baptised 22 April 1780. The family’s subsequent history is not known.

[iii] Hannah Looker had been born in Chisledon on 15 May 1807, the youngest child of Henry Looker and Honor (nee Major), and baptised in the Methodist Chapel in Newbury, Berkshire, on 25 October that year. Henry had been baptised at Chisledon on 28 February 1770 and was buried there on 26 May 1815. Honor was baptised at Christ Church, Swindon, the daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Major, on 12 September 1764. She married Henry Looker in Chisledon on 1 December 1794 and was buried, aged 92, on 12 May 1857. It should be noted that the Looker name was sometimes spelt Leuker and that for the baptisms of Hannah and her elder sister Sarah (in 1805), their mother’s name was recorded as Hannah, but in all other records, her name was Honor (or Honour).

[iv] Frequently spelt Enock

[v] Thomas and James Andrews Bathe were two of the sons of James Bathe and Sarah (nee Andrews) and were born in Elcombe tithing of Wroughton. Thomas was baptised on 23 September 1821 and James Andrews Bathe on 1 April 1827. James was given the second name Andrews (his mother’s maiden name) to distinguish him from a brother James who had been born two years earlier but had lived only a few days. Thomas and his wife Caroline did not have any children.

[vi] Shadrach Vines was the younger brother of Caroline, who had married Thomas Bathe, brother of James Bathe, Emma Speck’s brother-in-law. They were the children of Charles Vines and Elizabeth (nee Gaze?) and were born in Westport St Mary, just outside Malmesbury; Caroline was baptised on 25 December 1830 and Shadrach on 25 August 1833

[vii] Three years before her marriage, Sarah Maisey gave birth to twins Mary Anne and John and a bastardy order was made against John Summers for their upkeep. Of Sarah and Thomas’s seven child, one they called Abina after Thomas’s sister

[viii] Her younger brother John was a witness

[ix] The death of a Richard Page was registered in Highworth district in the first quarter of 1838, but no record of a burial has so far been found

Two orphans for Canada

Two Orphans for Canada

Trying to unscramble a particularly knotty genealogical problem, Pea-bee came across another story which may be of interest to some Canadian families whose origins are rooted in the shipment of orphaned children to the colonies by such organisations as Barnado’s. Throughout much of the 19th and most of the 20th century, there was a general policy espoused by several organisations of using unfortunate children to provide labourers and domestic servants for various parts of the British Empire. Not all were orphaned, some were from the reformatory system, as early Pea-bee blogs have mentioned, but in this case….

This story begins with a gunner in the Royal Artillery based in Woolwich, south east London, called John Williamson, and his wife Sarah. They were to have four children baptised at The Scotch Church, Woolwich, in the first decade of the 19th century. The Scotch Church was a Presbyterian Church, indicating that perhaps John Williamson was of Scottish origin.

The eldest child was Esther, born in Woolwich on 17 March 1799 and baptised on 18 January 1801, the same day as her sister Sarah, born on 1 January of that year.

John and Sarah then had two sons – Samuel, born 18 May 1806 and baptised 24 November that year, by which time John had been promoted corporal in the Royal Artillery, and James Farlow Williamson, born 20 October 1807 and baptised on 12 February 1808. It is possible that James’s second name of Farlow may have been a nod to his mother’s family name.

It has not proved possible so far to trace what happened to John and Sarah after the baptism of James, nor, indeed of any of the children except for the oldest, Esther, and the youngest, James.

Esther’s story will be told on another occasion as it is from James that this story proceeds.

James followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the Royal Artillery in 1823 and left in 1851, during which time he is known to have served in Woolwich and at Landguard Fort on the Suffolk coast near Woodbridge. He may also have served at Devonport.

James died in the decade after the 1851 census, possibly in October 1860[1]. He had married a girl called Elizabeth, from Woodbury in Devon, born about 1810. It is believed she died early in 1869[2].

James and Elizabeth had at least five children:

Robert, who appears only in the 1841 census and was then 3 years old[3].

George, born 3 June 1841 in Woolwich and baptised at St Mary Magdalene on 25 July 1841. He was last found in the records aged 10, in his parents’ home in Woolwich in 1851.

Edward James, born at Landguard Fort and birth registered in first quarter of 1844. Last found aged 8 in his parents’ home in Woolwich in 1851.

Sarah Ann, born at Landguard Fort and birth registered in first quarter of 1847. With her parents and siblings in Woolwich in 1851 and with her widowed mother and sister, again in Woolwich, in 1861. She married a corporal in the RA, Edward Connor, at St Nicholas, Plumstead, on 9 April 1866. Last found as witness, together with her husband, to the marriage of her sister in 1869.

Mary Jane, born at Landguard Fort and birth registered in second quarter of 1850. With her parents and siblings in Woolwich in 1851 and with her widowed mother and sister, again in Woolwich, in 1861.

Again is it with the youngest member of the family that the tale continues.

Mary Jane Williamson married William Knowlton, a gunner in the RA, at St Mary Magdalene, Woolwich, on 9 March 1869. She had already had one child – Walter, who was born on 7 December 1867. He was baptised as Walter Williamson at St Mary Magdalene on 1 August 1869, several months after Mary’s marriage; however, he was listed as Walter W Knowlton in the 1871 census and continued to use the Walter Knowlton name throughout his life.

Mary and William had a second child, Minnie Elizabeth Knowlton, born in Woolwich on 9 April 1870 and baptised on 22 May at St Mary Magdalene, when it was noted that William was a gunner in 14th Brigade RA.

It would seem that Mary and William died in the 1870s[4] and the two children were placed in orphanages: in 1881, Walter was in Dr Barnado’s Home in Stepney and Minnie in the New Orphan House at Ashley Down in Gloucestershire.

Both children emigrated to Canada, Walter in 1882 while still a young teenager, and Minnie in 1891 (aged 21).

Walter was one of the 51 children in the first party sent by Barnado aboard SS Parisian in 1882. They sailed from Liverpool on 10 August and arrived in Quebec nine days later.

Pea-bee hasn’t found know precisely where Walter was sent but it seems likely he was in Toronto before long. Details of his earlier life in Canada may have been published, however, in the Barnado’s house magazine Ups and Downs. An index indicates that he appears several times but the details are vague. Certainly by the time he was in his 20s, he had started a painting and decorating business in Toronto.

Although it is not clear which ship she came on, Minnie arrived in time to act as a witness at Walter’s marriage to Ellen Sophia King, another Barnado’s child, on 1 December 1892 in York, Ontario, and Walter returned the compliment when Minnie married William Alexander Sidey, a carpenter, on 5 October 1897 in York, Ontario.

Walter and Ellen had five children and Walter died in York on 16 July 1936.

Minnie and William Sidey had three children and the last record found for Minnie is the 1921 Canadian census.

Anyone interested in the Barnado’s children who were shipped to Canada, two websites will be of use:

British Home Children Advocacy & Research Association has a website which covers many aspects of the history of these child migrants http://canadianbritishhomechildren.weebly.com/

British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa (BIFHSGO), which has a special section on Home Children http://www.bifhsgo.ca/index.php

Pea-bee has added some footnotes as pointers to other researches. These are supposed births or deaths which match the sequence of known events but which also need money expended to get at the original records to confirm the details. As this story is so very peripheral to Pea-bee’s own work, he is not prepared to fork out himself!

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[1] A James Williamson was buried in [London Borough of] Greenwich on 31 October 1860 [deceased online]

[2] An Elizabeth Williamson was buried in [London Borough of] Greenwich on 9 February 1869 (died 6 February) [deceased online]

[3] The birth of a Robert Williamson was registered in Stoke Damerel, Devon – the registration district that included the military establishments at Devonport – in the first quarter of 1838. It is possible James was station at Devonport for a time where he met Elizabeth and they had their first child before he was posted back to Woolwich

[4] A Mary Jane Knowlton and a William Knowlton both died in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the second quarter of 1873

Escapees from the Hulks at Woolwich

Escapees from the Hulks at Woolwich

For almost 80 years, a number of old, decommissioned Royal Navy ships were moored at various places round the coast and used as prison ships, known as “The Hulks”: Dickens opens Great Expectations with the escape of convicts from one such hulk in the Medway.

A number of these hulks lay in the Thames off Woolwich and the convicts on board these vessels provided a labour force for two Government departments in the town – Woolwich Dockyard and the Royal Arsenal.

Escapes from the working parties on shore were fairly frequent and one, in the autumn of 1851, has become of special interest to Pea-Bee and forms the basis of this blog.

Three local newspapers reported on the escape of three convicts. Each paper gave its own version of the tale which, basically, was that while the guard was distracted, the men jumped into a boat and rowed off! However, there are discrepancies in the various newspaper accounts, not least whether they rowed the boat across the Thames to the Essex side, or just across a canal on Plumstead Marshes – which were part of the Royal Arsenal site – and stayed on the Kent side of the river.

Either way, one of the convicts was recaptured within four days but it was nearly 18 months before another was caught. The fate of the third man is not clear.

First, The Kentish Independent of 20 September 1851:

ESCAPE OF CONVICTS – Three convicts of the Hebe and Wye, for work at the Royal Arsenal, while employed in the mud on the banks of the river on Friday, took the opportunity of a boat being near to escape to the opposite side of the river, and landing on the Essex side, eluded the vigilance of their pursuers. One of these convicts was recaptured on Wednesday at Chiselhurst, and will probably be immediately sent out of the country in consequence of his attempt to escape the sentence he was undergoing of ten years’ transportation.

Then, The Kentish Mercury, published the same day:

ESCAPE OF THREE CONVICTS – On Friday last a number of convicts were employed working at the Canal in the Royal Arsenal, when the guard sent the sentry with a convict to procure some clean water; during the interval three convicts got into the boat, and wishing the guard “good day” they crossed the canal, and then made off for Bostal woods and got clear off; the alarm was raised, and Sergeants Hill 42, Bathe 45, and King, 56 R, Arsenal Police, went in search. The convict guard has been suspended. On Tuesday last one was re-captured by means of a countryman, who met him going along the road at Sidcup, Kent, he invited him into a public house, to partake of refreshments, and in the interval, he gave information at the police station, the convict suspecting from his long absence something wrong, made off, but was overtaken and conveyed back to the hulks, where the man, who caused his apprehension, received the reward of £3. The other have as yet avoided detection.

Finally, The Kentish Gazette of 23 September

ESCAPE OF THREE CONVICTS – On Monday information was received that three convicts had succeeded in effecting their escape from the Justitia hulk, at Woolwich, by seizing a boat and rowing to the opposite bank, on the Essex shore. There were all under sentence of ten years’ transportation, and were dressed in grey convict suit. Their names are John Clark, convicted at Beverly 2d July 1850; James Carr, at Kingston-upon-Hull, 4th April 1850; and George Hobbs, at Portsmouth 22d July 1850.

A brief note in the official files relating to the man who was recapture within days states:

Sept 12 Effecting his escape from the Works by jumping into a Boat in the canal, and with two other prisoners, pulling across and running away, and not returning until brought back by an escort on the 16^th Instant.

The official note does not clear up the question of where the convicts rowed to, although as only the canal is mentioned, it is reasonable to assume that they did not cross the river. Also, it was in the Sidcup/Chiselhurst area, on the Kent side of the river, that the convict was recaptured.

A week after its initial story, The Kentish Mercury reported: “The convict guard, for allowing three convicts to escape (one since captured,) has been dismissed the service – a harsh sentence, as the guards lead a life worse than even the convicts under their command, and to add to their misery a reduction has taken place in their hard-earned pay.”

But who were the three men who escaped, and why were they under sentence of ten years’ transportation? First the ones that got away – at least, for a time…

JOHN CLARK

John, the son of labourer Richard Clark and his wife Mary, was baptised on 22 April 1823 at Cherry Burton, a small village near Beverley, in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

On 6 July 1850, The Yorkshire Gazette reported:

John Clark, 27, was charged with having on the 17^th of May last, at Beverley Parks, killed a lamb and stolen the carcase, the property of Richard Bell.

Mr Burton prosecuted; Mr Dearsley defended the prisoner.

The prosecutor had a number of sheep and lambs in a field near to the railway from Beverley to Hull. They were seen safe on the evening of the 17^th May last, but on the following morning one of the lambs was missing. During the night a watchman named Dunn, who was on his beat, saw the prisoner coming into Beverley in the direction from the prosecutor’s field. His pockets were bulky, and Dunn asked him what they contained, but he refused to tell him. Dunn took the prisoner into custody, and on his way to prison he acknowledged that his pockets were filled with a portion of the carcase of a lamb belonging to the prosecutor. On the meat being compared with tat which had been left behind in the field and exact correspondence was the result.

Mr Dearsley, in defence, turned his attention to the weak points of the case, dwelling more particularly upon the fact the prisoner was a mile from the prosecutor’s field when he was seen by Dunn. From this circumstance he argued that there was no proof that the prisoner was the man who had killed the lamb, and the jury ought to be quite certain that he had slaughtered the animal before they could justly convict.

The jury retired, and after being locked up until between twelve and one o’clock on the following morning, they returned a verdict of Guilty. – To be transported for ten years.

It was noted that he had been before convicted of a felony, hence the decision to transport him. However, no record of a previous conviction has been found – although there were plenty of John Clarks around the country with criminal records!

After conviction he spent time in Wakefield House of Correction – he was there on census night 1851 (30 March) – before being transferred to Justitia at Woolwich.

Nothing more can be found on him after his escape on 12 September 1851.

GEORGE HOBBS

Thomas Hobbs and Fanny Nicholas were married at Downton, on the Wiltshire/Hampshire borders, on Christmas Day 1826. The couple had three sons: Samuel, baptised 13 September 1829; George, baptised 29 January 1832; and William, baptised on Christmas Day 1834.

When his children were still quite young, Thomas was killed in an accident described in detail in a number of newspapers. This account is extracted from The Morning Chronicle of 25 April 1844:

Melancholy Accident. – Downton, Wilts, April 22. – For some years past a family named Hobbs, who originally came from the Somersetshire collieries, have obtained precarious subsistence in this neighbourhood by the dangerous employment of well-sinking – and had proceeded with a job of this description to the extent of about eighty feet, on Wednesday morning last, when the superincumbent soil, consisting of very loose gravel and pebbles, gave way, and buried one of them, Thomas, his brother and son being both engaged at the mouth of the shaft at the time, and assisting him. The scene which ensued was most distressing and painful; no other person being on the spot at all qualified to undertake the rescue of the unfortunate suffered. At length his father, a decrepit old man, almost a cripple, with a strength of nerve and parental feeling, deserving of the highest admiration, descended and worked without intermission for three-and-twenty hours, in the attempt to render the place safe for further operations; and having on Thursday afternoon come up to report progress, and take some necessary refreshment, gain went down and continued his exertions throughout another night, until Friday, with an encouraging prospect of success; but in the course of the day a considerable portion of the sides again foundered, and very nearly carried two other men with it. Since then the work has been suspended, and this morning a meeting of the leading authorities and office-bearers of the parish took place, for the purpose of adopting some further means to excavate the body – no doubt long since a corpse.

Despite this somewhat flowery reporting, the newspapers went on to explain that, so the coroner could hold an inquest, the committee of local bigwigs decided to bring in an experienced digger from a neighbouring parish and they raised a sum of money to pay the man. The vicar’s main concern, it seems, was that “the body may rot in its present self-dug grave, without any form of Christian burial”.

However, the news report commented: “The poor man … has left a wife and three sons in destitute circumstances. It is hoped that the hand of charity may be extended to them, rather than to the mitigation of public damages.”

In the end it took more than three weeks to recover the body, and the verdict at the inquest was “accidental death”.

The loss of his father when he was only 12 years ago may have contributed to George’s later conduct. Certainly he got involved in various illegal activities.

The first for which he was brought to book was when he was 17, as reported in The Hampshire Advertiser of 20 October 1849:

George Hobbs, 17, was indicted for having feloniously stolen 2lbs of eels, the property of Joseph Goff.

It appeared that the prosecutor, who lives at the parish of Hale, has a fishpond, in a field, but enclosed by a fence. On the 2^nd of May last, James Sturgess, in the prosecutor’s employ, placed some eels in a box, which he put into the pond, and on leaving, he locked the door of the fence. James Nutbeam, who lived near, saw the prisoner and another man on the following morning coming from the direction of the pond, and he described their dress. Another witness stated that he saw two men, dressed in the same manner, break open the fence and enter the pond. The prosecutor’s keeper, James Sturgess, found the eels were missing next morning, and on receiving the statement of the two men, he and Police-constable Oram went in pursuit. The prisoner was taken, and his boots taken off, and compared with footmarks found in the soil if the pond, and found to correspond exactly. On the way to prison, the prisoner escaped from the custody of a policeman who received him from Oram’s care, and he was not again found until last month, when he was delivered into the county police custody by a constable of the Wiltshire force.

The jury found the prisoner Guilty, and the Court sentenced him to be imprisoned for six weeks, with hard labour.

Then, nearly a year later, on 27 July 1850, The Hampshire Telegraph reported on two cases:

William Hinton, George Hobbs, and Charles Lyons, were charged with stealing a cash bag, containing various monies, amounting to about 4l., from William Tupper, a general dealer, on the 19th of June last, on Southsea Common – Not Guilty.

George Hobbs was further charged with stealing, at Southsea, on the 18th June, a silk handkerchief, from the person of Thomas Terry, of Crown-street, Portsmouth. He was found guilty, and a former conviction being proved against the prisoner, he was sentenced to ten years’ transportation.

George was in Millbank prison at the time of the 1851 census (30 March) before being moved to the Wye hulk at Woolwich (although for administrative reasons, this was counted as part of the Justitia establishment).

His mother pleaded for mercy, on the basis that another person had admitted the crime. She played on the fact that her husband had been killed seven years earlier and even Thomas Terry was prepared to drop his accusation, but all to no avail.

Fanny Hobbs’s petition to the Home Secretary, Sir George Grey, was received on 10 September 1851. This was two days before George made his escape, scuppering any chance the petition would be considered. In fact, any decision by the Home Secretary would have been coloured by a letter from the Recorder of Portsmouth, Thomas Phinn:

I think the verdict of the Jury was well warranted by the Evidence, & that other circumstances besides those disclosed in the Evidence convinced me that the Jury had arrived at a right conclusion. The day in question was the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo & in consequence of her Majesty’s presence at the inauguration of the Duke of Wellington’s Statue a very great number of people were assembled on Southsea Common. In the crowd the prosecutor had his handkerchief taken, & the next day it was found on the prisoner under the circumstances detailed in the Evidence. It is possible that the prisoner’s hand did not take the handkerchief though doubtless acting in the matter with others but the prisoner was on the Common & had been tried on another indictment for having on the same evening whilst then passing the night on the Common committed another robbery under very aggravated circumstances in company with two persons named Hinton & Lyons known to the police as regular thieves. He was acquitted owing to the Jury not liking to act on the testimony of the prosecutor who was the worse for liquor, & on the Evidence of another person who proved to be a bad character. But I had no doubt that the prisoner & his companions had committed the offence … Excluding the circumstances of that case from my consideration in passing sentence. I found that the prisoner had been convicted at the Winchester Sessions in January, that he had only just finished his term in the Winchester prison, that he was known to the police as a companion of convicted thieves & that he had no occupation except of living by plunder. After making every inquiry I deemed it right to sentence him to transportation as the best thing for him as well as for society, & on consideration feel no grounds to alter my opinion.

Included with the Recorder’s letter was a statement by the arresting officer, William Alfred Knight:

I am one of the constables of the Borough. The prisoner and others having been charged with a felony on Wednesday morning last at Southsea Common I went to apprehend him and I apprehended Hobbs in Jacobs Row, Landport – he was upstairs in a Bed room – he was sitting on the Bed with the Handkerchief I now produce in his right hand endeavouring to put it under the bed. I took it from him and said ‘where did you get this?’ He said ‘It’s not mine it belongs to the Woman of the House’. I called the Woman of the House and in his presence asked her if it was her Handkerchief – she said no and it was never hers or any one’s belonging to her – he said ‘It belongs to Titt’ meaning one of her children – she said it did not.

After his escape at Woolwich, George managed to stay on the run for about 18 months, but on 14 January 1853, Edward Floor, clerk to the magistrates at Keynsham, near Bath, wrote asking for a description of the escaped convict. Clearly George had been spotted and on 26 March 1853 at the County Sessions in Taunton, he had his sentence increased to 20 years “for being at large when under the sentence of transportation”.

This time there was no messing about. First, he was held in the prison at Portland, and then he sailed on a ship called Adelaide for Western Australia on 16 April 1855 with 259 other convicts, arriving on 24 May. He was described as being “middling stout”, 5 feet 9¾ inches tall, with dark brown hair, hazel eyes, an oval face, and a dark complexion. Distinguishing features included being freckled; with an anchor on his right arm, a cut on his upper lip, and another on the third finger of the left hand.

In Australia, he generally behaved himself. He was entitled to his ticket of leave in the autumn of 1858 but his good conduct meant that it was granted nearly a year earlier on 21 December 1857.

Tickets of leave were awarded to prisoners who had served a period of probation and shown by their good behaviour that they could be allowed certain freedom. Once granted, a convict was permitted to seek employment within a specified district, but could not leave the district without the permission of the government or the district's resident magistrate. Each change of employer or district was recorded on the ticket. The convicts had to do jobs to get money to get a ticket of leave.

Ticket-of-leave men were permitted to marry, or to bring their families from Britain, and to acquire property, but they were not permitted to carry firearms or board a ship, and they were often restricted to a specific district stipulated on the ticket. They were often required to repay the cost of their passage to the colony.

A convict who observed the conditions of his ticket-of-leave until the completion of one half of his sentence was entitled to a conditional pardon, which removed all restrictions except the right to leave the colony. Convicts who did not observe the conditions of their ticket could be arrested without warrant, tried without recourse to the Supreme Court, and would forfeit their property.

The ticket of leave had to be renewed annually, and those with one had to attend muster and church services.

George was granted his conditional pardon on 4 March 1862 and on 1 August 1868 was transferred to New South Wales, after which date, nothing more has been found about him.

JAMES CARR

James Carr’s origins are a mystery. According to the 1851 census, when James Carr was in Millbank Prison, it was stated that he was born in Beverley, Yorkshire, in about 1818, and his trade was that of cooper. Later the same year, his widowed mother Harriett Carr petitioned for his release and stated that the family was well respected in Hull, and enclosed several testimonials to the fact.

When Harriett petitioned for James’s release, or at least for him not to be transported, she implied that she had been widowed for some while saying she had “brought up a large family consisting of five sons and a daughter with the help of the eldest children and help occasionally received from some respectable friends, she was enabled to do in a decent and creditable manner.”

No one of that description has been found in the 1851 census.

When James married in 1856, he gave his father’s name as George, a carpenter.

James’s first brush with the law was at Hull Borough Sessions on 7 July 1849, when he was found guilty of larceny and was imprisoned for three months. The Hull Advertiser of 13 July 1849 reported on the case:

James Carr (33), John Smith (27), and John Wilson (30), were charged with stealing a stone jug and hamper, containing two gallons of gin, the property of Henry Foster. Mr Archbold stated the case. Mr Foster is a wine and spirit merchant in this town, and on Friday, the 22nd ult. sent the jug to a carrier, whose cart was standing in Mytongate. The jug was sealed up, and proper directions put on the hamper. The carrier had occasion to go from his cart, and when he returned, in about five minutes after, the jug was gone. The prisoners were seen, two of them carrying the jug, and the other walking behind keeping a look-out. They were also seen going into a passage in Posterngate, on the way to which, through Fish-street, they tore off the directions from the hamper. While in the passage in Posterngate they changed dresses; then all three came out together, and a witness overheard one of them saying – “Didn’t we do that nicely!” They next proceed to the house where they lodged in Mill-street, and there drank so much that they got tipsy and began to fight. A policeman was called in, who saw the jug lying on the floor, which led to their apprehension. Guilty. Three months’ imprisonment.

James Carr next appeared at Hull General Quarter Sessions before Thomas Colpitts Granger, Recorder. The Hull Packet & East Riding Times of 11 January 1850 described this case:

ANN ROBSON (26) was charged with stealing a half-crown and one penny, the property of Edward Wallis and JAMES CARR was charged with receiving the same, knowing it to be stolen.

Mr Archbold stated the case. – On the 20^th November the prosecutor, who is a labourer, went in company with two other men to a house of ill fame, where the prisoner resided. While he was there he missed half-a-crown and penny from his pocket, and it was afterwards found that the female prisoner had the penny piece, and the male prisoner had a half-crown, a shilling, and a fourpenny piece.

The Recorder said, he thought there was not a sufficient case made out against the male prisoner, and a verdict of “Not guilty” was returned, not only against him but also against the female prisoner. The Recorder also ordered that the money found on the male prisoner should be returned to him.

Finally, a few months later, he was back in court, and The Hull Packet reported on 12 April 1850:

JOHN HICKNALL (35) and JAMES CARR (33) were charged with stealing a cask of lard, the property of Charles Adams, grocer, Lowgate.

Mr Foster prosecuted and Mr Dearsley defended the prisoners.

On Tuesday, the 12^th of March last, about five minutes past six o’clock, a young woman named Tennyson saw the prisoner Carr take a cask of lard from the door of the prosecutor’s shop. Immediately she heard some one cry out, “Hook it – It’s all right;” and she said to the prisoner Carr, who had it on his shoulder, “You are stealing that lard.” The prisoner said “Hold your tongue – It’s all right.” The witness then went into Bowlby’s dram-shop, and, shortly afterwards, Carr looked in at the door, and, as soon as she saw him, she told the men in the room that he had stolen a cask of lard. The men then went out, and had the prisoner taken into custody. The lard was subsequently found to be in the possession of Hicknall. Hicknall, at the direction of the Recorder, was acquitted, but Carr was found guilty, and sentenced to ten years’ transportation.

His progress though the penal system after that can be charted. He was received into Millbank prison from Kingston-upon-Hull on 21 August 1850 and then transferred to the Justitia Hulk at Woolwich on 3 May 1851.

After his escape on 12 September and recapture four days later, he remained on Justitia until 18 October when he was returned to Millbank. He was not transported overseas until the very end of 1852 when he was transferred to Boaz Island Prison, Bermuda, sailing there on the Ascendant.

He was described as stoutish, with a sallow complexion. He was 5ft 7 ½ inches tall and had dark brown hair and brown eyes. Distinguishing marks were a scar on the left of his neck, blue spots on the back of his right hand, and two scares on his left arm.

His behaviour in Bermuda was such that he was recommended for discharge and so he was sent back to Millbank, sailing on 22 February and arriving on 23 March 1855, before being released on licence on 20 April 1855. To help he re-establish himself in society, he was paid a gratuity of £9 8s 8d – less £2 to pay for his passage home!

He returned to Yorkshire and married almost a year later, on 30 March 1856, at St Stephen’s, Kingston-upon-Hull. His bride was Sarah Jane Larder, the daughter of a grocer and 18 years his junior. The marriage was witnessed by Thomas and William Carr, possibly his brothers, but nothing has been found to identify them further.

And there is another mystery – the marriage certificate described him as a widower although he was a bachelor when he was sent to Bermuda.

James went back to his trade of cooper and was living Sculcoates, Yorkshire, with his wife in 1861. He died at the end of 1866 and, some 33 years later when she was 63, Sarah Jane remarried. This marriage took place on 1 October 1899 in Holy Trinity, Hull. Her new husband was a 67-year-old widower, John Hart, a confectioner, and she lived until 1903.