Crystal Ffinch née Champion de Crespigny 1877 – 1961

Crystal Ffinch née Champion de Crespigny, one of my 5th cousins twice removed, was born on 9 May 1877 in Durrington, Wiltshire. She was the fourth of nine children and third of four daughters of Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny the fourth baronet and Georgiana Lady Champion de Crespigny née McKerrell.

In the 1881 census Crystal, then aged three, was recorded as residing at Champion Lodge, near Maldon, Essex, with her mother and her five siblings, aged from eight months to seven years. Also present were two visitors and nine live-in servants: a governess, two nurses, two footmen, two housemaids, a kitchenmaid and a cook. Her father was away at the time.

At the next census, in 1891, Crystal was attending boarding school in Exeter called Edgerton House School. Crystal, aged thirteen, and her sister Cerise aged fifteen were two of the ten boarders.

In May 1896 Crystal and her recently married sister Cicely, Mrs George Lancaster, were presented by their mother, Lady Champion de Crespigny, to H.R.H. the Princess of Wales at a Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace on behalf of her Majesty.

Dresses worn at the Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace in May 1896 from The Queen magazine 30 May 1896 page 967

The Chelmsford Chronicle 22 May 1896 page 2

On 18 December 1901 Crystal married Captain Matthew Ffinch at St Peter’s Church, Great Totham, Essex. The reception was held at Champion Lodge, the family home, less than a mile from the church. The couple honeymooned in Madeira.

Weddings of the Week from The Gentlewoman 28 December 1901 page 905

In 1904 Matthew, who had been on half pay from the army, was placed on retired pay. Because of ill health in 1899 he had been placed on temporary half-pay.

At the time of the 1911 census Crystal was in Kent on holidays with her husband Matthew, a retired army officer, staying in a private hotel called Ledge Point at Westgate on Sea. This census asked how long a couple had been married and whether there were any children. The Ffinches were childless.

Ledge Point private hotel Westgate on Sea. 1904 postcard for sale on eBay

I have found only one photograph of Crystal, at a Champion Lodge shooting party in November 1911.

From Tatler 8 November 1911 page 149

In World War 1 Crystal volunteered with the Red Cross at Rivercourt Red Cross Hospital in Maldon. Her mother, Lady de Crespigny, was also involved with hospital matters there. The hospital building had previously been run as a “Home of Rest”, a convalescent home. At the outbreak of war the building was donated by its owner to be used by the Red Cross Society as a convalescent hospital for the troops. It operated from August 1914 to January 1919.

British Red Cross First World War volunteer record for Crystal Ffinch

Crystal was recorded as a nurse probationer, who worked part-time. Her contribution, with her nursing duties, was to collect subscriptions and contributions of fruit and vegetables and entertain the patients. Her mother was noted as having the duties of nursing and that she was:

A generous supporter of the Hospital, helped to raise funds, visited regularly for Rifle Brigade. Supplied Patients with literature, cigarettes etc, also fruit & vegetables continually for 4 1/2 years. A valuable patron of the Hospital, entertaining the Patients constantly.

Crystal’s husband Matthew served as a Special constable. In 1916 a Zeppelin numbered L33 crashed nearby, at Little Wigborough, ten miles from Heybridge where the Ffinches lived. It made a forced landing but the crew were largely unharmed. First setting set fire to the airship to prevent it falling into British hands, they trudged off in the direction of Colchester, eight miles north, to give themselves up. (L33 was one of twelve Zeppelins to bomb England. Another, the L32, crashed in flames at Great Burstead, south-west of Maldon, killing all on board.) The crew, found on the road by a Special Constable, spent the rest of the war in captivity. Captain M. Ffinch reported on how the Special Constables of Peldon helped to control the traffic and the thousands of sightseers who descended on the village the day after the zeppelin landed.

The wreck of Zeppelin L33 at Little Wigborough
from “Zeppelins over Essex.” The Blog of the Essex Record Office, 23 Sept. 2016

In January 1918 Captain Matthew Benjamin Dipnall Ffinch, J.P. Assistant Chief Constable in Charge of Special Constabulary, Essex, was appointed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE).

In 1919 Matthew was made one of the Deputy Lieutenants of the County of Essex. In a 1922 directory he was recorded as one of the County Magistrates for the Witham Division.

At the time of the 1921 census, Matthew and Crystal Ffinch were living in a twelve-room house at Langford Mead, Heybridge near Maldon with two live in servants: a cook and house parlour maid.

The British Legion, founded in 1921 as a voice for the ex-service community, had a presence in Maldon, with separate sections for men and women. Crystal, Mrs FFinch, was chairman and her mother, Lady Champion de Crespigny was president. In September 1923 a cavalcade of charabancs took 90 women members, including Crystal and her mother from the war memorial to a garden party hosted by Captain and Mrs Long-Price at their home ‘Rosmeade’ in Ulting.

One of the charabancs departing from outside the war memorial to a garden party in 1923
From Edwards, Francesca. “Stephen Nunn recalls the day Nazi salutes and swastikas came to Maldon.” Maldon and Burnham Standard, 22 Nov. 2020

On 29 September 1939 a Register was compiled of every member of the civilian population. The information was used to produce identity cards and, once rationing was introduced in January 1940, to issue ration books. Information in the Register was also used to administer conscription and the direction of labour, and to monitor and control the movement of the population caused by military mobilisation and mass evacuation. In 1939 Crystal was recorded as living in Langford Meads, Heybridge. Her entry on the 1939 Register is annotated “Vice President British Red +”. In the same house was William Lyddon, a retired colonel of the Royal Artillery, William and Mary Rawlings, who served as chauffeur and parlourman, and a cook. Matthew was recorded at the Grange, Newton Regis, Warwickshire.

Matthew died in 1951. His death was announced in The Daily Telegraph of 15 February 1951:

FFINCH.—On Feb 14. at 85. Campden Hill-court, Kensington, W.8. Captain MATTHEW BENJAMIN DIPNALL FFINCH, C.B E.. late The North Staffordshire Regiment, formerly of Langford, Essex, in his 85th year. Funeral at Ulting Church, Essex, Saturday. Feb . 17, at 12 noon. Flowers may be sent to J H Kenyon Ltd.. 12. Kensington Church-st.. W.8. by tomorrow (Friday).

His death notice in The Times of 20 February 1951 stated:

Captain Matthew Benjamin Dipnall Ffinch, C.B.E., Assistant Chief Constable of Essex from 1914 to 1919, died at his home in London recently at the age of 84.

Crystal died ten years later. Her death was announced in The Times of 17 November 1961:

FFINCH.-On 16th November, 1961, in a London nursing home CRYSTAL, aged 84 years of Langford Meads, Maldon, Essex Widow of CAPTAIN MATTHEW BENJAMIN DIPNALL FFINCH. C.B.E.. and daughter of the late Sir Claude and Lady Champion de Crespigny. Funeral Tuesday, 21st November (arrangements later)

RELATED POSTS

• Index to articles concerning the de Crespigny baronets including her father the 4th baronet and her brothers and sisters: de Crespigny family index 3 – the baronets and their descendants

Wikitree: Crystal (Champion de Crespigny) Ffinch (1877 – 1961)

Tracking down Elizabeth Jones

My 4th great grandmother Elizabeth Hughes née Jones was born in 1798, the daughter of Edward Jones, a farmer, and Elizabeth Jones née Humphreys. In 1825 Elizabeth married Edward Hughes in Liverpool. She died in Melbourne in 1865. Her husband supplied the information on her death certificate, but although he gave the names of Elizabeth’s parents, for ‘place of birth’ only the county, Cardiganshire, was recorded. The 1851 census also recorded her place of birth as Cardiganshire with no further details.

In Cherry Stones, an account of our Hughes family history, my cousin Helen Hudson wrote:

Elizabeth Jones, Edward’s wife, was the youngest member of a large family. Her father, Evan Jones, known as Squire Jones, was a wealthy farmer in Cardiganshire. Elizabeth was described as a “clever, cultured lady, related in some way to Lord Westbury’s family."

Maybe that was another legend, but like all these family stories there is always a grain of truth somewhere, even if distorted.

When in 1847 Elizabeth’s son, my 3rd great grand uncle Goodman Hughes, died in Marine Terrace, Shrewsbury, the death certificate informant was Annie Jones. Who was she? On the 1851 census Annie Wilton, née Jones, was living at Marine Terrace with her parents Evan and Mary Jones. Evan Jones was a sadler, born in Cardiganshire, aged 66 (so born about 1785). From this it seems likely that Evan Jones was a brother of my 4th great grandmother Elizabeth.

1851 England census Class: HO107; Piece: 1992; Folio: 79; Page: 22; GSU roll: 87393

Marine Terrace Shrewsbury viewed from the English Bridge: Google street view

Evan Jones’s birthplace on the 1851 census is hard to read. Ancestry.com has transcribed it as ‘Caergonyall in Cardiganshire’. FindMyPast has ‘Caergonydd’. I agree that the name ends with “dd”, but I can find neither placename in Wikipedia’s list of Cardiganshire villages whose names begin with the letter C.

I decided to search for baptisms of ‘Evan’ around 1785 and ‘Elizabeth’ around 1798 in Cardiganshire with the father named Edward. I found only two.

There is an Evan Jones, father Edward Jones, gentleman, baptised 18 May 1784 at Llanfihangel Genau’r-glyn, Cardiganshire, Wales. And on 26 September 1798 there was a baptism at Llanfihangel Genau’r-glyn, Cardiganshire, Wales, of Elizabeth Jones daughter of Edward Jones, gentleman.

I next looked for a marriage of Edward Jones to Elizabeth Humphreys in the district. On 2 June 1778 an Edward Jones, gentleman, of Llanfihanel Gennery Glynn, Cardigan, married Elizabeth Humphreys at Tywyn, Merionethshire. She was of the parish. They married by licence. The witnesses were V??? Humphreys and John Jones.

Archives Wales; Wales; Merionethshire Baptisms, Marriages and Burials retrieved through ancestry.com

Among the papers of a solicitor named John Thomas Herbert Parry, of Glan-paith, Llanbadarn Fawr, Cardiganshire, that were deposited with the National Library of Wales in the 1930s, is the following document:

Title Glan Paith Papers reference 212: Release (in consideration of the intended marriage of the said Edward Jones and the said Elizabeth Humphreys), to make a …, Creation Date 1778, May 30.

Description 1. Edward Jones. 2. Humphrey Jones. 3. Evan Watkin of Moelyherney, p. Llanfyhangelgenerglyn, co. Card., gent. 4. Evan Evans of Knwcybarkit, p. Llanygrowthen, co. Card., and Thomas Pugh of Glanyrafon, p. Llanfyhangelgenerglyn aforesaid, gent's. 5. Mary Humphreys, widow, and Elizabeth Humphreys, spinster, her eldest daughter, both of Towyn, co. Mer. Release (in consideration of the intended marriage of the said Edward Jones and the said Elizabeth Humphreys), to make a tenant to the praecipe for the suffering of a recovery, of Tythin Carreg Cadwgan, Tythyn panty Carrw, Tythin y nantgarrw, Tythin Coed-y-Bongam, Llertai Gleission, Tythin-y-Tymawr, Llyesty Pant Gwynne, and Rhydyrhenedd in the t. of Caylan and Maesmore, p. Llanfihangel generglyn.

The paper immediately preceding 211 is dated 29 May 1778 and concerns the Lease for one year of Tythin Carreg Cadwgan, Tythyn panty Carrw, Tythin y nantgarrw, Tythin Coed-y-Bongam, Llertai Gleission, Tythin-y-Tymawr, Llyesty …,

1. Edward Jones of Carregcadwgan, p. Llanfihangelgenerglyn, co. Card., gent. 2. Humphrey Jones of the town of Machynlleth, co. Mont., gent. Lease for one year of Tythin Carreg Cadwgan, Tythyn panty Carrw, Tythin y nantgarrw, Tythin Coed-y-Bongam, Llertai Gleission, Tythin-y-Tymawr, Llyesty Pant Gwynne, and Rhydyrhenedd in the t. of Caylan and Maesmore, p. Llanfihangel generglyn aforesaid.

Paper 214 dated 1 March 1803 concerns the Lease for one year of Tythin Carreg Cadwgan, Tythin panty Carrw, Tythin y nant garrw, Tythin coed y Bongam, Llertaigleission …,

1. Edward Jones, gent., and Elizabeth, his wife, and John Jones, gent., their son and heir apparent, all of Carreg Cadwgan, p. Llanfihangelgenerglyn, co. Card. 2. John Beynon of Newcastle Emlyn, co. Carm., gent. Lease for one year of Tythin Carreg Cadwgan, Tythin panty Carrw, Tythin y nant garrw, Tythin coed y Bongam, Llertaigleission, Tythin y Ty mawr, and Rhydyrhenedd, with a cottage called Llyesty Pantygwynne, in the t. of Caylan and Maesmore, p. Llanfihangelgenerglyn aforesaid.

Paper 215 is dated 2 March 1803 and concerns Release, to make a tenant to the praecipe for the suffering of a recovery, of Tythin Carreg Cadwgan, Tythin panty …,

1. Edward Jones and Elizabeth, his wife, and John Jones. 2. John Beynon. 3. Humphrey Jones of the town of Machynlleth, co. Mont., esq. Release, to make a tenant to the praecipe for the suffering of a recovery, of Tythin Carreg Cadwgan, Tythin panty Carrw, Tythin y nant garrw, Tythin coed y Bongam, Llertaigleission, Tythin y Ty mawr, and Rhydyrhenedd, with a cottage called Llyesty Pantygwynne, in the t. of Caylan and Maesmore, p. Llanfihangelgenerglyn aforesaid.

I looked for the baptism of John Jones and found John, son of Edward Jones by his wife, baptised 15 January 1782 at Llanfihangel Genau’r-glyn, Cardiganshire.

I think this is the Edward Jones and Elizabeth Jones née Humphreys I have been looking for, but I have not yet found a will or any other document that would make me completely confident of the connection.

It appears from the document of 30 May 1778 that Elizabeth Humphreys and her widowed mother Mary came from Towyn, co. Mer. Today this town is spelt as Tywyn. I have found a will dated 1772 by Griffith Humphreys, a yeoman of Tywyn, Merioneth, which mentions his wife Mary and his daughter Elizabeth.

The village of Llanfihangel Genau’r Glyn, is now known as LLandre. The older name means St Michaels at the Mouth of the Valley. Llanfihangel is a very common placename in Wales and the name LLandre was changed to avoid confusion. Llandre means ‘Churchtown’.

As the crow flies Llandre is ten miles from Tywyn, but by road via the nearest bridge across the Dyfi river the distance is more than double this. Perhaps they crossed by boat at Aberdyfi.

The geography images site geograph.org has photograph of a farm called Carregcadwgan. I wonder if this is the farm associated with Edward Jones and mentioned in the lease document of 29 May 1778 and again in the lease document of 1 March 1803. Carregcadwgan farm is 5 miles east of Llandre. The community location, a settlement which could not even be described as a hamlet, is called Ceulanamaesmawr.

Carregcadwgan Farm

All this is progress, I suppose, but I am still trying to discover more about the Jones and Humphreys families. I wonder why Elizabeth moved more than a hundred miles north from Cardiganshire to Liverpool to marry Edward Hughes and why her brother Evan moved seventy-five miles east to settle in Shrewsbury.

Related posts

• Y not Y?
• The unfortunate death of Goodman Hughes

Wikitree:

• Elizabeth (Jones) Hughes (abt. 1798 – 1865)

The unfortunate death of Goodman Hughes

My fourth great-grandparents Edward Hughes, a builder (1803 – 1876), and his wife Elizabeth Hughes née Jones (1798 – 1865) were Welsh; Edward was from Newmarket, Flintshire; Elizabeth from Cardiganshire. They were married in Liverpool in 1825. Of their eight children three survived to adulthood.

Their fifth child, Goodman Edward Jones Hughes, born in 1834, died aged thirteen in 1847. The Registrar recorded the cause of death as ‘consumption’. His burial record has ‘Kings’ Evil’. This was scrofula (mycobacterial cervical lymphadenitis), a disfiguring disease of the neck lymph nodes, often caused by the bacterium responsible for pulmonary tuberculosis, consumption.

Goodman Edward Jones Hughes is mentioned in several records:

1. Baptismal

Goodman Edward Jones Hughes was born on 15 May and baptised on 8 June 1834 in the Great Cross Hall Street Welsh Baptist Chapel by the Reverend William Griffiths of Holyhead. Goodman was the son of Edward Hughes, joiner, of Drinkwater Gardens, Liverpool, and Elizabeth, formerly Jones, his wife.

General Register Office: Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths Surrendered to the Non-Parochial Registers Commissions of 1837 and 1857; Class Number: RG 4; Piece Number: 939 : Liverpool, Great Cross Hall Street Chapel (Independent), 1815-1837 Name Goodman Edwd Jones Gender Male Event Type Baptism Birth Date 15 May 1834 Baptism Date 8 Jun 1834 Baptism Place Liverpool, Lancashire, England Denomination Independent Father Edwd Hughes Mother Elizabeth Jones

2. 1841 Census

At the time of the 1841 census Edward, Elizabeth, four children (Samuel, Mary, Henry, and Eliza) and a child Goodman Jones, possibly a nephew of Elizabeth’s, were living at Drinkwater Gardens, Liverpool. Edward was a joiner. There were no live-in servants.

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1841 England census Class: HO107; Piece: 559; Book: 26; Civil Parish: Liverpool; County: Lancashire; Enumeration District: 35; Folio: 43; Page: 29; Line: 1; GSU roll: 306941

It is possible that the child Goodman Jones who was aged 7 was in fact Goodman Edward Jones Hughes and the census-taker misunderstood the relationship to his parents. I have not been able to find a child named Goodman Hughes living elsewhere in 1841.

3. Death

Goodman Edward Hughes died of consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis) on 8 July 1847 at Marine Terrace St Julian Shrewsbury. He was the son of Edward Hughes builder and his wife Elizabeth. The informant was Annie Jones, present at the death, address Marine Terrace.

Death certificate: Name Goodman Edward Hughes Registration Year 1847 Registration Quarter Jul-Aug-Sep Registration District Shrewsbury Page 131 Volume 18

I have traced the Jones family of Marine Terrace, St Julian, Shrewsbury, on the 1851 census. Annie Jones married in 1850 to George Wilton. She and George and a newborn daughter were living with Annie’s parents Evan Jones, his wife Mary, Annie’s married sister Mary Hughes, and a niece of Annie’s aged 13, also called Annie Jones. Evan Jones, born in Cardiganshire, was a sadler, aged 66 (born about 1785). He may have been a brother of Elizabeth Hughes née Jones.

Shrewsbury is 60 miles distant from Liverpool. Goodman may have attended a school in Shrewsbury and returned to live at his uncle’s house when he became ill. In 1851 Goodman’s younger brother Henry, then aged 12, was a pupil at the Kingsland Academy in Shrewsbury run by Mr J. Poole.

4. Burial

Goodman’s body was brought from Shrewsbury to Liverpool, sixty miles north, for burial.

Goodman was buried on 13 July at the Necropolis (Low Hill Cemetery), Merseyside. His last residence was Shrewsbury. The cause of death on the burial register was King’s Evil.

Liverpool Record Office; Liverpool, Merseyside, England; Liverpool Cemetery Registers; Reference: 352 Cem 2/2/3 Necropolis (Low Hill Cemetery) Name Goodman Edwd. Hughes Age 13 Burial Date 13 Jul 1847

Scrofula was called the King’s Evil because it was believed to be curable by the touch of the sovereign, through the annointed monarch’s divine power to heal. Conveniently, scrofula often went into remission spontaneously. Some people saw this as proof of the efficacy of the king or queen’s physical contact.

The cause of scrofula was not known until the late 19th century. The illness caused chills, sweats, and fevers. Due to the swelling of the lymph nodes and bones, skin infections and ulcerated sores appeared on the neck, head, and face. The sores grew slowly, sometimes remaining for months or years.

Scrofula of the neck. From: Bramwell, Byrom Edinburgh, Constable, 1893 Atlas of Clinical Medicine. Source: National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, USA. Image retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.

In 1846 Benjamin Phillips, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, presented a paper to the Statistical Society of London on the prevalence and alleged increase of Scrofula. Phillips estimated that “the marks of Scrofula obvious upon simple inspection, among the children of the poor of England and Wales, between the ages of 5 and 16 is, as near as may be, but rather under, 3 ½ per cent.” The latest mortality figures Phillips quoted were from 1831. “In 1831, the population was 1,233,000 the general mortality was 20,910, or 1 in 61; the deaths from consumption were 4,735, or 1 in 258; and the deaths from scrofula 9, or 1 in 135,888 of the population.” Phillips concluded that Scrofula was less present in the present day (the 1840s) than it had been in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Tuberculosis, or consumption, was a leading cause of death in previously healthy adults in Britain in the 1800s. An 1840 study attributed one fifth of deaths in England to consumption. In 1838 the death rate in England and Wales from tuberculosis was around 4,000 deaths per 1 million people; it fell to around 3,000 per million in 1850. The declining death rate at that time before any known cure has been attributed to better food and nutrition.

Scrofula is now treated successfully with antibiotics. Untreated it can develop into pulmonary tuberculosis, with a high risk of death. Perhaps this was the manner in which the disease progressed in Goodman Hughes. He was simply unlucky, unable even to hope that the sovereign’s touch would cure him. Queen Victoria did not attempt to perform the small miracle; the practice had ceased with George I more than a century before.

Related posts

• F is for Flintshire
• Y not Y?

Wikitree:

• Goodman Edward Jones Hughes (1834 – 1847)

Y not Y?

My fourth great-grandparents Edward Hughes and his wife Elizabeth Jones were Welsh; Edward was from Newmarket, Flintshire, and Elizabeth from Cardiganshire. Hughes, however, is not an unusual surname in Wales, nor is Jones, and for a while I’ve been muddling them with another Welsh couple from Flintshire with the same names.

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  Photographs of Edward and Elizabeth Hughes from pages 67 and 72 of Cherry Stones by Helen Hudson

When three years ago I wrote about Edward and Elizabeth I believed, mistakenly, that they had married at Ysgeifiog (also written Ysceifiog) in 1821 and that this was Elizabeth’s birthplace. Edward was from Holywell, a couple of miles north.

I have since ordered Elizabeth’s Victorian death certificate. She died on 4 July 1865 in Brighton, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia.

Australian death certificates include much information useful to the genealogist, though the reliability of this depends on the knowledge and good will of the informant. In Elizabeth’s case the informant was her husband Edward Hughes.

The 1865 death certificate of Elizabeth Hughes

From Elizabeth’s death certificate I learnt that she was born in Cardiganshire to Edward Jones, who was a farmer, and Elizabeth Jones née Humphreys. She was 66 years old when she died, so she was born about 1799. Elizabeth and Edward married about 1825 in Liverpool when she was twenty-six. They had eight children:

• Mary, dead;
• Samuel aged 37 years (at the time of Elizabeth’s death in 1865, so born about 1828);
• Mary aged 35 years (born about 1830);
• John dead;
• Eliza Ann dead;
• Elizabeth Humphreys dead;
• Goodman Edward Jones dead; and
• Henry aged 24 years (born about 1841).

At the time of her death Elizabeth had been in Victoria for twelve years eleven months, so she had arrived about August 1852. Although she died in Brighton, the home address of her husband Edward was View Street, Bendigo (the town at that time was also known as Sandhurst), a hundred miles north. The cause of her death was recorded as chronic disease of the liver and stomach trouble. She had been ill for two months, which perhaps implies that she had come from Bendigo to Melbourne for treatment.

Elizabeth Hughes was buried in Brighton General Cemetery on 13 July 1865. The gravestone inscription reads:

In memory 
of 
Elizabeth
Beloved wife of 
Edward Hughes 
of Sandhurst
Died 10th July 1865 
aged 66.
Precious in the sight of the lord is 
the death of his saints

(The verse is from Psalm 116.)

The Bishop’s transcripts, copies of the parish registers which had been sent to the bishop, of Liverpool marriages includes a record at the church of St Philip for a marriage by banns on 24 April 1825 of Edward Hughes and Elizabeth Jones. Neither had been previously married; both were of the parish. A transcript of the marriage register shows the witnesses were John Parry and G. Jared; I believe the witnesses are not related to the bride and groom.

As this record is a better match for the details given at the time of Elizabeth’s death I am more confident that this is the record of the marriage of my fourth great grandparents Edward and Elizabeth Hughes. Unfortunately, details which would help to confirm that we have the right couple, such as their parents’ names and occupations, are not recorded.

Building a family tree with common surnames such as Hughes and Jones is often more difficult than not, because there is more likely to be confusion over two people with the same name. From the information on Elizabeth’s death certificate, it seems that I was wrong: my fourth great grandmother was not from Ysgeifiog and my Edward and Elizabeth were not married there. I have corrected my tree and added the new information.

RELATED POSTS

• F is for Flintshire

Wikitree:

• Edward Hughes (1803 – 1876)
• Elizabeth (Jones) Hughes (abt. 1798 – 1865)

U is for Upton upon Severn

My fifth great grandmother Dorothy Scott was born on 15 November 1765 at Betton Strange Hall, near Shrewsbury in Shropshire to Richard Scott (1731 – 1770) and Elizabeth Scott nee Gough (1735 – 1772). She had three older brothers.

In 1770, with Dorothy not yet five years old, her father died, and two years later her mother. I do not know who brought up Dorothy when she was orphaned.

On 20 January 1783, at the age of seventeen, Dorothy married Philip Champion Crespigny, a lawyer, forty-four years old; she was his fourth wife. Of the nine children by his previous wives, seven were living at the time of his marriage to Dorothy Scott.

Dorothy and Philip had four children, one of whom died in infancy. The polyphiloprogenitive Philip died, on 1 January 1803; he and Dorothy had been married for nearly 20 years.

Portrait of Dorothy Crespigny painted by George Romney in 1790 and now in the collection of the Philadephia Museum of Art

On 27 March 1804 at St Swithin’s Church, Walcot, Bath, Dorothy married for a second time, to Sir John Keane (1757 – 1829).

Keane was an Irish Tory Member of Parliament, who had been made a baronet in 1801. In the Irish Parliament he represented Bangor from 1791 to 1897; Youghal from 1797 to 1800; and he represented Youghal in the House of Commons from 1801to 1806 and from 1807 to 1818. The ‘History of Parliament‘ notes that “evidence of his presence at Westminster is very thin”. “In February 1817 the chief secretary was informed that he was living at Southampton and should be asked to pay a visit to Westminster. On 15 April 1818 he turned up to vote with ministers on the Duke of Clarence’s Marriage Grant. He did not seek re-election that year.”

Dorothy and John Keane had one son, George (1805 – 1880). Keane had been married previously and had at least four children by his first wife. He died on 18 April 1829 at his house in the Royal Crescent, Bath.

Royal Crescent, Bath

The dowager Lady Keane died on 5 July 1837 at Malvern Wells, Worcestershire. Her death was registered at Upton upon Severn, six miles to the east. (New legislation concerning civil registration had come
into effect on 1 July 1837 and her death was one of the first to be registered under the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1836. The new law required that “within Three Days after the day of such Death…[notice should be given] to the Registrar of the District”.)

Index of deaths in the July quarter 1837 from the registers maintained by the General Register Office for England and Wales

The death of the dowager Lady Keane was announced in several newspapers. The London ‘Morning Post‘ of Saturday, July 8, 1837 wrote: ‘Died: At Malvern, on the 5th inst., the Dowager Lady Keane, relict of Sir John Keane, Bart., of Bath’. The Worcester ‘Berrows Worcester Journal‘ of Thursday, July 13, 1837 had: ‘July 5th, at Malvern Wells, aged 72, the Dowager Lady Keane, relict of Sir John Keane, Bart., of the Crescent, Bath’.

Great Malvern – St Ann’s Well
The spring or well is named after Saint Anne, the maternal grandmother of Christ and the patron saint of many wells. The building housing the spring dates back to 1813.

Malvern Wells, where Lady Keane seems to have resorted after the death of her husband, was a spa town, whose water was thought for centuries to have beneficial properties. In 1817 an enthusiast named John Chambers published A General History of Malvern, embellished with plates, intended to comprise all the advantages of a Guide, with the important details of chemical, mineralogical and statistical information. In the 19th century Malvern became famous for the water cure, and it rapidly developed into to a busy town with many large hotels. Hydrotherapists promoted the cure, and the resort’s many well-known patients and patrons—one was Lord Lytton, who in 1845 published “Confessions of a Water-Patient“– contributed to Malvern’s renown.

Dorothy was buried with her second husband in St. Nicholas’ Churchyard, Bathampton, Somerset.

St Nicholas Church, Bathampton

The grave of Dorothy Scott Keane at Bathampton. Photograph by K. C. Mellem and retrieved from FindAGrave; used with permission.

Related posts

• Philip Champion de Crespigny (1738 – 1803)
• Concerning her three children surviving with Philip:
  • George: D is for Durham Light Infantry
  • George (1783-1813) :  D is for Durham Light Infantry
  • Eliza (1784-1831) : G is for Gretna Green
  • Charles Fox (1785-1875) : Charles Fox Champion de Crespigny (1785 – 1875)
• On the sale of her portrait by her great grandson: Great expectations – disappointed

Further reading

• Jupp, P. J. “KEANE, John (1757-1829), of Belmont, co. Waterford.” History of Parliament , The History of Parliament Trust, www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/keane-john-1757-1829.

Wikitree:

• Dorothy (Scott) Keane (1765 – 1837)

R is for Rushton

I have written previously about my great great grandfather’s first cousin George Harrison Champion de Crespigny (1863-1945) and his wife Gwendoline (1864-1923).

George Harrison Champion de Crespigny, known as Harry, married Gwendoline Blanche Clarke-Thornhill (Gwen) youngest of six children of William Capel and Clara Clarke-Thornhill, on 18 December 1890 at Rushton, Northamptonshire.

Rushton Hall

Church of All Saints, Rushton

“SOCIETY.” John Bull, vol. LXXI, no. 3,660, 10 Jan. 1891, p. 16.

In the census taken on 5 April 1891 Harry and Gwen, who gave their surname as Champion Holden de Crespigny, were living at Pipewell (pronounced Pipwell) Hall, a couple of miles from Rushton. There were five servants in the house: a butler, a lady’s maid, a cook and two housemaids. Other workers on the estate were housed separately.

Harry, who had been adopted by the owner of Pipewell Hall Oscar William Holden-Hambrough as his heir, now included ‘Holden’ in his surname.

Pipewell Hall Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons, photograph by user Maypm CC BY-SA 4.0
The hall was sold in 2021 and a video of the property can be seen on YouTube.

Pipewell Hall is between Market Harborough, Corby and Kettering. It is two miles from Rushton Hall, now a hotel, and eight miles from Kelmarsh Hall, which once had a de Crespigny connection and now displays several de Crespigny family portraits.

Harry and Gwen had three children: Mildred born 1892, Arthur born 1894, and Gwendoline born 1900.

On 28 February 1893 Gwen attended the Queen’s Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace. Her dress was widely described in the newspapers, with a report even appearing in Queensland. The Rockhampton ‘Capricornian‘ wrote:

Very effective and most successful was the Japanesque Court costume worn by Mrs. Holden de Crespigny, that is to say, Japanesque as to material, for the style was strictly modern English. The train was of white brocade made in Japan, the design a large floral one. At the corner of the left side it was trimmed back and faced with a piece of embroidery in golden thread, having a similar design to that in the brocade, raised from the surface in the rich metal. The dress was a very beautiful one, in soft Japanese satin, draped and trimmed with rare old lace.

There are several pictures of the Queen’s Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace that year. Sad to say, I haven’t found one of Gwen.

From The Graphic 11 March 1893 page 7 retrieved through British Library Newspapers

From The Graphic 20 May 1893 page 18 retrieved through British Library Newspapers

From The Graphic 13 May 1893 page 15 retrieved through British Library Newspapers

Related post

• Great expectations – disappointed

Wikitree:

• George Harrison Champion Crespigny (1863 – 1945)
• Gwendoline Blanche (Clarke-Thornhill) Champion de Crespigny (1864 – 1923)

N is for Norfolk sampler

A typical Norfolk field in summer with poppies and daisies in abundance. Taken near Fring.

All Saints’ church in Fring from the driveway to Church Farm.

My husband Greg says he has a great number of great aunts.

One, a 3rd great, was Ellen Claxton nee Jackson, born in Fring, Norfolk in 1791 or 1792. In 1817 Ellen married William Claxton in Docking, a mile to the north, also a small and undistinguished village (which Wikipedia delicately notes ‘has experienced no noteworthy historical events peculiar to itself’).

St Mary’s church in Docking

Aerial view over Docking, Norfolk, Great Britain in 2015

William Claxton was a shepherd and agricultural labourer who, caught up in Wesleyan revivalism, became a Primitive Methodist preacher. Ellen was one of his converts. The Claxtons moved to Wolferton in 1820. William and Ellen Claxton had at least six children. She died in 1875, he in 1859. (One of Ellen’s sisters was Greg’s 3rd great grandmother, Sarah Ann Plowright nee Jackson (1797 – 1864).)

In 1806, and probably often enough in other years, for the craft generated a small cash income, Ellen Elizabeth Jackson embroidered a sampler, a piece of embroidery worked in various stitches as a specimen of skill, often decorated with letters of the alphabet and a motto or verse.

Some years ago a family historian from Georgia, USA, told me that information about a sampler by Ellen Elizabeth Jackson had been included in a 2013 book on samplers called Imitation & Improvement: The Norfolk Sampler Tradition, by the American textile historian Joanne Lukasher. There was further information about Ellen Jackson’s work in notes to a 2019 exhibition of samplers by the Lycoming County Historical Society [Pennsylvania]. Gary Parks, its curator, was the owner of the Jackson sampler. He kindly sent me a photograph of it, explaining that, “I purchased the sampler a number of years ago at an antique show. My justification for buying it was that my Mother’s name was ‘Ellen Elizabeth’. It is beautiful needlework.”

NEEDLEWORK SAMPLER- Ellen Elizabeth JACKSON, [Norfolk, England], 18[0]6. Linen gauze with reinforced woolen backing ground, applied silk thread Stitches: Cross stitch, crewelwork- satin and stem. Ellen Jackson’s sampler belongs to a large body of needlework produced in Norfolk, England. The diamond-shaped inner border is one of the elements tying them together, as well as the bouquets of flowers in each corner.
Collection of Gary W. Parks and image used with his permission.

Detail from Ellen’s sampler. As she aged, she apparently became more self-conscious about her age. She deliberately picked out the ‘tens’ digit of the date she produced her sampler.

Most of the samplers included in Joanne Lushaker’s book were produced by girls “descended from the established middle class of skilled and hereditary craftsmen, merchants and entrepreneurs.” There were some examples from the working poor; “needlework, along with harvest work and poultry breeding, was a standard way in which women contributed to the family income”. (The Jacksons would certainly be classed as “working poor”. In the 1841 census Ellen’s father, then 81, was described as an agricultural labourer.)

In Norfolk poor and needy children were educated in charity schools. Part of the curriculum was vocational training, and girls learnt to embroider. Shawls, and other small craft items were sold to raise money for the schools.

The 1812 Annual Report of the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church reported that the village of Fring had a Sunday school attended by 36 children. Ellen, recorded on the 1851 census as a schoolmistress, appears to have gained a broader education, possibly in a larger charity school in the district.

Ellen’s sampler is arranged as a stepped lozenge. The central framing element is common to many Norfolk samplers, with surrounding floral bouquets also a typical design element. The verse embroidered by Ellen, popular in 19th century books of religious verse and Sunday readers, was also used by some other embroiderers.

The verse was included in an Introduction to the English reader; or, A selection of pieces in prose and poetry … with rules and observations for assisting children to read with propriety. The second edition, enlarged and improved, published in 1803:

Love to God produces love to men.

Let gratitude in acts of goodness flow;
Our love to God, in love to man below.
Be this our joy—to calm the troubled breast,
Support the weak, and succour the distrest;
Direct the wand’rer, dry the widow’s tear;
The orphan guard, the sinking spirits cheer.
Tho’ small our pow’r to act, tho’ mean our skill,
God sees the heart;—he judges by the will.

These lines had previously appeared as part of a much longer poem “The Prospect” by C. Whithorne in the 1755 edition of The General Magazine of Arts and Sciences.

At the time of the 1841 census William and Ellen Claxton were living in Wolferton, near Sandringham, 10 miles to the south of Docking. William was a labourer. Five children were living in the household; the older two were a shoemaker and a labourer.

On the 1851 census Ellen is listed as a schoolmistress, her husband William as an agricultural labourer. They lived in Wolferton. Their children had left home.

William died in 1859. The Primitive Methodist Magazine published a long obituary.

In 1861 Ellen was living with her unmarried son Abraham. Her occupation was given as ‘formerly school mistress’. Abraham was described as shoemaker and local preacher. Abraham was a Primitive Methodist like his parents.

In 1871 Ellen was living in Wolferton with her son Abraham, now ‘a shoemaker and coal agent’, and Abraham’s wife. No occupation was given for Ellen on the census.

In 1875 Ellen Claxton died in Wolferton. She was eighty-three. For the times, hers had been a long life, a long struggle with poverty an hardship. Even so, Ellen’s embroidery is a reminder that prettiness can be found in strange places and small things; we can only hope that she was rewarded from time to time by the joy that comes of creating something beautiful.

St Peter’s church in Wolferton

Fring, Docking and Wolferton in Norfolk. Map also shows King Lynn and the Sandringham estate.

Wikitree: Ellen Elizabeth (Jackson) Claxton (abt. 1792 – 1875)

M is for Merseyside – 1854 departure of the “Dirigo”

On 10 June 1854, some two years after the death of her husband Kenneth Budge, my 3rd great grandmother Margaret Budge née Gunn (1819 – 1863) married for a second time, to Ewan Rankin (1825- ?), a carpenter in Wick in the far north of Scotland.

Soon afterwards she and her new husband, with the four surviving children of her first marriage, made the long journey—nearly five hundred miles—from Wick to Liverpool, planning to emigrate from there to South Australia.

The family sailed as assisted immigrants, passengers whose fare was paid by a Government body.

McMinn, W. K. 1852, Emigration depot at Birkenhead Illustrated London News, 10 July 1852 retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-135889210

They embarked on the new emigrant ship Dirigo, launched that year in New Brunswick, Canada. She was 1282 tons, owned by Coltart and Co, and registered in Liverpool.

In light of what unfolded we are fortunate in having quite detailed records of this voyage of the Dirigo, much of it correspondence between officers in the Colonial Land and Emigration Office; some of it even tabled in the House of Commons.

The Dirigo got off to a bad start:

“She was to have been ready for the reception of her emigrants at noon on Friday, the 24th June, but owing to various delays, the whole of her passengers could not be embarked before the 3rd of July ; and although moved into the Mersey on the 29th June, she could not, from the rainy and tempestuous weather, finally sail until the 6th July.

“At the final muster of the emigrants on the 4th of July, when the sailing orders were delivered, the number on board was equal to 426 statute adults [passengers over the age of 12] ; and with the exception of diarrhoea among children (a very common complaint in emigrant ships at starting), and the case of an emigrant named Nottage, who was recovering from an attack of the same malady, all the people answered to their names, and were to all appearance in good health.”

On 7 July Captain Trevillick telegraphed the owners:

“From Trevellick, Queenstown, to William Coltart, Son & Co.,
Chapel-street, Liverpool. SATURDAY —Ship “ Dirigo,” from Cork ; three deaths; seven cases cholera; two cases fever. Expect to see or hear from you. (Reply by magnetic telegraph.)”

William L Echlin, Surgeon Superintendant of the Dirigo wrote to the Emigration Officer at Dublin:

Sir, Ship “Dirigo,” Cove of Cork, 8 July 1854, 5 A. M. IT is my painful duty to inform you that sickness of a very serious nature has broken out on board the ship “ Dirigo,” Captain Trevellick, commander, which sailed from Liverpool on Thursday the 6th instant at 1.30 p. m. About this time, a girl aged 13 years, was reported ill; she was promptly attended and every attention was paid to her, but she expired about 3 p. m. Her father, who was in attendance upon her, sickened and expired upon the following night at 8 p. m. On the 7th instant, about 7 p. m., cholera appeared on the lower deck, attacking two men, one single and the other married. At 11.30 p. m. another case presented itself on the poop deck.
On the 8th instant, between the hours of 2.30 a. m. and 5 a. m., three other cases appeared, two amongst the single women, and one on the lower deck. There are also two cases of fever, but I am happy in stating they are progressing favourably. It is almost impossible that those persons suffering from cholera can recover. 
Under such circumstances as the above, I have considered it prudent to order the ship into Cork, with the hope of having the sick promptly removed, so that the health of the remaining passengers may be insured. I trust that the urgent necessity of the case will be sufficient excuse for the order I have given.”

On 8 July the Dirigo arrived in Cork. The Government Emigration Officer advised the Colonial Land and Emigration Office that he had landed the sick, but had no means of landing the healthy passengers. When inspecting the ship with the medical examiner of emigrants, the Government Emigration Officer found 7 dead and 19 persons were in confirmed cholera, and more than half the passengers suffering from diarrhoea and premonitory symptoms. The Government Emigration Officer sent the Dirigo back immediately to Liverpool, in tow of the Minerva steam ship, as he believed the passengers would be provided with accommodation of a better description and at an earlier period than could be effected if they stayed in Cork.

The Dirigo arrived back in Liverpool on the morning of 10 July. It was towed to the dock gates at Birkenhead. The authorities there, however, were reluctant to allow the emigrants, sick or healthy, to be re-landed. There had been three more deaths and there were likely to be more before night. There were about 100 cases with cholera or with premonitory symptoms. There was much alarm among the passengers. At 1 am on 11 July 300 of the healthy emigrants were eventually brought ashore in a steamer to the depot.

“... large fires at both ends of the dining hall having been previously lighted, and tea already made to serve them. The thankfulness of these people at finding themselves once more in the depôt, and as they said, out of danger, more than repaid the anxiety of those engaged in attending their wants.”

McMinn, W. K. 1852, Government Emigrants’ Mess-Room in the Emigration depot at Birkenhead Illustrated London News, 10 July 1852 retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-135889210

At 3am on 13 July a second party of 65 emigrants were landed leaving 20 on the ship who were sick or convalescent. These were landed the following night.

C. Stuart Bailey of the Colonial Land and Emigration Office who was in Liverpool wrote:

“I did not, however, overlook, while attending to my other duties, the importance of carrying out the Commissioner's instructions to induce the people to take daily walking exercise in the country. On several occasions I took parties of women and children to spend part of the day in the park, adjoining Birkenhead, regaling them with cakes and milk ; at another time, I hired half a dozen spring carts, and conveyed the whole of the people, men, women, and children, a few miles into the country ; giving them, in addition to their usual rations, which we took with us, a liberal supply of cakes and milk, and a small allowance of beer for the men ; and still further to encourage them to take exercise in the open air, away from the town, a notice was posted at the depôt, that such as might desire it should have cooked rations for the whole day served out to them in the morning.”

Ewan Rankin was among 118 passengers who signed a memorial concerning the cholera outbreak. Although they had made a number of complaints in the memorial, many of those who signed re-embarked and continued their journey to Australia. The Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners investigated and settled their complaints before sending the Dirigo to sea again.

Fifty-seven people from the Dirigo died of cholera from 8 July to 9 August.

The Dirigo left the Mersey at 7 p.m. on 9 August to continue her voyage to Adelaide. All her passengers were reportedly in good health and spirits. The voyage was more than a month delayed in setting off but the passengers had been ashore for four weeks recuperating from their ordeal.

The Dirigo . . . Arrived from Liverpool on the 22nd November, after a passage of 107 days. She landed 482 immigrants. Fourteen deaths and twelve births took place at sea. This ship arrived in a very excellent order. The cleanliness, general management and discipline of the people reflected the highest credit on Mr. W.L. Echlin, the surgeon-superintendent.

South Australian Government Gazette 1855.

At the same time the Dirigo was having trouble with cholera, another emigrant ship, the Bloomer, was leaving Liverpool. Amongst the emigrants were the Ralph family, ancestors of Greg. The Bloomer left Liverpool on 20 July but had to leave from Liverpool, on the other side of the Mersey, rather than Birkenhead because of the cholera at Birkenhead. The Bloomer arrived in Portland, Victoria on 21 November 1854 after a voyage of 124 days.

In reading the correspondence about the cholera outbreak on the Dirigo I was impressed by the efficiency of the officials dealing with the Dirigo cholera outbreak and struck by their kindheartedness. I was particularly touched by the conclusion of a report prepared on 10 August by C. Stuart Bailey, the Commissioners’ Despatching Officer at the Birkenhead Depot, an officer of the Colonial Land and Emigration Office:

"I have much gratification in pointing to the success which attended these simple efforts to promote the healthful recreation and amusement of these people; for instead of leaving, en masse, dispirited and discontented, long before the time came for a general muster preparatory to re-embarkation, good health, good spirits, and confidence were restored, and the number of those who had returned to their homes, instead of being 250, as at first threatened, did not exceed 50 adults altogether ; that is to say, the number in adults of the original passengers who re-embarked was about 300."

We smile condescendingly at Dickens’ portrayal of Victorian bureaucratic tanglements—Little Dorrit‘s Circumlocution Office is an example—so it is useful to be reminded that our forefathers were also very capable of doing things well.

Related posts

• Margaret Gunn (1819 – 1863)
• The death of Kenneth Budge (1813 – 1852) – Captain Budge died of cholera
• B is for Bookmark
• B is for the barque Bloomer arrived 1854

Further reading

• SHIPPING REPORT. (1854, November 1). The Hobart Town Advertiser (Tas.), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article264615098
• Accounts and Papers of the House of Commons, Volume 46. Emigrant Ship Dirigo: Correspondence between Officers in Charge of Emigration Depot at Birkenhead, and Colonial Land and Emigration Coms. in relation to outbreak of cholera on board emigrant ship Dirigo. Retrieved through Google Books.

Wikitree:

• Ewan Rankin (abt. 1825 – aft. 1863)
• Margaret (Gunn) Rankin (1819 – 1863)

L is for Lewes Priory

Richard, 3rd Earl of Arundel, 8th Earl of Surrey (c. 1314 – 24 January 1376) was an army commander and admiral who served under King Edward III (1312 – 1377, reigned from 1327).

Arundel fought in Scotland during the Second War of Scottish Independence and in France during the Hundred Years’ War. In 1337, he was made joint commander of the English army in the north, and the next year its sole commander. Between 1340 and 1342 he fought with the title Admiral in the 1340 naval Battle of Sluys. In 1345 Arundel was made Admiral of the Western Fleet. He was one of the three principal English commanders at the Battle of Crécy in 1346.

Battle of Crécy between the English and French in the Hundred Years’ War. The victorious English are on the right. From an illuminated manuscript of Jean Froissart’s Chronicles.
Image retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.

Arundel was still in military service towards the end of his life; in 1375 he was involved in the destruction of the harbour of Roscoff in Brittany.

Arundel married twice. His first marriage was annulled by Pope Clement VI on 4 December 1344 on the grounds that he had been underage and unwilling. His second marriage, in 1345, was to Eleanor of Lancaster (1318 – 1372), widow of John de Beaumont, 2nd Lord Beaumont (died 1342). Eleanor had one son by her first marriage and five children by her second marriage.

Eleanor died in 1372 and was buried in Lewes Priory. In 1375, a sculpture for her tomb and that of her husband, carved by the master mason Henry Yevele, was shipped from Poole Harbour in Dorset to London, then transported to Lewes. Arundel probably saw the completed effigies before his death.

Arundel Tomb in Chichester Cathedral

He died on 24 January 1376 at Arundel Castle, aged about 61, and was buried in Lewes Priory. Arundel wrote his will on 5 December 1375, a few weeks before his death, asking to be buried at Lewes Priory next to his wife ‘Alianore de Lancastre’ and he left specific instructions that his tomb in the Chapter House of Lewes should not be higher than that of his wife.

Richard Earl of Arundel and Surrey, at Arundel Castle, December 5, 1375.
My body to be buried in the Chapter-house of the Priory at Lewes, near to the tomb of Eleanor de Lancaster, my wife; and I desire that my tomb be no higher than hers ; that no men at arms, horses, hearse, or other pomp, be used at my funeral, but only five torches, with their morters, as was about the corpse of my wife, be allowed ; and that no more than D marks be expended thereon.

Nicholas Harris. ”Testamenta Vetusta”, Vol I, 1826, page 94

[D Marks = 500 marks = £333 which would be worth at least £200,000 today]

At the time of Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries from the mid 1530s, the sculpture of Arundel and Eleanor was saved and moved from Lewes Priory to Chichester Cathedral. The earliest certain record of its presence there dates from 1635. Only the monument, without the bodies, was moved when the priory was dissolved. The bodies of Richard and Eleanor were not reinterred. The Priory is now in ruins.

Lewes Priory in 2017

Map showing places associated with the Arundel monument

Unfortunately there is no unbroken chain of transmission beyond this, and the popular belief that the Chichester sculpture is that of Arundel and his wife Eleanor has no certain basis.

The cathedral carvings have no names, and the attribution is based on the lion on the knight’s crest and the style of his armour (which is very similar to the armour on the effigy of Edward, the Black Prince, who died in 1376 and is memorialised in Canterbury Cathedral.)

In 1635 a Lieutenant Hammond of the military company in Norwich wrote of Chichester Cathedral in an account of a tour to the south and west of England:

In the North Ile by the wall lyeth a Prince in Armour, who (as they say) liv’d i the woods in Edward 3d time, with a Lion at his Feet, and his Lady by him.

A Relation of a Short Survey of the Western Counties : made by a lieutenant of the military company in Norwich in 1635

In 1820 James Dalloway, the English antiquarian, wrote in “A history of the western division of the county of Sussex” :

The man has the sharp conical helmet and the chain gorget, and on his surcoat a lion rampant. Such were worn by Richard Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel, in the early part of that reign, and to whom a coenotaph was erected in the chapel of Lewes Abbey;. Might it not have been brought here at the suppression, and then so divided for convenience of space.

Chichester Cathedral. Northern Aisle. Drawn by H. Brown and engraved by B. Winlkles. From Winkles’s Architectural and Picturesque Illustrations of the Cathedral Churches of England and Wales volume 2 page 36 published 1838.

By the 19th century, the Arundel effigies had become badly mutilated, and were separated, with the knight placed against the north wall of the Cathedral and the woman at his feet. In 1843 the sculptor Edward Richardson (1812–1869) was commissioned to restore them. His restoration is regarded as faithful to the original pose.

The stone used for the monument is very soft, and in the 1980s the effigies were again showing signs of decay.

The Chichester Cathedral memorial effigies supposedly depicting Arundel and his wife Eleanor are the subject of a 1956 poem by Philip Larkin “An Arundel Tomb”, which begins:

Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd –
The little dogs under their feet.

The last stanza, with all Larkin’s wistful, hopeless (and, some would say, posturing and very funny) pessimism on show in its final lines, reads:

The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

Richard and Eleonor were my 18th great grandparents. I am descended from them by 177 different paths. (Many many people, of course, are descended from the couple.)

Source:

• Foster, Paul; Brighton, Trevor; Garland, Patrick (1987). An Arundel Tomb. Otter Memorial Paper. Vol. 1. Chichester: Bishop Otter College Trustees. ISBN0-948765-29-1.

Wikitree:

• Richard (FitzAlan) de Arundel (abt. 1314 – 1376)
• Eleanor (Plantagenet) de Arundel (1318 – 1372)

I is for Ilmenau

The third wife of my fourth great grandfather Rowland Mainwaring was a part-Austrian woman named Laura Maria Julia Walburga Chevillard (b.~1811). Her house in Bournemouth was called ‘Ilmenau‘, after a small town near Weimar, where Laura had spent much of her childhood.

Laura Maria Julia Walburga Chevillard was born about 1811 in Prague. She was the daughter of an Austrian woman (about whom I know almost nothing) and Florian Chevillard, an officer in the army of Napoleon.

When Flora’s father Florian Chevillard, an officer in the army of Napoleon, died in Spain about in 1812, Laura was adopted by Caroline Jagemann (1777 – 1848), a notable German tragedienne and singer.

Caroline Jagemann was the mistress of Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, who raised her to the nobility as Freifrau (Baroness) von Heygendorff. He bequeathed her one of his properties, the ‘Heygendorf‘ manor. Caroline had three children by Karl August. Laura Chevillard was brought up with one of these, Marianne (1812 – 1836).

Caroline von Heygendorff born Jagemann portrayed in the role of Portia in the Merchant of Venice. 1828 portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

The house in Weimar at Herderplatz 16 where Caroline Jagemann lived from 1806 to 1848 and where Laura Chevillard grew up.
Photograph by Krzysztof Golik – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

One of the first teachers of Laura and Marianne was a Weimar French fashion entrepreneur named Marie Iffernet. When Laura was 14 she and Marianne attended a Strasbourg boarding school from 1826 to 1828.

In 1830 Laura was living in Mannheim with her adopted mother Baroness von Heygendorff and the three children of the Baroness. 

Joseph Maximilian Kolb: Mannheim, market square with town hall and St. Sebastian’s Church. Steel engraving, coloured.

Laura met Rowland Mainwaring at Mannheim. A retired naval captain and widower, Mainwaring had travelled to Germany for the education of his younger children. He became acquainted with Laura at a Christmas party hosted by one of her adopted mother’s relatives.

Rowland and Laura were married on 11 November 1836 at Frankfurt by the Rev. Mr. Lindsay at the Hotel de Russie, the residence of the British Ambassador. Laura was Rowland Mainwaring’s third wife. Rowland was 54 and Laura about 25. They had eight children:

•    Karl Heinrich August Mainwaring 1837–1906
•    Randolph Mainwaring 1839–1902
•    Eugene George Henri Mainwaring 1841–1911
•    Laura Chevillard Mainwaring 1843–1843
•    Frederic Mainwaring 1844–1922
•    Guy Mainwaring 1847–1909
•    Horatio Mainwaring 1848–1913
•    Algernon Mainwaring 1852–1926

In 1837 Rowland Mainwaring applied for Laura’s denization. Denization gave foreigners certain rights normally enjoyed only by the King’s (or Queen’s) subjects, including the right to hold land. Mainwaring wished to settle 500 pounds per annum upon his wife on his decease; this would not have been possible had she not received Letters of Denization.

At the time of the censuses of 1841, 1851, and 1861, Laura was living at Whitmore Hall with a dozen servants, her husband and some of her younger children.

Rowland died in 1862.

Laura with her youngest son Algernon probably about 1862

In the 1871 census Laura was living at 68 Castle Street, Reading, Berkshire, with one female servant, Katherina Freyberger, age 24, born in Bavaria, who was described as a lady’s maid. Katharina was still with Laura 10 years later in 1881. By then Laura, aged 70, was an annuitant, living in Weimar Lodge, Craven Road, Reading. There were two servants in the household: Catherine Freyburger, aged 34, now described as maid and domestic servant, and Sarah Mansell, age 27, born Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, the cook.

Laura’s home at 22 Craven Road Reading was named ‘Weimar Lodge’. Laura had spent much of her childhood at Weimar, the home of her adopted mother’s lover and where her mother was director of the theatre. The site of Weimar Lodge is now part of Reading Hospital.

Laura died on 17 March 1891 in Bournemouth.

Her will, that of Louisa [a transcription error for ‘Laura’? ] Maria Walburga Julia Mainwaring was proved at the Principal Registry on 28 April by her son the Reverend Algernon Mainwaring of Ilmenau, Bournemouth. She was described as formerly of Whitmore Hall, Staffordshire, but late of Ilmenau, Knyveton Road, Bournemouth in the county of Southampton.

At the time of the 1891 census, shortly after Laura’s death, Laura’s son Algernon, 38, an Anglican priest, was head of the household, residing at Knyveton Road, Bournemouth. Living with him was his brother Randolph, a widower aged 51, described as a journalist. The household had three servants, two of them Bavarians.

Ilmenau is a town in Thuringia, 60 kilometres south of Weimar. From 1800, it was the favourite resort of the German poet and writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832).

Ilmenau and Umgebungen
Taken from nature and drawn on wood by Herm. Heubner in Leipzig.
Image from page 474 of journal Die Gartenlaube, 1873. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

It is interesting to note that Goethe was the godfather of Caroline Jagemann’s oldest son Carl. Goethe’s portrait was painted several times by Ferdinand Jagemann, the brother of Caroline Jagemann, Laura’s adopted mother. Goethe was a close associate of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Karl August, Caroline Jagemann’s lover.

Map of places associated with the life of Laura

Further reading

• The lost manuscripts of a blue jacket. By Rowland Mainwaring. 1850. page 227 retrieved through Google Books
• Selbstinszenierungen im klassischen Weimar by Caroline Jagemann. Volume 1. page 622 retrieved through Google Books and footnote 278 page 832 retrieved through Google Books

Related posts

• Trove Tuesday: Obituary for Admiral Mainwaring
• Some posts about some of Laura’s children:
  • X is for destruction of a piratical fleet near Xiānggǎng (Hong Kong)
  • Z is for zealous in New Zealand
  • D is for Dartmouth: Guy Mainwaring and the beagle pack
  • Trove Tuesday: Cricket and the Duke of Edinburgh’s visit in 1867

Wikitree: Laura Maria Julia Walburga (Chevillard) Mainwaring (abt. 1812 – 1891)