Living statues

14 Sunday May 2023

Posted by Anne Young in London, Mainwaring

A year ago, in August, I wrote about two of my great-great grand-aunts, Alice Moore née Mainwaring (1852-1878) and Julia Wilkinson née Mainwaring (1857-1907), who in 1874 appeared in Shakespearean tableaux vivant, static ‘living pictures’ with live models.

Miss Alice Mainwaring of Whitmore appeared as Portia from ‘The Merchant of Venice’ in tableaux arranged by James Sant, a Royal Academy portraitist. Julia Mainwaring appeared as Juliet in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ tableaux arranged by Edward Matthew Ward, also a member of the Royal Academy. In April 1874 Alice was 21 and Julia was 17.

Today I was contacted with more information about these tableaux by a researcher with the ‘Shakespeare in the Royal Collection’, a project funded by the British Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). This project concerns the Shakespeare-related holdings of the Royal Collection, primarily from the period 1714-1945.

The tableaux staged in 1874 were photographed by Alexander Bassano (1829-1913), a society photographer of the late nineteenth century. There are twenty-eight albumen prints of these tableaux in the Royal Collection.

The Shakespearean tableaux vivants were performed on 21 and 22 April 1874 in a small theatre at Cromwell House in South Kensington, the home of Charles James and Eliza Freake, to raise money for the National Orphan Home and the Victoria Hospital for Sick Children. The scenes were presented by noted artists, including the Pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais. There was music too, with original compositions by Arthur Sullivan. Henry Irving gave dramatic recitations. The guests of honour were the Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, and the newly-wed Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, Prince Alfred and his wife the Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia.

The album of prints came into the Royal Collection from the collection of Prince Alfred, quite likely presented to him as a memento of the event to which he and his wife had given their patronage.

Scene from The Merchant of Venice: “What find I here, fair Portia’s counterfeit.”

A group of four performers recreating a scene from The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, scene 2. They are Alice Mainwaring as Portia, Sarah Fanny Sant as Nerissa, Arthur Ram as Bassanio and Alfred J. de Sterne as Gratiano. The tableau depicts the moment when Bassanio successfully passes the casket test by locating Portia’s miniature. Bassanio is on one knee, studying the miniature; Portia stands behind him with her hands clasped, perhaps in prayer, while Gratiano and Nerissa observe. Like the other tableaux in this set, this scene includes some elaborate early modern costumes, but this scene uses a backdrop and furniture resembling a Victorian interior, and Portia’s costume combines a mixture of Victorian and Renaissance fashions.

Scene from The Merchant of Venice: “This house, these servants and this same myself are yours, my lord”

A group of four performers recreating a scene from The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, scene 2. They are Alice Mainwaring as Portia, Sarah Fanny Sant as Nerissa, Arthur Ram as Bassanio and Alfred J. de Sterne as Gratiano. The caption directs primary attention to Bassanio and Portia on the right hand side: Bassanio is on one knee, holding Portia’s hands and evidently proposing marriage. To the left, Gratiano and Nerissa are apparently engaged in a different kind of negotiation: Gratiano leans in eagerly, one hand rested on Nerissa’s shoulder, while she recoils and fends him off with both hands.

Scene from The Merchant of Venice: “How far that little candle throws its beam…”

Sarah Fanny Sant and Alice Mainwaring posing as Nerissa and Portia from The Merchant of Venice Act 5, scene 1. Both figures are elaborately costumed; Portia wears a voluminous travelling cloak and Nerissa is clutching a book. Portia gestures towards the left of the frame. Behind the figures, a trompe-l’oeil backdrop portrays the exterior of a large house.

These three tableaux were ‘arranged’ by the Royal Academician James Sant, who was well known for his portraits of women and children.

The Daily Telegraph of 21 April 1874 reported: “In Mr. Sant’s scenes from “The Merchant of Venice” the colouring is once more most effective, and there will be praise in store for the Portia of Miss Alice Mainwaring of Whitmore, and the most effective Jessica of Miss Tennant.”

Scene from Romeo and Juliet: “Do thou but close our hands with holy words”

G.V. Boyle, Julia Mainwaring and Colonel Henry Armytage posing as Romeo, Juliet and Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet Act 2, scene 6—the wedding scene. The young lovers kneel facing one another and holding hands, while the friar stands over them with his hands over them in blessing. All three figures wear sixteenth-century costume. Behind them, a trompe-l’oeil backdrop suggests the interior of a stone building, with sunlight beaming through a window.

Scene from Romeo and Juliet: “Take thou this phial”

Julia Mainwaring and Colonel Henry Armytage posing as Juliet and Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet Act 4, scene 1. Juliet sits on a bench, one hand clutched to her chest in alarm, as the friar, standing, passes her the potion that will allow her to appear dead.

The Daily Telegraph commented “An innovation has been suggested by Mr. E. M. Ward, R.A., by clothing his Juliet in startling colours of green and orange, instead of the conventional white satin: but the scenes from the well-known play were heartily applauded and appreciated.”

These two tableaux were ‘arranged’ by the Royal Academician Edward Matthew Ward, an artist specialising in historical and genre painting. He had painted two pictures of scenes from Romeo and Juliet and the tableaux reproduced these paintings.

“Romeo And Juliet Before Friar Lawrence”

I am pleased to have more information about these tableaux and the photographs to add to my posts of August last year.

240th birthday of Rowland Mainwaring

31 Saturday Dec 2022

Posted by Anne Young in Devon, London, Mainwaring, Wedding

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My fourth great grandfather Rowland Mainwaring (1782 – 1862) was born 240 years ago on 30 December 1782, two days before the end of the year. He married, at the age of 28, on the last day of 1810.

Some records give Rowland’s date of birth as 31 December 1783. However, his baptism, at St George Hanover Square, recorded on 18 January 1783, gives his date of birth as 30, that is, 30 December 1782. Two pages earlier in the register, the month of December is shown as 1782, with the register dates conforming with the new style of dating adopted in England in 1752, when the start of a new year was changed from Lady Day (25 March) to 1 January.

Rowland Mainwaring joined the Royal Navy at the age of 12 and saw continuous service from 1795 to the end of 1810, when he took leave to marry. This was followed by eight months of half-pay. At the time of his marriage he was a lieutenant with the Narcissus.

His bride was Sophia Duff (c. 1790 – 1824), whom he met at a picnic in Devonport, near Plymouth, on 11 July 1808. They became engaged two years later, in November 1810, and were married on 31 December at Stoke Damerel (now part of Plymouth). In “The First Five Years of My Married Life”, which he published in 1853, Mainwaring described their meeting as love at first sight.

Stoke Damerel Church, the Church of St Andrew with St Luke, from an 18th century etching. In the 19th century, after the Mainwarings’ wedding, the church was renovated including a clock being added to the tower in 1811, the rebuilding of the chancel in 1868 and a restoration in 1883. Image from https://plymouthhistoryfestival.com/2020/05/28/reverend-edward-blackett/

Devon Marriages And Banns retrieved through FindMyPast

From The First Five Years of My Married Life by Rowland Mainwaring, 1853, pages 21-25:

It was on a cold winter's morning, at the earliest possible hour of December 31st, 1810, that our marriage took place, at the retired village Church of Stoke Damarel, just one short mile distant.

It was of the most unassuming and simple description.

Bride maids were dispensed with; white favours, to call public attention, those emblems of a man's wisdom or folly, (as the case may be,) which one sees now and then on such occasions, were especially prohibited; in short, we endeavoured to steal away unobserved; and certainly, neither our dresses or retinue bespoke a bridal party.

My Wife, attired in a dark riding habit, and close cottage bonnet, ready, if needs must, to travel to the world's end with me, and myself in a non-descript costume, half naval, half civil, with the contents of my wardrobe packed in a kind of sea chest, indicated neither wealth or ostentation.

Two post chaises, (wretched vehicles,) which every one who travelled in those days, not possessing the luxury of their own carriage, must remember, formed the interesting cortége, and conveyed us to the church door; one contained the good old Admiral Kelly, with the bride, (who officiated in the absence of her Father; ) the second, myself and the Lady's maid, under the travelling name of “Kitty Rags,” a plain unsophisticated kind of being, wife of a Boatswain's Mate in the Andromache, (or, as she used to call her, the Andrew Mac,) a first class frigate, commanded by my wife's step-father, then at sea.

In this vehicle, after the ceremony, were we launched, for better for worse, into the great uncertain matrimonial world. What a change, thought I.

The battles, the hurricanes, and heaven knows the host of incidents which all sailors partake of, more or less, in their professional career, sank into insignificance, as I drew a comparison and looked back on my bachelor life on ship board. And thus we rattled along, (in every sense of the word,) from stage to stage.

Three days brought us to London, the last of which lay across Bagshot heath. It was late in the evening, and quite dark. I had heard a great deal about robberies, and such like unpleasant incidents on Bagshot, and other heaths in the vicinity of London, and concluding (as a matter of course) that we should be robbed, a consultation was held, how, or in what way we should conceal our valuables ; not that we had many to lose, still what we had were worth preserving, and Kitty Rags undertook to stow away our watches.

Where she put them I had not the most distant idea, but she assured us they were perfectly safe, and I thought it unnecessary to make further inquiries. However, good honest Kitty and ourselves were spared the painful operation of a search, and at a late hour we drove up to the Adelphi Hotel, in the Strand, happy in having arrived so far towards our destination without accident or mishap. I had been particularly recommended to this Hotel, as one of a fashionable and first-rate description; and really, if enormous charges constitute fashion, we had arrived at the right place; but the locality did not appear to me very first-rate, and in a few days we cut and run to more suitable lodgings, that is to say, better suited to the confined state of our finances.

Never was poor amphibious creature more out of his element than myself ; scarcely had I passed a month ashore than my heart yearned for the sea, and although I was as happy as mortal could wish, I longed to be again pacing the quarter deck. Such is the perverseness of human nature. I soon became tired of the great Metropolis, had seen all there was to be seen, whereupon we weighed anchor, left our lodgings, and started for the country.

We had many invitations, and many kinsfolk to whom I wished to introduce my wife, and between whom we passed the first six months of my married life. It was at one of these hospitable houses that I underwent the process of Christianizing, (if I may so express myself,) for I was told that really I was but an elder species of unlicked cub, quite unacquainted with men and manners, scarcely advanced beyond a cockpit education, and that, occasionally, I made use of expressions very offensive to ears polite, and, therefore, it was actually necessary I should be taken in hand, polished up and reformed. I had an entire new outfit from a first-rate Northampton tailor; my old sea chest was exchanged for a handsome travelling trunk, and the odour of pitch and tar, with which my clothes were dreadfully impregnated, in process of time, by the friendly aid of soap and soda, completely purified.

Mainwaring and Sophia travelled to London for their honeymoon. The coach took three days; they were a little concerned about being robbed on the way.

Their first London hotel was the Adelphi, but though, Mainwaring said, it had been recommended to them as one of a “fashionable and first-rate description; and really, if enormous charges constitute fashion, we had arrived at the right place…the locality did not appear to me very first-rate, and in a few days we cut and run to a more suitable lodgings, that is to say, better suited to the confined state of our finances.”

[The Adelphi Hotel was located at 1-4 John Street in the Adelphi Buildings designed the Adams brothers in the 1780s. The buildings were demolished in the 1930s.]

*Adelphi from the Thames* in London, etching by Benedetto Pastorini in the collection of the Rijksmuseum

Soon afterwards, tired of London and having “seen all there was to be seen” they left to visit family and friends in the country. They then settled at Stoke, the village they had married in, near Devonport.

After 8 months on half-pay Rowland returned to sea; on 16 August 1811 he was appointed as senior Lieutenant to the Menelaus, a 38-gun fifth rate frigate.

Rowland and Sophia had eight children. She died aged 33 on 11 October 1824 in Bath, two months after the birth of her eighth child.

Portrait of Captain Rowland Mainwaring painted by Mr. John Phillip, afterwards R.A., at Whitmore in May 1841. The portrait of Sophia was also painted in 1841, many years after her death in 1824. Both portraits now hang in Whitmore Hall.

200th birthday of Wentworth Cavenagh 1822 – 1895

13 Sunday Nov 2022

Posted by Anne Young in Cavenagh, Cavenagh-Mainwaring, gold rush, Kent, politics, South Australia

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My great great grandfather Wentworth Cavenagh (1822 – 1895) was born 200 years ago on 13 November 1822 at Hythe, Kent, England to James Gordon Cavenagh and Ann Cavenagh nee Coates, the fifth of their eight children. He was baptised on 12 March 1823 at St Leonard’s, Hythe.

Wentworth’s father James Gordon, born Irish, was a surgeon of the Royal Staff Corps, an army engineering corps with its headquarters in Hythe, responsible in part for supervising the construction of static defence measures including the Royal Military Canal against Napoleon’s threatened invasion.

After their marriage in March 1815, the Cavenaghs lived at Hythe. In 1825 Cavenagh retired on half pay.

The Cavenagh family returned to Wexford in Ireland in 1837 and lived at Castle House. Wentworth Cavenagh attended the Ferns Diocesan School. It is believed he began training as a pharmacist in Wexford, but after the potato famine struck in the 1840s the economy was so bad he realised there was no future for him in Ireland and emigrated.

Wentworth Cavenagh emigrated to Canada, hoping to become a farmer there. He later moved to Ceylon to take up coffee-planting, then to Calcutta where he unsuccessfully sought a Government appointment. In 1852 he sailed from Calcutta to Australia and joined the gold rush to Bendigo then moved to South Australia to farm at Peachey Belt some twenty miles north of Adelaide.

In 1863 Cavenagh was elected to the South Australian House of Assembly for the District of Yatala. He served in the Legislature for nineteen years, including period as Commissioner of Crown Lands from 1868 to 1870 in the Strangways Ministry, and Commissioner of Public Works from 1872 to 1873 in the Administration formed by Sir Henry Ayers. At the time Darwin was surveyed in 1869 Cavenagh was Commissioner of Crown Lands; a main street is named after him.

In 1865 at the age of 42 he married Ellen Mainwaring, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer. They had ten children.

Portrait of Wentworth Cavenagh, from the collection of a cousin

Wentworth Cavenagh returned to England in 1892. On his departure the Adelaide Evening Journal of 27 April 1892 published a brief biography:

PASSENGERS BY THE BALLAARAT.—The following. are the passengers booked to leave Adelaide by the Ballaarat to-day:—For London —Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth Cavenagh-Mainwaring, Misses Eva, May, Kathleen, Helen, Queenie, and Gertrude, and Master Hugh Cavenagh-Mainwaring, and Misses Herring, Schomburgk, and Horn. For Albany—Messrs. Green, Richards, and Radcliffe.

THE HON. WENTWORTH CAVENAGH-MAINWARING.—This gentleman, accompanied by his wife, six daughters, and one son, leaves by the Ballarat to-day for England, where he is about, to take up his residence at Whitmore Hall. He is a son of James Gordon Cavenagh, who was army surgeon in the Royal Staff Corps. He served in the army for thirty-five years, and went all through the Peninsula War. while he was also present at the Battle of Waterloo and the taking of Paris. He was a brother of General Sir Orfeur Cavenagh, K.C.S.I., lately deceased, who served in India in various campaigns, and who, as Town Major of Fort William, is supposed to have saved Calcutta during the mutiny. He was afterwards for several years Governor of the Straits Settlements. Another brother, General Gordon Cavenagh, served in various actions in China and India. The Hon. Wentworth Cavenagh-Mainwaring was born at Hyde, Kent, on November 13, 1822. He was educated at Ferns Diocesan School, County Wexford, Ireland, and when eighteen years of age he left home for Canada, where he was engaged for some years farming. He subsequently relinquished this occupation and started coffee planting in Ceylon. Afterwards he tried to obtain a Government appointment at Calcutta, but was unsuccessful. Attracted by a Government advertisement he came to Australia, arriving in Melbourne in 1852. Thence he went to the Bendigo diggings, and from there he came to South Australia and started farming at Peachy Belt. He stopped there for several years, and in 1863 was elected to Parliament with the late Hon. L. Glyde for the District of Yatala. For nineteen years he remained in the Legislature without a break, and during that period he was Commissioner of Crown Lands in the Strangways Ministry, and Commissioner of Public Works in the Administration formed by Sir Henry Ayers. In the elections of 1881 he was rejected when the Hon. D. Murray and Mr. Gilbert (the present member) were elected On February 16, 1865, he married Ellen Jane, the eldest daughter of Gordon Mainwaring, an officer in the East Indian Civil Service, who was at one time Inspector of Police in the early days of South Australia, and on the death of his father, Admiral Mainwaring, he succeeded to the family estates in Staffordshire. On the death of her brothers without heirs Mrs. Cavenagh-Mainwaring became entitled to the estates and adopted the name and arms of Mainwaring.

Wentworth Cavenagh died at the age of 72 in Southsea. He was buried in Whitmore, Staffordshire.

Wikitree: Wentworth (Cavenagh) Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1822 – 1895)

Crystal Ffinch née Champion de Crespigny 1877 – 1961

29 Sunday May 2022

Posted by Anne Young in CdeC baronets, Essex, World War 1

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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.

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 F f inch

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)

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

02 Monday May 2022

Posted by Anne Young in Cherry Stones, Hughes, Jones, Shrewsbury, Wales

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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.

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.

Wikitree:

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

The unfortunate death of Goodman Hughes

01 Sunday May 2022

Posted by Anne Young in Hughes, Liverpool, Shrewsbury, tuberculosis

≈ 6 Comments

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:

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Wikitree:

Goodman Edward Jones Hughes (1834 – 1847)

Y not Y?

29 Friday Apr 2022

Posted by Anne Young in A to Z 2022, genealogy tools, Hughes, Liverpool, Wales

≈ 9 Comments

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.

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.

F is for Flintshire

Wikitree:

U is for Upton upon Severn

25 Monday Apr 2022

Posted by Anne Young in A to Z 2022, Bath, Champion de Crespigny, England, politics, Somerset

≈ 7 Comments

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.

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.

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

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

21 Thursday Apr 2022

Posted by Anne Young in A to Z 2022, Champion de Crespigny, Northamptonshire

≈ 6 Comments

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.

“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

Great expectations – disappointed

Wikitree:

N is for Norfolk sampler

16 Saturday Apr 2022

Posted by Anne Young in A to Z 2022, education, Norfolk

≈ 10 Comments

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’).

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.

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

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

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