On 15 January 1835, my 3rd great grandparents Daniel Cudmore (1811 – 1891) and Mary Nihill (1811 – 1893) were married, at Drehidtarsrna, County Limerick. On 11 February 1835, less than a month afterwards, the newly-wedded couple, with Mary’s mother and two of her sisters, left Ireland on the John Denniston for Hobart Town, Tasmania. (Mary’s father and her other sisters later joined them there.) Daniel Cudmore applied for a free passage to Australia in 1834 as his means were ‘very limited’. They arrived on 7 June, after a voyage of more than four months.
Daniel Michael Paul Cudmore and his wife Mary probably taken in the 1850s
This sequence—marriage followed immediately by emigration—occurs several times in our family tree.
John Way (1835 – 1911) and Sarah Daw (1837 – 1895), the great great grandparents of my husband Greg, were married at Wendron, Cornwall, on 2 March 1854 and left Plymouth, England as Government or assisted emigrants on the Trafalgar four days later. They arrived in Adelaide on 28 June 1854.
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 five-hundred mile journey from Wick to Liverpool, planning to emigrate from there to South Australia.
The family sailed as assisted immigrants, whose fare was paid by a Government body. The ship Dirigo was to have been ready for the reception of passengers at noon on Friday 23 June, and though this was very soon— within a fortnight—of their marriage I am sure that the Rankins were at Liverpool ready to embark. The voyage did not start as planned (but that is another story: M is for Merseyside – 1854 departure of the “Dirigo”).
Preferred candidates for assisted emigration were “respectable young women trained for domestic or farm service, and young married couples without children.” A shortage of single women in the colonies meant that single men would not be accepted as assisted emigrants “without a corresponding number of young single women of good character to equalize the sexes”. Widowers and widows with young children were also forbidden to apply. In order to become a preferred candidate and gain the benefits, including free passage, of assisted emigration it was definitely an advantage to be married.
In these three cases the marriages lasted the usual term, certainly beyond the journey of emigration, until the death either of the husband or the wife. Although the marriage and emigration may have seemed hasty, the decisions and plans had clearly been carefully made.
Russell, Roslyn & National Library of Australia, (issuing body.) (2016). High seas & high teas : voyaging to Australia. NLA Publishing, Canberra, ACT. page 37.
My great great aunt Helen Rosalie Champion Crespigny, called Rose, was born on 15 October 1858 at Daisy Hill, later known as Amherst, near Talbot, Victoria to Philip Champion Crespigny and Charlotte née Dana, the youngest of their five children.
On 3 February 1876 she married Francis Beggs in Ararat by license, according to the rites of the Church of England. Rose was 17 and her father provided his written consent to the marriage. Rose lived in Ararat, where her father was the Police Magistrate. Francis Beggs was 25, a squatter living at Eurambeen. Eurambeen is about 40 kilometers south-east of Ararat.
Marriage certificate of Francis Beggs and Helen Rosalie Champion Crespigny
BEGGS-CRESPIGNY. — On the 3rd inst., at Christ Church, Ararat, by the Rev. Canon Homan, Francis Beggs, eldest son of Francis Beggs, Esq., of Eurambeen, to Helen Rosalie, third daughter of P. C. Crespigny, Esq., P.M., Ararat.
[The marriage notice seems to be in error. The Anglican Church in Ararat was then known as Trinity Church, later Holy Trinity.]
Photographs from the albums of Rose Beggs née Champion Crespigny and Charlotte Champion Crespigny née Dana. The annotations are
The photograph album compiled by Rose Beggs includes photographs of them taken at the time of their wedding. The photographer was Johnstone, O’Shannessy & Co. of 3 Bourke Street, Melbourne. Perhaps they travelled to Melbourne after the wedding and had their photographs taken then as a memento. Or perhaps a photographer from the studio was visiting Ararat at the time.
Frank died in 1921. Rose Beggs died on 28 March 1937 in North Brighton,Victoria. They had no children.
DEATHS.
BEGGS -On the 28th March at her residence St Marnocks, Hampton street, North Brighton, Helen Rosalie, widow of Francis Beggs, of St Marnocks, Beaufort.
BEAUFORT.-The death occurred at North Brighton of Mrs. Helen Rosalie Beggs, widow of the late Mr. Francis Beggs, the original owner of St. Marnock's Estate, Beaufort. She lived in the district many years and was closely associated with the local branch of the Australian Women's National League. The burial took place in the family burial ground at Eurambeen Estate.
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.
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/
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.]
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.
Today in 1849, 173 years ago, my 3rd great grandparents Philip Robert Champion Crespigny and Charlotte Frances Dana were married at the British Embassy in Paris.
The official residence of the British ambassador to France since 1814 has been the Hôtel de Charost, located at 39 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, just a few doors down from the Élysée Palace. It was built in 1720 and bought by the Duke of Wellington in 1814.
Hôtel de Charost, residence of the British Ambassador, view from the garden. Image retrieved from Wikimedia Commons, photographed by user Croquant in 2010 CC BY-SA 3.0
The National Archives of the UK; Kew, Surrey, England; General Register Office: Foreign Registers and Returns; Class: RG 33; Piece: 69 retrieved through ancestry.com
Philip was recorded as bachelor of Boulogne-sur-mer. Charlotte was a spinster of Albrighton in the County of Salop. Her previous marriage had ended in divorce. This was not mentioned on the registration.
The marriage was performed by Archdeacon Michael Keating, witnessed by a Fred Shanney or Channey. I do not know who he was.
Soon after their marriage Philip and Charlotte Crespigny emigrated to Australia.
Charlotte Frances Champion Crespigny née Dana (1820 – 1904) photographed probably in the late 1850sPhilip Robert Champion Crespigny in 1879
Cerise Boyle née Champion de Crespigny, one of my 5th cousins twice removed, was born on 6 December 1875 in Ringwood, Hampshire. She was the third of nine children and second of four daughters of Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny the fourth baronet and Georgiana Lady Champion de Crespigny née McKerrell.
On 3 August 1899 Cerise married Commander Robert Boyle of the Royal Navy in the fashionable church of St George’s Hanover Square. Robert was a son of the fifth Earl of Shannon and brother of the then present Earl.
The Queen magazine of 12 August 1899 reported the marriage, with illustrations of the wedding gown, bridesmaids’ dresses, and the bride’s travelling dress.
Fashionable Marriages
Boyle-Champion de Crespigny
On the 3rd inst., at St George's Church, Hanover-square, the marriage was solemnised of Commander the Hon. Robert Boyle, R.N., son of the fifth Earl of Shannon, and brother of the present peer, with Cerise, second daughter of Sir Claude and Lady Champion de Crespigny, of Champion Lodge, Heybridge, Essex. The church was prettily decorated with palms and white flowers, and the service was choral. The bride, who was given away by her father, wore a dress of ivory satin Duchesse, the skirt edged with flounces of chiffon arranged in waves ; the bodice had a chiffon fichu and yoke, and sleeves of silver embroidered lace, and old Venetian lace fell from the left side, where it was fastened with orange blossoms. The Court train of handsom Louis XV brocade fell from both shoulders, and her ornaments were pearls. She was attended by four bridesmaids, wearing dresses of pale poudre blue silk voile, the skirts having flounces edged with narrow Mechlin lace ; draped tucked bodices with tucked chiffon collar edged with frills bordered with narrow lace. They carried bouquets of Germania carnations, and wore gold curb bracelets set with turquoises, the gifts of the bridegroom. The officiating clergy were the Rev. Dr Porte, vicar of St. Matthew's Church, Denmark-hill, and the Rev. E. Galdart, rector of Little Braxted, Witham, Essex. Commander C. Craddock, R.N., was best man. After the ceremony a reception was held at 31, Curzon-street, Mayfair, and later the bride and bridegroom left for Scotland, where the honeymoon will be spent. The bride's travelling dress was of pale Parma violet cloth, the bodice having an inner vest of tucked velvet of a paler shade, and applications of guipure lace, and with it was worn a toque of cloth to match, with velvet and black ostrich tips. Lady de Crespigny wore blue crêpe de Chine, with lace appliqué on the skirt and bodice, and toque en suite ; she carried a bouquet of pink carnations.
They had four children. In 1916 a photograph of Cerise and her oldest son appeared in The Sketch. He was 14 and had just joined the navy.
From The Sketch 17 May 1916 page 144
Cerise painted, and her work was exhibited with the Society of Miniaturists in 1901. Among other exhibitions in 1921 and 1937 she exhibited watercolours at Walkers Galleries. In 1945 the Hon. Mrs Robert Boyle raised £115 for King George’s Fund for Sailors from the sale of her water colour sketches exhibited at the University College Buildings in Exeter. Two of her paintings have been sold in recent times. “A Hunter in a Wooded Landscape” painted in 1900 was sold by Christies in December 2012 as part of a collection from the attic of Harewood House. It had been owned by H.R.H. The Princess Mary, Princess Royal, Countess of Harewood (1897-1965) and her husband Henry Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood, (1882-1947). In 2006 Gorringes sold “Portrait of a horse Benedict”.
Benedict by Cerise Boyle
Robert Boyle died in 1922. His obituary in The Times of 12 September 1922 gives an account of his career:
DEATH OF VICE-ADMIRAL,R. F. BOYLE.
DISTINGUISHED SERVICE
Vice-Admiral the Hon. Robert Francis Boyle, M.V.O., R.N., retired, died suddenly yesterday at Harewood House, Leeds. He had been staying with his cousin, the Earl of Harewood, for the last fortnight. A week ago he did not feel very well, and a nurse and a doctor were called in. He was better on Sunday, but yesterday became suddenly worse. During the early part of his stay Admiral Boyle had a good deal-of shooting on Rigton moors with Lord Harewood. Princess Mary and Lord Lascelles were staying at Harewood at the time, and Admiral Boyle was to have been one of the visitors to Doncaster races.
Admiral Boyle was the third son of the fifth Earl of Shannon by his marriage to Lady Blanche Emma Lascelles, daughter of the third Earl of Harewood, and was uncle and heir presumptive to the present Earl of Shannon. Born on December 12, 1863, the late admiral was a half-brother of Captain the Hon. Edward Boyle, R.N., and of Rear-Admiral the Hon. Algernon Boyle, C.B., C.M.G., M.V.O., now Fourth Sea Lord of the Admiralty. Entering the Navy in 1877, he was midshipman of the Minotaur during the Egyptian War of 1882, for which he received the medal and the Khedive's bronze star, and he obtained his promotion to lieutenant in 1886. Selected to qualify in gunnery, he joined, in 1891, as gunnery lieutenant, the Raleigh, flagship at the Cape. From her he was landed for service in Rear-Admiral Bedford's punitive expedition at Bathurst, on the River Gambia, in February, 1894. In this undertaking, for which he was mentioned-in dispatches, he was dangerously wounded, and had been in receipt of a special wound pension from August 1, 1896, until his death. On returning home he was appointed to the Royal yacht Victoria and Albert, and promoted commander from her in 1897. He afterwards commanded the Caledonia, boys' training ship at Queensferry, and was made captain in 1903. He then served as a member of the Cookery Committee appointed by the Admiralty, but from 1905 to 1911 was continuously afloat, commanding during this period the Leviathan, Prince George, Antrim, and Duke of Edinburgh, in home waters and the Mediterranean. From 1911 to 1914 he had charge of the Eastern Coastguard District, with headquarters at Harwich, until promoted to flag rank.
During the early months of the European War he was on half-pay, but in April, 1915, was appointed in command of the Marne patrol area, and remained in the auxiliary patrol service until after the Armistice. Promoted vice-admiral in February, 1910, he retired forthwith, and last year was appointed a nautical assessor to attend the hearing of Admiralty appeals in the House of Lords.
Vice-Admiral Boyle married, in 1899, Cerise, third daughter of Sir Claude Champion-de-Crespigny, and had two sons and two daughters. The elder son, Vivian Francis, entered the Navy during the war and was promoted sub-lieutenant last January.
Cerise died on 7 April 1951 in Kingston, Jamaica, at the age of 75. Her death was announced in The Times of 12 April 1951:
BOYLE.-On April 7 1951, peacefully, in Jamaica, CERISE, wife of the late VICE-ADMIRAL the HON. ROBERT FRANCIS BOYLE, second daughter of Claude Champion de Crespigny, Fourth Baronet, of Drakelow, Virginia Water, Surrey, aged 75 years.
On 10 August 1939 Katherine Lucas, future first wife of my step-grandfather George Symes, embarked on the Strathallan at Port Adelaide, bound for London. At the time, it was widely believed that another war was inevitable, and indeed, scarcely three weeks afterwards, World War II began with Hitler’s invasion of Poland on 1 September and the British response two days later.
ON BOARD the Strathallan yesterday, Mrs. Peter de Peterson passed through Adelaide on her way home to Bombay, after spending three months in Melbourne with her parents, Colonel and Mrs. P. W. Vaughan. Her husband will meet her at Colombo. Travelling in the same ship is Miss K. Lucas, who is bound for England.
Built in the previous year, the Strathallan was one of 5 ‘Strath’ liners designed for the Australia run. They were known as the ‘White sisters’, for P&O had them painted white with buff funnels, a colour scheme made possible by the fuel they used: coal had been replaced by oil, and though black paint had usefully concealed the dirt from coal-smoke, white was clean, modern, and much cooler in the tropics.
RMS Strathallan was the fifth and final vessel of the Strath-class liners, launched in September 1937 with her maiden voyage in March 1938. She was 23,722 gross registered tonnes, 664.5 feet long (202.5m), and could carry for 448 1st Class and 663 Tourist Class passengers.
… on their way to Suez when war was declared and the steamer had to return to Aden and await orders from the Admiralty. They left Aden on 2nd September, and that night all the passengers had to transfer to the first class cabins—as the ship was “all black out” it was rather an ordeal, but the passengers made the best of it and enjoyed the fun of bumping into each other in the dark with their goods and chattels. They had to attend boat drills, first aid classes, wear life belts, carry emergency outfits, practise disappearing below when the air raid and gun warnings were given and not returning until the “all clear” signal sounded. The men passengers, eight on each deck, kept two hourly watch from 6 p.m. until daybreak, the life boats were kept in readiness, and each passenger had his own appointed place therein, so that everything possible had been arranged for their safety.
The Strathallan did not arrive in London until 9 October. When the letter was written, on 12 September, the ship had “been touring continuously without sighting land” for 10 days.
It seems Katherine Lucas may have already disembarked in Bombay in late August, perhaps intending to continue her voyage later or to defer the trip to England because of the anticipated announcement of war.
THE ENGAGEMENT is announced of Miss Katherine Bellairs Lucas, second daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. C. de N. Lucas, of Hyde Park, to Brevet Lieut.-Colonel George William Symes, of York and Lancaster Regiment, India. The marriage will take place in Bombay on December 11.
A WEDDING of interest to Adelaide folk was that of Miss Katherine Bellairs Lucas, daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Claude de Neufville Lucas, formerly of South Australia, which was celebrated at the Afghan Memorial Church, Bombay, India, on December 11.
The bridegroom was Lieut.-Col. G. W. Symes, M.C., York and Lancaster Regiment, attached to the General Staff of Bombay District Headquarters. He is the son of Mrs. G. Symes, of Swanage, Dorset, England.
Vice-Admiral H. Fitzherbert. Flag Officer commanding the Royal Indian Navy, and naval officers and their wives, officers attached to Bombay District Headquarters and military units in the garrison and their wives, the Bishop of Bombay and other friends of the bride and bridegroom filled the church, the sanctuary of which was simply decorated.
The bride walked to the altar on the arm of Major-Gen. G. de C. Glover, officer commanding Bombay District.
She wore a white chiffon dress with long sleeves, a full skirt, with flared godets, and an attached hood coming half-way over the head. She was attended by Mrs. P. de Peterson, who wore a dress similar to the bride’s but ice-blue in color.
The Rev. J. W. F. Ruddell, chaplain of Colaba, officiated.
The bride and bridegroom left the church, under an arch of swords provided by brother officers of the bridegroom.
A reception was held at the Gun House, Colaba, where Major-Gen. Glover proposed the health of the bride and bridegroom.
The honeymoon was spent in Agra and Delhi, and the bride wore a going away frock of powder blue flat crepe.
from a photo album compiled by George Symes. He has captioned the wedding party: Phyl de Peterson, ‘Toots’, Katherine, John Marshall, 11 December 1939
I notice that the bridesmaid, Mrs P de Peterson was mentioned as travelling on the Strathallan at the same time as Katherine.
Philip Champion de Crespigny (1738 – 1803), one of my fifth great grandfathers, married four times. His third marriage was to Clarissa Brooke on 1 July 1774 at St Marylebone. They married by licence with the consent of her father, James Brook(e) of Rathbone Place. She was a minor, of the parish of St Marylebone. Philip was recorded as an Esquire, of Walton upon Thames, County of Surry, widower. He signed his name PC Crespigny. The witnesses were James Brooke and Hester Brooke.
Clarissa Sarah, daughter of James Brooke an engraver, and Esther Brooke nee Bent of Fleet Street in the City of London, was born on 29 April 1755 and baptised on 3 June 1755 at St Bride’s Fleet Street. Clarissa’s mother Esther later left her husband and became an actress.
The Gentleman’s Magazine London, England July, 1774
Clarissa and Philip had four children:
Clarissa (about 1775 – 1836) who married Edward Toker
Maria (1776 – 1858) who married John Horsley
Harry (1777 – ?) baptised 14 August 1777 at Walton-upon-Thames, Surrey and presumably died young
Fanny (1779 – 1865)
Clarissa and two of her daughters were painted in 1780 by George Romney. By 1780 Romney’s portraits, according to Horace Walpole, were ‘in great vogue’. Romney’s diary notes that the painting was oval and he charged fifty pounds.
Fifty pounds in today’s value is around £7,000 ($AUD13,000) when measured as a real price. However it could be valued as the labour earnings of that income or wealth equivalent to £80,000 ($AUD150,000) or looked as relative income value of that income or wealth being £95,000 ($AUD175,000). I think the two latter values more closely measure how much Romney was earning and thus what Philip needed to earn in order to pay him.
Clarissa Champion de Crespigny and two of her children by George Romney. It would seem that the daughters shown are Clarissa born about 1775 and Maria born about 1776. The painting was last sold in 1989 from a private seller to a private buyer through the London dealers Leger Galleries. This image is from a reproduction of the painting and came from Alex Kidson, Research Fellow of the Romney Society.
Clarissa had appointments to sit for the portrait on 14 and 17 April and each of the four days from 13 to 16 June 1780. She cancelled four further appointments around those dates. In his 2015 catalogue of the paintings of George Romney, Alex Kidson notes the unusual landscape oval format and the “subtleness of design in the angling and interlocking of the figures”.
Clarissa died on 15 May 1782 in Palace Yard, Westminster, and was buried at St Marylebone on 22 May. She was twenty-seven years old. A short biographical piece on her father refers to her as an amiable and accomplished lady who died in the prime of life.
Smith, Thomas. (2013). A Topographical and Historical Account of the Parish of St. Mary-Le-Bone, Comprising a Copious Description of Its Public Buildings, Antiquities, Schools, Charitable Endowments, Sources of Public Amusement, &c. London: Forgotten Books. (Original work published 1833) retrieved from http://www.forgottenbooks.org/books/A_Topographical_and_Historical_Account_of_the_Parish_of_St_1000735867 The same obituary appeared elsewhere, for example in the Hampshire Chronicle of 2 November 1807.
From 1600 to 1700 London’s population trebled, from 200,000 to 585,000, outstripping the supply of what was then almost universally held to be an essential element of the city’s infrastructure, enough churches to accommodate worshippers and would-be worshippers, in particular, those of the Established Church of England.
Population estimate of Inner London (Former London County). Figures from http://demographia.com/dm-lon31.htm which in turn obtained pre-1801 data from The London Encyclopedia, Edited by Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert
Early in the next century, in March 1711, the House of Commons considered a report on the estimated population of the London suburbs and the churches available for worship. In the most populous parishes, there was a total of just forty-six churches and chapels for a population of over half a million. It was estimated that only one person in three could find a place in the pews of the Church of England.
On 1 May 1711 the House of Commons resolved “That a Supply be granted to her Majesty for the Build of fifty new Churches, and for purchasing Sites of Churches and Church-Yards, or Burial-Places, and also Houses for the Habitations of the Ministers of the said Churches, in or about the Cities of London and Westminster, or the Suburbs thereof, and for making such Chapels as are already built and capable thereof, Parish-Churches; and also for finishing the Repairs of the Collegiate-Church of St. Peter’s Westminster, and the Chapels of the same.” This was followed up by legislation in 1712 “An Act for granting to her Majesty several Duties upon Coals, for building fifty new Churches, &c.” A Commission was established to oversee the building of the churches.
Building fifty new churches would ease the pressure for places where members of the Church of England could gather to worship and, it was hoped, potential Dissenters would have a reduced incentive to separate from the Established Church. (My Plaisted forebears became Dissenters about this time.)
The Commission did not achieve its target. Only twelve new churches were built, and just five existing churches were rebuilt.
One of the new churches was St George’s Hanover Square. The architect was John James, a pupil of Sir Christopher Wren. James’s neoclassical design, with a portico of six Corinthian columns, set a new trend in English church architecture.
“St George’s Hanover Square,” aquatint, by T. Malton. Dated 1787. From the collection of the British Library retrieved through Wikimedia Commons.
Its location in Mayfair made St George’s Hanover Square the venue for many fashionable weddings. The first entry in the Marriage Register is dated April 30th, 1725. The most weddings in a single year was 1063, in 1816.
On 20 March 1813 my 4th great grandparents Charles Fox Champion Crespigny and Eliza Julia Trent married at St George’s Hanover Square. Charles Fox was twenty-seven. Eliza was a minor of sixteen, and her mother’s consent had to be provided. Charles’s half-brother Philip C Crespigny and Eliza’s brother John Trent were witnesses.
Bishop’s transcript of the marriage of Charles Fox Champion Crespigny and Eliza Julia Trent 20 March 1813 at St George’s Hanover Square. Image retrieved from ancestry.com London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1932
Crespigny Trent marriage announcement in The Suffolk Chronicle; or Weekly General Advertiser & County Express. 8 May 1813 page 4. Retrieved from FindMyPast.
In 1813 weddings were not reported in the newspapers. However, in 1903 when Valerie Champion de Crespigny married Captain John Smiley at St George’s Hanover Square, her dress and the dresses of her six bridesmaids were described in detail.
The 26 November 1903 wedding of Captain John Smiley and Valerie Champion de Crespigny from The Queen 5 December 1903 page 58 retrieved from FindMyPast
In 1917 when Rose Champion de Crespigny née Gordon, a widow, remarried at St George’s Hanover Square, her photo appeared in The Tatler and a wedding photo appeared in a newspaper.
Rose Champion de Crespigny marries William Morrice. Newspaper clipping was being sold on EBay 2020, no other details available.
Ms William Morrice from The Tatler 21 November 1917 retrieved from FindMyPast
The composer George Handel (1685 – 1759) was a parishioner of St George’s from the time it was first built. He was consulted on the organ installation.
It is said that St George’s has changed little since it was first built and that “a parishioner from two centuries ago, if he could return today, would not find much to startle or dismay him.”
St George’s Hanover Square Church is shown with a black cross to the west of the City of London
“Introduction.” The Commissions for Building Fifty New Churches: The Minute Books, 1711-27, A Calendar. Ed. M H Port. London: London Record Society, 1986. ix-xxxiii. British History Online. Web. 21 April 2020. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-record-soc/vol23/ix-xxxiii.
White, Jerry London in the eighteenth century : a great and monstrous thing. London Vintage Books, 2013. Page 19.
Linda Mulcahy née Fish (1895 – 1970), the daughter of Alice Fish formerly Reher née Young (1859 – 1935) and Thomas Fish (1873 – 1949), was my husband’s first cousin twice removed.
On 8 June 1921 she married Gilbert Payne Mulcahy (1894 – 1979). Below is a copy of one of the wedding photographs, given to us by Lindsay and Mary George in 2011. (Lindsay, grandson of Elfleda Cecilia Anna George née Reher (1884-1970), is Greg’s 3rd cousin. Elfleda was the half-sister of Linda Fish.)
With the women, hair bobbed, wearing straight, short, drop-waist dresses, picture hats low on the foreheads of the bridesmaids, and the enormous bows of the flower girls, the photograph is easily dated to the 1920s.
The marriage was announced in The Argus of 13 July 1921:
MULCAHY—FISH.—On the 8th June, at Presbyterian Church, Creswick, by the Reverend K. C. Billinge, Gilbert Payne (late A.I.F.), youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. J. S. Mulcahy, of Auburn, to Linda Victoria, elder daughter of Mr. and Mrs. T Fish, of Creswick.
I have not been able to find a newspaper report of the wedding, and I cannot identify everyone in the bridal party.
The father of the bride, Thomas Fish, is on the left. It seems odd that Alice Fish, mother of the bride, was not included in the photo. Perhaps she was taking it?
Linda’s sister, Alice Pretoria Emma Fish (1900 – 1958) is standing beside her father. Alice married Ernest George Aldrich in 1922.
The groomsmen are not named, nor is the second bridesmaid. She was probably one of Linda’s half sisters: Gertrude, Elfleda, or Mary Reher.
The flowergirls are Gertrude Isabel George born 1915, daughter of Elfleda George née Reher, and Pearl Ramelli born 1913 who in 1936 married Elfleda’s son Norman George (1912 – 1968); Pearl is the mother of Lindsay George who gave us the copy of this photograph.
It is disconcerting to see personal experiences fading into the historical past.
Yesterday, 18 February, was my wedding anniversary; Greg and I have been married for 35 years.
My memories, of course, are of the church, the bells, the gown and so forth, while the historical fact is now an item in the National Library’s digitised collection of Australian newspapers (most cease at 1956, but the Canberra Times, where our wedding news was reported, has been digitised up to 1995).
In the newspaper wedding photograph I am wearing a Honiton lace veil that my grandmother wore at her wedding and was worn by various ladies of the Cavenagh-Mainwaring family. My English cousins kindly sent it to Australia for me to continue the tradition.
Greg and I on our wedding day with our attendants Greg’s nieces Cassandra and Jodie and my cousin Vanessa
Me on my wedding day with the veil
my grandmother Kathleen Cudmore on her wedding day 10 June 1933
Yesterday, 35 years later, Greg and I had lunch with friends and spent an enjoyable afternoon at the National Gallery of Victoria. These events will not reach the newspapers, though perhaps this blog might help to make them discoverable, a (very little) part of history.
Greg at the National Gallery of Victoria on our wedding anniversary
Anne's Family History 