In the last post I shared some new discoveries about Edward Porter (d. 1799), the first husband of Sarah Holdsworth, and in an earlier post I reported what I’d learned from the will and burial wishes of Sarah’s mother Elizabeth (1733 – 1809). All of this new information helps us to build up a picture of the life of the Holdsworths at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Joseph and Elizabeth Holdsworth had seven children, and of these we know that at least five – Sarah, John, Joseph, William and Godfrey – survived into adulthood. Both John and William were my 4 x great grandfathers (Mary Ann Blanch, daughter of John’s daughter Keziah, married Daniel Roe, son of William’s daughter Eliza: their son Joseph Priestley Roe was my great grandfather).
In the timeline below, I’ve plotted what we know about the movements of the Holdsworth siblings over a twenty-year period. Two things immediately became clear to me as I was doing this. Firstly, it looks as though the Holdsworth family as a whole might have been living in the Bishopsgate area at some point, and that the move eastward to Stepney only happened after this generation grew up and got married. Secondly, William and Joseph were both living in Marmaduke Street (just to the north of Cable Street) and both working as cordwainers at around the same time: could they have been working together, and did their families share a house? The situation appears to have changed around 1800, when William moved to Mile End Road and Joseph to William Street (not far from Marmaduke Street), around the time he switched occupations to become a chandler.
Section of Fairburn's 1801 map of London, stretching from Mile End in the east to Aldgate and Bishopsgate in the west (William Street visible to north of Cable Street and west of New Road). Click on the image to open in a new window, then click again to enlarge.
1786 Sarah H marries Edward Porter, St Botolph Without Bishopsgate
1792 William H marries Lydia Evans, St Botolph Without Bishopsgate
1792 Joseph H jnr marries Margaret Miller, Christ Church, Spitalfields
1793 Joseph H jnr living in St George in the East – working as cordwainer
1793 Godfrey H marries Diana Cam, St Paul, Covent Garden
1794 Edward and Sarah Porter living in Mile End Old Town
1794 William H living in Marmaduke Street – working as cordwainer
1795 Death of Joseph H snr (father)
1796 Joseph H jnr living in Marmaduke Street – working as cordwainer
1796 Godfrey H living in Mile End Old Town – working as plumber
1796 William H living in Marmaduke Street – working as cordwainer
1797 John H marries Mary Webb, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire
1799 Death of Edward Porter, Mile End Old Town
1801 William H living in Mile End Road, Mile End Old Town
1802 Joseph H jnr living in William Street – working as chandler
1802 Godfrey H living in Mile End Old Town – working as plumber
1803 Sarah H marries William Parker, Bethnal Green
1803 William H living in Mile End Old Town
1809 Joseph H jnr living in William Street
1809 Death of Elizabeth H (mother)
