We now know that William Schofield was the son of Thomas Schofield (died 1809) and his wife Sarah, though I’ve yet to find a record of the marriage or information about their origins (there is no trace of them in the Barking parish registers before William’s birth). William was born in Barking in 1769 and seems to have been the eldest of three children: his sister Sarah was born in 1772, and I’ve recently discovered the existence of a younger brother, James, born in 1779.

St Margaret's church, Barking, interior

We know that William Schofield’s wife, yet another Sarah, was a widow when they married at St Margaret’s, Barking, in 1797 (when William would have been 28 years old). Sarah’s surname was Hone, and from later census records we learn that she was born in Aldgate in about 1769 or 1770. In my earlier post, I wondered whether Hone was her maiden name, or the surname of her first husband. Initial searches discovered a number of Sarah Hones born in East London at around the right date, but none in Aldgate.

I’ve now gone back to the records to search for someone with the name Sarah, who was born in Aldgate in about 1769/70, and was married before 1797 to a man with the surname Hone. My search led me to the marriage of Joseph Hone and Sarah Stallard in December 1787 at St Dunstan’s, Stepney. If this is ‘our’ Sarah, then she would have been about 18 years old.

Bride and groom are both said to be living in Mile End Old Town at the time of their marriage. However, if we search for records for the birth of Sarah Stallard, the most likely candidate is the person of that name who was christened at St Botolph, Aldgate, on 2 September 1770. This Sarah was the daughter of William and Mary Stallard of Maudlins Rents: coincidentally, the street where someone from another branch of my mother’s family tree – Captain Michael Bonner – had been born thirty seven years earlier.

Part of East Smithfield, including Cooper(s) Court, from Horwood's 1792 map (see below)

Sarah’s father William must have died some time before 1784. The archive of Pauper Settlement, Vagrancy and Bastardy Exams for St Botolph’s parish, which can be searched at the London Lives website, notes that on 11 December 1784:

Mary Stallard the widow of William Stallard deced maketh oath that divers years ago her Said late husband lived in & rented a house the Corner of Coopers Court upper East smithfield in the parish of St Botolph without Aldgate in the Sd County & was Charged to & paid Poors Rates for the Same as he has informed this Depont & which She believes to be true That her Sd husband to her knowledge or belief did not afterwards do any Act to gain a Subsequent Settlement elsewhere That She this Deponent was lawfully married to her Sd husband & Since his death hath not done any Act to gain a Settlement for herself.

I’ve only found evidence of one child born to Joseph and Sarah Hone. Sarah Hone junior was baptized on Christmas Day 1793 at St George in the East. Her father Joseph is described as a caulker – apparently someone who filled up cracks in ships or windows. The Hones’ address is difficult to make out, but is possibly Glebe Church Lane.

Whether this child survived, and when and where her father Joseph died, is not yet apparent. Nor do we know how (if this is indeed the right person) when and why his widow Sarah made her way from Stepney to Barking (if indeed they didn’t move there before his death). All we can say is that the route between the East End and this part of Essex seems to have been well-trodden at this period.  For example, John Orgar, who would marry William and Sarah Schofield’s daughter Sarah in 1817, was born in Mile End Old Town in 1798.

Sarah Schofield’s origins in Aldgate, and her possible first marriage, provide another possible aid to understanding the multiple connections between my Barking ancestors and the Stepney area.

I wrote recently about Michael’s and Eleanor’s eldest surviving son, William George, who worked as a ship broker. Some time ago, I wrote about his sisters Frances and Susan, who remained unmarried and worked as schoolmistresses.

My information about another sister, Eleanor, comes principally via one of my Bonner family contacts, Teresa Fairbairn in Australia, who is a descendant of hers. On 16 April 1833, when she was thirty years old, Eleanor Bonner the younger married mariner John Arnold Burchett at the parish church of St Mary, Rotherhithe. Her brother William George was one of the witnesses. John and Eleanor Burchett had two sons: John Arthur, born in 1834, and Michael Thomas, born in 1835. Both were born in Paradise Street, Rotherhithe, suggesting that the Burchetts may have lived with Eleanor’s widowed mother.

Section of Greenwood's 1827 map of London, with Paradise Street, Rotherhithe at bottom left (click on image to enlarge)

John Arnold Burchett died in 1838, at the age of 37, after only four years of married life, and was buried in his home parish of Shepperton, Surrey. I’ve been unable to find any trace of his widow Eleanor in the 1841 census, but she was clearly unable to support her family alone: John Burchett, age 7, can be found in the London Road Orphan Asylum in the parish of St Leonard, Bromley-by-Bow, at this date. His younger brother Michael, 5, was in a similar institution in the district of St John, Hackney. Perhaps their mother was in the workhouse? I’ve been unable to find Michael in the 1851 census, but John, now 17, was working as an assistant to an ivory turner in Marylebone Lane. His mother Eleanor was in the same area, working as a housekeeper for a silk mercer in Vere Street near Cavendish Square. (Ironically, all of this happened around the same time that Eleanor’s older brother, William George, was achieving considerable wealth and status as a merchant and ship broker.) Eleanor Bonner died five years later, at the age of 53, in west London.

Emigrants on board ship to Australia, 1872 (from the collection of Maggie Land Blanck)

Within a year of their mother’s death, both of Eleanor’s sons had emigrated to Australia (in the same way that the Seager brothers, my ancestors on my father’s side of the family, had left London for New Zealand a few years earlier, on the death of their mother Fanny). As Teresa Fairbairn commented on my earlier post about the Bonners:

In 1857 John Arthur and Michael Thomas left England on board the Roxburgh Castle arriving in Port Phillip in Dec 1857. Michael Thomas died in Melbourne in 1859. John Arthur married Theresa Sarah Ingram in 1883, they had four children. John Arthur Burchett died in 1922. The family lived in the Western District of Victoria in Harrow and Goroke. Theresa Sarah Ingram was my great great grandmother’s sister.

The children born to John and Theresa Burchett were Arthur (1883), Mary Ann Helena (1885), Louisa Ada (1887) and Harriet Maud Adelaide (1890). Theresa died in 1890, but  John lived until 1922, dying in Ararat, Victoria at the age of 89.

Eleanor Trantum Bonner the elder, mother of Eleanor Burchett and grandmother of John Arthur and Michael Thomas, had predeceased her daughter, dying in Paradise Place, Rotherhithe, in 1845. In her will she left ‘the sum of nineteen pounds and nineteen shillings’ to her son William George, who was also to act as her executor. Eleanor bequeathed ‘to my dear daughter Eleanor Burchett late the wife of John Arnold Burchett…the sum of ten pounds’.

She left a similar amount to another daughter, Mary Ann, who we learn was ‘the wife of John Goodwin’. The only marriage between a Mary Ann Bonner and a John Goodwin that I can find records for took place on 14 January 1828, when ‘our’ Mary Ann would have been twenty-four years old. The location – St Leonard’s, Shoreditch – is puzzling, as is the fact that both parties are said to be of the parish, but perhaps they were working in that area temporarily. The groom’s full name is given as John William Goodwin, and this matches later records for the baptisms of the couple’s children, all of which took place in Rotherhithe.

John’s date and place of birth mean that he is almost certainly the son of Rotherhithe lighterman John Joseph Goodwin and his wife Sarah. However, there is an indenture record stating that on 4 March 1820, John William Goodwin ‘son of John Joseph Goodwin of West Lane Rotherhithe, Surrey, Lighterman’ was apprenticed to Christopher Nockells ‘Citizen and Vintner of London, to learn his Art’ (my emphasis). Although the end of the seven-year term coincides neatly with John’s marriage to Mary Ann, it’s odd that later records describe him as a lighterman like his father, not as a vintner. Even more bewilderingly, there’s an indenture record dated 1 December 1841, stating that William Smith Hunter, son of William Smith Hunter of Bankside, Southwark, waterman, was apprenticed to John William Goodwin ‘Citizen and Vintner of London’. I wonder if the explanation is that the two occupations – lighterman and  vintner – sometimes went hand in hand?

On 1 March 1829 Mary Ann, daughter of John William and Mary Ann Goodwin, was baptised at St Mary, Rotherhithe. The family was living in Lower Queen Street and John was working as a lighterman. On 4 March 1831 the same couple had another daughter, Eleanor (also known as Ellen), christened at the same church; however, by now they were living in Bass Street, Horselydown. When their son George was baptised on 15 March 1837, the Goodwins were in East Lane, Bermondsey, while their youngest child, Sarah, was born in 1840 in Rotherhithe.

The 1841 census finds the Goodwin family living in Dodds Place, Rotherhithe. I’m not sure what happened to the children over the next ten years – certainly some of them must have married or moved away – but John and Mary Ann appear to be by themselves at the time of the next census. Aged 44 and 46 respectively, they were living in Paradise Street: possibly in Mary Ann’s late mother’s house? John Goodwin appears to have died in 1855, at the age of 48; I haven’t been able to discover the date of Mary Ann’s death.

A house in Paradise Street, Rotherhithe, from the webiste ideal-homes.org.uk, which states: 'Paradise Street was an ancient road of distinguished large terraced houses many of which had elaborate wooden door eaves.'

Returning to the will of Eleanor Bonner: she also leaves her son Henry ‘the sum of two pounds as a token of my affection for him and to buy a ring in remembrance of me.’ She adds: ‘I would give him more but he has already had money of me equal in amount to what I intend leaving his brothers and sisters’. I wonder if the reason that Henry had already received money from his mother was that (like his sister Eleanor but unlike his brother William George) he was quite poor. In 1841, someone who matches his details was working as a labourer in Marylebone (not far from his sister Eleanor perhaps?): I haven’t been able to find him after that date.

Eleanor Trantumn Bonner left the residue of her estate ‘to my daughters Frances Bonner and Susan Bonner spinsters equally share and share alike’.  Given the small amounts of money bequeathed to their siblings, I doubt there was very much left for the two sisters to enjoy.

17th century goldsmiths at work

Born in Stepney in 1677, the son of mariner Captain William Greene, Joseph was the father of Mary Greene, who married Lieutenant John Gibson: the latter were the parents of my 5 x great grandmother Elizabeth Holdsworth, nee Gibson. I already knew that Joseph was apprenticed to Joseph Strong on 15 June 1692, when he would have been about 15 years old. His certificate is dated 3 May in the following year:

Written in Latin and using abbreviations, the certificate is difficult to follow,  but it seems to read thus:

L.T. Cert.

Camere ??? Lon.

iii May AD 1693

Josephus Green fil (?)  Willm Greene de Stepney Com. Midlx venit Cora (?) – Camerard (?) vizt (?) dicet Ano supradict et cognovit se esse apprent Josephi Strong Civis et AureFabr London xx Juni Ano quarto Wilmi et Maria et pro septem anis

Orlando Gee Cler Camer

pred

Robt Cooper Guard

F Maur Bohme Goldsmith

It’s nearly 40 years since I took my Latin ‘O’ Level, but I think I can understand some of this. ’Camere’ means rooms and could indicate the address where the ceremony was held, or the certificate issued. The certificate seems to say that Joseph Greene, son of William Greene of Stepney in the county of Middlesex, was said and known (?) to be apprentice to Joseph Strong, Citizen and Goldsmith of London, in the fourth year of William and Mary, and for seven years.

Since we know that Joseph Greene would not actually be ‘made free’ until 1708, this certificate appears to be a simple confirmation of his apprenticeship. I’d be interested to hear from anyone with knowledge of how the process worked, and who might be able to provide further help with the Latin terminology and abbbreviations.

I’ve managed to find out some information about the other names on the certificate. Sir Orlando Gee of St Martin in the Fields was steward to the Earl of Northumberland and Registrar to the Court of Admiralty. He died in 1705 at the age of 86 and was buried in Isleworth, where there is a statue of him:

Epitaph to Sir Orlando Gee, Isleworth

Maurice Bohme or Boheme was, as the record says, a goldsmith: there is a record of him being involved in a court case before the King’s Bench in 1705, and he died in 1736.

I’m currently reading Jenny Uglow’s fascinating book about Charles II and the Restoration, in which she writes about the king’s financial problems and his indebtedness to a new breed of bankers that sprang up in London around this time:

Some of the new bankers were former scriveners, notaries who negotiated loans and then began lending  their own capital. But by far the most influential were the London goldsmiths. For a century or more, the goldsmiths had sold fine silver and gold plate to the nobility and gentry, agreeing to take it back a security against loans when times were hard. From pawn-broking they moved to full-scale banking. People deposited cash with them, receiving a low rate of interest, and the goldsmiths lent it out again at a higher rate, set by law at six per cent.

[...]

[The London goldsmiths] not only gave interest on deposits, but also discounted bills of exchange, accepted the new-fangled cheques, first issued in 1659, and issued ‘goldsmiths notes’, promissory notes that could change hands and circulate freely, creating a fluid movement of capital. They also lent to each other, helping each other out when exceptionally large sums were needed or when the cash-flow failed, and they kept careful tallies so that they knew how exposed they were, every week, every day and even, in some crises, every hour.

We know that Joseph Greene was a pawn-broker as well as a goldsmith and it’s at least possible that his activities might have extended to banking. If so, and given what Uglow says about the growing importance of these goldsmiths-turned-bankers, it would help to explain the substantial wealth that Joseph left when he died in 1737: not only did he leave a thousand pounds to his daughter Mary and her husband John Gibson, but he bequeathed enough money for his wife Mary to buy Woodredon House in Waltham Abbey from the Duke of Bedford and pass the property on to her daughter and son-in-law.

The Thames at London in the 18th century

As I’ve noted before, Michael Bonner the younger, a mariner like his father, married Eleanor Trantum Sayle in 1792 and they had eight children. Of these, we know most about their third child, William George Bonner, and it’s from him that the Bonner family researchers with whom I’m in contact are descended. Once again, I’m grateful to them, and especially to Jill Crawford, for much of the information in this post. William’s life, and those of his children, are of interest because they throw light on the context in which my more direct ancestors, the Gibsons and the Greenes, also moved: the world of mariners and merchants in the City of London and the East End at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.

William George Bonner was born in Paradise Row, Rotherhithe, in 1795. He was married twice. On 13 August 1816, when he was 21, he married Caroline Drew at St George, Hanover Square. Also born in 1795, Caroline was the youngest of the seven children of John Drew and Mary Cole Akid. Among her older siblings was Andrew Drew, a naval officer who rose to the rank of admiral and in 1837 achieved fame (or notoriety, depending on your loyalties) for commanding the party that seized the US vessel Caroline and cast her adrift over the Niagara Falls.

'The destruction of the Caroline steamboat by fire, on the Falls of Niagara, Upper Canada, on the night of Friday the 29th Decr. 1837' by George Tattersall

By the time that Caroline Drew was born, the family had settled in the parish of All Hallows the Less in the City of London. Although her father John is described in contemporary records simply as a lighterman, this belies his wealth and status. According to Jill Crawford: ‘When he died [in 1808] he had ships, barges, lighters, wharves and warehouses on the river.  He also owned a number of properties in Southwark and Bermondsey including a Mustard Manufactory.’

Two weeks after William George Bonner married Caroline Drew, the latter’s sister Georgina married Thomas Eastman Price at St George the Martyr, Southwark. Described in parish records as an oilman, Thomas was more accurately (to quote Jill again) ‘an oil and colour merchant who took out a patent on a dye containing indigo “to refresh fading black fabrics”.’ Following their marriages, the two Drew sisters initially lived near each other in the Kent Road in Southwark. The close relationship between the two couples is evident in the names they gave their children. William George and Caroline Bonner had four children together: Caroline Emma (born in Southwark 1817, but died the following year),  William Price (Camberwell, 1819), Ellen (Camberwell, 1821) and Mary Price (Horselydown, 1824). The first three baptismal records describe William as a ‘gentleman’, while the fourth gives his occupation as merchant’s clerk.

Caroline Bonner, nee Drew, died at Bermondsey Terrace in 1825 at the age of 29 and was buried in the parish of All Hallows the Great. William George Bonner remarried two years later, to Anna Miller, who was described as being of the parish of St Mary, Rotherhithe, but had in fact been born in St Luke’s, Middlesex. Their daughter Anna Maria was born in New Church Street, Horselydown, in 1828, and their son George Schröder Bonner, in Paradise Row, Rotherhithe (the street where William himself had been born) in 1831. George’s middle name may have a family significance, perhaps from Anna’s side of the family, or it may suggest yet another link with German-born merchants.

London docks

William is now described in the parish records as a ship broker. According to Jill, William went into partnership with Thomas Eastman Pryce and Hugh Eastman, a Fenchurch Street ship broker: ‘They had several ships that imported (amongst other things) indigo, spices and oil’.

When the 1841 census was taken, the Bonners were living in Grosvenor Place, Camberwell. William was described as a merchant, and William, 21, his son by his first marriage, as a broker. Also at home were William senior’s two surviving daughters from his first marriage, Ellen, 19 and Mary, 16, as well as the two children from his second marriage, Anna, 12, and George, 10. There was also a female servant, Susan Davenport, age 20.

William Price Bonner, a broker of Fenchurch Street, was granted the Freedom of the City of London in 1841. In June 1843, William gave Grosvenor Place as his address when he married Martha Gardner, daughter of Robert Gardner (like William’s own father, a ‘gentleman’) at the church of St George, Camberwell. I can find no further records for the couple, until William’s father’s probate record of 1863.

In May 1852 Anna Maria Bonner married Thomas George Rance, a clerk, and son of another Thomas Rance, a gentleman, at the church of St Paul, Canonbury. The fact that Anna gave her home address as St Paul’s Road (Thomas lived in Victoria Road, Holloway) suggests that the Bonners had moved to Islington in the interim, though I’ve yet to find them in the 1851 census. Thomas and Anna would have three children together: Annie Louise (born in 1853), George (1855) and Florence Marion (1862). The first two were born at Compton Villas, Camden Road, Islington, where the Rances could be found at the time of the 1861 census: Thomas was now working as an accountant for the Sun Fire Office. Besides a servant and nursemaid, the family also had a visitor: Enos Miller, a fund holder aged 55, born in St Luke’s, Middlesex, who I believe was Anna Maria’s uncle. At the same date, we find William George Bonner, his wife Anna and their two unmarried daughters Ellen and Mary, also living in Camden Road at 2, Lower Hillmorton Villas. Florence Marion, the third child of Thomas and Anna Rance, was born in Bromley, Kent, where the family could be found at the time of the 1871 census, together with a cook and a housemaid: by now, 16-year-old George was working with his father, as a clerk at the Sun Fire Office.

Also married in 1852 was William George Bonner’s other child from his second marriage, George Schröder Bonner. In the summer of that year he married his cousin, Septima Price. They had one child together, William George Schröder Bonner, born at Albert Terrace, Islington and baptised at St Mary’s church on 21 November 1855. Sadly, Septima died two years later, at the age of 25, and in September of the following year (1858) George married her sister Georgina at All Hallows the Great: the parish register describes the groom as a merchant. The couple would have two children: Mary Gertrude Howard, born in Peckham in 1867, and Horace Percy, born in 1868 in Bexley Heath. In 1871 the Bonners were living in St Ann’s Road Stockwell: George was now firmly established as a ship broker, like his father.

Victorian ship brokers

William George Bonner died on 24 October 1863 in Camberwell, leaving effects under £4,000. The entry in the National Probate Calendar describes him as a ship broker, formerly of Hillmorton Villas, Camden Road, Holloway, and of 6 Rood Lane, Fenchurch Street, in the City of London (presumably his business address), but late of St Mary’s Terrace, Queen’s Road, Peckham. His son William Price Bonner, a merchant of 68 Mark Lane in the City, and Thomas Rance, a gentleman of the Sun Fire Office, Threadneedle Street, were cited as two of the executors. Anna Bonner, nee Miller, died in 1865 at the home of her daughter, Anna Maria Rance, in Bromley, and was buried at Nunhead Cemetery.

William Price Bonner died on 8 February 1876 at St Mary’s Road, Peckham, leaving effects under £9,000. Anna Maria Rance, nee Bonner, died in Bromley in 1888. Her husband Thomas would live for another sixteen years, dying in Bickley, Kent, in 1904 and leaving effects worth more than £9000 to his daughters Annie and Florence.

William George Bonner’s daughters Ellen and Mary Price Bonner remained unmarried. In 1871 the sisters, aged 49 and 47 respectively, were living on their own means as lodgers in the home of bank cashier Alexander Thomson and his family in Hungerford Road, Holloway. Ten years later, they were lodgers, living on ‘funds’, in the house of accountant William Sunley and his wife in Loraine Road, Highbury. In 1891, they were living on their own means as lodgers in the home of Elizabeth Hamilton, a widow, in Crayford Road, Upper Holloway. Ellen died in 1897, at the age of 76, and Mary in the following year at the age of 73, both at Warren Road, Leyton, Essex. Ellen left effects worth around £348 to James Henry Jennaway, secretary to a public company, and to her nephew William George Schröder Bonner, a solicitor’s clerk, while Mary left more than £815 to the same beneficiaries. Jill comments: ‘My great great grandfather George Schröder Bonner (WGB’s son) was ill for a long time in later life and spent a great deal of money on trying to get well, so much so that his two maiden aunts left money in their wills “to help pay his medical expenses”.’

Update

I’m grateful to Jill Crawford for pointing out a couple of minor errors and omissions in the above post – now corrected – and for supplying this photograph (via Elizabeth Cherry), which is almost certainly of William George Bonner:

St George the Martyr, Southwark

Recently I speculated that it was this Mary Ann Bonner who married John Godfrey Schwartz at the church of St George the Martyr, Southwark, on 26 September 1813. If this is ‘our’ Mary Ann, then she would have been twenty years old at the time. The presence of Edward Ford as one of the two witnesses to the marriage provides some confirmation that this is indeed the daughter of John William and Sarah Bonner. My theory is that Edward was Mary Ann’s uncle, her mother’s older brother, who would have been about 56 years old.

Revisiting the marriage record has made me reconsider my earlier theory that this was John Godfrey Schwartz’s second marriage, since the register describes him, in the banns and in the record of the actual marriage, as a bachelor. If this is correct, then he can’t be the same person who married Frances Collins (daughter of my 5 x great grandmother Elizabeth Collins, nee Gibson, later Holdsworth) at St Botolph, Bishopsgate in 1780. However, given the fact that the two names are identical, my latest theory is that this John Godfrey was the son of the first John Godfrey Schwartz and Frances Collins. This makes more sense in terms of dates and ages, meaning that Mary Ann Bonner’s husband was probably closer to her own age than I had previously imagined. It also means that, if my hunch about the links between the Bonner, Schwartz, Collins and Gibson families is correct, then bride and bridegroom were second cousins. Mary Ann’s father was the cousin of both of John Godfrey Schwartz junior’s parents: John William Bonner was the son of Frances Gibson, whose sisters Ann and Elizabeth were the parents of John Godfrey Schwartz senior and Frances Collins respectively (if you follow!).

St Mary, Whitechapel

The first of John and Mary Ann Schwartz’s children for whom we have a definite record is Marianne Frances, who was christened at St Mary, Whitechapel, on 5 August 1814. I’m assuming she was named after her mother and her paternal grandmother. In the parish register John Schwartz is described as a clerk and the family is said to be living at ‘Roadside’, which I believe was a term used for (part of?) Whitechapel Road.

By the time their daughter Sarah was born two years later, John and Mary Ann Schwartz had moved to Limehouse: she was christened in St Anne’s church on 17 May 1816. The parish register has now upgraded John Schwartz’ status to ‘gentleman’. Another move, to Graham Street in Walworth, preceded the birth of a son, John Edward, in 1818: he was baptised at St Mary, Newington, on 14 June of that year. By the time their daughter Emma was born in 1820, John and Mary Ann had moved back across the river, to Patriot Square, Bethnal Green: the christening took place at the parish church of St Matthew’s. Their youngest child, as far as I can tell, was Francis Daniel, born in Mile End Old Town in 1822 and baptised at St Dunstan’s, Stepney, on 15 September. Emma Schwartz died two years later, aged 4, and was buried at St Dunstan’s.

St Mary Newington

Mary Ann Schwartz, nee Bonner, died in Mile End Old Town in 1829, aged 36, and was buried at St Dunstan’s church on 5 October. I’ve been unable to discover when her husband John Godfrey Schwartz died.

According to other family trees on the Ancestry site, John and Mary Ann Schwartz’s daughter Sarah married Mitchell Rothwell Ramsden, a Lancashire power loom weaver, in Manchester in 1836. In 1851 they were living in Breightmet, Lancashire, with their two teenage sons, John and Peter. In 1871 they were in Pendleton, but at some point they must have emigrated to America, since it would appear that Sarah died in Utah in 1885.

It’s possible that the Mary Ann Schwartz working as a governess and living in Wells Yard, Whitechapel, at the time of 1841 census, is Marianne Frances, daughter of John and Mary Ann. Her age is given as 30, when in fact she would have been 27, but the 1841 census officials were in the habit of rounding ages up and down. I’ve been unable to find any definite records for Marianne after this date. Neither do I know what became of her younger brother John Edward Schwartz.

Whitechapel in the 19th century

In 1851 Francis Daniel Schwartz, now 28, was working as a painter and lodging at 80 Wentworth Street, Whitechapel. This was also the address he gave when he got married five years later, on 1 September 1856, at the church of St Philip, Bethnal Green, to Sarah Eliza Boice. Sarah was the daughter of carpenter William Boice, and we know from later census records that she was born in Bath. Francis’ occupation, and the fact that he signed the marriage register with his mark rather than his name, seem out of keeping with his father John’s status as a gentleman, and with what we know of the family’s history. John Godfrey Schwartz is described in the record as an ‘interpreter of languages’: does this indicate a decline in his fortunes and a need to turn his clerical skills to account?  Were those constant changes of address a sign of a search for work and money, or even of a flight from unpaid landlords? Whatever the truth behind this mystery, it seems odd that the son of an obviously educated ‘gentleman’ was unable to sign his own name.

Francis and Sarah Schwartz had five, or possibly six children. George Boice Francis Schwartz was born in 1858 in Whitechapel, but not baptised until ten years later, when his parents were living in Brick Lane. Mary Ann Sarah was born in 1859, though the only evidence we have for this is from census records: in 1861 she was living with her parents and brother George at 15 Green Dragon Yard in Whitechapel. According to the 1871 census, Miriam Frances Schwartz was born in 1862 and her brother Daniel John William in 1867, both in Mile End New Town. By the time of the census, the Schwartz family had moved to Little Guildford Street in Bloomsbury. In that same year, Emily Adelaide Schwartz was born.

Whitehapel, from Greenwood's 1827 map (click on image to enlarge). Finch Street and Church Street, where the Schwartz family lived, are visible to the north of Whitechapel High Street .

By 1881, however, the family was back in Whitechapel, in Finch Street, perhaps because Francis, now 58, had a new job as a cellarman: had his painting business collapsed? Son George was working as a porter, Miriam as a milliner and Daniel as a machine boy.

One child whose name does not show up on the census records – because he was born and died between 1861 and 1871 – is William John Godfrey Schwartz, who (given his Christian names and place of birth) was almost certainly the son of Francis and Sarah. He was born in Whitechapel in 1865 and died at 37 Church Street, Mile End New Town, in the following year. The child was buried in Victoria Park Cemetery, Hackney.

Francis Daniel Schwartz died in Whitechapel in 1894 at the age of 73.

John William Bonner (1762 – 1817) and his wife Sarah Ford (1759 – 1833) had three children that I know of: John Harker (born in 1782), George (1784) and Mary Ann (1793). We know that Mary Ann married John Godfrey Schwartz, who was probably the son of Charles Gottfried Schwartz and Ann Gibson (the latter being another sister of John William Bonner’s mother Frances). I hope to have more to say about Mary Ann and the Schwartz family on another occasion. I haven’t been able to find out anything conclusive about George, though a child of that name was buried at St Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey on 4 October 1789. He was 5 years and 6 months old, which would fit with what we know about ‘our’ George Bonner. The family’s address is given as Five Foot Lane, which was a short distance from the address in Bermondsey where the Bonners could be found a few years earlier.

I’ve been more successful in researching the life of John Harker Bonner. On 5 February 1809, when he would have been about 28 years old, John was married at the church of St Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney. He was described as being ‘of this parish and hamlet of MEOT [Mile End Old Town]’: we know that his parents had moved there from Bermondsey some time before 1793. John’s bride, who was from the same parish and hamlet, was Mary Knight Christopher. The witnesses were John’s sister Marianne (or Mary Ann), his father John William, and a member of the Christopher family whose Christian name is difficult to read.

It can’t be Mary’s father Thomas Christopher, as he had died four years earlier, in 1805. He was a Citizen and gun maker in the Minories, Aldgate, which was where his daughter Mary was born in 1781 (making her a year younger than her husband John Bonner). Thomas Christopher had married Jane Roe (I don’t think there’s any connection with my own Roe ancestors, but you never know) at St Katherine by the Tower in 1751, and Mary was the youngest of their seven children. In his will, Thomas leaves money to his ‘half-sister’ Mary Roe, suggesting that his own wife Jane might have been a half-sister too (unless the term was used to mean ‘sister-in-law’?). Intriguingly, Thomas asks to be buried ‘as near to my late beloved wife as possible’ in the churchyard in Woodford: yet another connection between my family’s history and that village.

The language of Thomas Christopher’s will suggests that he may have been a Dissenter: ‘I give my body to the Earth, in the hope of a Joyful resurrection through the merit of our blessed Lord and saviour Jesus Christ’. Whether their Nonconformity derived from the Bonner or Christopher side of the family, John Harker and Mary Bonner were certainly Dissenters and associated with the Independent Meeting in Stepney.

Their first child, John, was born on 12 December 1809 in the parish of St Dunstan’s, Stepney, and the births of the other two, Thomas (1811) and Mary (1813) were recorded in the Protestant Dissenters’ Registry held at Dr Williams’ Library. Thomas Bonner was born on 15 July 1811 and baptised on 27 August at the Independent Meeting in Stepney.  The ceremony was performed by the pastor, George Ford.  All three children were born in Saville Row, Mile End Old Town.

Mile End Old Town, from Fairbairn's 1801 map, with Saville Row at top centre

To date, I haven’t managed to find any further records for John Harker Bonner. I don’t known when he died, or what his occupation was. However, I have found a burial record for his wife Mary Knight Bonner, who died of dropsy at the age of 51 and was interred at St Dunstan’s, Stepney on 11 August 1832.

I’ve been unable to discover any further information about the Bonners’ eldest and youngest children, John and Mary. However, I’ve been more successful with their middle child, Thomas. On 17 April 1842 he married Charlotte Langford, daughter of John and Charlotte Langford of Walthamstow, Essex, in her home parish church.

Baptismal records, whether from Anglican or Nonconformist sources, seem to be unavailable for the children of Thomas and Charlotte Bonner. The births of some of them are listed in the civil registration indexes, but our main source of information about the family is the census records. The 1851 census finds Thomas, 39, and Charlotte, 35, living at 11 Redgrave Road, Brixton. The record is extremely difficult to read, but the Bonners seem to have two children, a son aged 7 and a daughter aged 2. It doesn’t help that these are referred to only by initials – what looks like ‘T.H.’ and ‘C.E.’ respectively. The first child had been born in Clapham, the second in Dulwich. T.H. is  almost certainly the Thomas Henry Bonner whose birth was registered in Wandsworth in 1844, while C.E. is Charlotte Ellen. This census record is the first indication we have of Thomas Bonner senior’s occupation: he was a master baker.

Stockwell and Clapham in 1863

By 1861, the Bonners had moved to 11 Bedford Road, Clapham Rise, where their neighbours were a widowed corndealer and a butcher. By now, Thomas Henry was 16, Charlotte Ellen 11, and they had five younger siblings, all born in Lambeth: John William Langford, 9, Charles James, 7, Elizabeth Sophia, 5, George, 2, and Francis Christopher, 3 months.

I haven’t managed to find the Bonners in the 1871 census, but in 1881 they were still in Bedford Road, where Thomas senior, now 69, was still working as a master baker. Still at home were Thomas junior, 35, John, 29 and Francis, 20, all working (presumably with their father) as bakers, and Elizabeth, 24. All were unmarried.

Victorian bakery

Charlotte Ellen had married Albert Martin, a clerk and later a builder, four years earlier, and they were now living in Manor Street, Clapham, with their three children. I’m not sure where Charles and George were at this date: in fact, I’ve found no further records for them.

On 31 August 1881, Thomas Henry Bonner, aged 32 and described as a confectioner, married Eliza Jane Wilshire, 23, Somerset-born daughter of farm bailiff Abraham Wilshire, at St Mary’s, Marylebone. However, Eliza must have died shortly after the marriage: on 28 August 1886 Thomas, now a widower of 42 and described as a baker and confectioner, married Rosa Jane Pain, 29, daughter of deceased licensed victualler John Pain, at the parish church of St John, Clapham. Thomas’ brothers John and Francis were witnesses. By the time of the 1891 census, Thomas and Rosa were living in Market Street, Brighton, working together as hotel keeper and assistant, with five children, as well as five employees.

On 15 January 1882 John William Langford Bonner, also described as a confectioner, married Emma Collyer, Hampshire-born daughter of ‘gentleman’ Thomas Hopwood Collyer, at Camberwell parish church. By 1891, John and Emma were in Lewes, Sussex, where John appears to have made a similar career move to his brother Thomas: he was now proprietor of the Crown Hotel, coincidentally also situated in a road called Market Street.

Charlotte Bonner the elder died in 1885, at the age of 69, by which time the family had moved to 29 Bedford Road. Charlotte was buried at Norwood Cemetery. Her husband Thomas died three years later at the age of 77. His son Francis Christopher, also of 29 Bedford Road, acted as executor of his will. Thomas’ personal estate was valued at £339 13s 7d.

Terminus Hotel, Eastbourne

Francis Christopher Bonner married Yeovil-born Sarah Betterson Rendall at the church of St Paul, Brixton, in 1885. Six years later, in 1891, Francis and Sarah were still living in the house at Bedford Road, with their daughters Gertrude Frances, Ivy Elizabeth, Bessie and Ethel. At this date, Francis was still working as a baker, presumably carrying on his late father’s business. However, by the time of the next census in 1901, he had followed the example of his brothers Thomas and John and set up as a hotel proprietor in Sussex: in his case, at the Carpenters Arms (later the Terminus Hotel) in Terminus Road, Eastbourne. Francis and Sarah now had two more daughters, Gladys and Rose Langford, and they were joined by Sarah’s sister Gertrude, working as the hotel’s bookkeeper, as well as by four employees. Francis Bonner would live to the age of 73, dying at the Terminus Hotel in Eastbourne in August 1934 and leaving effects to the value £7275 6s 6d.

Elizabeth Sophia Bonner was married in Lambeth in 1888, but I haven’t been able to discover the name of her husband.

The connection between the Gibson and Bonner families was initiated on 22 January 1761 (the second year of the reign of George III), when Frances Gibson, daughter of Lieutenant John Gibson and Mary Greene, and younger sister of my 5 x great grandmother Elizabeth Holdsworth, nee Gibson, married Michael Bonner. The wedding took place in Frances’ home parish of St Botolph, Aldgate.

Michael Bonner was described in the parish register as being ‘of the parish of St George in the county of Middlesex’ – in other words, St George in the East – but there’s evidence that he was a native of Aldgate.  On 14 September 1733, a Michael Bonner was christened at St Botolph’s; he was the son of John and Frances Bonner of Maudlins Rents, East Smithfield.  If this is the right person, then he would have been about 28 years old when he married Frances: she would have been 26.

East Smithfield, from Rocque's map of 1746

John Bonner had been born in about 1693 in the parish of St Mary, Whitechapel. On 19 September 1725 he married Francis Robertson of St Botolph, Aldgate, at Holy Trinity, Minories. Michael was the fourth of their five children. In November 1726, when their daughter Mary was christened at St Botolph’s, the Bonners were living in Nightingale Lane, East Smithfield. They were at the same address three years later when their son John was born: however, they chose to have him baptised at the church of St John Wapping. John junior’s christening record gives us the first indication of his father’s occupation: like his son Michael after him, John Bonner senior was a mariner. I have a note in my files (probably accessed via the International Genealogical Index) that a third child, Elizabeth, was baptised in March 1730 at St Mary, Whitechapel, but I haven’t been able to find a record to support this.

As previously mentioned, Michael Bonner was born at Maudlins Rents (off Nightingale Lane) in East Smithfield in 1733. By the time Sarah Bonner – Michael’s younger sister, and his parents’ youngest child – was christened in April 1736, at the church of St George in the East, the family had relocated to Virginia Street in that parish (this street was to the south of Ratcliff Highway: see map below).

I don’t have any information about what became of Michael Bonner’s siblings. As mentioned above, Michael married Frances Gibson in January 1761. When their first child, John William, was christened at St Botolph’s a year later, they were living in Darby Street, off Rosemary Lane, in Aldgate (the same street – perhaps the same house? – where Frances’ sister Elizabeth and her first husband John Collins could be found three years earlier). However, when a second son, Michael, was baptised in October 1768, the family’s address was Bird Street, in the parish of St George in the East, where the ceremony took place. It’s the record of this baptism that first suggests that Michael Bonner followed his father John’s occupation as a mariner: the parish register styles him Captain Michael Bonner.

One month later, at the same church, Michael’s mother, Frances Bonner, nee Robertson, was buried. She was 68 years old and still living in Virginia Street when she died. Two years later her husband John was also buried at St George’s. He was 77 years old and was described as a mariner from the parish of St John, Wapping, which is consistent with the Virginia Street address.

Virginia Street, from Rocque's map of 1746

As I mentioned in an earlier post, John William Bonner was apprenticed to a merchant in Lime Street, London in 1776, when he was about 13 years old. (As I also noted recently, it may be more than coincidental that John Godfrey Schwarz, who I believe to have been John William’s first cousin, was also apprenticed to a London merchant in the same year). By the time John William married Sarah Ford in December 1781, he was living in her home parish of Whitechapel. Among the witnesses to the marriage was John’s uncle, East India Company broker Bowes John Gibson, younger brother of his mother Frances.

John and Sarah Bonner appear to have moved south of the river soon after their marriage. The first of their three children, John Harker Bonner, was born in Bermondsey Buildings in 1782 and christened at the church of St Mary Magdalen (where John’s aunt, my 5 x great grandmother Elizabeth, had contracted her second marriage, to Joseph Holdsworth, nine years earlier). John William is described in the parish register as a gentleman. A second son, George, was born at the same address and baptised at the same church two years later. However, by the time their third child and only daughter was born in 1793, the Bonners had moved back across the river to Mile End Old Town. Marianne or Mary Ann was christened at St Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney, on 6 October 1793.

It’s possible that the whole Bonner family had moved to Bermondsey, either at the same time as or before John William. Certainly, Michael Bonner junior, John William’s younger brother, was described as being ‘of this parish’ when he married Eleanor Trantum Sayle at the church of St Mary Magdalen on 4 August 1792. According to the IGI, Eleanor was born in 1766 in Southwark, the daughter of James Sayle, but I’ve been unable to find any records to back this up. Michael would have been 24 and Eleanor 26 when they married.

Paradise Street, Rotherhithe, from Horwood's 1792 map

The first children born to Michael and Eleanor were twins, Charles and Frances, born on 3 July 1794 and baptised on 20 July at St Mary, Rotherhithe. I have a note, possibly from the IGI, that the Bonners’ next child, William George, was born in Paradise Street, Rotherhithe, on 2 August 1795 and christened at St Mary’s on 28 August. However, I haven’t been able to track down the record for this. Another son, Michael, was baptised at the same church on 8 June 1800, while his brother Henry was christened there on 6 December in the following year. Daughter Eleanor was baptised at the same church on 16 June 1803. Another daughter, Mary Ann, was christened there in July 1804. Curiously, there is an identical entry in the parish register three years later, on 19 October 1807, which notes that Mary was born and baptised on the same day: I think it reads 12 July 1804, but the last part of the date is obscured.

St Mary, Rotherhithe

Michael Bonner senior and his wife Frances, the parents of John William and Michael, both died in early 1802. At the time of their deaths they were living at Charlotte Row in the parish of St Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey, but both elected to be buried at the church of St George in the East, probably because Michael’s parents were buried there (see above). Frances died first and was buried on 8 January 1802. She was 66 years old. Her husband Captain Michael Bonner followed shortly afterwards, being buried on 26 February; he was 71 years old.

In his will Michael Bonner senior describes himself as a ‘gentleman’ and leaves his two sons to share his property and effects between them. The will is brief and possibly written in a hurry: it was signed and sealed on 12 February, two weeks before Michael’s burial, suggesting that he (and perhaps Frances) died following a sudden illness.

Michael Bonner junior died in 1811, nine years after his parents, at Paradise Street in Rotherhithe, and was buried on 28 December. He was 42 years old. His burial record at St Mary’s and his will are the only documents we have that mention his occupation: like his father and grandfather before him, Michael Bonner was a mariner. Written in January 1810, Michael’s will leaves everything to his ‘dearly beloved wife Eleanor Bonner to and for her own whole and sole proper use and benefit hoping that she will take proper care of all our dear children’.

Michael’s elder brother John William Bonner would live for another six years, dying in Mile End Old Town in 1817. Under ‘disorder’ in the parish register is the single word ‘paralitic’ (sic). John was buried at St Dunstan’s church on 26 September, in the family tomb erected by his great grandfather (and my 7 x great grandfather) Joseph Greene, Citizen and goldsmith. The inscription, which appears below that of my 5 x great grandmother Elizabeth Holdsworth, nee Gibson, reads ‘Mr John Wm Bonner, nephew of the above, late of His Majesty’s Ordnance Office Tower who departed this life September 21^st 1817 aged 55 years’.  The Office of the Ordnance, founded by Henry VIII, was charged with storing and supplying equipment to the military. It’s possible that John William Bonner’s role there was an honorary one, and is perhaps a reflection of his social status.

Update

I’ve amended Michael Bonner senior’s birthplace to Maudlins Rents, rather than Hawkins Rents, as I had it originally. I’m grateful to my fellow researcher Ron Roe for pointing out my mis-reading of the parish register.

Yesterday I made what may turn out to be an important breakthrough. As often happens in family history research, it was an indirect approach to the problem – going round the brick wall rather than continuing to batter my head against it – that provided the beginnings of a solution. I’d been trying to find out more about Elizabeth’s sister, Anne Gibson, when I inadvertently stumbled upon a piece of evidence that threw new light on Elizabeth’s life.

St Botolph Aldgate (from London Lives website)

In her will of 1788, my 6 x great grandmother Mary Gibson, nee Greene, who died in Mile End Old Town in 1790, left an annuity of five pounds ‘to my daughter Mrs Ann Schwartz’ and a similar annuity ‘to my grand daughter Frances Schwartz the daughter of the said Anne Schwartz’.  Anne Gibson, born at Tower Hill and baptised at St Botolph, Aldgate, in 1737, was the fifth of the seven children of John and Mary Gibson, and the younger sister of my 5 x great grandmother Elizabeth Holdsworth, nee Gibson.

As I noted in my analysis of Mary Gibson’s will, the most likely explanation for Anne’s married name is the marriage that took place on 30 August 1754, at the church of St George in the East, between Anne Gibson ‘of the parish of St Mary le Bow in the City of London’ and Charles Gottfried Schwartz of the parish of St George’s. John Gibson (Anne’s father?) was one of the witnesses.

So far I’ve been unable to find any other records for Charles Schwartz, either before or after his marriage. Given his name, the likely explanation is that he was born in Germany. I’ve also failed to find any records for Frances Schwartz, daughter of Anne and (possibly) Charles.

Although my searches for Charles came up with nothing, they did lead me to someone with a very similar name. In the Register of Duties Paid for Apprentices’ Indentures, I found a record, dated 8 May 1776, for G. John Godfrey Schwartz, who was apprenticed to a merchant by the name of Paul Amsinck of Steelyard, London. Amsinck seems to have been from a line of prominent merchants, based in London but of German origin. Interestingly, John William Bonner, son of Anne Gibson’s sister Frances, paid his apprenticeship dues to another London merchant in the same year.

Steelyard, London, 17th century

Given that Godfrey is an anglicised version of Gottfried, I began to wonder if G. John Godfrey Schwartz might be the son of Charles and Anne, though again I’ve failed to find any record of his birth. If he was born in the late 1750s or early ‘60s, this would fit with his apprenticeship being paid in 1776.

Looking for other records for this person, I found two marriages for John Godfrey Schwartz (the initial ‘G’ seems to have been dropped at some stage), both of which immediately caught my attention. The first marriage, which took place on 17 May 1780 at St Botolph, Bishopsgate, was to Frances Collins ‘of the parish of Romford in the County of Essex’. The second marriage was on 12 September 1813 at St George the Martyr, Southwark, to Mary Ann Bonner. As already mentioned, the first marriage of my 5 x great grandmother Elizabeth, sister of the Anne Gibson who married Charles Schwartz, was to John Collins of Epping.  And another Gibson sister, Frances, married William Bonner.

I think I’ve worked out who John Godfrey Schwartz’s two wives were. Taking them in reverse order, I believe that his second wife Mary Ann Bonner was the daughter of John William Bonner and Sarah Ford. John William, born in 1762, was the eldest son of William and Frances Bonner. His daughter Mary Ann was born in Mile End Old Town in 1793, though her older siblings were born in Bermondsey and it’s possible that the family had moved south of the river again by 1813. Mary Ann Bonner would have been twenty years old when she married John Godfrey Schwartz, and if my theory is correct, she was the daughter of his first cousin, John William Bonner.

Romford (date unknown)

As for John Godfrey Schwartz’s first wife, I had no luck searching for a baptismal record for Frances Collins in the Romford parish registers. But when I searched more widely, I made an astonishing discovery. On 8 July 1759, a Frances Collins was baptised at St Botolph, Aldgate: she was the daughter of John and Elizabeth Collins. Could this be my 5 x great grandmother and her first husband? The couple’s address – Darby Street, close to St Botolph’s churchyard – made this more likely, since Elizabeth’s sister Frances and her husband William Bonner would be living in the same street (the same house perhaps?) when their son John William was born three years later. Perhaps the fact that the child was given the name Frances suggests that the two sisters were particularly close.

Christening of Frances Collins, 8 July 1759, from parish register of St Botolph, Aldgate

Could this be the solution to the whereabouts of John and Elizabeth Collins after their marriage in 1753? Perhaps, rather than living on one of John’s Essex estates, they made their home in London: or is it possible that, like Elizabeth’s parents, they had houses in both town and country? And did they have a daughter named Frances? The date of Frances’ birth would certainly be consistent with her marrying John Godfrey Schwartz in 1780, when she would have been twenty-one years old. If this is the right person, then bride and groom were first cousins, but then that was hardly unusual at this period.

I’ve searched for other children born to John and Elizabeth Collins and so far have found none, so I suspect that Frances was their only child. We know that John Collins must have died before May 1763, when Elizabeth married Joseph Holdsworth. The question then arises: what happened to Frances Collins after her father’s death and her mother’s second marriage, and how did she end up in Romford by 1780? Elizabeth and her new husband, Joseph Holdsworth, appear to have taken up residence in South Weald (about five or six miles from Romford) soon after their marriage: their first daughter Elizabeth was christened there in October 1764. Their youngest child, Godfrey, was baptised in South Weald in 1773. Joseph Holdsworth died in 1795 at the age of 60 and was buried in South Weald parish church.

Old map of Essex, showing South Weald (top right) in relation to Romford (bottom left)

Frances Collins’ residence in Romford in 1780 is therefore a mystery: perhaps she was living with relatives? Her wedding to John Godfrey Schwartz took place in his home parish of St Botolph, Bishopsgate. Is it just coincidence that this is where Sarah Holdsworth (her half-sister?) would marry Edward Porter six years later in 1786 , and where my 4 x great grandfather William Holdsworth (her half-brother?) would marry Lydia Evans fourteen years later in 1792? Both Sarah and William were said to be ‘of this parish’ at the time of their marriages.

The fact that Mary Gibson’s will of 1788 fails to mention Frances is something of a worry. As I noted above, she does make reference to her granddaughter Frances Schwartz, the daughter of Anne Schwartz: is it stretching a point to read this as meaning her daughter in law – after all, she would still be Mary’s granddaughter?  Alternatively, it could be that Frances Collins died young, some time between her marriage to John Godfrey Schwartz in 1780 and the writing of the will in 1788.

This would mean that John Godfrey Schwartz was a widower for at least two decades before marrying Mary Ann Bonner in 1813. An alternative scenario also suggests itself: perhaps this second marriage involved another John Godfrey Schwartz, possibly the son of the first John Godfrey and Frances Collins, who in marrying Mary Ann Bonner was also wedding his first cousin?

Whatever the truth of the matter, we know that John Godfrey Schwartz and Mary Ann Bonner produced at least five children together. Marianne Frances Schwartz was baptised at St Mary Whitechapel on 5 August 1814. The family’s address is given as ‘Roadside’ (?) and her father’s occupation as ‘clerk’. Sarah Schwartz was christened at St Anne Limehouse on 17 May 1816; the address is given simply as Limehouse and John’s status has become ‘gentleman’. John Edward Schwartz was christened at St Mary Newington, Southwark: the family’s address was now Graham Street, Walworth. By the time their daughter Emma was baptised on 9 April 1820 the Schwartz family was at Patriot Square, Bethnal Green, and the ceremony took place at the parish church of St Matthew’s. What looks like the family’s final move was to Mile End Old Town, which was their address when Francis Daniel was christened at St Dunstan’s church on 15 September, 1822.

When Francis Daniel Schwartz married Sarah Eliza Boice at St Philip, Bethnal Green on 1 September 1856, he was described as a painter, living in Wentworth Street, while his father John Godfrey was described as an ‘interpreter of languages’. It’s not clear from the parish record whether John was still living at the time. If he was the son, rather than the grandson of Charles Gottfried Schwarz and Anne Gibson, he would have been over ninety years old.

In my earlier post about Woodredon, I included a photograph of the present-day Woodredon House, a late-Victorian construction which is now a care home. However, the house owned by the Gibsons was the property about 400 yards to the south-east, now known as Woodredon farmhouse, a listed building that today seems to be the office building for Woodredon Equestrian Centre.

According to the British History Online website, this ‘mid-18^th century red brick house with a pedimented porch’  in all probability ‘represents the house as rebuilt by the Gibsons’. I found this photograph of the house on the equestrian centre’s website:

There’s an aerial view of the house, with its associated buildings, on the British Listed Buildings site:

It’s quite something to see images of the actual house where my Gibson ancestors lived, and where my 5 x great grandmother Elizabeth Holdsworth, nee Gibson, must have spent much of her childhood. Given the modest surroundings in which later generations of my family lived, I still find it difficult to believe that the Gibsons really were my ancestors: a subject I’ll say more about in another post.

Severs Green near Epping

In other posts, I’ve argued that John Collins was almost certainly the second son of another Epping gentleman, Richard Collins, and his wife Jane. Richard drew up his last will and testament in 1742 and it was proven on 1 March 1748. The will divides his considerable property in Epping and neighbouring areas between his three older sons, Richard, John and William, and also leaves sums of money to his four younger children David, Jane, Sarah and Elizabeth.

At the time that Richard drew up his will, his eldest son Richard would have been 12, his second son John, 9, and his third son William, 3. Of the other children, we don’t know Jane’s date of birth, but Sarah would have been 6, Elizabeth 4, and David 2. There is no mention of their mother Jane, suggesting she was no longer alive (she must have died some time between the birth of David in 1740 and the drawing up of her husband’s will two years later). By the time Richard senior died in 1748, his son Richard junior would have been about 16, John, 15, and William, 9.

Richard junior is the first to be mentioned and is clearly the principal inheritor of his father’s considerable properties in and around Epping. He is to inherit the property known as Turners ‘otherwise Colports otherwise Colworthyes’ in Lindsey Street, Epping, with all its buildings and lands, amounting to ‘by estimation fifteen acres’. This property had been purchased by Richard senior’s father – yet another Richard Collins – from one Stephen Flower. Richard junior is also to inherit a property by the name of Hight Holes with all its lands and buildings ‘situate at or near Lindsey Street’ amounting to another fifteen acres, purchased by his grandfather from one Richard Day, gentleman.  This inheritance comes with a condition that Richard junior pays the sum of 200 pounds to his younger brother William.

William is to inherit all the property and land associated with the messuage or tenement lived in by one William Rumball ‘called or known by the name or sign of the George’, which, given that it has granaries and maltshops attached, was probably the village inn.

As for John Collins, I’ll cite his inheritance in full:

I give and devise unto my second son John Collins and his heirs all that my freehold messuage or tenement called or known by the name of Deacons situate and being at Stivyers Green in the parish of Epping aforesaid with the Barns Stables Outhouses Yards Gardens Orchards and Appurtenances thereto belonging and also all and singular the Lands Meadows Pastures and Hereditaments whatsoever as well freehold and copyhold to the same Messuage or Tenement belonging and therewith now used occupied or enjoyed containing in the whole by estimation thirty acres be the same more or less lying and being in the several parishes of Epping aforesaid and Great Parringdon otherwise Parndon in the said County of Essex late in the Occupation of William Greygoose and now of Stephen Holton or his Undertenants and which I purchased of and from George Hayes and Elizabeth his wife with their and every of their Rights and Appurtenances and also all that my other freehold Messuage or Tenement called or known by the name of Westmill situate and being at or near Stivyers Green aforesaid in Epping aforesaid with Barns Stables Cowhouses Outhouses Yards and Gardens Orchards and Appurtenances thereto belonging and also all and singular the Lands Meadows Pastures Woodgrounds and Hereditaments whatsoever to the said last mentioned Messuage belonging containing together by Estimation twenty six acress and three roods be the same more or less lying or being in the several parishes of Epping and Great Parringdon otherwise Parndon aforesaid and now in the Occupations of me and the said Stephen Holton or his assigns with their and every of their Rights and Appurtenances To hold the said two several Messuages or Tenements Lands Hereditaments and Premises hereinbefore last mentioned with their and every of their Appurtenances unto and to the use of my said Son John Collins his heirs and assigns forever.

Stivyers, Stivers, Severs or Sivers Green (also known as Chivers Green) appears on old maps as a small hamlet to the north of Epping, between Epping and Great Parndon. According to my best guess, it was roughly where Rye Hill Road and Parndon Wood Cemetery are today.

Old map of Epping (date unknown) showing Sivers (Stivyers) Green

In the catalogue of Essex Archives Online, there is reference to a document relating to the Copped Hall estate, Epping, containing ‘Deeds of Messuage called Deacons and another messuage, both at Chivers (Stivyers) Green, lands called West Mills, Epping and Great Parndon’. The dates given are 1757-1763. Since this coincides almost exactly with the period when John Collins would have been in possession of these properties, it would be very interesting to see these deeds. John married Elizabeth Gibson in 1753 and reached the age of 21 in the following year. The date of his death is unknown, but Elizabeth contracted her second marriage, to Joseph Holdsworth, in 1763, so the second date on this document may not be a coincidence: it could be the date when ownership passed from the recently deceased John Collins to another owner.

It’s interesting that these properties were part of the Copped Hall estate. Copped Hall, owned by the Conyers family, was to the west of Epping, and on the western borders of the estate was Woodredon Hall, owned by the Gibsons. In fact, when you see Woodredon and the properties in Epping owned by the Collins family on the same map, it’s easy to understand how Elizabeth Gibson came to meet John Collins, who was exactly the same age as her. Today, the area is bisected by the M25 motorway, between junctions 26 and  27.

Old map (date unknown) showing Epping, Copped Hall and Woodredon

I wonder if John and Elizabeth Collins lived on one of John’s inherited properties after their marriage in 1753? So far, I’ve failed to find any evidence of John’s death, but perhaps pursuing the records associated with these properties in Epping and Great Parndon will shed some light on this mystery.