Four generations of the Londors family

A comment from a distant relative on an earlier post has prompted me to take another look at my Londors ancestors. My mother was born Joyce Alma Londors in East Ham in 1933. Her father George John Londors (1896 – 1960), a gardener at the City of London Cemetery in Wanstead, was the son of another George Londors, who worked as a gravedigger at the same place. I’ve traced the family back a few more generations: the Londors family lived in Barkingside and before that in nearby Woodford, and most of the men were farm labourers.

Map of Barkingside in the early 19th century, showing locations where the Londors family lived and worked

The information that I’ve managed to gather about the Londors family can be found in numerous posts on this site, either by clicking on ‘Londors’ in the list of surnames, or by entering the name of a particular person in the ‘search’ box. However, I realise that it can be confusing for newcomers wanting to explore the family’s history to get a broad overview, particularly when similar names recur in each generation.

So, for those who don’t have access to my family tree at Ancestry, here is a (fairly) simple summary of the history of the Londors family (the links take you to posts with more information about particular individuals).

Christening record for John-Felix Londors, Woodford, 7th August 1785 (foot of page)

First generation 

John and Hannah Londors lived in Woodford, Essex. They might be the John Londors and Hannah Ackerley who were married in Spitalfields in 1782. Hannah could be the Hannah Landy who died in Woodford in 1790. John may have married a second wife, Sarah Reeves, at Spitalfields in 1792. John and Hannah Londors had these children:

Mary Elizabeth (1783)

Mary Anne (1784)

John-Felix (1785)

Elizabeth (1787)

Second generation 

John-Felix Londors was married twice. In 1815 John Londors and Elizabeth Plane were married in Barking. They had a son, John, who was born in 1816 and died in 1817. Elizabeth Londors died in 1816.

In 1826 John Londors married his second wife, Mary Anne Schofield, in Barking. Born in 1802, Mary Anne was the daughter of William and Mary Schofield of Barkingside. John died in 1876 and Mary died in 1887. John and Mary Anne Londors had these children:

John Schofield (1827)

Sarah (1830)

Elizabeth (1832)

William (1837)

Mary Ann (1840)

James (1843)

George (1846)

Third generation

John Schofield Londors married Sarah Anne Brown in 1851. John died in 1915 and Sarah died in 1901.They had these children:

Sarah Ann (1852)

Alma (1855)

Alice Mary Ann (1859)

Edith (1861)

George (1863) –

Albert (1866)

Naomi Emma (1870)

Sarah Londors never married and died in 1908.

Elizabeth Londors married George Smith in 1851. George died in 1893 and Elizabeth died some time after 1901. They had these children:

Elizabeth (1854)

Mary Anne (1855)

George (1857)

Sarah Ann (1860)

Maria (1862)

William (1864)

Henry (1866)

Alfred (1869)

Ernest Victor (1878)

William Londors married Caroline Harriet Feller in 1864. William died in 1899, but the date of Caroline’s death is unknown. They had these children:

William George (1864)

James John (1867)

John (1869)

Mary Ann (1871)

Caroline Harriet (1874)

Elizabeth Sarah (1876)

Sarah Ann (1878)

George Robert (1880)

Charles (1882)

Mary Ann Londors never married. She died in Barkingside in 1931.

James Londors never married. He died in Barkingside in 1926.

George Londors died in 1856 at the age of ten.

Fourth generation 

1. The children of John Schofield and Sarah Londors

Sarah Ann Londors married William Orgar. They had these children:

William John (1875)

Ernest Albert (1878)

Albert Victor (1888)

Alma Londors married James John Clyne in 1891. They had no children.

Alice Mary Ann Londors married Thomas Beale in 1880. They had these children:

Elizabeth Alice (1881)

Alma Edith (1884)

Edith Londors married in 1884. Name of husband unknown.

George Londors married Sarah Ann Shaw in 1896. George died in 1834 and Sarah died in 1947. They had these children:

George John (1896)

Albert Isaac (1900)

Ernest (1903)

William James (1904)

Albert Londors does not seem to have married. No records after 1901.

Naomi Emma Londors married George Henry Huggett in 1895. They had a son, Albert Edward (1904). 

2. The children of William and Caroline Londors

William George Londors may have married Julia Petersen Brent in 1906. I haven’t found records for any children.

James John Londors seems not to have married.

John Londors married Sarah Ann Adams in 1891. She died in 1945 and he died in 1952. They had these children:

Lily Sarah (1892)

John Albert (1893)

Alfred Frederick (1895)

George (1896)

Emma (1898)

Nellie Pretoria (1900)

Annie (1901)

Grace (1907)

Mary Ann Londors married Elliott French Scarborough. They had these children:

Emma Lydia (1895)

Edith Mary (1896)

Jack Herbert (1899)

Caroline Harriet Londors married John James Prudence in 1892. Caroline died in 1970. They had these children:

William (1892)

Charles (1894)

Elizabeth (1897)

John (1900)

Elizabeth Sarah Londors married Charles William Taylor. They had these children:

William (1896)

George (1897)

Frederick (1900)

John Alfred (1900)

Ellen Caroline (1901)

I have no further information about Sarah Ann Londors.

George Robert Londors married Ellen Barley in 1904. They had these children:

Albert (1907)

John Frederick (1909)

Charles Londors married Emma Alice. Charles was registered as a ‘civilian death’ during the Second World War. They had a son John Charles (1907).

James Jemblin, Citizen and Salter of London

In the 1737 will of Captain Richard Boulton the elder we find the following (my emphasis):

I give and bequeath to my Nephew John Jamblen the sum of five hundred pounds of like Lawfull money 

And in a memorandum to the same will we read this:

Appeared personally Hester Crabb of the parish of All Hallows Barking London widow and Francis Jemblin of Ingram Court Fenchurch Street London Gentleman 

Three years later, in his will of 1740, Captain Richard Boulton the younger, nephew of the first Richard Boulton, bequeaths ‘my Cousin John Jemblin of Evesham in the… County of Worcester twenty Guineas’.

John and Francis Jemblin (or Jemblen or Jamblin) were both the sons of James Jemblin, a London citizen and salter (a trader in salt) whose family was originally from Jersey in the Channel Islands. We know that this is the ‘right’ family because James Jemblin’s will of 1723 nominates Richard Boulton, presumably the elder, as one of the executors of his will – and also for another reason which I will come on to.

Church of St Dunstan in the East, City of London

Searching the parish records, we find that on 30^th July 1707, John Jemblin, son of James and Grace Jemblin, was christened at the church of St Dunstan in the East in the City of London. On 14^th July 1709, the same couple had a son named Thomas baptised at the same church. On 23^rd June 1710, James and Grace had a daughter named Elizabeth christened there.

Grace must have died soon afterwards, perhaps in childbirth, because on 9^th September 1711, James Jemblin of the parish of St Dunstan in the East, a widower, married Mary Yates a ‘single woman’ of the parish of St Edmund King and Martyr, Lombard Street, in her home parish church. This second marriage would also produce three children. Francis Jemblin was christened at St Dunstan’s on 21^st November 1712; James on 18^th April 1715; and Mary on 4^th April 1717.

James Jemblin died in February 1723. We know from his will, written shortly before his death, that his second wife Mary had predeceased him. Moreover, the only children mentioned in the will are John, Francis and Elizabeth, so we must assume that Thomas, James and Mary all died before reaching adulthood. The three surviving children, together with James’ mother Margaret (also mentioned in his will), are listed as his orphans and dependants in an official document from this period.

Part of Rocque’s 1746 map of London, showing area around church of St Dunstan in the East

On 13^th April 1708 James Jemblin had been admitted as a freeman of the City of London, in the Company of Salters. From 1707 until 1718, he paid land tax on a property in Rood Precinct, presumably near Rood Lane, off Tower Street in the parish of St Dunstan in the East (see map above). In 1722, his name could be found in the poll book for the election of Members of Parliament for the City of London, under the category of ‘salters’. He voted for Heysham, Barnard and Godfrey– two Whigs and a Tory. It’s possible that James Jemblin retired to the country at some point, since a marginal note to his will (see below) describes him as living in Woodford, Essex; or it might simply be that he maintained a second home, as did so many 18^th century merchants.  (A later ancestor of mine, my 4 x great grandfather William Holdsworth, a shoemaker and carrier, also retired to Woodford; even more modestly, John Felix Londors, another ancestor, who worked as a farm labourer, was born in the village in 1785.)

I’m reproducing my transcription of James Jemblin’s will below. The reference to Captain Richard Boulton is one piece of evidence linking the Jemblins and the Boulton family. The marginal note is curious, seeming to suggest that Boulton and the other executors left at least part of James Jemblin’s will ‘unadministered’ ; however, the note is useful in telling us that James’ daughter Elizabeth was still alive in 1765 and that she had married a man named Edward Colliver. We must assume that James’ two sons, John and Francis, had died by this date.

City of London in the 18th century

But there is another reference in the will that ties James Jemblin to the Boulton family, albeit in a way that undermines one of my earlier theories about the Boultons.  James refers to ‘my Sister Hester Crabb of Tower Street London Widow’. We know that Hester’s maiden name was Saunders, and that in all likelihood she was the daughter of Thomas Saunders of Moor, near Fladbury in Worcestershire, referred to in the 1698 will of William Forrest of Badsey, brother of my 9 x great grandfather Thomas Forrest. So unless we come across new information that Hester was actually born a Jemblin, then she can’t literally be James’s sister and is more likely to have been his sister-in-law. Indeed we know from other wills that it was common to refer to in-laws in this way.

On the other hand, if Hester Crabb née Saunders was James Jemblin’s sister-in-law  then that means that she was his wife’s sister. It so happens that we know Hester had a sister called Grace – the name of James Jemblin’s first wife. This would also fit with what we learn from other wills. Richard Boulton the elder describes Hester Crabb as his niece, which I think is accurate, but inaccurately describe her sons Henry and Richard as his nephews, when it seems they were actually his great nephews. His description of John Jemblin, son of James and Grace, as a nephew may be similarly inaccurate. If Hester Crabb was Richard Boulton’s niece, then so was her sister Grace, meaning that John Jemblin was another great nephew.  If I’m right, then Hester Crabb and Francis Jemblin, who appeared together in 1737 to authenticate Richard Boulton’s will, were aunt and nephew.

Market place, Evesham

Of course, the connection with the Boultons only makes sense if another part of my theory remains true, and Thomas Saunders, father of both Hester and Grace, was married to a sister of Richard, Peter and the other Boulton siblings. Finally, if it turns out that John Jemblin’s mother Grace was originally from Worcestershire, then the reference to him in the 1740 will of Richard Boulton the younger, as ‘of Evesham’ makes sense. Perhaps he inherited property there from his Saunders relatives, and retired there after the deaths of his parents.

My transcription of James Jemblin’s will follows:

I James Jemblin Citizen and Salter of London do make this my last Will and testament in manner following  and first I recommend my Soul to Almighty God my Creator hoping for Salvation through the merits of his son Jesus Christ my Saviour and Redeemer and as to my worldly Estate I give and devise the same as follows that it to say my mind and will is that all my just Debts and Funerall Expenses shall be first paid thereout and then I give and devise the sume of fifteen hundred pounds unto my oldest son John Jemblin to be paid him when he shall attaine the age of twenty one years and I give and devise the sume of one thousand pounds unto my Daughter Elizabeth Jemblin to be also paid her when she shall attaine the Age of twenty one years or be marryed with the Consent of my Executors hereafter named which shall first happen and I give and devise unto my Son Francis Jemblin the sume of Eight hundred pounds to be paid him also when he shall ataine the age of twenty one years and I give and devise to my Mother Margaret Jemblin of the Island of Jersey Widow the sume of ten pounds per annum for and during her life to be paid her out of my personall Estate by my Executors hereafter named Item I give to my Sister Hester Crabb of Tower Street London Widow the sume of ten pounds for mourning and to my Executors hereafter named the sume of thirty pounds a peice Item I give my said son John my Diamond Ring which was his Mothers and to my daughter Elizabeth a Diamond Ring which was her mothers And all the rest and residue of my real and personal Estate of what kind or nature so ever or wheresoever I give and devise the same unto and amongst my said Children equally between them to goe and be divided amongst them when they shall attaine their respective ages of twenty one years And my mind and Will is that if either or both of my said sons shall happen to dye before he or they shall attaine their respective ages of twenty one years or if y said Daughter shall happen to dye before she shall attaine her age of twenty one years or be married as aforesaid that then and in such Cases the respective Legacies and Shares of my Estate before given to such of my said Children as shall so happen to dye as aforesaid shall go and be paid and divided equally between the survivors of my said Children and if but one shall happen to survive them to such survivor and I do hereby nominate constitute and appoint Captain Richard Boulton of Crutched Fryars London Thomas Carbonell of Mark Lane London Merchant and James Creed of London Merchant to be the Executors of this my last Will and Testament and I do hereby devise to my said executors the Guardianship and Tuition of my said Children until they shall attaine their ages of twenty one years and I do particularly request the friendship and care of my said Executors in the prudent Education of my said Children and lastly I do hereby revoke and make void all former Wills by me made and do publish and declare this to be my last Will and Testament In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this fifteenth day of February Anno Domini 1723. James Jemblin signed sealed published and declared by the said James Jemblin to be his last Will and testament in our presence in witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands as Witnesses in the presence of the said Testator. Wm: Dandy Thos. Stainbank Charles Catliffe.

The will is accompanied by this barely legible marginal note:

On the third day of January 1765 ??? with the ??? of the Goods Chattells and Credits of James Jemblin late of Woodford in the County of Essex deceased left unadministered by Richard Bolton Thomas Carbonnell and Sir James Creed Knight the Executors named in the said will now also respectively deceased was granted to Elizabeth Colliver formerly Jemblin Wife of Edward Colliver the natural and lawful daughter of the deceased and as such the surviving Residuary Legatee named in the said Will having been first sworn duly to administer the said Sir James Creed ??? the said Richard Bolton and Thomas Carbonnell and Dame Mary Creed Widow the Relict and sole Executrix of the Will of the said Sir James Creed dying intestate before She had taken upon herself  ??? with the said ??? of the said James Jemblin deceased.

The family of Mary Maunser

I’ve begun to explore the Manser or Maunser family, trying to find a link between John Manser, the London apothecary and ‘kinsman’ of my 8 x great grandfather, stationer John Byne (1651 – 1689), and Mary Maunser of Sussex, who was John’s grandmother (the mother of Magnus Byne, rector of Clayton-cum-Keymer), and thus my 10 x great grandmother. In the previous post, I reported what I’ve managed to find out about John Manser’s immediate family, but I’m struggling to establish a reliable connection with the Manser or Maunser family of Sussex.

In this post, I want to look more closely at Mary Maunser. As I’ve noted before, she married Stephen Byne of Burwash, Sussex, on 22^nd January 1611/2 in Wadhurst. According to Renshaw’s history of the Byne family, Mary was the daughter of John Manser or Maunser, a yeoman of Wadhurst who died in 1598. In his will dated 26^th December 1597, he apparently ‘devised his lands in Burwash in default of issue of his son Christopher to his daughter Mary and her heirs.’  It seems reasonable to assume that, like her husband Stephen Byne, Mary was born some time in the mid-1580s.

Local map showing location of Hightown in Wadhurst Park, Sussex

Renshaw also informs us that Mary’s father John was a son of Robert Maunser of Hightown in the parish of Wadhurst. Alfred A. Wace, in his 1923 history of Wadhurst, describes Hightown as the ‘seat’ of the Maunser family since the fifteenth century. Apparently the family was ‘very numerous’ in Wadhurst and in the seventeenth century they were great iron masters.

According to a pedigree of the family, John Maunser was Robert’s second son. His eldest son was named William and he married Mary, daughter of Nicholas Fowle, Esq., of Rotherfield. We’ve come across the Fowle family before: Mary Maunser’s husband Stephen Byne was the son of Edward Byne and Agnes Fowle, the latter being the daughter of Magnus Fowle of Burwash, himself the grandson of a Nicholas Fowle, though I can’t be sure at this stage that it’s the same person. Rather unhelpfully, the pedigree has very few dates attached, and since the same Christian names recur regularly in the Maunser, Fowle and Byne families, there’s a need for care in jumping to premature conclusions.

Wadhurst Park, location of Hightown (via geograph)

The pedigree claims that Robert Maunser of Hightown, who I assume is Mary Maunser’s grandfather, married Joan, the daughter of a man by the name of Rootes, of Marshalls in Sussex. There is a contradiction here with Wace, who states that Robert married ‘a Fowle of Rotherfield’. Did he get confused with Robert’s son William, or did two successive generations of Maunsers marry into the Fowle family? Mace also writes that ‘the next holder [of Hightown] worked the Scragoak furnace’. Presumably he means Robert’s son William.

Both sources agree that Robert was the son of Christopher Maunser of Hightown. According to Wace, he died in 1545 and besides ‘Heightown’ owned properties called Riseden, Gregories and Wenborne. Wace says that Christopher ‘married a Barham’ (another prominent Sussex family) and the pedigree agrees, stating that his wife Mildred was the daughter of a man of that name from Wadhurst. Alongside Christopher’s name in the pedigree is the enigmatic ‘18^th Henry VIII. 1526’, which a history of the Barham family helpfully glosses as meaning that he was alive in 1526, being the eighteenth year of that king’s reign.

Part of Richard Budgen’s map of 1724, showing Wadhurst, Hightown and Scragoak

We can push the Maunser family tree back two more generations. Christopher was the son of Walter Maunser, ‘temp. (time of?) Henry VII’, according to the pedigree. He in turn was the elder son of Sir Robert Maunser and his wife Margaret. The legend accompanying Sir Robert’s name – ‘1483. Richard III’ – probably indicates that he was knighted by that controversial king in that year. Wace confirms that Robert lived at Hightown: the earliest association of the family with that property. Another source describes him as a ‘substantial landowner’.

If I’m on the right track here, then Sir Robert Maunser was my maternal 15 x great grandfather, making him not only my earliest confirmed ancestor, but also the first knight to appear in my family tree. I sometimes wonder what my Nan, Minnie Londors née Roe, the widow of a cemetery gardener, living in her tiny terraced house in East Ham, would have made of these illustrious ancestors, had she but known about them…

Can these people really be my ancestors?

My mother’s father was a gardener at the City of London Cemetery. His father was a grave-digger and came from a long line of farm labourers. My mother’s mother was the daughter of a manual labourer, who was himself the son and grandson of shoemakers, while her mother worked in a jute factory from the age of seven and belonged to another family of agricultural workers.

So you can imagine my surprise on discovering recently that, a few generations further back, my mother’s family tree included wealthy merchants, landowners and high-ranking military officers. In researching my eighteenth-century ancestors, I’ve often stopped to ask myself the question that I suppose must strike all family historians from time to time: can these people really be my ancestors?

More specifically, I’ve found myself questioning whether Elizabeth Holdsworth nee Gibson, who was the daughter of a lieutenant and the granddaughter of a goldsmith, whose parents owned a country estate at Waltham Abbey, and whose first husband was an Epping landowner, is really identical with the Elizabeth Holdsworth whose son William, my 4 x great grandfather, worked as a Stepney cordwainer, and whose daughter, my 3 x great grandmother Eliza, married Daniel Roe, another shoemaker?

In this post, I want to summarise the evidence that these two are indeed the same person – my 5 x great grandmother. My starting-point is the Holdsworth family tree drawn up towards the end of the nineteenth century by Joseph Cook and James Joseph   Holdsworth, which informs us that John or Joseph Holdsworth, who was originally from Yorkshire and ‘took a farm in Essex near Brentwood’, was married to Elizabeth, and that they had six children who survived to adulthood, named John, Henry, Sarah, Joseph, William and Godfrey. Evidence from the local parish registers confirms that children with these names were born to Joseph and Elizabeth Holdsworth in South Weald, not far from Brentwood, between the years 1764 and 1773.

Sarah, Joseph, William and Godfrey Holdsworth all turn up in London marriage records between 1786 and 1793. Moreover, Sarah, Joseph and William are named in the 1809 will of Elizabeth Holdsworth, which also mentions her ‘five sons’. In the will, Elizabeth expresses her ‘desire to be laid in a vault in the church yard of St Dunstan Stepney built by my grandfather and where my brothers and sisters lay’. Elizabeth’s will was signed and sealed on 11 February 1809. The parish register of St Dunstan’s records the burial of Elizabeth Holdsworth of Mile End Old Town on 8 March 1809.

James Joseph Holdsworth made a copy of the inscription on a tomb in Stepney churchyard which includes the following statement: ‘Here lieth the remains of Mrs Elizabeth Holdsworth late of this parish who departed this life March 1st 1809 aged 77 years’. There seems little doubt that this is the same Elizabeth Holdsworth who wrote the above-mentioned will. However, if this is indeed the last resting-place of my 5 x great grandmother, then the remainder of the inscription provides a clear link between her and the Greene and Gibson families. Also buried in the tomb are Stepney mariner Captain William Greene and his son Joseph, ‘Citizen and Goldsmith’, as well as various other members of their family. (The only remaining doubt about this tomb is Elizabeth’s use of the phrase ‘where my brothers and sisters lay’. To my knowledge, she only had one brother, Bowes John Gibson, who outlived her.)

My distant relative Ron Roe has convincingly demonstrated that Elizabeth Holdsworth was born Elizabeth Gibson, and that she was the daughter of Lieutenant John Gibson and his wife Mary, daughter of Joseph Greene. Elizabeth Holdsworth’s age at the time of her death fits with the birth date (1733) for Elizabeth Gibson. In 1753 Elizabeth Gibson married Epping landowner John Collins and, on his death, married Joseph Holdsworth. The parish register of St Mary Magdalene, Bermondsey, records that on 20 May 1763, Elizabeth Collins, a widow, married Joseph Holdsworth, a bachelor. Their first child, Elizabeth, was baptised in South Weald in the following March.

Two other pieces of evidence linking ‘our’ Elizabeth Holdsworth with Elizabeth Gibson, daughter of John Gibson and granddaughter of Joseph Greene, are the wills of Mary Gibson née Greene, Joseph’s daughter and the widow of John Gibson, and that of her youngest, unmarried daughter, Sarah Gibson. Mary’s will, drawn up in 1788, clearly establishes that its author is the mother of (among others) Bowes John Gibson, who we know to have been an East India Company broker, and of Jane Gibson, who married Essex landowner William Coates. But she also mentions her daughter Elizabeth Holdsworth several times, proving that the latter was born a Gibson. If there were any doubts remaining that this is ‘our’ Elizabeth, then the will of Sarah Gibson, signed and sealed in the following year, should lay those to rest. Sarah specifically mentions ‘my sister Elizabeth Holdsworth wife of Joseph Holdsworth’ (my emphasis).

While not conclusive, this accumulation of evidence proves beyond reasonable doubt that my 5 x great grandmother Elizabeth Holdsworth was the daughter of John and Mary Gibson of Tower Hill, Aldgate, and Woodredon House, Waltham Abbey. Why she and her immediate descendants did not enjoy the wealth and status of their forebears is a question for another time.

Sarah Schofield, previously Hone, née Stallard?

In an earlier post, I reported some new findings about William and Sarah Schofield of Barkingside, Essex, who were my great-great-great-great-grandparents. Their daughter Mary Ann (1802 – 1887) married John Felix Londors (1785 – 1876), and their great grandson George John Londors (1896 – 1961) was my maternal grandfather.

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.

The burial of William Holdsworth in Woodford: September 1827

In the last post, I wrote about my discovery of new information about my Londors ancestors in the parish registers for Woodford, Essex. But there are Woodford connections on the other side of my mother’s family, too. Back in the summer, I mentioned my discovery of confirmation that my 4 x great grandparents William and Lydia Holdsworth moved to Woodford from Whitechapel towards the end of their lives.

My subscription to Essex Archives Online  has now enabled me to locate a burial record for William. His funeral was at the parish church of St Mary the Virgin on 20 September 1827. I’m fairly sure this is the right person, even though the register says he was 53 years old, when we know that ‘our’ William would have been 56, having been born in 1771. The burial date fits with the ‘proving’ of his will on 24 September.

From the parish register of St Mary the Virgin, Woodford, Essex

John Felix Londors (1785 – 1876): my great great great grandfather

Thanks to the excellent online subscription service at Essex Archives Online, I’ve been able to discover important new information about my Londors ancestors.

My mother’s maiden name was Joyce Alma Londors: she’s the daughter of the late George John Londors (1896 – 1961) and Minnie Louisa Roe (1902- 1987). My maternal grandfather came from a long line of Barking farm workers: he was the son of another George Londors (1863 – 1934), who in turn was the son of John Schofield Londors (1827 – 1915).

John Schofield Londors was the son of John Londors (1785 – 1876) and Mary Ann Schofield (1802 – 1887). Mary was John senior’s second wife: they were married in 1826. His first wife was Elizabeth Eliza Plane, whom he married in 1815.

Woodford parish church in the 19th century

We know from census records that John was born in Woodford, Essex, in 1785-6. Some months ago, I noted that a distant relative had sent me a copy of a page from the Londors family Bible, which appeared to include a note by John Londors of his date of birth: 15 July 1785.

Searching the parish register of the church of St Mary the Virgin, Woodford, I’ve discovered that John and Hannah Landors had a son, John Felix, christened there on 7 August 1785. The same couple also appear to have had three daughters: Mary Elizabeth, christened on 30 March 1783; Mary Anne, 21 March 1784; and Elizabeth, 7 August 1787. There are no records of any other children born to John and Hannah between 1766 and 1812.

Baptisms in Woodford parish register in 1785, with entry for John Felix Landors at foot of page

The variation in the spelling of their surname need not concern us. As I’ve noted before, my 3 x great grandfather spelt his name as ‘Landors’ in the family Bible, and this was the spelling used by the parish clerk recording his marriage to Mary Ann Schofield. When John married his first wife Elizabeth, the surname looks more like Landery. In fact, the spelling of the family name did not stabilise until the next generation, presumably as a result of increasing literacy.

From these Woodford records, I’ve learned the names of my 4 x great grandparents (John and Hannah), the middle name (Felix) of my 3 x great grandfather (which might help us to trace even earlier relatives), and the names of his three sisters. I’ve been unable to find any record of the marriage of John and Hannah at Woodford between 1774 and 1812, suggesting that they might have been married elsewhere and then moved to Woodford.

18th century farm workers

I’ve written before about the John Londors of Spitalfields who married Hannah Ackerley. The date of their marriage – December 1782 – would fit with the birth of Mary Elizabeth Landors in Woodford in 1783 (as long as we assume that Hannah was pregnant at the time of their marriage). Is it possible that these were my 4 x great grandparents, and that they either moved to Woodford after their marriage in Spitalfields, or they had a reason for returning to London for this event? What’s more, we know that the John Londors who married Hannah fin 1783 was widowed (he married for a second time, to Sarah Reeves, also in Spitalfields) in 1792: might this explain the absence of records for Hannah after 1787?  The Woodford parish register records the burial of a Hannah Landy on 4 July 1790, though this spelling seems a bit ‘off’, even for my Londors / Landors ancestors.

William Holdsworth in Woodford

A few weeks ago I discussed the theory that my great-great-great-great-grandfather William Holdsworth (born in 1771) might have been a carrier, running carts between between Whitechapel and Woodford, Essex, perhaps with his brother John. If true, this would contradict, or at the very least add to, our existing understanding of William’s career as a cordwainer or shoemaker.

In my earlier post I mentioned three pieces of evidence that supported this theory. The first is that William’s daughter, my great-great-great-grandmother Eliza, gave her (late) father’s occupation as ‘carrier’, at the time of her second marriage in 1845. Secondly, my fellow researcher Ron Roe has found advertisements for William Holdsworth’s carrier service in trade directories for 1826. Thirdly, William’s grandson Thomas Parker, son of his daughter Sarah Holdsworth and silk weaver Thomas Parker, who was born in 1828, gave Woodford as his place of birth to the 1881 census enumerator.

The last will and testament of William Holdsworth

Now, thanks to the collection of London wills and probate records newly available at Ancestry, I have found evidence which appears to confirm the theory. A document ‘for executors or administrators, with will annexed, when there is no leasehold property’ was filed on 24 September 1827 in the consistory courts of London ‘in the goods of William Holdsworth deceased’. The document continues:

Appeared Lydia Holdsworth of Woodford in the county of Essex widow the sole executrix named in the last will and testament of the said William Holdsworth late of Woodford aforesaid shoemaker deceased

The document, which declares that William left money and goods to the value of less than £100, is signed with Lydia’s mark. The attached will (see image above) was written and signed one year earlier, on 27 September 1826. It reads as follows:

In the name of God Amen. I William Holdsworth in the parish of Woodford in the county of Essex being of sound mind and memory do make this my last will and testament

First I resign my soul to God who gave it and I desire my body may be decently interred Secondly I give and bequeath to my beloved wife Lydia Holdsworth all my household furniture linen wearing apparel and all property of every description that I shall be possessed of at the time of my decease and I do hereby nominate and appoint my said wife Lydia Holdsworth sole executrix of this my said will and testament in witness whereof I have set my hand this 27 day of September 1826

The will is signed by William and witnessed by Samuel Rybold and Samuel Nevill senior. Appended to the will is this note, written on 24 September 1827:

Lydia Holdsworth the widow the relict of the within deceased and sole executrix in this will named was duly sworn to the truth and faithful performance hereof and as usual and that the whole of the deceased’s goods chattels and ?? do not amount in value to sum of one hundred pounds.

Under the lawyer’s signature we read: ‘The testator was late as within shoemaker and died the 14^th inst.’ And at the foot of the page is this final addendum:

On the twenty fourth day of September 1827 the will of William Holdsworth late of the parish of Woodford in the county of Essex was proved at London before the worshipful Charles Coote doctor of laws and surrogate (?) by the oath of Lydia Holdsworth widow the relict of the deceased the sole executrix to whom ?? was granted having been first ?? duly to administer. Sub £100. 

Old map of Woodford, Essex

Of course, there’s no proof that the William Holdsworth mentioned in these documents is my 4 x great grandfather. But the the fact that he was a shoemaker and that his wife’s name was Lydia, as well as the dates, together with our existing suspicions of a Woodford connection, make it almost certain that he was. If this is indeed ‘our’ William’s will, then it tells us a number of things.

Firstly, we now know the date and place of William’s death: 14 September 1827 in Woodford, Essex. He would have been 56 years old when he died. This appears to contradict my earlier theory that William and Lydia both died in 1830 and were buried at the Wycliffe Chapel in their ‘home’ district of Stepney. We would need to check the Woodford parish burial records to be sure, but is it possible the couple were ‘re-buried’ later in the grounds of the Nonconformist chapel they had formerly attended? As for my discovery that Thomas Parker junior was born in Woodford in 1828: presumably his mother Sarah was staying with her widowed mother Lydia at the time.

Secondly, we learn that, even if it’s true that William ran a carrier operation from Woodford in his later years, he continued to work (and be known) as a shoemaker. Is it possible that his cart service was an occupational sideline? If so, it appears to have made him very little money, judging by the evidence of the will.

Windmill in Woodford, Essex

This is not the first time I’ve found a Woodford connection in my family tree. William Holdsworth was the ancestor of Minnie Lousia Roe (1902 – 1987), my mother’s mother. My mother’s father was George John Londors (1896 – 1921). His great-grandfather was farm labourer John Londors (1785 – 1876), who was actually born in Woodford, though he had moved to nearby Barking by the time of his first marriage in 1815. More recently, I discovered that Mary Ann Ellis (whose family is linked to my mother’s Blanch ancestors) and her husband John Blacklock followed the same route as William and Lydia Holdsworth, moving from Whitechapel to Woodford in about 1850, though they moved back again shortly afterwards. Mary Ann’s brother Edward Ellis made a similar, and similarly temporary move, to neighbouring Chigwell at around the same time.

What could account for these relocations from the East End to rural Essex? I wondered if the outbreaks of disease that plagued the East End in the 19^th century might have driven some families to move, for a time, to the relative safety of the countryside, but these dates don’t appear to coincide with any known epidemics. And why Woodford? Clearly, more research is needed before we can suggest answers to these questions.

The marriage of John Orgar and Sarah Anne Schofield: 30 September 1817

I’m grateful to Andy Phillips, who is researching the Orgar family, for providing confirmation of my hunch about the connection between the Orgar and Schofield families. Mary Ann Schofield (1802 – 1887) was my great-great-great-grandmother: she married my 3 x great grandfather, John Londors (1785 – 1876) in Barking in 1826. I had come to believe that Mary’s older sister Sarah Anne (born in 1798) married tobacco pipe maker John Orgar, and that this marriage helped to explain the multiple connections between the Londors, Schofield and Orgar families.

Andy has found a record in the International Genealogical Index for the marriage between John Orgar and Sarah Schofield at Wanstead on 30 September 1817. This would fit perfectly with our existing information. Sarah and John would both have been 19 at this date, and we know that their first child, another John Orgar, was born some time in 1818.

St Mary the Virgin, Wanstead in 1794

The location of the wedding is something of a mystery. Although Wanstead is only a few miles from Barking, we know that Sarah was born in Barking, her parents lived there, and her first child John would be born there. Perhaps there was a historical connection between the Schofields and the parish, which I assume was that of St. Mary the Virgin.

Londors, Orgar and the Mile End Old Town connection

My research into the different branches of my family’s history has drawn me back time and again to Mile End Old Town, and to the parish of St Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney. Recently, my distant relative Robin Blanch and I have attempted to clarify the connection between our Blanch ancestors and this area. I was already aware that my Holdsworth forebears had strong links to this part of east London, though the precise nature of those links still needs to be determined.

Mile End Old Gate (Whitechapel Turnpike) 1798 by Rowlandson & Schulze. Copyright: Museum of London

In the past few days, I’ve been trying yet again to unravel the relationship between the Londors family and Stepney. As I’ve reported before, I was intrigued to discover that my great-great-grandfather John Schofield Londors and two of his siblings were married in the Stepney area, despite all of them being born in (then) rural Barkingside and spending almost the whole of their lives there. In the case of John and his sister Elizabeth, their partners were also from Barking; their brother William married a woman from Shadwell, but there’s still a question mark over how he came to meet her.

A quick recap: my mother was born Joyce Londors, the daughter of George John Londors, who was in turn the son of another George Londors, the son of John Schofield Londors (1827 – 1915). The latter was the eldest son of John Londors (1785 – 1876) and Mary Anne Schofield (1802 – 1887). For at least three generations, the men in the family all worked as farm labourers in the Barkingside area.

John Schofield Londors married Sarah Ann Brown at St Dunstan, Stepney on 29 June 1851. On 23 November 1851, John’s sister Elizabeth married George Smith at St Mary, Stratford-le Bow. On 5 September 1852, John and Sarah Londors’ first daughter, Sarah Ann, was christened at the nearby church of St Mary, Bromley St Leonard. On 7 February 1864, William Londors married Caroline Harriet Feller at St. Thomas, Stepney.

So far, I’ve been unsuccessful in my efforts to find a direct connection between the Londors family and this part of the East End. My 3 x great grandfather John Londors, father of John Schofield, Elizabeth and William, was born in Woodford, Essex, though it’s possible that one or both of his parents came from the Stepney area and that he still had surviving relatives there in the 1850s. Another possible link is through the Schofield family. Mary Anne, John’s wife, was the daughter of William and Sarah Schofield of Barkingside. Sarah is said to have been born in Aldgate; William was her second husband and her surname at the time of their marriage was Hone: there are a number of Hone families to be found in the records for the Stepney area.

However, the most likely explanation I’ve come up with so far, for the Londors link with Stepney, is their association with the area via the Orgar family, whom I’ve written about in previous posts. To recap briefly: Mary Anne Schofield’s older sister, Sarah Anne, seems to have married tobacco pipe-maker John Orgar some time before 1818, when their first child was born, though I’ve yet to find a record of their marriage. For convenience, I describe this person as John Orgar (2), since he was the son of another tobacco pipe -maker with the same name: John Orgar (1). We know from census records that the John Orgar (2) who married Sarah Anne Schofield was born in Stepney in about 1799, and that he’s almost certainly the person of that name who was born in Mile End Old Town on 2 October 1798 and baptised at St Dunstan’s on 17 March following. His parents were John and Sarah: unfortunately, I’ve been unable to find out any more about them or their other children.

St Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney, in 1797

John Orgar (2) and his wife Sarah Anne Schofield were thus the uncle and aunt of John Schofield Londors and his siblings. As described in an earlier post, John and Sarah moved around a fair amount during their married life. Their children were born in Barking (John, 1818), Richmond-on-Thames (Mary Ann, 1826), Barking again (Sarah Ann, 1832) and Bunhill Row (Elizabeth Ann, 1838). When the 1841 census was taken, the Orgars were at the Woodman Inn on Archway Road, Highgate. However, by the time of the 1851 census, they were in Stepney: at 34 White Horse Street, which seems to have been home to a community of tobacco pipe makers.

By this time, two of their children had married. John Orgar (3) – a pipe maker like his father and grandfather before him – must have either stayed in, or moved back to, Barking, where he married Sarah Hippisley Shean of Southwark in July, 1840, though by 1851 they were firmly established with their young family in Meeting House Court, Shoreditch. John’s sister Mary Ann had married pipe-maker Joseph Hopkins at St Dunstan, Stepney, in September, 1847, and in 1851 the young couple were living and working alongside Mary’s parents in White Horse Street.

This means that my great-great-grandfather John Schofield Londors and his siblings had an aunt, uncle and a number of cousins living in Stepney and Shoreditch by the early 1850s at the latest. We know that the two families must have remained close, since John Schofield Londors’ daughter Sarah Ann would marry William, the eldest son of his cousin John Orgar (2) in 1873.  Whether this is sufficient to explain John Londors’ decision to get married in Stepney, not to mention his sister Elizabeth’s marriage some miles away in Bow, is debatable.

What is certain, though, is that the Orgars’ roots in Mile End Old Town were deep and of long duration. The 1841 census for White Horse Street, though it doesn’t feature any members of the Orgar family, includes a large number of tobacco pipe-makers, including some who would be neighbours of the Orgars ten years later. It’s at least possible that this was where tobacco pipe-maker John Orgar (1) lived with his wife Sarah, and where his son John (2) lived before his move to Barking and marriage to Sarah Anne Schofield. White Horse Street is a continuation of White Horse Lane, which runs south from Mile End Road, and features on maps of the area going back to the middle of the 18^th century.

Mile End Old Town from Rocque's 1746 map, showing White Horse Inn and start of White Horse Lane

Mile End Old Town from Horwood's 1792 map showing start of White Horse Lane

Although, as mentioned above, I’ve yet to find any definite records for John Orgar (1) and his wife Sarah, it’s possible that John is the 65-year-old tobacco pipe-maker to be found at the time of the 1841 census living in the home of another pipe-maker, Thomas Longstaff, in Rochester Row, Westminster. This John Orgar would have been born in about 1776 (always allowing for the approximate nature of ages in this particular census), but not in county.

I’ve yet to find a birth record that fits this date, even approximately, nor have I come across any evidence of John’s marriage to Sarah. However, we know from other sources that there were other Orgars in Mile End, going back to the 1750s. I’ve recently obtained the East of London Family History Society’s CD database of Mile End Old Town Residents: 1741 – 1790, which uses land tax records to catalogue householders in the areas during this period. Between 1757 and 1759 the inhabitants of Mile End Road (north side) included a baker by the name of John Orgar, possibly from Hertford, and his wife Frances. I’ve since found out from the IGI that they had four children, all born in Mile End Old Town and all christened at St Dunstan’s. These were: John (1757), Susannah (1759), Hannah (1761) and Elizabeth (1764).

1757 is probably too early for the birth of the John Orgar (1) who married Sarah, but might this be his father? However, there are other Orgars in the local records for this period, too – for example, a John Orgar was born to William and Mary Orgar of neighbouring Bethnal Green in 1767 – so perhaps one shouldn’t be too hasty in jumping to conclusions.

What is clear, however, is that the Orgar family had a long association with Stepney, going back at least three generations and including a presence there in the 1850s, which might help to explain (if nothing else can) the attraction of the area as a place for their Londors cousins to marry. I still hope, however, to discover a closer Londors link, at the same time as I continue to research the Mile End Old Town associations of the other branches of my family.

Searching for information about Mile End Old Town during this period has proved extremely frustrating. As Derek Morris points out in his introduction to the database of Mile End Old Town residents, ‘modern historians seem to have difficulties in describing the area’. Derek attributes this partly to a failure to distinguish between the physically sepaate hamlets of Mile End Old Town and Mile End New Town. Although both were in the parish of Stepney, Mile End Old Town, perhaps confusingly, was further out from the centre of London than its near namesake. It also had a more mixed population, including a number of wealthy merchants as well as those employed in the brewing and rope-making industries.

Besides Derek’s own pioneering book on Mile End Old Town in the mid-18th century, which I have just ordered, there have been very few detailed studies of its history. Perhaps the work of family historians can make a small contribution to remedying that situation.