James and Eliza made their escape from Little Baddow on the morning of 28 September 1872. On the way to Chelmsford, they stopped at the Cock Inn at Boreham ‘for refreshment’.
Chelmsford Chronicle, 4 October 1872
After unloading their items at Chelmsford Station, James, Eliza, and their driver Thomas Peacock, spent some time at the Fleece Inn on Duke Street.
Essex Weekly News, 17 Jan 1873The Fleece Inn (trading as the Golden Fleece), Chelmsford (via Pub History)
The map below, although drawn 20 years later than the events in 1872, shows where these places were located in relation to each other:
c1893 map showing Little Baddow, the Cock Inn, Chelmsford Station, and the Fleece Inn
Unfortunately, we can no longer visit these establishments. The Cock is no longer a pub and has since become a private home. The Fleece Inn, which was situated at 84 Duke Street, was demolished by 1932. A new building was erected which now trades as the Golden Fleece.
Even the Chelmsford Station of James and Eliza’s time is no more. It was originally situated slightly to the north of where the station is today; the present building was constructed (initially) in 1885.
The wonderful Tasmanian Archives site has a wealth of records available online – particularly for those researching their convict ancestors.
My ancestor, Elizabeth ALLEN arrived in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) aboard the convict ship, Margaret in 1843. The details given by her where recorded upon her arrival.
Coming from a large city like Birmingham, with a relatively common name, I had lost hope of finding who Elizabeth ALLEN’s parents were. For some strange reason – perhaps I was having trouble reading the handwriting or deciphering the code used – I didn’t realise how much family information was contained on my ancestor’s arrival record when I first viewed it. After looking again at her arrival record, I could now see that the information I needed was there waiting for me.
Allen, Elizabeth
Height: 5/2 1/4
Age: 20
Calling: [Domestic Servant] & Needlewoman
Where Tried: Warwickshire, Birmingham Boro QS
When Tried: 21 October 1842
Sentence: 10
Native Place: Birmingham
Married or Single: S
Children: [blank]
Religion: CE
Read or Write: R
Relations – Apprenticeship – Where Last Residing: F Isaac at Churchill 2B Josiah & Wm 1S Mary Ann with my father; 9 [months?] on the Town
Ship Character: Fair
Offences: Stg a shawl [from? Gt?] Hampton St; once for same 3 mos
My interpretation:
F = father Isaac at Churchill
2B = 2 brothers Josiah and William
1S = 1 sister Mary Ann
These siblings (or at least Mary Ann) are living with her father in Churchill.
(‘9 months on the town’ seems to indicate that Elizabeth had also been prostituting herself).
Using Family Search, I searched the IGI for the birth of Elizabeth ALLEN around 1822, including her father’s name Isaac. I found an appropriate entry for 29 Sep 1822 in Harborne, Staffordshire. Harborne was so near to Birmingham that it became a suburb in 1890 (source).
To check this was the right record and accept her mother’s name as Ann, I then searched for her siblings birth entries. I was able to find Josiah and Mary Ann, also born in Harborne (no record of William as yet). Ann was recorded as Ann PHILLIPS on Josiah’s record, Anne Philis on Mary Ann’s and simply Ann on Elizabeth’s.
I was also able to find the likely marriage record for Isaac and Ann – 26 Aug 1821, Halesowen, Worcester – Ann was recorded as Ann Phillis GEALEY/GALEY. So was Phillis another Christian name or a mistranscription of Phillips?
I’ve been MIA the last few weeks as I travelled back to Australia for my brother’s wedding (which was lovely).
Sadly, my grandmother’s health has deteriorated and she has now moved to Sydney to be closer to my uncle. (Interestingly, she is a direct descendant of the BUCHAN lunatics I’ve been blogging about and is also suffering from senility).
However, this move uncovered many photograph albums that I think even grandma had forgotten existed. She told me once that she had thrown out all her old photos because she didn’t think anyone was interested (!). Happily, this has turned out not to be the case and I pored over loads of antique photographs of her life (which until now I had never seen). More on those when I have access to a scanner…
In other news, I am currently reading a new book entitled, ‘Tasmania’s Convicts’ by Alison Alexander, which I found whilst in Australia. I am less than halfway through but find it addictive reading and am happy to recommend it to anyone researching convict ancestors in Van Diemen’s Land. It even mentions my ancestor Elizabeth ALLEN (very briefly) who was transported there in 1843 for stealing a shawl.
My brother has just returned from his honeymoon in Tasmania, where he had spent part of it ‘researching’ at Port Arthur. I hope to receive some information from him in the near future.
My head is swimming with genealogy right now so I’ve decided to focus on my convict ancestors for a while to give me a bit of focus. No doubt when I get this scanner, I’ll be flitting around again though.
Whilst reading my copy of ‘Your Family Tree’ magazine, I came across a great resource for people with London ancestors. The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection includes an 1843 London map which you can transpose over google’s current satellite map. This would have saved me a lot of time a couple of years ago.
I don’t have many links to London in my tree. The only significant person in my tree to reside in London was George Wright PALMER and part of his family.
George was born in Portsea and his job in the Royal Navy caused him to move around a bit. For some reason, George was in London at the time of the 1871 census. He was living at 33 Marshall St with his first wife, Mary Ann and youngest son, Edward.
Palmer family in 1871 census
When I went on the hunt for this address a couple of years ago, I had to switch between windows and use educated guesses to pinpoint the locations. With Rumsey’s site, I was able to search and quickly locate Marshall St in Westminster.
Marshall Street, Westminster
Here is a photograph I took of what I believe to be 33 Marshall St (I found it the hard way but using this map overlay it was so quick and simple):
33-36 Marshall Street c2000s (no.33 in foreground)
Here is a picture I found of 33 – 36 Marshall St, taken in the 1960s (annoyingly from the opposite direction to my picture):
33-36 Marshall Street c1960s
It’s hard to say how long George and his reduced family lived at this address. Mary Ann died the next year and he married his second wife, Emily Jane FELLA in 1873. Tragically, she died just two years later.
I’m not often able to find detailed information on the houses in which my ancestors lived, which makes the details I found at British History Online even more special:
Most of these buildings […] were erected in the 1820’s by or under the supervision of Thomas Finden after the closure of Carnaby Market […]. This redevelopment was uniformly planned, small in area and scale, but forming to-day an unusually pleasant oasis for pedestrians, and offering facilities for shopping away from the through streets. There is accommodation for shop-keepers over the shops, as well as for chamber trades such as tailoring. The least altered parts are the block bounded on the west by Newburgh Street and on the south by Ganton Street, and the two pedestrian courts west of Newburgh Street—Lowndes Court and Marlborough Court. The prevailing form was thefour-storey terrace house fronted in stock brick, two windows wide with plain window-openings, and a continuous plain parapet with stone coping. The windows, most of which have their original narrow glazing-bars, have stone sills. The ground floors were built as shops from the beginning, for this was the period of the planned shopping street… The ground floors of Nos. 33–36 Marshall Street have thin pilaster-strips and a continuous entablature; space appears to have been provided for shop-windows but, except at No. 35, these spaces have only one domestic-size window each. The ground floors of Nos. 20–22 Peter Street are similar.
(From: ‘Marshall Street Area’, Survey of London: volumes 31 and 32: St James Westminster, Part 2 (1963), pp. 196-208. via British-History.ac.uk (Date accessed: 10 Jan 2010).
In 1848, George Wright PALMER married Mary Ann ALLEN in the parish church of Gillingham, Kent (St Mary Magdalene). George was a gunner in the Royal Navy and Mary was a carpenter’s daughter. Here is the certified copy of their marriage entry ordered from the GRO (click on the images to see a larger version):
George Wright PALMER and Mary Ann ALLEN marriage certificate – 1848
The next image is of the marriage entry from the Gillingham Parish Church records:
George Wright PALMER and Mary Ann ALLEN marriage entry -1848
I am lucky enough to be able to view the parish records on the Medway Council’s City Ark website. These images have been published as part of the ‘Medway Ancestors’ project, thanks to a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. If you have ancestors in the Medway district – it’s well worth a look.
Again, I now have my ancestor’s signatures, as well as that of Mary Ann’s father, William Henry ALLEN. Fortunately in this case, the certificate was an accurate copy of the actual marriage entry. You may however find otherwise. If family historians ever have the opportunity to check parish records, they should. One small transcription error can lead to years of frustration. The information gleaned from these have been known to break down ‘brick walls’ in the past.
And hey, even if the information is the same, at least you’ll have your ancestors’ signatures or marks.
