* Mum's Great Great Grandparents

 

James Card and Charlotte Stratten (parents of Cornelius Card)

James was born in 1792 in Speldhurst. On a local census in Withyham Sussex in 1838 he claimed to have been born in that village but no baptism is recorded there for him and he was in fact born to John Card and Elizabeth in nearby Speldhurst. He married Charlotte in Plumstead Kent in 1814. James was a labourer. He died before the census of 1841. Charlotte was born in Eltham Kent in 1796 [Source FindMyPast baptisms] to Cornelius Stratten and Mary nee Mashman/ Marshman, both of whom were of Hampshire origin. She spent her childhood in Eltham Kent, in Woolwich Kent and in Greenwich Kent. Charlotte became a widow in about her early 40s with several young children at home. She moved from her cottage at Lye Wood Common by Withyham to Edenbridge in Kent. She lived in the High Street. On the 1851 census she is a charwoman and on the 1861 a nurse. [All census from LDS film images ] In 1840 clothing and other items were stolen from her by a teenage girl who was jailed for the offence.

William Peacock and Mercy Geale (parents of Mary Peacock)

William Peacock was an ag lab born in Cowfold West Sussex in 1799 [Source Familysearch IGI] to Charles Peacock and Martha nee Henty. His family moved to Edenbridge Kent when he was a young man and there he remained until his death in 1879. One of his brothers, Peter, was a draper and grocer prosecuted for unjust scales in 1875. Several of the siblings had illegitimate children.
Mercy was born in Edenbridge in 1802 to Mary Geale. Mercy may have worked as a nurse I have been told, including after marriage. One of her sons worked as an assistant to the local surgeon Mr Creasy. She died in 1878.

RICHARD HANNAN (father of John Hannan)

His son's marriage certificate tells us of his existence, and that he was a carpenter. We do not know his spouse's name. Church of Ireland baptisms and marriages for this period have been lost for Hacketstown in County Carlow Ireland where he was from. His family was Protestant rather than Catholic and of yeoman class. Burial records suggest Richard was born in 1806 and died in 1893. He owned a 17 acre estate of land in Monastill by Hacketstown. This was inherited property held jointly with a Joseph Hannan probably his brother. The potato famine caused much local poverty. Entailed estates which could not be legally sold previously but had debts were known as encumbered estates and Richard's small estate was one such. In 1851 a George Wyborne used new legislation to force the sale of the Hannan's property. Proceedings meant the sale by auction took place in the Autumn of 1854. The land was said to be worth £11 a year.
Richard was apparently unmarried. If this is correct his son, our John, was illegitimate. However the burial record may have mistaken a man long widowed with no locally remaining children for a man who had never married and had a family.

WILLIAM SHERWOOD and ANN WARREN (parents of Emily Sherwood)
William was a carpenter and at one point beerseller born in Tonbridge Kent in 1802 to William Sherwood and Jane nee Pullinger. He married Anne in Shipborne Kent in 1824. At that time he was a resident there. The couple also lived in Canning Town East London at the time of the 1861 census (26 Rathbone Street where they were beer sellers. From at least 1864 this address was the pub the Sir John Lawrence and was perhaps of that name in 1861 too),in West Malling Kent,
in Seale Kent (at 1841 census), in Plaxtol Kent, in Tonbridge Kent (1851 census- Prospect Place, which I cannot find on a modern map) and Medway where both died (1871 census 2 Mills Terrace Chatham, this still exists and can be seen on Google Maps).
William received an inheritance of a guinea from his maternal grandfather. Times must have been sometimes hard though as in 1870 a widowed William admitted himself and his grandson Alfred Sherwood into the Medway workhouse. William wore the number 49 on his shirt while an inmate, as was required. He left of his own accord in March 1871, just after Alfred left. Unfortunately at the time of his death in 1880 William was again a resident of the workhouse.

Ann was born in Shipborne in 1803 to William Warren and Charlotte nee Bennett. Her siblings were Hannah 1802, Thomas 1809 an ag lab, Lucy 1812, Nathaniel 1815, Clarissa 1818, Louisa 1822, Laura 1826 who died as a young adult in 1850,and Alfred 1826 a shopman who moved to Westminster London. Clarissa was accidentally shot in the face and blinded in one eye at the age of 16 while working as a servant girl in Shipborne. Another teenage servant had been playing with a gun he found. The case went to trial as attempted murder as the boy had made jokey threats to shoot Clarissa before the gun went off. Clarissa did not believe deliberate harm was intended to her and the shooter was found not guilty. Her employer paid her medical expenses.

Ann's other sibling William also had gun related trouble when he was convicted of stealing a gun from his employer. Sentenced to 7 years transportation he provided good character references from the vicar of Shipborne, his father's employer Thomas Jervis and 10 other local residents to get the sentence reduced to jail time in England. Both incidents must have been very worrying to my Ann. She was tough stuff though, being fined at the local court for beating with a hop pole a female neighbour of hers who had poured water on her cat. It was suggested Ann was something of a bully, continually feared by her Tonbridge neighbors. She had claimed to be acting in defence of herself and her cat.

Esther Plumpton (mother of William George Plumpton)
Esther was an unmarried servant when she had her son. She was born in Chatham Kent in 1817 to George Plumpton and Ann nee Barber. Her mother died when Esther was 3 but she gained a stepmother. At the time of the 1841 census both Esther and her little boy were in the Workhouse. In 1844 she married a labourer Joshua Weller but had no further children. With him and her son she lived at Eagle Alley off King Street Rochester at the time of the 1851 census and at 76 Burritt Street Rochester in 1861. She died in 1867 and Joshua very quickly remarried.
Esther had a half sister Catherine who worked for Lord Sefton as a servant in London. This sister managed to have sufficient estate to decide to write a will and to retire from her servant job.

Janes Thomas Brisley and Rose Hannah Bush (parents of Rose Hannah Brisley)
James was born in Chatham in 1822 to Thomas Brisley and Frances nee Kidney. He was a sawyer at Chatham Dockyard sawmill. He married Rose in Chatham 1844. In 1851 they lived at York Cottage Rochester,and in 1861 at Front Row nearby. In 1871 they lived at 46 Front Row Chatham. These buildings all no longer stand. In 1871 Rose's sister Jemima lived with them as their servant. James died in 1877.
Rose usually went by her middle name Hannah. I'd guess childhood teasing at being named Rose Bush probably put her off her first name. She was born to William Bush and Hannah nee Hubbard /Hubbert in Minster Isle of Sheppey Kent (baptised Sheerness) in 1822 [Source FamilySearch England Births and Baptisms]. She was raised a Wesleyan. In 1848 she witnessed the marriage of her sister Martha to the sailor son of an African Prince! [Source parish registers on mictofilm from Medway Archives] Her two younger half siblings, Benjamin and Jemima, lived with her and her husband at different times suggesting that she was close to them as well as her full siblings.
Her census address in 1881 when a widow was "Watmans" Buildings Chatham (probably in fact Watts Buildings almshouses on Maidstone Road which still exist) She worked as a charwoman then. 

Next generations back for all these lines, Mum's 3x Great Grandparents here

More generations coming

Researched by Charlotte.

Researched via: Kent Archives, National Archives, LDS Family History centre (census page images), Mary Smith, Ancestry England Criminal Registers,Irish National Archives.Other sources:

All census my transcription from census images supplied by ANCESTRY. Speldhurst parish record images via Find my Past Kent collections. Edenbridge parish records at Kent Archives. Sevenoaks Chronicle accessed via the BNA for the court case involving Peter Peacock]