h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yesterday I quickly disposed of the family skeletons (literal not proverbial) and moved on to much more interesting relatives. My four times great grandfather, Isaac was born in 1754 approximately, based on his age at death. We don't know where, some have conjectured that he was from a Huguenot family, and had been born abroad. I have discounted this as there is no evidence to support it and 1760's seems a little late for Huguenot refugees.

On 28 February 1779 he married Jane, three years his junior, who came from Scarborough in Yorkshire. We have no idea why she was in London, perhaps she had migrated looking for work. One of the witnesses to the marriage was her younger sister Aley, who would have been 19 at the time. I very much doubt that Isaac had met Jane whilst holidaying by the sea. Isaac worked as a gardener and was undoubtedly one of the mass of people scraping by at that time and place.

Isaac and Jane lived in Hackney East London and had four children. They were together for 36 years, Jane was buried on 4 October 1815. Now 62, Isaac appears to have wasted no time in finding a new comforter. In 1816 the marriage banns for Isaac and Ann Stapleton a widow, were read on three successive Sundays from 23 June, but for an unknown reason, the marriage never took place. Did some ghost from the past turn up like the wedding of Jane Eyre, to announce an impediment? Was Ann not a widow at all? We don't know, but stay with me, gentle reader, for some creative thinking.

Though the marriage didn't happen, Isaac and Ann did live together as man and wife. Indeed in a court case in April 1820 she has his name and is described in court as his wife.

The case involved a petty theft. Sometime on the 15 March 1820, whilst both Ann and Isaac were out of the house, Isaac's pocket watch and a handkerchief were stolen from a drawer. On her return home, Ann stated in court that she went searching for the items and found them three or four days later in the pawnbroker's shop, run by Robert Huxson.

Robert Huxson testified that the accused had pledged the watch for 14 shillings. The Hackney constable, one John Garva stated that he had arrested the accused and that the accused had made no statement.

The accused was found guilty and, being a trifling affair with no physical assault or capital crime involved, got the minimum sentence. Seven years transportation to Australia. After being held for some months in prison, the accused left England along with 189 other convicts on 3 September 1820 on board the convict ship 'Asia'.

On the 24th September, and the following two Sundays, the banns for the marriage of Isaac and Ann were read, and this time the marriage went ahead on the 16 October 1820 in Hackney.

Just a coincidence? Perhaps, indeed probably, but for one little factoid not yet revealed. 'Just one more thing.....' as detective Colombo was wont to say; the name of the accused was John Stapleton aged 19. The same surname as Ann. Was he her son by the previous marriage? Or a nephew? or at least a family member who knew something about her previous marriage that would impede her second? We may never know, but it would make a fine classic family drama series on a Sunday tea time on the BBC.

[Amy P]

Wow, that's fascinating stuff!

Deb

Fascinating! But whatever the impediment to the first wedding was, it was removed 5 years later, or do you suspect that the 1820 marriage wasn't actually legal but took place because the only person who might object was out of the way?

What was the age of Ann compared to Isaac? How old would she have been when pregnant if she did give birth to someone who was a 19 year old by 1820?

At the time of the first projected marriage, Isaac was 62, Ann was 39 and John would have been 15. All ages plus or minus a year. If John WAS her son, she would have been 23/4 at the birth.

It is the merest of possibilities that John was a close relative who perhaps knew that Ann's first husband wasn't dead.

It may all be coincidence. It makes for a fun story to spice up a family narrative that might be rather dull otherwise. I am still toying with the idea of proposing that Isaac and Ann set up John, to get him out of the way.

I greatly enjoyed reading your family history and I am sure it would make a fantastic novel.

Thanks Thinky, it is indeed only removed from fiction by the faintest of margins