The Desertion of Sarah Blay

 

London, July 1808

Sarah Blay was halfway from where she lived in Crispin Street, Spitalfields, to the poorhouse on Kingsland Road. On a good day, the walk took about thirty minutes. This was not a good day. The rain started before she’d balanced her crying ten-month-old son William on her hip, closed the door of the first floor rented apartment, and took four-year-old James’s hand.

Sarah couldn’t see the tears streaming down the baby’s face through the downpour she’d stepped into, but she could see the snot running out of his nose and into his mouth.

James had his head down struggling to keep the water out of his eyes, but it ran down his hair and into the front of his jacket. His little feet, protected by a pair of boots his father had made but now too small, shuffled along the path.

By the time Sarah, trying to balance William’s weight on her hip as she walked, led James in to Brushfield Street ten minutes from home, their clothes were sodden.

The dirt around the hem of Sarah’s skirt morphed into mud as she trudged up Bishops Square. Her few belongings in the valise a neighbour lent her, hanging over her right shoulder, did not include another dress.

‘Mama, I’m cold.’ James looked up at his mother, eyes squinting against the rain.

‘We are nearly there,’ Sarah lied.

As Sarah and her children walked left on to Worship Street, she felt James’s hand shivering in hers. Looking around for shelter, she led the child into the portico of a two-storey house. She sat William down on the cobbled entrance where his crying turned into suffocating sobs and knelt to look at her eldest. ‘We will be warm and dry soon.’

‘My coat is all wet,’ her son said, wiping his frozen hand under his nose.

‘I know. James. It’s not long now.’

‘Can we wait here out of the rain, Mama?’

Sarah shook her head, picked up the baby, again balanced him on her hip, pulled his cap down further over his ears, reached for James, and stepped out into the London weather. ‘Thank God he didn’t leave me in winter.’

 

 

 

Cousin found

For those of you who have read Time Tells All, you will know about Sir William George McBeath, my grandfather’s uncle, my 2x great uncle. And you might recall one of my works in progress is his biography (a giant in Victorian politics and huge contributor to Australian society).

I’ve been trying for some time to find descendants of William. He had four children: a daughter who died at 19 days of age, one son who in turn had one daughter, who died at the age of eight, a daughter who never married, and a daughter who married and had four children. Obviously, any descendants would have to come from these four children. Eureka!!!!!

This morning I received an email from a gentleman who read and enjoyed Times Tells All, and wait for it, we are third cousins – he is one of the descendants I’d hoped to find.

I’ll wait to hear from him again and with some luck, he will have some family information he can share that I might be able to include in the biography.

Watch this space.

They just keep piling up

(Old Commercial Bank Building, Lancefield. Photo by J. O'Connell.)

Like her counterpart Mary Hamilton Allan, Mary Ann Darby’s husband died young. James Darby died on 29 March 1872 at aged forty-five, from pneumonia. James Allan died a year later on 9 April 1873 from the result of a wagon accident. He was forty-three. The Darbys were in Lancefield, the Allans in Monegeetta (towns sixteen km apart).

James Allan and Mary had eight children, (the eldest married, the youngest, two at the time of his death) and Mary was pregnant with the ninth when her husband died. The infant was a female, stillborn in July of the same year, and buried with her father. James left Mary with the farm in Monegeetta and she probably managed it with her eldest son Robert. Perhaps she also had help form her sons-in-law George Jeans and John Foy (Foy also had a farm in Monegeetta). Mary didn’t leave the area until the 1880s – she had to survive on something – one assumes she did so with the farm.

Not so fortunate Mary Ann Darby. When her husband died she had five surviving children (the first two did not survive), eleven and under, and just pregnant with another. (This child was born seven months after his father’s death, so Mary then had six children twelve and under. According to the Letters of Administration and Probate files (Darby died intestate) Darby left debts of eight hundred and eighty seven pounds.

The amount of debt is hard to fathom. Darby rebuilt the flour mill in Lancefield after it burned down in 1871, was a Magistrate in the District, was on the Roads Board, and held other important positions in the local community. Nevertheless, he died leaving Mary in a dreadful predicament. There was a mortgagees auction for the flour mill on Wednesday 27th November 1872, one month after Mary’s son was born. At some point after, she moved into the old Commercial Bank Building and started a business. The advertisement doesn’t say what she’s selling. (She did complete a dressmaking apprenticeship in England before emigrating.)

M.A. DARBY (Widow of the late Mr. Jas Darby, Lancefield Flour Mills) Respectfully intimates that she has removed to the premises formerly occupied by the Commercial Bank, where she has OPENED A STORE In soliciting a share of the patronage of her friends, and those of her late husband, Mrs D. desires to express her grateful ? of the kindness of those friends by whose generous liberality she is enabled to enter into business.
But by 1878 Mary is living in Melbourne. The tragedies just keep piling up.

How does a 12 year old cope with this?

The further I dig into the murky past of family history; the more discoveries cause me to shake my head in despair. Not least, the deposition to the coroner of twelve year old Henry Allan McKee on 27th September 1895, regarding the suicide of his thirty-four-year old police constable father THE DAY BEFORE!!! (My 2x great grandfather and Henry’s mother were siblings.)

Marion McKee (nee Allan) took three of her six children on a week’s holiday to Melbourne, staying with her mother, Mary Allan, leaving on Friday 20th September 1895. She took six year old William, three year old Ellen, and nine month old Marion. She left twelve year old Henry, eleven year old Ethel, and eight year old Leslie at home with their police constable father in Cranbourne. [Bear in mind the police constable and his family lived in the house attached to the police station.]

There is nothing in Marion’s or her son Henry’s deposition about the whereabouts of Ethel and Leslie at the time of their father’s death.

About 8 o’clock on the evening of Wednesday last my father complained about great pain in his head and wished he was dead and was raving. He was then in bed, he was sober. About 10 o’clock on Wednesday morning he sent me to the hotel for two shillings worth of brandy he said he thought it might do him good. After 8 o’clock from the manner in which my father was talking I hid his revolver and razor… About half an hour after this my father began to complain of the pain in his head again. He continued to complain until about a quarter past seven when he got up when he washed and dressed himself and went into the office and made some entries in his books. He asked me where his revolver was I said I won’t tell you, he pressed me and I gave him the revolver he was then in the kitchen. I went out to the stable and while there I heard the report of a shot in the house.

No wonder these boys went off the rails as adults

For years I researched my convict ancestors: Cullen, Bartlett, Blay, and Tedder. Foolishly I thought I had it all worked out, and wrote four books about them. Today while I was changing profile pictures on my ancestors, I noted two hints for 4 x great grandmother, Sarah Blay. ‘There won’t be anything new in these hints,’ I thought. ‘No real point looking at them.’ But I did look. And YES. NEW INFORMATION. AAAGGGHHH!!!! If you are a descendant of Sarah and James Blay via James Jr, William (like me) or John, you will be interested in my find:

“London, England, Selected Poor Law Removal and Settlement Records. 1698-1930. The examination of Sarah Blay, wife of James, Middlesex to wit, this Examinant on the oath saith that she is the wife of James Blay who hath deserted her and was married to him in the Parish Church Sepulchre London on 16 June 1800. That about three years ago her said husband took certain apartments of Mr Gummer in his house, No. 1 London Wall the corner of Draper’s Buildings in the Parish of Allhallows, London Wall, London, consisting of 2 rooms – one on the 1st floor and one on the 3rd floor. The furniture of such rooms being the property of this Examinant’s husband and continued to rent same and reside therein and to pay the sum of 4/6 per week for such apartments – five months and hath not since gained any other settlements. Hath by her said husband two children namely James aged 4 years and upwards and William aged about 10 months and that her husband is by trade a bootmaker and hath left her about 3 months and this Examinant cannot say where he is to be found – and not being able to maintain herself and children she hath become chargeable to the Parish of St Leonard, Shoreditch.

Sworn before us 16th July 1808. Sarah Blay (X)”

Reading this information also made the date of William’s birth in 1808 unlikely. It was probably 1807 if he was ten months’ old as said above.

The tragedy that is family.

 

As I work on the history of families who settled in the Lancefield District, and Kyabram in Victoria, in the 1850s, I’m often surprised by the information I uncover. These families have been the subject of my research for years – at least nine – but each time I set about writing their story, something else muddies the waters.

Yesterday I was working through my 3x great aunt, Margaret Allan’s family story (she married John Foy) which I thought I’d done to death already, only to discover a child whose birth registration slipped by me because it has inaccurate information, intrigue surrounding a daughter, and terrible sadness hovering over the eldest child.

David Foy was the eldest of Margaret Allan and John Foy’s children. He was born in Lancefield on 31 October 1872. His father’s Will (Public Records Office Victoria) makes no mention of him, even though David outlived his father. John Foy left money in his will to all the other children. Why? David never married, and farmed at Lake Rowan. In David's Last Will and Testament he left one hundred pounds to “my dear sister, Letitia”. The rest of his estate he left to his siblings, to share equally, but the one hundred pounds is not included in this. He appointed his cousin, Samuel Foy and his brother James Foy as executors. Looking at the Probate files for David’s Will, his last address was given as the Kew Insane Asylum. He was forty-seven when he died there in July 1920. He had been in the Asylum since 9^th August 1903. THAT’S SEVENTEEN YEARS!!!!!!!

And then we have Letitia. She was the third child of Margaret and John, and in her father’s will is bequeathed fifty pounds, but is not included in the share of his properties as James, John, Margaret and Jane, are.

I have to be satisfied with the information my research digs up because there’s no one to ask.

P.S. Margaret died in  1887 when her youngest child was one year old.

Kew Lunatic Asylum c 1887-1889