Charlotte Boulding (1821 – ?)

37. Boulding/Backler (2): Samuel Boulding (c.1750-1929), his two wives and four (supposed) children

In which we look in a little more detail at the (supposed) children of Samuel Boulding and his soon-to-be wife Mary Shepherd.

Four children baptised – whose were they?  And marriage to Mary Shepherd:           As noted in my previous post, Samuel Boulding had moved to the new development at Upper Craven Place, opposite Kensington Gardens, in about 1815.    Some mysteries ensue:

  • I have found no mention of Elizabeth [nee Leach] Boulding after the record of her marriage with Samuel Boulding on 6 March 1796.  I have searched Marylebone and Westminster records for evidence of burial, but found nothing.
  • Four children were christened at  St James’ Paddington, parents being ‘Samuel and Mary Boulding’.  They were:
    • 8 September 1816: Maria Boulding and Jane Boulding 
    • 9 September 1821: Charlotte Boulding
    • 17 August 1823 (born 24 June 1823): James Boulding
  • But – oops! – we find the following post-hoc marriage on 24 July 1824: again at St Clement Danes, Samuel Boulding is a widower of St James Paddington (with a very shaky signature), Mary Shepherd, a spinster, of ‘this’ parish.  Witnesses M Boyle and Wm Boyle.

Samuel Boulding was buried on 29 July 1829 at St Mary’s Paddington Green, said in the burial register to be age 79.

Was he the father of the four children, christened as children of Samuel and Mary Boulding?  Was Mary Shepherd, whom he married after the births of the four children, their mother, or was their mother another Mary?  How can we know?

If, indeed, Samuel Boulding was 79 when he died, he would have been about 74 when he married Mary Shepherd, and in his late 60’s and early 70s when the four children, shown as his on the diagram above,  were born and baptised.

‘Strangers in blood’: Death duty registers.
Samuel Boulding’s Will, written in 1827 with a codicil in 1828, made provision for his wife – furniture etc, an annual allowance, wine, linen etc – and then charged his executors with the disposal of his properties in Beaumont Street, Sloane Square, and adjacent to his dwelling in Upper Craven Place (formerly Black Lion Lane), and overseeing the administration of funds to the four above-listed children, all minors at the time of his death.  Provision was made for the advance of up to £300 to son James, prior to his reaching the age of 21 (which would happen in 1844, a significant date).  In his Codicil, Samuel noted that if his wife were to re-marry, or to co-habit with another man, the residence in Upper Craven Place should pass to the four children.

Two events gave official recognition to the illegitimacy of the four children.  The first was at the time of the death of Jane Boulding in 1838 (see below).  The second is an annotation in the pages of the death duties register, which can be seen at The National Archives.  This register was begun at the time of death.  It summarised the provisions of the Will, and noted when various transactions were made in accordance with the Will’s provisions.  As late as July 3, 1898, the following note appears:

It has since the pay[men]t of the 1st duty, been discovered that the whole of the legatees & Res. Legatees were Strangers in blood to the tes[ta]tor & the difference of duty is now paid. [different pen and handwriting:] 3 July 1898.  [initials]

The Register page is littered with notes about considerable sums paid – many thousands of £s.  Where did Samuel get the funds for such wealth?

Jane Boulding: death of a ‘bastard’, intestate, 15 February 1838
Jane Boulding’s death certificate shows her death at age 27 [sic], Spinster, of Abscess on the Lungs.  Her address was 7 Winchester Row, and the death was reported by Philip Briggs, ‘father in law’ – the information which subsequently led to discovering the re-marriage of the widowed Mary [Shepherd] Boulding, although I have not conclusively identified her death.  (Apparently the term ‘father in law’ was sometimes used at the time to refer to ‘step-father’.)

Jane had died Intestate, and the document TS 17/59 at The National Archives reported the Administration of her effects: ‘Whereas Jane Boulding late of No. 7 Winchester Row, New Road, Paddington, in the County of Middlesex, spinster, a Bastard … died Intestate…

The Administration, sworn on 23 December 1841, showed estate under £1,500.  Jane did not appear to have profited much from her father’s fortune.

Maria Boulding (c. 1816 – 1897) married widower and father of three children, Daniel Newton Crouch (a Lawyer, born in Scotland) on 17 September 1840, at St Mary’s Church, Marylebone.  Her address was given as 7 Winchester Row, showing she was living with her mother and step father Philip Briggs.  The couple had three children, with no known surviving issue:

  • Maria Charlotte Crouch (1842-1905)
  • Henry Newton Crouch (1843-1868) married in 1867 to Clara Isabella Meymott, one un-named child born and died in 1867.  Clara re-married after Henry’s death a year later.
  • Mary Christina Crouch (c. 1847-1937)

Charlotte Boulding (c. 1816 – ?1916) married widower Thomas Cole (a carriage and portable clock maker) on 23 October 1841, at the Parish Chapel, St Pancras.  Thomas Cole died in 1864. The couple had three children (two others appear in censuses, but they are the children of Thomas Cole’s previous marriage):

  • Arthur Boulding Cole (1844-1926), watch and clockmaker.  He married (1) Elizabeth Emma Wilson in 1868.  They had six children and quite a few grandchildren.  His second marriage to Elizabeth Sarah Rideout produced two more children. The name Arthur Boulding Cole was to have on ongoing role in my family, as in America some years later, his first cousin once removed would be named Arthur Boulding Spence.
  • Catherine Mary Cole (1847 – ?)
  • Florence Eva Cole (1857-1929), according the the 1911 Census, an accountant and secretary, living in Putney.

Not ‘Backler’ Cousins!:  These folk are all my cousins, but as this is a ‘Backler’ blog, I will leave their histories here.  In my next post, I will explore the fate of the errant James Boulding’s deserted wife – Susannah Mary (nee Backler) Boulding.

 

 

35. Boulding/Backler (1): Introducing James Boulding (1823 – ?1892) and his (supposed) father Samuel Boulding (c. 1750 – 1829)

In which we introduce my 2x great grandfather James Boulding (1823 – ?1892) and his (supposed) father and my (supposed) 3x g. grandfather Samuel Boulding (c. 1750 – 1829).  With the exception of the ancestry of my great grandfather William Spence, whom we will meet in due course and whose origins in Northern Ireland are difficult to trace, the Bouldings form the smallest fraction of my genealogical records.  Indeed, there are only 8 people with the surname Boulding out of the 1,000+ names in my Family Historian database.  One died in infancy and one as a young adult; one (see below) disappeared aged 25 or so, and the origins of the most senior one (Samuel) remain unknown.  Still, there is plenty to explore, including possible scandal and illegitimacy, and the detonation of a family myth as to the end of the said James Boulding.

 

As described in previous posts, Susannah Mary Backler (1817 – 1883), daughter of Samuel Backler (1784 – 1870) and Mary (nee Pellatt) Backler (1789-1857) married James Boulding, gentleman, on 31 July 1844, at St Mary’s Church, Islington, London, pictured here.

Witnesses were Susannah’s father, Samuel Backler, her sisters – Esther Maria Backler, and Mary Pellatt [nee Backler] – and Mary’s husband and cousin Henry Pellatt.  I do not know who Wm F [?] Young was.  Given the preponderance of Backlers and Pellatts, he was perhaps a supporter of James Boulding.

So far, so good.  The couple were both said to live at 9 Cross Street, now part of a conservation area in Islington.

My great grandmother, Susannah Mary Backler (1845 – 1910), was born 9 months later on 18 May 1845, her father now designated as a stationer, and they having moved to the end of Cross Street, to 140 Upper Street, Islington.

A tragic death.
By 1846, the family were at Pleasant Row in Islington, where Lucilla Charlotte Boulding (1846 – 1848) was born.  I have not found any precedent for the name Lucilla, whereas there was a paternal aunt Charlotte Boulding.  The third child, Apsley Samuel Boulding (1848 – 1925) was born at Dorset Street, near Fleet Street on the same day as the death of little Lucilla Charlotte, of scarlet fever.  Apsley was baptised on the 8th of March 1848 at St Mary’s Islington.  His interesting (and very searchable)  name derives from that of his maternal great grandfather (Apsley Pellatt) and both his maternal and paternal grandfathers (Samuel Backler and Samuel Boulding).

Disappearance of James.
For whatever reason, the registrations of the birth of Apsley Samuel and the death of Lucilla Charlotte are the last we will see of their father James Boulding.  [However – stop press and much excitement – he MAY now be found some 42 years later in NSW, Australia, as I describe below.]  In a later post I will describe the varied fortunes of his wife, Susannah [nee Backler] and her three ill-fated children by her second marriage.  Here, though, we will tease out what can be discovered about James’s said-to-be father, Samuel Boulding.

Samuel Boulding, of St Clement-Danes parish and Marylebone.  The earliest sighting of Samuel Boulding is in Sun Fire Insurance records in 1794.  Properties were insured at 41 and 42 Sloane Square, and his address was given as 10 Great Portland Street, Cavendish Square.  Later he appears as a Perfumer, resident at 12 Beaumont Street, Marylebone.  These were the leasehold properties he bequeathed in his Will in 1829 to his executors John Blake Kirby and Edward Bridger, to hold in trust for his four (spoiler: subsequently-discovered-to-be-illegitimate) children.

In the meantime, what else do I know about Samuel and his two wives?  Precious little!

I do not know where he was born (calculated from his burial record to have been in about 1750), nor anything about him preceding his first marriage to Elisabeth Leach in 1796 at St Clement Danes Church.  Both were of that parish, and witnesses were Thos. Jarrett and S[?] Curtis  (I am none the wiser about who they were).  The surname Boulding is not often found, with clusters in the Sheffield area and Kent.  However, the custodian of the Boulding one-name study has not found an origin for ‘our’ Samuel.  Nor have I found anything about Elisabeth Leach, other than her marriage to Samuel, as above.  I have found no death or burial record for her, although Samuel married again in 1823, after the birth of the four children whose baptisms were registered with him as father, and ‘Mary’ as mother.

Marriage to Mary Shepherd
On 24 July 1824, Samuel Boulding, widower, was married to Mary Shepherd, spinster at St James’s Paddington. This marriage took place after the baptism of the following, all to ‘Samuel Boulding (Gentleman) and Mary, of Paddington’:

  • Maria – she and Jane were christened on 8 September 1816.  No birth date given
  • Jane – see above
  • Charlotte – christened 9 September 1821.  No birth date given
  • James – born June 24 1823, christened 17 August 1823.

More detail about James’s three siblings is in the next post.

Samuel Boulding was buried on 29 July 1829 at St Mary, Paddington Green – a most elegant church, but where the churchyard no longer has stones standing.  His burial record says he was aged 79.  Hmmm…a very mature father!

Points to ponder:

  • Was Mary Shepherd the mother of the 4 children, or could their mother have been another Mary?
  • Was Samuel really a widower when he married Mary?  I have never found a burial record for Elizabeth (nee Leach) Boulding.
  • Was Samuel really 79 when he died?  His signature on his marriage certificate with Mary looks suitably wobbly…(if that isn’t too ageist).
  • Was Samuel really the father of the four children?  How did the couple get away with those four baptisms, when they weren’t married?

Stop Press: Did the long-missing James Boulding end his days in the Liverpool Asylum for the Infirm and Destitute in Liverpool, NSW Australia?  Our family lore had it that James had died in a Boer war battle in South Africa.  Could this have been a fabrication to mask the shame of his apparent desertion of his family?  Or a story invented to allow his wife to declare herself a widow and re-marry, seven years after his disappearance?

I have discovered records on Ancestry of the above Asylum, showing in 1884 the admission of James Boulding, stationer, born London 1823.  Subsequent records of the asylum show him as a ‘labourer’, arriving in Australia on the ‘Lancaster’, dates variously shown as 1850, 1857 and 1851.  I can find no ships list of the Lancaster.  I have not seen his full death record, but I have ascertained that, unusually for Australia, no parents’ names are recorded.  The death record of James Boulding on 15 June 1892 at the Asylum says ‘no known relatives’.

Further research is needed, but I feel all the signs indicate that this, at last, is ‘our’ James Boulding.  A sad and apparently lonely end.