Esther Maria Backler (1830-1918)

42. Backlers Looking Back: the Pellatt/Newton line, leading to Humphrey Newton (1466-1536)

In which we begin a new approach to backlers.com by delving into the past through the line of Mary Pellatt (1789-1857), oldest child of Apsley Pellatt (1763-1826) and Mary Maberly (1768-1822).  Mary Pellatt married Samuel Backler (1784-1870)  in 1810.  It follows that in tracing Mary Pellatt’s diverse ancestral lines, the ‘Backler’ relevance will be only to her and Samuel’s descendants.  As far as is known, these are the descendants of Mary Backler (1813-1882) and her cousin/husband Henry Pellatt (1797-1860); Susannah Backler (1817-1883) and her husbands James Boulding (1823-1892) and Edwin John Cross (1834-1889); and Esther Maria Backler (1830-1918) and her husband Magnus Christian Abelin (1826 – 1890).  Posts 25 and most of those following trace these lines.

The first post in this new series of random ancestral trails stretches far into the past.  It arises from the entry in my precious Pedigree of Pellatt showing that William Pellatt (1665-1725), the son of Thomas Pellatt (1628-1680) and Hannah Alcock ( – 1693) was first married to:

‘Grace, only daughter of Apsley Newton [my emphasis], of Southover.  She ob. Jan 13, 1710. Aged 46. Bur. at All Saints Lewes, in same vault as Thomas Pellatt, her father-in-law.’

This line then descends through the first Apsley Pellatt (c.1699-1740) and his wife Mary Sheibell (or Scheibel), and their son Apsley Pellatt (1736-1798) and his wife Sarah Meriton ( – 1798) to the above-mentioned Mary Pellatt, the oldest of their 15 children.

The descent back through time from Mary to Grace can be seen in the above diagram from my Family Historian database.

We can then trace further back in the Newton line, to my 14x Gt. Grandfather, Humphrey Newton (1466-1536).  This diagram introduces us to the name of ‘Apsley’, first seen with Apsley Newton (1639-1718), and further back as the surname of Jane Apsley ( – 1627), who was married to William Newton (1563-1648), they being my 11x Gt. Grandparents. The name Apsley distinguishes successive generations of Apsley Pellatts.  (When this name is correctly transcribed, it makes searching this line relatively easy.)

The line of descent also introduces a new region of England – Cheshire and surrounding areas. My Backler blog to date has focussed on East Anglia and the London area, and migrations away from there.  Other of my ancestors originated in South Wales.  I had no idea that lurking in the distant past were ancestors whose lives and times took place just a few miles away from my current home in Manchester, England.  And, once I started searching for this line, I came across a BOOK all about my said ancestor Humphrey Newton.  (Humphrey Newton (1466-1536) An Early Tudor Gentleman by Deborah Young.  2008. The Boydell Press, Woodbridge)

In my next blog I will attempt to summarise some of the findings in this book, and then will start to trace the various lines of descent to Mary Pellatt.  This should help to while away the wintery Covid days and nights.

38. Backler/Boulding/Cross: the denoument of my g.g. grandmother Susannah (1817 – 1883)

In which we trace the last years of my g.g. grandmother, Susannah [nee Backler] Boulding/Cross, rounding off the fates of her and the three children born to her second marriage, before following her two surviving Boulding children across the Atlantic.

In previous posts, we have seen that my g.g. grandfather James Boulding appears to have deserted his young family in or after 1848, after the birth of his and Susannah’s third child Apsley Samuel Boulding, and following the death on the same day of their second child, Lucilla Charlotte Boulding.  The first intimation of this supposed desertion comes with the 1851 census, showing Susannah and her two surviving children living with her parents in Islington.  She is ‘married’, but in this census year there is no James Boulding to be found in the British Isles.  It seems possible he had gone to Australia.

1851 England Census.  2 Old Paradise Row.  St Mary, Islington
Samuel Backler, Head, married, 66. Clerk [sic], Born Middlesex Stoke Newington
Mary Backler [nee Pellatt], Wife, married, 60. Born Middlesex Holborn
Esther Maria Backler, daughter, unmarried, 21.  Born Middlesex Bayswater
Susanna Boulding, daughter, married, 34. Born Middlesex Oxford Street.
Susanna Mary Boulding, grand daughter, 5. Scholar at home. Born Middlesex Islington
Apsley Samuel Boulding, grand son, 3. Born London Fleet Street.

We have seen in previous posts that Samuel Backler would live on for another 20 years, apparently tended by his youngest child, Esther Maria.  The status of Susanna, however, would change with her marriage on 28 October 1855, seven years after the disappearance of her husband James.  I am not exactly sure of the legal basis, but there

seems to have been an accepted rule that if someone had disappeared for seven consecutive years, with no news that they were alive, they could be presumed dead.  Hence Susanna’s status at the time of her second marriage as ‘widow’.

The marriage to Edwin John Cross, bachelor (and some 17 years Susannah’s junior), described as ‘Clerk’, took place just four months before the birth of their first child, Edwin John Frederick Cross, born on 24 February 1856, and christened at Christ Church St Marylebone on 30 March 1856, at which time his parents’ address was given as 13 Park Street.  Much more about him in a blogpost to follow.

Two years later another birth followed: Lucilla Beatrice Cross (another try for a little girl named ‘Lucilla’ – I have not found a precedent for Susanna’s use of this name).  Born on 1 June 1858, little Lucilla Beatrice was buried in Camden on 28 March 1861.  Thus the 1861 Census, taken shortly after this sad event, records just Edwin senior, Susannah and son Edwin jr.

1861 England Census.  St Pancras, Camden Town.  3 Pratt Street (see photo right)
Edwin Cross, Head, Married, 27, China Dealer. Born Middx Marylebone
Susanna Cross, Wife, Married, 44. Born Middx Marylebone [sic]
Edwin Cross, Son, 5. Born Middx Marylebone
Susan Day, Lodger, Widow. Annuitant. Born Essex Harlow.

On 31 August 1862, Maberly Pellatt Cross was born to Edwin (china dealer) and Susannah Cross.  He was christened in September of that year at All Saints Church Camden Town, with the surnames of his mother’s maternal grandparents.  Alas, little Maberly was buried in Camden on 10 April 1863.  Older brother Edwin J F Cross was now about 6 years old, and had witnessed the deaths of two younger siblings.  Could this have affected him later in life?

Two Boulding children – soon to cross the Atlantic
Meanwhile, in 1861, young Edwin’s two half siblings appear to have been farmed out from the new Cross family.  Could this have been due to the influence of their new step-father?  We will take them across the Atlantic in a future blogpost, but suffice to say at the moment that in 1861 we find them as follows:

At number 5 Harley Street (now and then renowned as the location for private health care), in the home of Consulting Surgeon Mitchell Henry, 34, and his wife and 4 children, plus Governess, Butler, Footman, Cook, two Housemaids, Kitchen Maid, and two nursemaids, one of whom was my Great Grandmother Susan [sic] Boulding, unmarried, 16, born Middx Islington.

In the same Census, at 193 Tooley Street, in the home of Charles Bell, a Pawnbroker, we find her brother, 13 year old Apsley Boulding, Warehouse Boy, born Middlesex Strand.  He probably would not have been here long, as shortly after this Census was taken most of Tooley Street was destroyed in the great fire of 1861 (just search Tooley Street fire 1861 for details of this cataclysmic event).

How much these youngsters saw of their mother, step-father and half-siblings, is not known, though we will see that there was at least some correspondence with them after they left for America.

Back to the Cross family.
In 1871, we find Edwin, Susannah and 15 year old Edwin J F Cross at 130 High Street, Camden Town.
In 1881 Edwin and Susannah are at 58a Chalk Farm Road, a bit north of Camden Town (see left).

In this Census, sadly, we find the first intimation that things might not go too well for their only surviving child, Edwin John Frederick Cross.  As I will describe in more detail in a later post, we find in 1881 the following:

E J F C, age 24, Shorthand Writer, Patient, Lunatic, in the Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum, in Banstead Surrey, just up the hill from where I lived for many years.

On 9 February 1883, my G.G. Grandmother Susannah [nee Backler] [Boulding] Cross  died aged 66. She had congestion of the lungs, 7 days.  Her death was registered by her husband, E J Cross, of 156 High Street, Camden Town.

By the June quarter of 1884, Edwin had married widow Frances Anne [nee Lusty] Hilliard, mother of two children, and by the autumn of that year, Edwin had written his Will, leaving everything to his new wife and Executrix.  No mention at all of his son Edwin J F Cross.  Edwin Sr died in 1889, then living in Ramsgate Kent, and his Will was proved by his wife in January 1890.  At some point she emigrated to America, where she was to be found in Herrick Street, Boston in the 1900 US Census, living with her two sons Herbert H Hilliard and Walter J H Hilliard.   Frances died on 3 March 1902 and was buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Brighton MA.  Her son Herbert H Hilliard perished on The Titanic, while her son Walter J H Hilliard died in 1926 and is also interred in Evergreen Cemetery.

Meanwhile, their step-son and step-sibling Edwin J F Cross was living out what was a rather sad and lonely life in England – the subject of my next post.

 

 

31. Highgate Cemetery – last resting place for some Backler ancestors

In which we view the rather wooded (understatement!) last resting place of some Backler/Abelin ancestors, and reflect on how moving it is to be there, despite the absence of any visible marker.

I see from my photographs that it was way back in 2010 that I ventured to north London to visit Highgate Cemetery.  New online records had shown this to be the last resting place for Samuel Backler and his wife Mary [nee Pellatt].  What was once a major privately-owned cemetery, run by the London Cemetery Company, is now under the care of the charitable Friends of Highgate Cemetery, a similar arrangement to those of the other great municipal cemeteries such as Nunhead in south London, where other Backlers are interred.  Nowadays the focus of the Friends is not only on burials, which continue to take place in quite small numbers, but also on conservation of both its memorials and of nature in line with its overall purpose to ‘promote the public benefit’.

On writing to the Friends, I received a letter revealing that more folk than Samuel (1870) and Mary (1857) shared the gravesite: their daughter Susannah (1883) (whose marriages to James Boulding and Edwin Cross will feature in future posts); Esther Maria (1918) (wife of Magnus Christian Abelin); and their daughter-in-law Edith Ann (nee Foster) Abelin (1928).

I had high hopes as I arrived at the Cemetery for my appointment to be escorted to the gravesite.  Immediately, however, I was warned by my guide that there was nothing to see.  Up the hill we marched, past the famous sites of the Egyptian Avenue and the Terrace Catacombs, curving around to the right along a roughly paved path.  My guide had searched out the area previously, so knew when to turn right off the path, into a treacherous wooded and overgrown section, with monuments in different states of repair, and unstable ground.

We reached a spot where he had laid out sticks to mark the spot – and that was it!  I was very moved, albeit a bit disappointed. Despite the presence of monuments nearby, my guide had explored the area, probing with his stick, and had not found a memorial at our site.  There was surely once one there, but no longer.

This was an area in the early West Cemetery on high ground, which at the time of the earliest Backler burials would have had a view over London.  It was a fashionable and beautiful site, allowed to become run down during the 20th century.

A very special place: Highgate Cemetery is a Grade 1 listed site, and is a very special place not only for those whose ancestors and more recent relatives are interred there, but also for anyone interested in its historical importance for London.  I feel privileged to have ancestors for whom it was their last resting place, and have become a life member of the Friends in order to support their ongoing work.  I am sorry I now live so far away!

More about the Cemetery, its history and present day events can be found at: https://highgatecemetery.org/

30. Esther Maria Backler (1830-1918) – my 3x great aunt – a tale of very mixed fortunes

In which we review the quiet and, I now discover, partly sad,  life of my 3x great aunt, Esther Maria Backler.  In previous posts I have mentioned Esther, very much the youngest child of Samuel Backler and Mary Pellatt and, I believe, carer and companion to her father in later years.  We trace the rather startling facts I have gleaned while preparing this post, about her life, husband and child. 

A late Backler arrival: Esther Maria Backler was born in West Kensington in 1830 just before her father’s traumatic bankruptcy proceedings in 1831, and ten years after the 1820 births of her sadly-deceased twin siblings Elizabeth and Samuel.  Her surviving siblings were her much older sister Mary, due to marry their cousin Henry Pellatt a year after Esther Maria’s birth; Susannah (my 2x great grandmother), aged about 13; and the mysterious (did he exist?) Apsley Backler, said to have lived from 1815-1835.

Esther Maria was baptised at Holland Independent Chapel, Brixton, on 26 March 1830, perhaps reflecting the residence in south London of some of her Pellatt relatives, as the family lived in Kensington at the time.  We next locate her with her parents, married sister Susannah Boulding and niece (Susannah Mary) and nephew (Apsley Samuel) in the 1851 Census, in Islington, where she is also recorded living with her ageing, widowed father in 1861.  During the 1860s, both Susannah Mary and Apsley Samuel emigrated to America, and in the late 1850s their mother Susannah [nee Backler] Boulding (Esther Maria’s sister) was to re-marry and have further children – the topic of a future post.

Bankruptcy:  How and where did Esther meet her future husband?  While preparing this post, I tried a general search on the name of Magnus Christian Abelin, and found startling new information which went some way to explaining how he and Esther Maria met.

London Gazette 18 July 1862. page 3623. Magnus Christian Abelin (sued and committed as Magnus Abelin), formerly of No. 33, Sidney-street, Brompton, in the county of Middlesex, and late of No. 14, Angel-terrace, Lower-road, Islington, in the said county, Commission  Agent, heretofore carrying on business in copartnership with John Litteyman [Lilleyman] Claypole, at No. 17, Gracechurchstreet, in the city of London, as Commission Agents, a Prisoner for Debt in the Debtors’ Prison for London and Middlesex, having been adjudged bankrupt under a Petition for adjudication of Bankruptcy (in forma pauperis), filed in Her Majesty’s Court of Bankruptcy, in London, on the 23rd of June, 1862, a public sitting, for the said bankrupt to pass his Last Examination, will be held before Edward Goulburn, Serjeant-at-Law, a Commissioner of the said Court, on the 11th day of August next, at the said Court, at Basinghall-street, in the city of London, at one of the clock in the afternoon precisely, the day last aforesaid being the day limited for the said bankrupt to surrender. Mr. George John Graham, of No 25, Coleman-street, London, is the Official Assignee, and Mr. W. W. Aldridge, of No. 46, Moorgate-street, London, is the Solicitor acting in the bankruptcy. 

Oh dear!  Note the address, just doors away from the residence at 22 Angell Terrace of Esther Maria and her father Samuel in the 1861 Census.  It seems very likely that the couple would have met in Islington. but one wanders if Esther Maria was aware of everything in Magnus’ past.  On 1 September 1862, the Evening Standard reported that Magnus Abelin had applied again for an order of release from prison.  But His Honour was reported as saying that ‘all attempts to make the bankrupt honest might be regarded as at an end’. He had obtained nearly £200 from Miss Mary Davis [of Earl’s Court, Brompton] under the pretence of ‘paying her his addresses’, and had failed to account for it, or to provide sureties for his release. ‘The bankrupt had acted most wickedly towards the opposing creditor [Miss Davis] and his application would be refused.’

By 25 September 1862, the Morning Post reported that sureties had been provided by Mr Joseph Myers of 47 Duke Street, Aldgate, boot and shoe maker; and Mr Bernard Keppel, 89 King’s Road, Chelsea.  Neither of these men knew Magnus Abelin – they were approached by a friend of Abelin.  Release was granted, and I can find no more about this.

Childbirth before marriage:  Harold Algernon Christian Abelin (aka Harold Christian Algernon Abelin) was born on 7 February 1865 (registered in Islington 1b 357 MAR 1865, though in later census records, said to have been born in Camberwell).  Although this was a few years before the marriage of his father Magnus and mother Esther Maria, the child’s surname of Abelin was recorded in the birth registration record, with the mother’s Backler surname also recorded.  I now find that this birth was also registered in Goteberg, Sweden in 1868, showing the birth date as 1865 in Islington.  Had the couple travelled to Sweden with their young son before they were married?

23 September 1870:  Four months after the death of her father Samuel Backler, Esther Maria Backler, 39, a spinster, married Magnus Christian Abelin, 42, a bachelor, at the Register Office, Camberwell.  He was a Metal Traveller, residing at 2 Meeting House Lane in Peckham.  His father was Hans Andrew Abelin (deceased), Post Office Inspector, Stockholm.  Esther Maria resided at 8 Victory Cottages, Bedford Street, Peckham.  Her father was Samuel Backler (deceased), Chemist.

Very young witnesses!  Witnesses were Mary Ann Bourne and Emily Jane Bourne, whom I believe I have identified in the 1871 Census as scholars aged 12 and 10 respectively, living on Walworth Road, Lambeth as Boarders with their mother Sarah E. Bourne, a 48 year old unmarried Boarder, formerly a dressmaker.  As far as I can ascertain, the requirement for witnesses to a marriage was that they be ‘credible’, with no minimum age.  The name Bourne does not appear in our family as far as I know, and I do not know why these two would have been witnesses.  Could they have been drafted in off the street to the Register Office marriage?  As an aside, Mary Ann Bourne, said to be age 12 in the 1871 Census, was married in September 1875, said to be 18, to Frederick Watts.  No father is shown on the marriage certificate, and her mother was a witness.

Prison again! A sad tale… In 1871, Esther Maria, her husband and son were living as lodgers at The Orchard, Camberwell.  But there is yet another startling, and sad discovery.  Records at The National Archives (PCOM 2/270) reveal that Magnus Christian Abelin was sentenced at Lambeth Magistrates Court to one month in Wandsworth prison for ‘neglecting to maintain his wife’!  This image, viewable on findmypast, shows that 44 year old Commercial Traveller Magnus Christian Abelin, 5′ 7″ tall with blue eyes, was committed on 18 September 1872, and released on 17 October.  The record notes he could read and write well, and that he was born in Sweden.  More information may be available in other prison or court records at The National Archives.

What happened next? I cannot find the family in the England 1881 Census, but I have found a record in Sweden which indicates that Magnus Christian Abelin lived there from 1881-1889, dying on 9 June 1890 and birth date shown as 26 March 1826.  (Sweden Household Examination Books, 1880-1920, seen during a free offer period on MyHeritage website.)   I can only assume that this is the right person (the ages are right), and I have no way of knowing if Esther Maria and her son were with Harold then.

A lengthy widowhood for Esther Maria:  Esther appears to have stayed in Peckham until her death in 1918, not very far (but in touch, or not?) from her affluent relatives, the Henry McLauchlan Backler family who lived in Denmark Hill. (See https://backlers.com/2015/06/18/legacy-of-a-gas-man-the-wills-of-henry-mclauchlan-backler-and-his-wife-eliza-nee-cole-backler/ ) She appears as a 50 year old widow, teacher of music,  with her son Algernon [sic] age 26, in the 1891 England Census.  They are at 39 Choumert Square, Peckham (picture on the left, below), just a few metres away from 23 Chadwick Road, Peckham (photo on the right), their address in 1901.  In 1911 they lived over the road in a similar property at number 28 Chadwick Road. These properties, in a conservation area in the Borough of Southwark, now sell for nearly £1m!

Choumert Square, built in the latter half of the 19th Century, presents to the visitor not a square but a laneway of 46 tiny cottages leading to a communal `walled’ garden. The gardens of this secret Southwark street are among the tiniest it’s possible to tend! (https://www.ngs.org.uk/find-a-garden/garden/14482/ )


 

 

 

 

 

 

A ‘teacher of music’: My great Uncle Bussy (Arthur Boulding Spence) suggested that his grandmother Susannah Backler Boulding Cross (more about her in a later post) was a ‘singer of note’.  I have never found any newspaper or other reports which would confirm this, and I wonder if the ‘singer’ was instead Esther Maria Backler, shown in 1891 as a ‘teacher of music’?  By 1911 we still find Esther Maria and her unmarried son living at 28 Chadwick Road in Peckham, the address which would be given at the time of her death on 11 February 1918, in Camberwell Infirmary.  Administration was granted in May to Harold Christian Algernon Abelin, Merchant.  Effect £10.  A modest life indeed.  Esther Maria was interred at Highgate Cemetery, about which more in my next post.

Algernon Abelin: It would seem that, as his mother had done before, Algernon Abelin lived with and perhaps cared for his mother very nearly until her death. He had married Edith Ann Foster on the 5th of September 1917, just 5 months before his mother’s death and when he was over 50 years old.  Had Esther Maria already entered the Camberwell Infirmary?  Alas, Edith died in 1928, and on 1 April 1934, Harold married widow Emma Flory Rudder Elliott. It seems likely they had known each other for very many years, as in 1891 Harold had lived in Choumert Square, Peckham, while 14 year old Emmy Rudder had lived round the corner on Choumert Road.  In 1901 Emma was to be found on nearby Bellenden Road with her then husband Louis Philip Elliott and their son,  Louis Jnr who later on was shown as a married Explosives Worker living in Woolwich in the 1939 Register.

H C A Abelin was referred to a number of times in the journal The Chemist and Druggist, and was shown in telephone directories in the 1920s as A. Abelin & Co., Chemical and General Merchants, at 155 Fenchurch Street in the City of London.  When he died on 21 November 1948, he lived at 10 Chantrey Road, Peckham, having been at 11 Chantrey Road with his wife Emma in the 1939 Register.  He left effects of £502 11s 4d.  Emma died in 1969 in Greenwich.

Farewell to an aunt: Alas, I acquire no cousins through this story, but I have found the tale of Esther Maria Backler to be quite moving.  Her sister Susannah had remarried in the 1850s after her husband disappeared, and had died in 1883 leaving one son from her second marriage – the mysterious ‘Uncle Fred’, of whom more later.  Was he ever in touch with Esther Maria? Her niece and nephew had gone to America.  She had wealthy relatives in nearby Camberwell, but I have no evidence that they were in contact.  She was not mentioned in any of their Wills.  And so we bid her farewell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

28. Samuel Backler (1784-1870): a quiet end

In which we follow as far as possible the final years of Samuel Backler.  We mention in passing two daughters Susannah Mary Backler (1817-1883) and Esther Maria Backler (1830-1918), of which more in future blogs. In a previous post we followed the fortunes of Samuel’s oldest daughter Mary Backler (1830-1882)  through her marriages to her cousin Henry Pellatt (of which more to come in the next blogpost), and Waldo Sargeant. 

Alas, the 1841 census for part of Middlesex is missing.  Presumably Samuel, Mary and their two unmarried daughters lived together, but their circumstances following the traumatic bankruptcy in 1831, when they lived in Kensington, are unknown.  Other than at the marriage of his daughter Susannah, the only confirmed sighting we have of Samuel before the 1851 Census is a design registration  of 1847, held at The National Archives as follows:

Reference: BT 45/6/1046
Description:

Useful Registered Design Number: 1046.

Proprietor: Samuel Backler.

Address: 4 Cambridge Terrace, Islington, London.

Subject: Spatula.

Category: Surgical and Medical Instruments etc.
Date: 1847 April 28
These are the designs submitted to the Patents, Designs and Trade Marks Office under the terms of the Non – ornamental (‘Useful’) Designs Act 1843.  The quote in italics below is from a presentation at the National Archives by Julie Halls, the Archives’ specialist for registered designs and the author of Inventions that didn’t change the world (Thames & Hudson, 2014).

‘These designs were registered for copyright under what was called the Utility Designs Act of 1843. This came about primarily as a result of the expense and difficulty inventors found in patenting their ideas during the first half of the nineteenth century. The system had become notoriously expensive and inefficient, and there were concerns that it was holding back innovation. An inventor would have to negotiate a labyrinthine system, taking his design to as many as 10 different offices, with a fee payable at each, and petitions, warrants and bills were prepared several times over, signed and countersigned, before a patent was approved. In his short story ‘A Poor Man’s Tale of A Patent’, Charles Dickens asked: ‘Is it reasonable to make a man feel as if in inventing an ingenious improvement meant to do good, he had done something wrong?’

‘A solution came about in the form of the 1843 Act, which was for ‘any new or original design for any article of manufacture having reference to some purpose of utility, so far as such design shall be for the shape or configuration of such article’. Under the Act, proprietors were given three years’ copyright protection at a cost of £10, as opposed to up to £400 for 14 years’ protection for a patent.

‘Although the Act was meant to apply to the appearance and not the function of useful objects, which was still supposed to be patented, in practice it was widely perceived as a cheaper and quicker form of protection than the convoluted patent system, and the law struggled to make a distinction between the two. Thousands of inventors chose to register their designs, resulting in the unique documents we hold at The National Archives.

‘To copyright a design the inventor had to take or send to the Designs Registry, originally based at Somerset House in London, ‘two exactly similar drawings or prints of the design made on a proper geometric scale’. He, or less often she, would also need to provide the title of the design – quite often deciding on a pseudo-scientific name for what could often be quite a mundane object. Explanatory text also had to be included, saying what the purpose of the design was and what was new about it.

( http://media.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php/inventions-didnt-change-world-history-victorian-curiosities-2/ )

I have a beautiful photo of the original design of this ‘heated spatula’, copyright by The National Archives, which I can forward for personal use, on request.  There is no sign that this design was ever put into production, but the design itself is a thing of beauty.  The photo, purchased from the National Archives online, is of the original document, which would have been handled by Samuel himself.  Awesome!

The address given on the design shows that the family lived in Islington, where Susannah Mary Backler had married James Boulding in 1844 at St Mary’s Parish Church.  On the marriage certificate, Samuel Backler was styled ‘Gentleman’, the first time we have seen him designated as such. Perhaps he felt the need to keep in step with James Boulding’s father Samuel Boulding, who all along, as we shall see in the future, was styled the same.

By the 1851 census, however, we find that Samuel is recorded as a ‘Clerk’.  (I wonder if this is an error by the census enumerator, as it seems likely that Samuel would have described himself as a Chemist.)  The family are living at 2 Old Paradise Row, Islington, and as we shall discover in a future blogpost, nothing would be seen now or in the future of James Boulding.  The family are listed as follows:

  • Samuel Backler, Head, married, 66. Clerk [sic]. Born Middlesex, Stoke Newington
  • Mary Backler, Wife, married, 60. Born Middlesex Holborn
  • Esther Maria Backler, daughter, unmarried, 21. Born Middlesex Bayswater
  • Susanna Boulding, daughter, 34, married.  Born Middlesex Oxford Street
  • Susanna Mary Boulding, grand daughter, 5, scholar at home. Born Middlesex, Islington
  • Apsley Samuel Boulding, grandson, 3. Born London, Fleet Street

Backler places of residence:  In these times, most folk rented, often on an annual basis, rather than owning their own properties.  While we know Samuel and Mary were in Kensington/Bayswater at the time of his bankruptcy in 1831, we do not know when they moved to Islington.  Once there, however, they seemed to stay quite local, although we have no way of knowing how many other addresses they had than those listed here:

1847: 4 Cambridge Terrace (registered design application)

1851: (census) 2 Old Paradise Row (facing Islington Green, on the north side)

1857: (wife Mary’s death certificate) Rheidol Terrace  (east of, and roughly parallel to Essex Road in Islington)

1861: (census) 14 Angell Terrace (in the block bounded by Rheidol Terrace, River Lane, Lower Road and Queens Head Lane in Islington).  Here, Samuel is found as a 77 year old Accountant [sic], a widower, with his daughter Esther M, 31, single, and one servant.

1870: (Samuel’s death certificate)  11 Maria Terrace  (since re-named Lambert Street, on the census enumerator’s route of Albion Grove (re-named Ripplevale Grove), and Thornhill Road in Barnsbury – can be seen on the map accompanying a historic walk around Barnsbury at: https://www.islington.gov.uk/~/media/sharepoint-lists/public-records/leisureandculture/information/factsheets/20112012/20120303localhistorytrailbarnsbury

The map below incorporates two old maps, and shows how local the various addresses were, over a period of decades.

Screenshot (145)Maps: http://london1868.com/weller19.htm#image and http://london1868.com/weller18.htm#image  Both maps from David Hale and the MAPCO : Map And Plan Collection Online website at http://mapco.net

An address in Bishopsgate? See: https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t18340703-106&div=t18340703-106&terms=Backler#highlight  3rd July 1834

It seems to me there is no way of knowing if the court case described in Old Bailey records in 1834 refers to ‘our’ Samuel Backler and his wife Mary.  Here, Samuel is described as a silversmith (not an unusual occupation for someone with an apothecary’s background), and Mary as a ‘staymaker’.  Was this the family’s next step after the bankruptcy of 1831?  An address in the City of London is not impossible, as both Samuel’s and Mary’s origins were related to City Livery Companies, and I am not aware of any other couple in the area known as Samuel and Mary Backler. (Please correct me if I am wrong!)

The gist of the case was that ‘HARRIET BATE was indicted for stealing, on the 9th of June , 2 spoons, value 9s.; 10 yards of crape, value 2l.; 1 printed book, value 6d.; and 1 handkerchief, value 6d., the goods of Samuel Backler , her master.’

MARY BACKLER deposed: ‘I am the wife of Samuel Backler, who is a silversmith , and lives in Bishopsgate-street without , and I myself keep a staymaker’s shop – the prisoner worked for me for about five years, and left – I lost some silver tea-spoons – I mentioned it to her – she said she thought it must have been the servant, who had just left – I said, “No; it is impossible, for I know her well” – she said, “Why did you not look into her box?” – I said, “Because I believed her strictly honest” – I said no more about it then – I gave the prisoner a china crape dress, containing ten yards, to get dyed, as she had said she knew where to get it dyed – I afterwards found it had not been taken to the place, and in consequence of suspicion I gave her into custody – I lost a little book from my work-room, and a handkerchief – (looking at the property) – I know the crape by a tear in it – the spoons have our initials on them.’

After the usual rather dubious evidence from witnesses about various items said to belong to the Backlers, Mary Butt was found guilty, and detained for three months after being recommended for mercy by Mary Backler.

Death of Mary [Pellatt] Backler and burial at Highgate Cemetery. As seen in the address list above, Mary Backler died in 1857, and was buried on 7 February in what would become a family plot at Highgate Cemetery.  I have visited the site, which is in a wooded area, with no stones visible.  Samuel would be buried there in 1870, along with their daughter (my 2x great grandmother Susanna [Backler] Boulding Cross – more of her in a later post) – and some others.

Interestingly, just a few weeks after Mary’s death, Samuel’s half-sister-in-law Susannah Maria [McLauchlan] Backler died in Peckham, Samuel’s half-brother the apothecary and Cupper John Backler having died nearly a decade earlier in Paris.  I have wondered how or if these half-sibling relatives were in touch with each other, suspecting that Samuel and his family might have been seen as rather a failed branch of the family.

Death of Samuel in 1870. As seen above, Samuel died on 24 May 1870, aged 85, ‘formerly dispensing chemist’, and was interred at Highgate Cemetery.  By this time his daughter Susannah, presumed widowed, had re-married; Esther Maria had a child but was not yet married to her soon-to-be Swedish husband; and the grandchildren Susannah Mary and Apsley Samuel Boulding had emigrated to the USA, or were about to do so.

Samuel seems to me the ‘not-quite’ successful apothecary son from a line of apothecaries.  Having never fully qualified as an apothecary, he seems to have moved through a range of occupations, perhaps not very successful with their business aspects, and almost certainly rocked by the trauma of his bankruptcy in 1831.  Marrying well into the highly prosperous Pellatt family, he seemed to manage to have a respectable but not very prosperous life.

And so, we bid goodbye to Samuel.  Future blogposts will look at another development in the always interesting family of Mary Backler and her cousin-husband Henry Pellatt, at an outline of Mary Pellatt’s lineage, and at the fortunes of Esther Maria Backler.  I will also do a short feature on my trip some years back to find the Backler grave at Highgate Cemetery (pretty unrewarding, just so you don’t have raised expectations).  After all that, we will at last cross the Atlantic to follow the fortunes of Susannah Mary and Apsley Samuel in New York City.

 

 

26. Samuel Backler (1784-1870): Family, Thefts and a Changing Career

In which we continue our perusal of the life and times of my 3x g. grandfather, Samuel Backler (1784-1870), tracing the birth and some deaths of his and Mary Pellatt’s children, and witnessing his metamorphosis from apothecary to tobacconist, along with a few brushes on the right side of the law at the Old Bailey.

screenshot-100

A growing – and sometimes diminishing – family.  As noted in my most recent post, Samuel Backler married Mary Pellatt on 30 November 1810 at St Andrew by the Wardrobe, the church which was amalgamated with St Ann Blackfriars after the Great Fire of 1666.  St Andrew by the Wardrobe exists today, rebuilt within its Christopher Wren walls after destruction by bombing in the Second World War.

As can be seen in the extract above, it clearly wasn’t sufficient for there to be two witnesses to this marriage!  To the left we see signatures of Apsley Pellatt, presumably Mary’s father, and S Backler (or could this be a ‘J’?) and M Backler, possibly Joseph, Samuels’ brother, and their sister Mary.  Next we see ‘S Backler’, almost certainly Sotherton Backler, Samuel’s father. Underneath is J Backler Jnr – or is this an ‘S’?  Could this be Samuel’s youngest sibling, 12 year old Sotherton?  To the right are Apsley Pellatt Jnr (1791-1863), Mary’s brother, and another brother, Stephen Pellatt (1792-1839).

screenshot-99The slightly fuzzy tree on the left shows the birth of six children.   Young Apsley Backler is something of a puzzle.  I can find no record of his christening, nor of his death.  Yet he appears in a family tree held at The National Archives (J66/10/43), linked to the case of Buxton v Pellatt, a dispute over inheritance and the Will of Susannah [Maberly] Langford.  These papers contain a number of family trees, and I will probably draft a separate blog post about them.  Meanwhile, it would have been logical for a child to be name Apsley, after Mary’s father.  Did he exist?  Any answers most welcome!

First born was Mary Backler (1813-1882), in 1813.  I have looked at her marriage to her cousin, Henry Pellatt, in a previous blog.  Her birth on 25 May 1813 was registered on 21 June 1816 at Dr. Williams’ Library, the repository for non-conformist births, where many Pellatt children’s births were registered.  Witnesses were John Cribb, a Pellatt ancestor, and Mary Pellatt, presumably Mary (nee) Maberly, Mary (Pellatt) Backler’s mother.  Lots of Mary’s!  I have recently discovered a real puzzle concerning the births of the children of Mary and Henry’s first-born, Henry Apsley Pellatt.  Another blog post is needed!

Next appears the mysterious Apsley Backler…mentioned in a series of family trees, all related to the Will of Susannah Langford, sister of Mary Pellatt, wife of Samuel.  I have no further information about him.

Susannah Mary Backler followed on 22 March 1817, born in ‘Oxford Street’, presumably at the 71 Berners Street address where records show Samuel Backler and his wife Mary lived for some years, not far from Samuel’s brother Joseph, the stained glass artist, in Newman Street.  Susannah was my 2x great grandmother and I will devote future blog posts to her and her marriage to the elusive James Boulding.  I have never found a christening record for her.

Samuel Backler and Elizabeth Backler, presumably twins, appeared in 1820, although there appears to be no christening record for them either.  Sadly, both were to die within 10 days of each other in 1822, to be interred in Bunhill Fields Cemetery.

Very much later, the youngest child of Samuel and Mary Backler was Esther Maria Backler, whose arrival on 3 February 1830 was very near the time when Samuel was to face bankruptcy, and his nephew Joseph to be transported to Australia.  Esther Maria was baptised at Holland Road Independent Chapel in the Brixton Road in March 1830, the family’s address given as Linden Grove, Kensington Gravel Pits. Samuel’s occupation was now a tobacconist.  This address, near what is now Notting Hill Gate, was in the early 19th century a favoured area, away from the city, and home to many artists.  The picture below ((c)Victoria & Albert Museum), is entitled The Mall, Kensington Gravel Pits. It is by the artist William Mulready, and dated around 1811-12.

Kensington Gravel Pits 2006BH7808_2500

Esther Maria lived with her parents after her sisters’ marriages, and was only to marry Magnus Christian Abelin in 1870, just months after the death of her father Samuel.  She appears to have been the dutiful younger daughter, living with and caring for her parents in their later years.

Crime and Punishment: Back at Berners Street, off Oxford Street, the early years of the family saw them feature as the victims of some cases at The Old Bailey.

As a first example, I make an assumption (in the absence of an address) that the report below of ‘Elizabeth Butt: simple grand larceny, 18th September, 1816’ refers to Samuel and Mary Backler.  Screenshot (107) It is downloaded from the following url, and is reproduced from the Old Bailey Online Project.  We have already seen examples of how helpful this project is, in stories about young Joseph Backler’s uttering of forged cheques.  1816https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/images.jsp?doc=181609180085

Hannah Barry – transportation for 14 years:  On safer ground, in terms of location and participants, we find the case of Hannah Barry and Mary Murphy, Theft and receiving stolen goods, trial proceedings on 1 November 1824.

Screenshot (108)As seen on the left, the case began with a summary of items alleged to have been stolen by Hannah Barry, servant to Samuel and Mary Backler in their rented home in Berners Street.  The evidence included statements by 12 year old Mary Backler’s cousin Henry, living with the family, and later to marry oldest daughter Mary, as described in a previous post. Following Mrs Backler’s statement that she had ‘missed property’, she said she had ‘sent for Craig, who searched her boxes and found a variety of property’.  The rest of the case was as follows (image and text downloaded from: https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t18241028-140-defend1298&div=t18241028-140#highlight):

WILLIAM CRAIG . I am an officer. On the 28th of September I searched three boxes, which Mrs. Backler pointed out to me; the prisoner was present; and before I searched them, I asked her if she knew anything of a diamond pin, and a locket which were lost; she denied it at first, and then said she had found the pin, but knew nothing of the locket; she went up stairs with us, one of her trunks was open, and another locked; the third was a small tea chest. I found two stiffners in her pocket; in the open trunk was the trimming, and several things, and in the other trunk several caps and articles of linen; and in her tea chest, I found the diamond pin – she said she knew it was in some of her boxes, but could not tell which. I forget whether the tea chest was locked. I went to Murphy’s house with a warrant, and found a waistcoat, a petticoat, and other things; she was not at home, but her husband was. I afterwards saw her, and she said she had bought them of different people in the street.

Cross-examined by MR. PHILLIPS. Q. You do not know that to be a diamond pin – A. I am told that it is.

MR.   HENRY PELLATT . I lived at the prosecutor’s house. This diamond pin and locket are mine, and the waistcoat. I missed the pin and locket on the 27th of September; I had seen them two or three days before, and had left them in a box unlocked.

Cross-examined. Q. Are there any children in the house – A. Yes, one of them is twelve years old. I had put the property among some fishing tackle.

COURT. Q. How long had you lived there – A. Three years. I wore the pin every day; the prisoner must have known it to be mine. I paid 13 l. for it about six months ago, to Mr. Fletcher, a lapidary, of Marlborough-street.

(Property produced and sworn to.)

BARRY’S Defence. The box which the things were found in is not mine – I had lent my mistress a trunk when she went into the country, and she gave me one of hers to put my things in. I never saw these things till they were found.

MRS. BACKLER. Two of the trunks belonged to her; some of the property was in them, and some in one which I had lent her, having had an accident with hers, and sent it to be repaired – the tea chest belonged to her, and was locked. and she produced the key of it after some hesitation.

MR. PELLATT re-examined. I have tried the pin, and know it to be a diamond.

BARRY-GUILTY. Aged 25.

Of stealing to the value 39 s. only .

Transported for Fourteen Years .

MURPHY – NOT GUILTY .

Hannah Barry was duly transported to Van Dieman’s Land (Tasmania) on The Providence, which left England in December 1825, arriving in Australia on 16 May 1826.  I cannot firmly identify what happened to her in later years.  Once again, the standard of proof in Old Bailey Trials might well raise eyebrows in more modern times!

And finally: there is another case about Harriet Bate, theft, on 3 July 1834.  This date is after the disastrous events for the Backlers of 1830-31, which I will recount in my next post.  The case involves theft by Harriet Bate of goods belonging to her master, Samuel Backler, Silversmith, of Bishopsgate Street.  His wife Mary gives evidence, stating she is a staymaker.  Is this ‘our’ Samuel and Mary, or another?  I am not sure.  The full report can be seen at:  https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t18340703-106-defend680&div=t18340703-106#highlight

There is a reference in this case to ‘the prosecutor’s son’.  If there really was an Apsley Backler, this reference could be to him; if it is not him, then this is probably not ‘our’ Samuel, as there was no other surviving son.  I haven’t, though, been able to trace an alternative ‘Samuel and Mary’. Samuel Backler (born in Haverhill) and his wife Elizabeth appear in St Luke’s Parish in the 1841 and 1851 censuses, but he is shown as a Labourer, and I don’t think he is the same as the one in the court case…perhaps!

Moving on: In this post I have tried to give a brief flavour of what might be called the middle years for Samuel and Mary Backler. Alas, their fortunes were not due to prosper, as we will see in my next post, in which I will consider Samuel’s bankruptcy and its apparent impact on family relationships.