Samuel BACKLER (1784-1870)

27. Samuel Backler (1784-1870), Bankrupt Tobacconist

In which we face the sad task of reporting the complicated affairs of Samuel Backler and his wife Mary (nee Pellatt), as they faced bankruptcy and the loss of money and possessions, while looking after daughters Mary and Susannah Mary, and newborn Esther Maria.  We glean most of the story from papers held at The National Archives in B/3/695: In the matter of Samuel Backler of St James Street, Piccadilly, Middlesex, tobacconist, bankrupt. Date of commission of bankruptcy: 1831 February 21

Our tale begins with a notice in The London Gazette dated 15 February 1831, to the effect that Samuel Backler, tobacconist of 81 St James’s Street, is unable to meet his financial obligations (https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/18776/page/302) Screenshot (116)

An insolvent debtor who was also a trader could declare himself bankrupt.  An individual who was not a trader could be kept in a debtor’s prison, a fate which Samuel seems to have avoided.

Here began a process which stretched across the entire year, in which a parade of creditors (including close family) laid out their claims on Samuel’s assets, his wife Mary had to forego part of her inheritance from her grandfather Stephen Maberly, and at least some of the family’s furniture was sold.  The date of 1831 was significant, as the process of administering bankruptcy was changing from Commissioners of Bankruptcy (which I believe was the process under which Samuel was treated) to a Court of Bankruptcy.  I do not claim to be expert!

Information copied at TNA 26 September 2009.  B/3/695.  The information is mainly extracted.  Where verbatim, it is in quotes.  I have poor quality photos of further lists of creditors than are reported in this account – they are not usable, and so I have left them out.  The total in debts was over £1,000, while money due to Samuel Backler was in the low £100s.  The outcome of it all was that creditors were to receive £2 and 5s in the pound.

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22 February 1831.  Samuel Backler Tobacconist.  Burwood Rooms   George Maberly, Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square Middx. Coachmaker.  Against Samuel Backler of St James’ Street Piccadilly in the County of Middx tobacconist.  £104 – 17 – 4d lent between 1 January 1830 and 1 February 1831: ‘no security or satisfaction whatsoever’ except promissory notes and Bill of exchange.

Note: George Maberly was some sort of cousin to Samuel’s wife Mary Pellatt, though given the number of Maberly families in London at the time, I am not exactly sure of his relationship.  George is probably the George Maberly who eventually became a partner in the famous firm of Thrupp and Maberly.
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23 February 1830 [sic –  is this 1831?].  George Cross of 3 Poole Street, Hoxton, Gentleman. Has known Samuel Backler four years, during which time he carried on trade, buying and selling tobacco, snuff, cigars and other commodities of a like nature.  He said Samuel Backler was in insolvent circumstances and unable to meet claims of debtors.  On Monday 14 February inst Samuel Backler came to Hoxton and asked for a bed because he was afraid of being arrested by his creditors for debt if he remained at his own house of residence.  Samuel Backler stayed there until the present, having not returned to ‘his own house or place of business’.
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22 February 1831.  Provisional Assignment of Estate to William Burwood of Southampton Buildings Chancery Lane Gentleman. John Beauclerk, Jefferies Spranger and John Dyneley Esquires, the major part of Commissioners named and authorised in and by a Commission of Bankrupt – awarded and issued and now in Prosecution against  Samuel Backler of St James’ Street Piccadilly in the County of Middlesex tobacconist.  S.B. declared bankrupt at Burwood Rooms, 22 February 1831.
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22 February 1831 p. 350. London Gazette   Giving notice of the following dates: 25 February, disclosure; 8 March – Assignees; 5 April – finish examination of creditors, agree certification.  On this day Samuel Backler was reported as not at present prepared to make full disclosure and discovery of his Estate and Effects, praying further time until the next day.  25 February:  Still not full disclosure.
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8 March 1831. List of Creditors:

  • Gilbert Selioke Edwards, Newman Street, Oxford Street, Coachmaker. Late of Pall Mall.  Executor Thomas Chamberlayne. Had loaned £25 10s
  • Samuel Ward, Piccadilly, tobacconist. £100 – 10 – 10 for goods sold and delivered to Samuel Backler
  •  Henry Pellatt of Ironmongers Hall, Gentleman.  £104 – 8 – 6 money lent and advanced on 25 May 1829, 25 January 1825, 7 May 1828.  [on 18 March 1831, while these proceedings were going on, Henry had married his cousin Mary Backler, Samuel and Mary’s oldest daughter!  They feature in several posts (and one forthcoming).]
  • George Maberly, Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square,  Coachmaker.  £104 – 17 – 4
    George Maberly and Henry Pellatt chosen as assignees

On this date, the solicitor’s bill of £40-8-2 to be paid from the first monies raised.  Also the Messenger’s Bill, £14-4-8d
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5 April 1831.  More creditors:

  • Richard Vandome, Leadenhall Street, City of London, Scalemaker.  £59 – 5s
  • John Bale [Bask?] Derby Place, Bayswater in the County of Middlesex, Coal Merchant.  Goods sold and delivered £14 – 16
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8 July 1831.  London Gazette. P. 1382:  ‘The Commissioners in a Commission of Bankrupt, bearing date of 21st February 1831, awarded and issued forth against Samuel Backler … intend to meet on the 29th of July instant at Eleven in the Forenoon, at the Court of Commissioners of Bankrupts at Basinghall-Street in the City of London in order to Audit the Accounts of the Assignees of the estate and effects of the said Bankrupt under the said Commission, pursuant to an Act of Parliament, made and passed in the sixth year of the reign of his late Majesty King George Fourth intituled “An Act to amend the laws related to Bankrupts.”

An untimely death:  On 3 June 1831, Mary [Pellatt] Backler’s grandfather Stephen Maberly died in Reading.  The timing of this death was rather unfortunate for Mary, in light of her husband’s bankruptcy proceedings!  Stephen Maberly had made specific provision for his grandchildren in his Will, which was proved on 5 July 1831, with quite a few Codicils relevant to the Backler bankruptcy.  Having initially left £4000 in trust for the benefit of ‘all and every the child of my late daughter Mary Pellatt’ [Samuel’s  mother-in-law], this sum was reduced to £2500 in a codicil, which excepted Mrs Mary Backler.  In an earlier Codicil, dated 12 August 1826, there was to be deducted £250 from ‘Mrs Backler’s share of the property I have left to her, having lately advanced that sum for her husband’ but that Codicil was revoked on 26 April 1827 in favour of the following:

£400 on trust – interest, proceeds etc – to Mary Backler into her own hands for her sole and separate use exclusively of her present and any future husband and without being liable to his debts or arrangements.  On her death, proceeds to go to every her child and children when they become 21, or when the daughters marry.

This inheritance results in a notice on August 22:  The Law Advertiser, Vol. 9:  Special meeting of creditors of bankrupts:

‘Backler, Samuel, St. James’s-st., Piccadilly, Middlesex, tobacconist; Sept 21, at 12 precisely, C.C.B., as to assignees compromising their claim to a legacy of 200l, bequeathed by Stephen Maberley, deceased, to the bankrupt’s wife, by accepting half of such legacy, and permitting the remainder to be settled on bankrupt’s wife for her separate use; and on other special affairs.’

Some confusion?  I am not sure how the legacy of £200 was determined.  In his Will Stephen Maberly had declared the legacy of £400 to be free from any debt of her husband.  Was this £200 Mary’s share of the £2500 left to all the children of Mary [Maberly] and Apsley Pellatt?  I don’t fully understand, as I thought she had been exempted from this.  Apparently not (see below).  Perhaps the £400 would remain at the disposal of Mary.

At the Court of Commissioners of Bankrupts, Basinghall Street London 21st day of September 1831:  Memorandum – At a Meeting of the Creditors and Assignees of Samuel Backler of St James’s Street Piccadilly in the County of Middlesex Tobacconist Dealer and Chapman a Bankrupt held on the day and year and at the place above written pursuant to a notice in the London Gazette of the thirtieth day of August last in order to [sic] the said Creditors to assent to or dissent from the said Assignees compounding their claim to a Legacy of £200 bequeathed by the Will of Stephen Maberly late of Reading in the County of Berks Esquire deceased to the Bankrupt’s Wife by receiving one half of the said Legacy and allowing the other half to be retained by the Trustees or Executors under the said Will for the purpose of Settlement on the said Wife of the Bankrupt for her separate use according to the decisions in Equity in like Cases And further to assent to or dissent from the assignees paying to a party to be named at the meeting the amount of certain premiums paid by him on a policy of Insurance in the London Life Association effected on the life of the said Bankrupt for the sum of £500 with a view to the Assignees obtaining possession of the said Policy And also to assent to or dissent from the said assignees selling and disposing of the said Policy and of any other the Estate and effects of the said Bankrupt either by public auction or private contract and for such terms and prices as they shall think fit And also to assent to or dissent from whatsoever the said Assignees hitherto done or at the said Meeting shall propose to do in reference to the said Bankrupt’s Estate.

The following is a copy of a letter from Mr Apsley Pellatt [Mary Backler’s brother] to the assignees produced and read at the Meeting –

“Mr Apsley Pellatt presents respects to the Assignees of Samuel Backler and acquaints them that he is willing to surrender to the use of the Creditors the Policy of Insurance of His (Mr B’s) life of £500 in the London Life Assurance Office on payment of the premium (he has paid) amounting to £27.13.10  Mr Apsley Pellatt begs also to say that he has no doubt on the Creditors assenting to accept £100 in full satisfaction of the Legacy of 1/11th of £2500 left by Will by the late Stephen Maberly Esquire to Mrs Backler that the Executrix will forthwith pay the same into the hands of the Assignees”.  Falcon Glass Works.  17 Sept 1831

Present the undersigned Creditors

It was resolved and agreed that the said assignees be authorized to pay to Mr Apsley Pellatt the Sum of £27. 13. 10 the amount of the premiums paid by him on the above mentioned Policy   And that they be at liberty to dispose of the said Policy  either by Surrender to the London Assurance Office or by Public Sale or private contract and at such price and on such terms as to the said Assignees may seem meet

Secondly – It being stated at the meeting that the Legacy in question being to the Bankrupts Wife and that the Court of Chancery thro’ which alone such Legacy could be recovered always makes a provision for the Wife out of it, and generally to the extent of one half of the Legacy, It was resolved and agreed that the said Assignees be also authorized and empowered to receive the sum of £100 in full satisfaction of their claim of the Legacy of 1/11th of £2500 left by the Will of the late Stephen Maberly Esquire to Mrs Backler the Wife of the Bankrupt and that they also be authorized to give and sign full and sufficient receipts and discharges for the same

Thirdly – and resolved and agreed that the undersigned do approve of the sale of the Bankrupts Furniture as made by the assignees, and ratify the same accordingly.

Henry Pellatt.  Richard Vandome.  Sam Ward
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22 November 1831.  London Gazette. P. 2442.  Notice of the following event: The Commissioners ‘intend to meet on the 23rd day of December next, at Ten of the Clock in the Forenoon … in order to make a Dividend of the estate and effects of the said Bankrupt; when and where the Creditors, who have not already proved their debts, are to come prepared to prove the same, or they will be excluded the benefit of the Dividend. And all claims not then proved will be disallowed.

Account: Cash realised:

Sale of bankrupt’s furniture                                           £20/3
Cash in compromise of Stephen Maberly legacy        £100/ –
Deposit on sale of policy per Mr Shuttleworth           £24/-
Balance from the purchases [?]                                       £96/–

£240/3-

Paid:

30 Sep Solicitor’s bill re choice of assignees                £40 – 8 – 2
Mr Pellatt’s claim re life policy                                       £27-13-10
Mr Shuttleworth’s charge on sale of policy                  £6 – 0 – 0
Messenger bills                                                                   £20-14-8
Auctioneer charges sale of furniture                             £4 – 14 – 0
Solicitor dividend                                                               £49-13-10
Claim of shopman in full                                                     £5 – 10
Claim of maidservant in full                                              £3 – 0 – 0
Balance to be divided                                                           £82-8-6

£240 – 8 – 0

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23 December 1831: More debts!

  • Richard Cater, deceased.  17 September 1827                     £23-8-4
  • William Deighton 71 St James’s Street Tailor.  Goods
    sold and delivered. Work and labour done as a tailor       £22 – 1 – 6
  • Maria Palmer 8 Kensington Terrace, Kensington
    Gravel Pits late servant to the Bankrupt. Wages due.
    Her X.                                                                                            £3 – 0 – 0
  • John Martin, 82 St James’s Street, tailor.  Goods sold
    and delivered.                                                                             £6 – 19
  • William Cousins, 45 Duke Street, St James’s. Carpenter
    Carpentry work                                                                         £6 – 12 – 5
  • James Davies, 106 New Bond Street, late shopman to
    The Bankrupt.  For wages                                                       £5 – 10 – 0
  • John Collier, Carey Street, Lincolns Inn, Gent.
    By judgement HM Court Kings Bench, Easter term
    11th year King George IVth for £500 debt and 65
    shillings costs. Indenture re William Nokes [Noke?]           £203

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23 December 1831.  Creditors to get £2s 5d to the £

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What to make of all this? Little more is heard of Samuel Backler before his death in 1870, other than his presence in the 1851 and 1861 Censuses and the marriage of his second daughter Susannah Mary Backler to James Boulding in 1844.  We do not know what happened to Samuel and Mary after the traumatic events of Samuel’s bankruptcy in 1831, other than to assume that it did little in terms of good family relationships!  Clearly Samuel was a poor businessman.  Was he reckless, or just unfortunate?    We may never know.

 

 

 

 

 

25. Samuel Backler (1784-1870). A question of Bark

sam-backler-1784-baptismIn which we consider the life and early career of my 3x great grandfather, Samuel Backler, having reviewed the varied fortunes of his four half-siblings and nine siblings in previous posts.  We follow Samuel as he embarked on a career as an apothecary, like his father, grandfather and half brother John before him.  We see his fortuitous marriage to the eldest child of noted glassmaker Apsley Pellatt, and after what seems to have been an abortive apprenticeship, we witness Samuel setting up in business, perhaps armed with inside knowledge of the market for Peruvian Bark from his and his father’s association with the Society of Apothecaries.   

IMG_3340 (2)Early years: an apothecary apprentice and laboratory worker.  Samuel Backler was the second child and oldest son of Sotherton Backler (1746-1819) and his wife Hannah Osborne (approx 1763-1803).  He was born in Stoke Newington, and baptised at St Mary’s Church there. (The church, left, is ‘the old church’, no longer consecrated.)

No evidence as to Samuel’s education has come to light.  His older half brother John (c.1780 – 1846), and youngest sibling Sotherton (1798-1875), were educated at St Paul’s School, but there is no record of Samuel having been there, nor of him attending university. When he was just two years old the family faced sorrow.  Infant Thomas Backler, aged 8 months, was buried at St Andrew by the Wardrobe on 16 December 1786, followed just two weeks later on the 30th by Samuel’s 9 year old half brother Sotherton.  On 14 May 1791, Samuel’s 2 year old sister Elizabeth was also interred in the church, and to cap it all, his mother Hannah was buried in April 1803 at Bunhill Fields, aged about 40.

Samuel’s older brother John was apprenticed to their father, Sotherton Backler.  Samuel, however, was apprenticed in 1800 to Thomas Hall, but on Hall’s death in 1802, Samuel was released from his indentures and in 1805 gained the freedom of the Society by Patrimony.  The records show that he was in the service of the Laboratory Stock, established many years previously to oversee and control the quality of the manufacture of chemical and plant-based medicines. In 1843, he withdrew from the Society.  He had never fully qualified as an apothecary, though he was surely well trained in aspects of the art through his tenure in the laboratory. We will see that his subsequent career was to have many twists and turns.

Fortuitous marriage: Apothecaries’ Hall was located on Water Lane, very near to St Paul’s Cathedral, whose churchyard housed, among other residents and enterprises, the firm of Pellatt and Green, known as glassmakers to the King.  Here the names of Pellatt and Maberley enter my family tree, with the marriage in 1810 of our Samuel to Mary Pellatt, eldest child of Apsley Pellatt (1763-1826) (the third of six with that name) and his wife Mary Maberly.  The marriage linked two families prominent in their respective Livery Companies.  Apsley Pellatt had been Master of the Ironmongers Company.

screenshot-90Bedford Street Laboratory:  Following his marriage, Samuel set up his lab at Covent Garden’s Bedford Street.  Here he marketed a range of interesting lotions and potions, such as this one for Asthmatic Strontium Tobacco (The Morning Post, 10 October 1811).  Backler was in the forefront of the use of stramonium, derived from the common thorn-apple, in treating asthma.  The history of the use of smoking in treating asthma is fascinating, and can be explored through the following link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2844275/

A matter of Bark:  I speculate that another of Samuel’s treatments, Peruvian Bark, might well have been linked to activities at the Society of Apothecaries’ labs, which I was able to learn more about through some sessions a few years back in the Society’s Archives.

By the early 19th century, Peruvian Bark (Jesuits’ Bark; cascarilla; le remede anglais) – or the various forms of cinchona – had become key elements in the maintenance of health in the far-flung British Empire.  First recorded as being used for fever in South America in the 17th century, and thought to have been brought to Europe by the Jesuits, it had become an important trade item.  Historians continue to debate the origins of the name cinchona, once said to have been because of a cure of a fever in the Countess of Chinchon.  Its use in England dates from as early as 1658, when the ague had become endemic in the south-east.  However, its first use at that time resulted in the death of the Alderman of the City of London – not a good start![1]   A decade or so later, however, Robert Talbor (or Tabor) began to use a remedy which included the Jesuits’ powder.  He went on to use this cure across Europe and in the Court of Charles II.  It took some time for understanding to develop that Peruvian Bark was not effective for all fevers – only those of an intermittent nature, like malaria. And it was not until 1820 that Pelletier and Cavenout isolated the alkaloids quinine and cinchonine.[2]

It stands to reason that with such an important product, the Society would be involved in its preparation and sale as part of its trading activities.  The Laboratory Stock and Navy Stock companies had been engaged in trade throughout the 18th century, and in 1810, during the Peninsular Wars, an approach from the Army Medical Board opened the prospect of providing the Army’s medical supplies.

Questions of quantity and quality: The Archives show that a special meeting of the Court of Assistants was convened on 8 October 1810, to consider a letter from the Army Medical Board of 26 September in which the Society was informed of the Army’s intent to obtain its supplies from the Society – subject to the answers to a series of questions.  These included whether the Society could at short notice ensure a sufficient quantity of medicines ready packed to be immediately available, and whether the Society would consider having Depots at Plymouth, Portsmouth, Falmouth and elsewhere. The Army also wanted to know if supplies could be returned to the Society if they were not wanted.

The Society indicated that they would certainly be able to supply medicines for an Army of 30,000 men – at ten days notice. and every medicine to be delivered in a ‘most perfect state’ – but not from Depots, which would be removed from the Society’s methods of quality control.  There would be no question of receiving returned unwanted goods!

By Spring 1811, a further letter from the Army Medical Board raised questions about the quality of drugs imported from abroad, suggesting that it was said to be the custom of the druggists ‘after purchasing them in their original state from the Merchants, to assort and mix the different qualities previously to offering them for sale, so that it is difficult, if not impossible, to procure any of the genuine.’  They asked how the Company could ‘obviate this nefarious and dangerous practice’ with respect to Bark: ‘It is understood that the only species of Peruvian Bark which of late years have been imported of distinct fine quality are the Crown Bark and grey silver coated Bark in small quills, but that these are afterwards mixed by the Dealers with others.’  They wanted ‘to be informed whether all the Drugs that are used in a state of Powder are bought by the Company in the gross, and powdered under their own inspection, such as Ipecaccuanha and Jalap, as well as Bark.’

On 13 March 1811 came the reply (no doubt drafted by the Clerk to the Society, Samuel Backler’s father Sotherton Backler):

‘…They [Master and Wardens of this Society] beg to observe that their mode of dealing does not expose them to any of these Inconveniences, as the Drugs sent to them for purchase are (in the language of the Druggists, garbled, that is picked, before they receive them) that they buy by competition, and by sample, without knowing of whom ‘till the purchase is made and without Reference to price or anything but the perfection of the Article to be bought; … On the subject of Bark … [there are] three sorts, corresponding with the directions given them by the College of Physicians’.  These were Yellow Bark (cinchona cordifolia Cortex), quilled or pale Bark (the Crown Bark – cinchona lancifolia cortex), and Red Bark (cinchona oblongifolia Cortex)…The Bark sent by them [Master and Wardens] when simply the Term Bark is employed, is the Cinchona lancifolia or Crown Bark, which is considered as the best Bark in the market…they never purchase any Article used in Medicine in powder…every article of the Materia Medica is bought in the Gross, and powdered at their Mill in the Premises under the Inspection of their very confidential Servants.’

A speedy reply (or rebuke?) on 14 March 1811 suggested that the Army didn’t want to know about the three types of bark – but wanted to know how the Society got the best quality of each type.  Furthermore, the Society had said that when ‘Bark’ is used, it referred only to Crown Bark. But, a sample was purchased  ‘at your Hall in which a proportion of 3 in 16 of the small quilled Bark, a sort considered inferior, was found mixed with the best Crown Bark, the whole being sold as an article of the best quality.’

On the 16th of March the Society replied that when any article was wanted, notice is posted so interested parties, druggists, merchants in the City, will want to produce proper samples.  Re the Bark bought at the Hall, ‘they think it proper to observe that the most eminent Druggists in London are not as yet perfectly decided on every identical piece of the Crown Bark, but at all events, the Committee can only purchase the best Article submitted to them’.  Pharmacists had to judge the quality of cinchona bark, as it arrived at London Docks, by colour and taste. The relationship between commercial barks and botanical species was unclear, and there was no assay to measure the active components.

This episode clearly hit at the heart of the Society’s reputation as provider of pure and high quality substances, and the doubts raised must have resonated throughout the Society and its laboratories.

One historian noted: ‘A further problem was that harvesting the bark of cinchona trees often led to their death. As the trees grew wild, regeneration was not sufficient to maintain supplies. By the beginning of the 19th century, as Spain’s American colonies gained independence, there was serious concern in Europe over the quality, quantity and price of exports of bark. Cinchona was taking on an increasingly important role in the occupation and safe administration of tropical colonies in Asia (India, Indonesia) and Africa.’[3]

At the same time as this spat with the Army Medical Board, Samuel Backler, Sotherton’s son, was trading on his links with the Society to market his own preparation of Peruvian Bark.  In a Times advert of 10 January 1811, we find S. Backler, ‘from Apothecaries’ Hall’, marketing a preparation of Peruvian Bark in the form of an oval tablet equal to one teaspoonful of powdered bark.  The advert modestly states that ‘S.B. confidently assures the faculty and the public that, having studied more than eight years in the chemical department at Apothecaries’ Hall, he is enabled to prepare all sorts of medicines agreeable to the plan pursued there…’

This, along with the advert for asthma preparations discussed above, and several others, such as the one below for whooping cough (BCWG, 16 May 1822 – alas my notes don’t say what ‘BCWG’ stands for, and I cannot find it online!), whooping-cough-bcwg-thu-16-may-1822-p1d1suggest that for a while, at least, Samuel, adept at trading on the name of Apothecaries’ Hall,  pursued a successful career marketing medicines from his laboratory in Covent Garden and later from his home in Berners Street.  To modern eyes, his claims of quality and efficacy make interesting reading indeed!

In the next post, I will follow his life and times as a parent, ‘tobacconist’ and ‘bankrupt’; ‘clerk’ in the 1851 Census; and ‘formerly dispensing chemist’ (his death certificate).  The records show that Samuel  ‘withdrew’ from the Society in 1843, and my feeling about him is that he was first, a poor businessman, and second, that he suffered by not having completed his apprenticeship, therefore not able to make claims to be an apothecary after the Apothecaries’ Act of 1815, which regularised and strengthened the role of apothecaries, forerunners to today’s general practitioners.

[1] ‘A cure for the ague: the contribution of Robert Talbor (1642-81)’. T.W. Keeble J R Soc Med 1997; 90:285-290.

[2] For a very interesting discussion of the uses of Peruvian Bark in the battle against malaria (or ‘fever’, or ‘ague’), see M.R.Lee, ‘Plants against Malaria. Part I: Cinchona or the Peruvian Bark’, J R Coll Physicians Edinb 2002: 32: 189-196

[3] A short history of Cinchona (Kew) http://www.kew.org/collections/ecbot/collections/topic/cinchona/a-short-history-of-cinchona/index.html

 

18. Backler sisters at Geffrye’s Almshouses

Hannah and Sarah Ann Backler:
Half-sisters who lived in Sir Robert Geffrye’s Almshouses

Geffrye Feb 2012

The 1851 Census shows half-sisters Hannah [aka Anna] and Sarah Ann BACKLER living in Kingsland Road Ironmongers’ Almshouses. They were two unmarried daughters of the 14 children of Sotherton BACKLER (1746-1819), who had been Clerk to the Society of Apothecaries.

Hannah BACKLER, daughter of Sotherton BACKLER and Frances nee HARRIS: Hannah was christened on 11 June 1780 at St Ann’s Blackfriars, on the same day as her brother John (see previous blogs for his story and those of is children). Given the christening dates of the previous two children, Sotherton (1778-1786) and Frances (1779-1833) and the marriage date of Sotherton and his first wife Frances HARRIS on 11 February 1777, it seems likely that Hannah and John were twins.

Sotherton and Frances were married at St Mary’s Stoke Newington. Witnesses were Hannah HARRIS [mother? sister?], John FREEMAN (most likely husband to Sotherton’s sister Ann, who married a John FREEMAN in 1770), and Nathaniel JENNINGS. Frances (Harris) Backler presumably died around the time of, or just after Hannah and John’s christening date. I have not succeeded in finding anything about Frances’ origins, nor a date for her death or burial.  I also have no further information about the other two children of this marriage, Sotherton and Frances (who was buried at Bunhill Fields in 1833).

Sarah Ann BACKLER, daughter of Sotherton BACKLER and Hannah nee OSBORNE: Sotherton married his second wife, Hannah OSBORNE, in Bocking, Essex in 1782. (I have not seen the record itself, and so I do not know the name of Hannah’s father, which I suspect could be Thomas Osborne (July 1796 – November 1796) – the name of one of Sotherton and Hannah’s several short-lived children.) Together they had 9 children, the first-born being Sarah Ann, christened on 10 August 1783 at St Mary’s Stoke Newington, as was her next sibling, my 3x g. grandfather Samuel BACKLER, on 18 August 1784. All the subsequent children were christened at St Ann Blackfriars, neighbourhood church to the Society of Apothecaries.

Two daughters married:

  • Mary (1791- 1860) to John James Joseph SUDLOW, a lawyer. They had very many children and descendants and will feature in a future blog.
  • Jane Ozella  (1795 – 1830) to Daniel BURTON, who re-married after Jane’s death and the birth of their child, Sarah Ann BURTON (1828-1916). Their tree can be seen here:  Jane Ozella family tree

The Geffrye almshouses – for the elderly poor:  Sir Robert Geffrye was a prosperous merchant of humble origins. He was twice Master of the Ironmongers Company, and in 1685 became Lord Mayor of London. Among his many legacies to charitable causes, he bequeathed a substantial sum to the Ironmongers Company for the building and maintenance of almshouses. A plot was found on Kingsland Road, Shoreditch, where the buildings, finished in 1715, now stand as the Geffrye Museum. [1]

So what else is known of Hannah and Sarah Ann? Precious little! With luck there could be some information about them in the records of the Ironmongers’ Company, which I have not yet managed to access. Sarah Ann’s mother Hannah (Osborne) died in 1803, when Sarah would have been about 20 and Hannah just a bit older. Did these two young women (and their sister Frances, who died in 1833) remain at home with their father, in particular to look after their much younger siblings? (Their youngest brother Sotherton was born only in 1798 – much more about him in a future blog.)

Death of their father, Sotherton BACKLER: I have already described in a previous blog how, at the time of Lord Nelson’s funeral in January 1806, their father Sotherton had just been appointed Clerk to the Apothecaries, having been acting Clerk for some time. It is possible that he was on the Society’s barge in the funeral procession from Greenwich to Westminster, but in any case, the three young women would surely have viewed the funeral procession as it made its way to St Paul’s, as well as the procession of barges along the river.

Their father Sotherton died intestate in 1819. Administration was granted to his oldest surviving son, John Backler (as noted above, possibly Hannah’s twin), and on 26 October 1819 the Minutes of the Court of Assistants of the Society record a letter from Mr. John Backler, son of the late Sotherton, requesting that the sum of £50 be granted to Frances and Anna [sic] Backler, Sotherton’s daughters. This was duly agreed, and letters of thanks from the recipients were recorded at the Court of Assistants on 21 December 1819, after which there is no further mention of the daughters in the records of the Society. The oldest daughter Frances (who died in 1833) does not appear to have needed this extra sum.  I wonder why.

Census returns for Hannah and Sarah Ann: The 1841 Census shows that Hannah, age 60, was living at the Geffrye almshouses. I cannot find a record of Sarah Ann in 1841, but both are shown in residence in 1851 at Jeffries’ Alms [sic], both ‘Almswoman’, Sarah A, 67, at number 5, and Hannah, 71, at number 14, the house which has recently been restored to show how the residents might have lived, in the 1780s and 1880s. The picture here shows the interior as it could have been in the 1880s.

14 Geffrye 2 Hannah Backler 1851

Sarah Ann’s death was registered in 1857, but Anna [sic] Backler appears in the 1861 Census, aged 82, shown as ‘formerly Companion’. This time the house is not numbered on the census return, which helpfully indicates the former status of residents, many shown as ‘widow of …. [citing their late husband’s occupation]’. Hannah’s death was registered at the GRO in 1870, presumably while she was still resident.

Family connections with the Ironmongers – introducing the Pellatts: There was a family connection by marriage to the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers. Hannah’s half-brother, and Sarah Ann’s brother Samuel BACKLER married in 1810 to Mary PELLATT, oldest of the 15 children of Apsley PELLATT (1763-1826), a well-known glassmaker with his son, also Apsley, who later became a member of Parliament. Mary’s grandfather Apsley PELLATT (1735-1798) was Master to the Ironmongers in 1789; his son Apsley (Mary’s father) was a member of the Ironmongers, and another son Thomas was clerk to the Ironmongers. Whether this family connection had anything to do with Hannah and Sarah Ann ending their days in the Ironmonger’s almshouses remains to be discovered.

[1] For much more detail about the history of the Almshouses, see ‘A History of the Geffrye Almshouses’ by Kathy Haslam, published by the Geffrye Museum – no date.