E - Emma Timms

My Nana’s father was the youngest in his family. He had five older sisters and one older brother. His mother died when he was about nine months old. For five years or so his eldest sisters probably cared for him along with their grandparents who lived nearby.

Nana didn’t talk about her aunts or uncle or cousins though, apart from one. Most of them were a lot older than she and her siblings, so it is possible she didn’t even know them.

Alice was fourteen when her youngest brother was born, almost fifteen when her mother died. She was born in Mason Street, Milverton, Warwickshire. In 1881 on the census, she is recorded as a Scholar even though she was eighteen. After this census though each time she is recorded as an Inmate or Pauper living in the Warwick Union Workhouse (later known as the Warwick Union Institution and the Warwick Public Assistance Institute). She died in1944 at Shipston Hospital in Shipston-on-Stour.

May was eleven when her brother was born and twelve when their mother died. In 1881 on the census, she is recorded aged fifteen, living away from the family (but still in Milverton) as a housemaid for a retired Army Major General and his family. She was married in 1887 to William Byford and they had five children, one of whom died in infancy. This is the family Nana sometimes mentioned, they were Green Grocers in the early 1900s. May died in 1946.

Mary was nine when her brother was born and their mother died. Before 1889 she moved away from Milverton to Birmingham. Most likely for work as Birmingham offered many opportunities not found in Milverton. She was married in Birmingham in1889 to Henry Edward, a Pork Butcher and had four children. Sadly, Mary died eight days after the birth of her fourth child and her husband returned with his young family to live in Leamington and Milverton. One of Mary’s daughters lived for a time with her aunt May.

Fanny was six when her brother was born and their mother died. Fanny possibly moved to Birmingham at about the same time as Mary. In 1891 on the census, she is lodging with a family in Kings Norton and was employed as a Metallic Bedstead Decorator. Two years later in 1893 she was married to John Ashford a Cycle Polisher, in Birmingham. They had five children and spent the rest of their lives in Birmingham. Fanny died in 1941.

James was the first son in his family; he was two when his brother was born and their mother died. He became a Cellarman in a brewery but later was a much-respected inspector for the RSPCA. He married Ellen Newey and they had three children. They lived in Emscote and Leamington. James died in 1943.

George, the baby of the family was born in 1877 and his mother died in 1878. His father remarried when he was five years old to a widow with no children who lived across the road. She died in 1932, thirty years after their father. As far as I recall she was never talked about by Nana, though surely, she knew her as they lived almost next door.

But this blog is about Emma – I have shared briefly what I know about all the other members of the family. We have DNA matches with the descendants of most of them. But what about Emma? 

Emma was four when her brother was born and their mother died; her fifth birthday was the day after her mother died. Her full name is Emma Jane; she appears aged seven on the 1881 census although she was eight. And that is it! She has just vanished. By the 1891 census she would have been eighteen, she could have married, emigrated or died, but so far (over probably 20-30 years) I have not been able to find one little clue.

Are any of these people your great great aunts or uncles too? Or great great grandparents perhaps? Do you know anything about Emma? If you do, please share I would love to hear from you.

 

The Family of William Norman and Sarah Vickery

On Friday 19 December 1817 at St Mary Magdalene in the tiny village of Withiel Florey in Somerset a wedding took place. Just three days before the winter solstice. It was the only marriage that year, in fact it was 15 months since a wedding had been celebrated there. Four days earlier William Norman accompanied by his future brother-in-law had been granted a license after swearing an oath to the Lord Bishop of Bath & Wells. William was from Huish Champflower a neighbouring parish to his bride. The license states both bride and groom were upwards of twenty one years…the church record says they were married by license with the consent of parents. Both William and Sarah signed their own names in the register.

Why would consent be required if they were both of age ? Perhaps it was because William and his bride Sarah Vickery were first cousins.  William’s father and Sarah’s mother were brother and sister. Theirs was a family deeply rooted, like many in this branch of my tree, in the parishes on either side of the border between Devon and Somerset on or near the Brendon Hills and Exmoor.

Sarah and William spent the early years of their marriage farming at Tripp Farm in Clatworthy.

It was there in 1818 that their first child was born just three months after the death of Sarah’s mother. In her honour they named their daughter Jane Vickery Norman. They farmed there for at least six years before moving to Treborough where they lived and farmed at Chapmans Farm. By the time they arrived in Treborough they had three children: Jane, Marianne (Mary Ann/Marian) and William. Another daughter Elisabeth had lived just 15 weeks. A further two daughters, Sarah and Caroline completed their family at Chapman’s.

At Chapmans, the census in 1851 recorded that there were 260 acres and that William was employing 3 labourers.

Marianne was the first of their children to marry. On 8 October 1846 she married Thomas Davys of Kingston in the parish of Raddington. Her siblings Jane and William were witnesses to the marriage. Two pages later in the church record, Jane and William were witnesses to another marriage. This time Sarah married James Davys, the younger brother of Marianne’s husband, on 18 January 1849. On the same page, four months later Jane married Joseph Partridge on 12 April. James Davys was a witness this time along with William. Turn the pages a couple more times – 1852 was a popular year for marriages in Treborough and there is Caroline’s marriage to Thomas Langdon Norman, a first cousin, on 24 June. This time George Sutton was the witness alongside William. Thomas Norman’s father was a brother of Caroline’s father, William.

William married Mary Dommett Raddon in Exeter, Devon in 1860, they had one daughter and lived most of their married life in Bristol where William was a publican running the Bell Inn in Hillgrove Street for a number of years before retiring to Nailsea.

After her marriage Jane and her husband farmed at Monkham Farm near Luxborough. They had just two sons before Joseph died in 1853. Jane stayed and ran the farm, her parents came to live there too until their deaths. William died 12 April 1874 and Sarah 1 January 1881. Jane died at Monkham Farm 30 July 1887.

Marianne and Thomas lived at Kingston which he had inherited from his father and grandfather. They had a large family of six daughters and three sons. Two of the sons died young, the third trained as a jeweller and had a business in Truro, Cornwall. They spent some years away from farming in the drapery business in Bristol, but returned to Kingston for the last twenty years of their lives.

James and Sarah lived first at Nethercott Farm in Lydeard St Lawrence. They were there on the 1851 census where James was farming 80 acres of land and employing 1 labourer. On census night Sarah’s younger sister Caroline was visiting and they were parents to one son. Their second son would arrive 6 months later. I had hoped that birth certificates might reveal their places of residence so that I could create a timeline, but no. For the first four children just the parish of their birth was recorded. However sons number 3 & 4 were baptised at Bathealton and their birth certificates state Milverton - which is a sizeable parish - as their birthplace, which suggest that home was no longer Nethercott. They were at Hurstone by 1857 though as the three youngest children are recorded as being born there. On census night 1861 they were at Hurstone with their family of six boys. Just one month after the census they would welcome their first daughter, however Caroline lived just 7 months.

It was Hurstone they left behind, servants and all, when they joined the growing emigration movement, packed up their family and set off for New Zealand in 1862. It has been suggested that James was left £600 by his grandmother, in contrast Thomas as the eldest son was left the lease of Kingston. This endowment, it has been speculated was possibly used to fund the move and establish James and Sarah’s new life in New Zealand.

Their plans did not initially come to fruition, but they were obviously made of tough stuff. Three more children completed the family after their arrival in New Zealand, one born in Auckland and the youngest two in the Coromandel where gold was the lure. Farming was something they knew and they pursued this endeavour in the Tuhikaramea area near Hamilton.

It was in Thames that Caroline, her husband and young daughter joined James and Sarah, arriving in Auckland in 1864. Sadly Caroline died at Shellback Creek near Tararu on the Thames Coast just 5 years later. Caroline & Thomas’ daughter Harriett married her first cousin, James and Sarah’s second son.

Other members of the wider Norman family were also emigrating from England, several cousins and an uncle went to Canada and America – some even fought in the Civil War. I’m sure there are others too – I just haven’t found them yet. 

Drapery was big business it seems and several other members of the Norman family and the Davys family were in this industry in the 1800s – another area I need to research further and record. Time permitting there are more new blog posts under development.

I have some other posts about members of the wider family, or which mention them if you are interested to read them while you wait for me to get organised.  The Great Chatsworth Rail Disaster  . YMCA and Land - there may be others.

I have made a map it still needs a bit of tweaking but for now using the link should allow you to move about the locations I have talked about.