The Welsh Connection

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historic_counties_of_Wales

After the Anglo-Saxon invasions, the Welsh continued to keep their Brittonic language and culture alive in their western heartlands. In response, Edward I conquered the country in the late thirteenth century and it is since then that the heir apparent to the throne has held the title of ‘Prince of Wales’.

The last revolt against the English that created any meaningful waves was that of Owain Glyndŵr in the early 15th century. Once the revolt had been crushed, Owain disappeared and was neither ever captured nor betrayed. Wales was basically annexed, and became England’s first colony, before being formally absorbed into the United Kingdom.

Miraculously though, the language and culture have lasted to this day, considerably influenced by non-conformist practice and the Calvinist-Methodist revival. Both the Welsh language and culture survived the standard English efforts to negate them, and then and now remain strongest in the north of the country, which includes the counties of Denbighshire and Merionethshire. It was from this region that Hetty Jane Owen's Welsh ancestors heralded.

Hetty Jane Owen's Bradley Ancestors

The direct line to Hetty Jane Owen though her Bradley ancestors is:

1. Thomas (Henry) Bradley (1791-1851) m. Elizabeth Hounsell (1793-1882)
2. Henry Smale Bradley (1825-1880) m. Maria Harriett Robinson (1829-1879)
3. Maria Rosetta Bradley (1860-1945) m. Edward Samuel Owen (1858-1887)
4. Hetty Jane Owen (1883-1953) m. Charles Albert Eldridge (1889-1968)

Coborn Road, Bow, today, formerly home of the Bradleys.

Bradley Mysteries

There remain a few conundrums to be resolved regarding the Bradley family. We do not know who the Edward Bradley was who was a witness at the wedding of Elizabeth Hounsell to the original Thomas Bradley in 1813. Nor do we know who the Sarah Ann Bradley was, who witnessed the marriage of Henry Smale Bradley and Maria Harriett Robinson.

Henry’s unusual middle name of ‘Smale’ also provokes curiousity. In that era, the use of such a name would normally suggest that there had been a prior marriage with a Smale family. In fact, there is one recorded instance of such a liaison. In 1801 in Southwark, Surrey, a Charles Bradley married an Elizabeth Smale. And strange but also true is the fact that a Charles Bradley is recorded on the Trafalgar Roll, an Ordinary Seaman from Limehouse who was on the HMS Agamemnon in 1805.

There is just a possibility therefore – unlikely, but not to be dismissed, that the Trafalgar ancestor was not a Robinson at all, but a Bradley.

Caistor Park Road: A number of Bradleys lived her in Number 99. From: http://www.newhamphotos.com/p667748833/h2842F3D8

Similarly, the name of Henry Bradley and Maria's eldest daughter - Harriett Elizabeth Skerrett Bradley, suggests a Skerrett surname somewhere not so far back in the Bradley lineage.

Finally, sitting in the old family file, buried amongst the collection of documents, cuttings and clippings, a tiny newspaper item records an Edwin Bradley marrying Matilda Jessie Trimmer on the 31st October 1909 at the Parish Church, Forest Gate. The address of the Bradley family is given as 70 Windsor Road, and it is recorded that Matilda’s parents, Dr and Mrs Trimmer were living at Fairmead, Woodgrange Road, and that Matilda was a grand-daughter of the late Thomas Inman Welsh, M.R.S.O.L., of Southsea. Auntie May, if it was she who applied her scissors to the newspaper of the day, evidently thought this worth adding to her archive.

This same Auntie May Bradley was the one who regaled Hetty Jane Owen’s daughter, Olwen Eldridge about the connections the family had with royalty.  There is no evidence of any such link, unless it be that generational whispers had somehow made their way in distorted form through the centuries regarding the connections of the Irish West family with Lord Thomas Cromwell, and the settlement of County Down. 

But May, at least was a collector and careful archivist, and it is almost certainly thanks to her that so many intriguing documents made their way down to the next generation, through, one supposes, the one relative who always kept in close contact with her – Olwen Rose Eldridge, the daughter of Hetty Jane Owen, and grand-daughter of Maria Rosetta Bradley. 

St Paul’s Shadwell, where Henry Bradley and Maria Robinson got married.

Kate Louisa Bradley

Kate Louisa Bradley was born in Camberwell in 1867 and died in Hackney in 1890, and as described already, married back into the Robinson family.

With Frederick George Robinson, she did have one child, Kate Margaret Robinson (1887-????). The younger Kate is recorded in the 1911 census, one more product of the complicated and somewhat antagonistic fascination that the Robinsons and Bradleys seemed to have for each other:

Nothing further is known of Kate Margaret.

Robinsons and Bradleys in the 1911 Census

William Bradley

William was born in 1863 in Bow and died in West Ham. He married Ada Johnson, also of Bow.  They had one son, William John Bradley born in 1893 and baptised at South Hackney Christ Church.

Birth Record of William John Bradley, grandson of Henry Bradley and Maria Robinson.

In 1901, William was living in 69 De Beauvoir Road, Hackney, and listed in the census as a commercial clerk. William died in 1809, and Ada in 1910.

Maria Rosetta Bradley

Maria Rosetta Bradley (1860-1945) was the mother of Hetty Jane Owen, and grandmother of Harold and Olwen Eldridge. Suffice it to say for now that she was born in the Coborn Street, Bow residence of Henry Bradley and married Edward Samuel Owen in 1882. They had two children, of whom Hetty Jane Owen was the eldest. Their story will be explored in the Owen section of this Blog.

Harriet Elizabeth Skerrett Bradley and Maria Rosetta Bradley with their father, Henry Bradley. Sadly, no photos of Maria Robinson have survived.

Charles Arthur Bradley

Henry Bradley and Maria Robinson’s second son, was Charles Arthur Bradley, born in 1857 in Mayfair. In 1881, Charles was living with most of the rest of the family with the ancient matriarch from Bristol, Somerset, Elizabeth Ann Hounsell, then aged 87.

Charles had taken up the interesting profession of foreman framemaker (carver and guilder). He has taken some tracking down thereon, but it is presumably him in the 1891 census living in the St Pancras and Camden Down district. He is living with his wife Louie or Louise, or indeed Louisa, and a daughter aged 7, similarly named and just as confusingly transcribed. Charles is recorded as a foreman upholsterer of cabinets. It is most likely also that there is a mistranscription in his marriage certificate, below and that poor, accident-prone Henry Smale Bradley had his middle name changed by the struggling registrar to the much easier-to-handle ‘Smith’.

Marriage certificate for Charles Bradley. The father of the groom is presumably Henry Smale Bradley.

Charles Bradley and Lucy Jane Tothill had one daughter, Lucy Lillian Bradley, born in Pentonville in 1883, and a first cousin of Hetty Jane Owen.

The twist in the tale is that in 1892 a Lucy Jane Bradley married a Frederick George Robinson (1856-1913), the son of George Powell Robinson, and grandson of Harriett Wombwell and Charles John Robinson.

This was the very same Lucy Jane Tothill who had been married to Charles Bradley, whom we must kindly assume had died in the interim.

To complicate the story further, Frederick George was the very same Robinson who had previously married Kate Louisa Bradley, the youngest daughter of Henry Smale Bradley and Maria Robinson (We should perhaps recall at this point that in the 1891 census, Frederick was living next door to the Bradleys, and that Kate Louisa had died the previous year).

In summary, Frederick George Robinson not only married Henry and Maria’s youngest daughter, but also, subsequently, the widow of their second son. Lucy Lillian Bradley was still living with them in 1911, and was working as a milliner. Frederick Robert Robinson (1900-1974) was a son of Frederick George and Lucy Jane.

It is hard to say whether from within her grave, Harriett Wombwell would have been screaming with rage or laughing uproariously. But whenever the Bradleys, normally so prim, ordinary and respectable ran into the Robinsons with their wild Irish, buccaneering travelling menagerie blood, strange things always seemed to happen.

Henry Bradley Junior

The eldest son of Henry Bradley and Maria Robinson, was naturally named after his father (if nothing else, the naming conventions of the era saved everyone hours of agonizing deliberations and debates about what to call new born children). Henry junior was born in 1854 in Paddington. He got married in 1878 to an Islington girl, Louisa Elizabeth Fairbrother, and by 1881, they were living in Stoke Newington with their newly born son, Ernest Harry Bradley, then four years old. Henry junior followed in his father’s footsteps, and had started out his professional career as a Managing Clerk for a Builders’ Company – just exactly as we found his father back in 1851.

The address of Henry Junior and Louisa in 1881 - 44 Winston Road - is interesting too. This must have been some kind of family property, because two years down the line, the daughter of Henry's younger sister, Maria Rosetta Bradley, and her husband Edward Owen was to be born in this very house.

What is more, living with Henry and Louisa was Louisa’s step-sister, aged 15. Her name was Edith Chapman. Remembering that Ann Jane Chapman was the wife of Henry senior’s brother, Thomas Edward Bradley, it looks again like the extended Victorian networking system had come into play.

Louisa died young, on the 23rd February 1882 at 44 Winston Road, and it must have been this event that led to the house transferring down to Maria Rosetta Bradley. Where the widowed Henry Junior then took off to, and what happened to young Ernest Harry remain unknowns. There is however a death record for a Henry Bradley for 1900 in Poplar.

Marriage of Hetty Jane Owen’s Uncle Henry Bradley and Louisa Fairbrother

Harriet Elizabeth Skerrett Bradley

Harriet Elizabeth Skerrett Bradley (1852–1920) was the first of the six children of Henry Bradley and Maria Robinson. Otherwise known as ‘Auntie Hetty’, Harriett was born in Chelsea in 1852. By 1881, she was a machinist, aged 28, and living like most of Henry and Maria’s children, with their grandmother, Elizabeth Hounsell, in 52 Southgate Road, Hackney. She is next located, in 1891 living with her younger sister, Maria Rosetta, and her husband, Edward Owen, in Islington in 43 Oakley Road. Aunt Hettie is now aged 38, and described as a shirtmaker, a skill, or at least trade, that as we shall find out later, she was to pass down to her niece, Hetty Jane Owen, then aged seven. In 1911, she was boarding in Stoke Newington, still a shirt machinist. She never married. She was buried in Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington on the 14th December, 1920. She was living at 21 Foulden Road at the time.

Last Sight of Henry and Maria

The last sight we have of Henry and Maria together is in the 1871 census in Hackney. Henry, an intelligent and literate man, as we have noted, was now a fully-fledged surveyor, no mean achievement, one suspects. Six children had been born since Henry had proposed to Maria a flight by cart through the streets of the East End, and one may imagine that there was much that they did not choose to pass on to their respectable middle class progeny about the wild adventures of their youth. And did Henry remember his early letters to Maria, when he poured out his heart to her and promised that there was no question that she would have to share her residence with his mother or sister? Well, one may guess that he did, because it would hardly have been human if Maria had not taken several opportunities over the years to remind him of the fact.

79 Clifden Road, Hackney, 1871 census

By the time the 1881 census came round though, things had changed. There is just Elizabeth Hounsell, another all-conquering matriarch, now aged 87 and head of a household of Bradley grandchildren. Both Henry and Maria had departed from the scene, and perhaps if their feelings had held true, the loss of one had led to the heartbreak of the other, and they chose to pack their final trunk and board their final cart in tandem. One may hope so, at any rate.

Maria Harriett Robinson died in Hackney on the 27th April 1879, aged fifty. When exactly Henry caught his final cold or chill is not quite so clear from the records, but it was most likely the very next year, 1880, the year of the great fog in London.

The Later Years of Henry Smale Bradley and Maria Harriett Robinson

Henry’s baking career, as may have been expected all along, was soon put to one side. By 1851 Bradley the baker of Bow had become Bradley the builder of Chelsea. The very next year, in 1852, the first of Henry and Maria’s children arrived and was born a Chelsea girl, but it should be no surprise with Henry to find that the family did not remain there for long. Their second child was born in 1854 in Paddington, their third in 1857, in Marleybone, and by the time the fourth came on the scene in 1861, the family was back in Bow, living at 8 Coborn Street, with their own live-in servant, Susannah Roberts. Their travels were by no means over yet, for the youngest daughter Kate was born in Camberwell, south of the river in 1867, and by the time of the 1871 census the family were esconced at 79 Clifden Road, Hackney, along with Henry’s mother, Elizabeth Hounsell, and Henry’s sister, the widowed Louise Jones. With all the children still at home, this now made for a crowded household of ten people.

Coborn Street. Painting by Harold Steggles. From: http://www.artvalue.com/auctionresult--steggles-harold-1911-1971-unit-coborn-street-bow-2134685.htm

It will be remembered from Henry’s letters that the subject of in-laws had been raised before, and perhaps Henry as well as contemplating the snobberies of Harriett Wombwell should equally have been considering what to do about his own domineering mother, whom he had promised to keep out of the marital home. But what was the subject of pre-nuptial friction, did not apparently take very long to become post-nuptial fact. Even as early as 1861, Elizabeth was firmly entrenched in the Coborn Street home. And, ominously for Maria, she appears at the top of the census list, described in black and white as ‘Head of the Household.’ Who exactly ruled the Hackney kitchen is of course not reported in the census, and nor is where Henry might have chosen to hide out.

1861 Census: Elizabeth Hounsell takes control

Family Backdrop

Of course, we have no real idea whether Harriett Wombwell and the Robinson clan were in St. Paul’s Shadwell on the day of the wedding, and whether Henry’s elopement plans were shelved in favour of a more conventional approach to his marriage. Equally, we have little to go on with regards to Henry’s own father, Thomas Bradley (Hetty Jane Owen’s great-grandfather).

But, to review what we do know: He married Henry’s mother, Elizabeth Hounsell, of Bristol in St. Dunstan, Stepney in 1813. He is recorded in the 1841 census with his family in Robinhood Lane, Poplar, and is a baker. His burial is recorded in 1851, at St. Matthews, Bethnal Green, with his age given as sixty, and his address as the ‘Madhouse’.

This madhouse is most likely to have been Bethnal House Asylum. This privately run lunatic asylum had caused a certain amount of scandal in its time. In 1827, a Parliamentary Select Committee reported that:

...for each 50 inmates, there was one member of staff.  Patients who were incontinent at night were made to sleep in cribs - bedsteads filled with straw - and with just a blanket for covering.  Most were naked.  Their arms and legs were secured by chains from 3 o'clock in the afternoon until 9 o'clock the following morning.  At meal times their food was brought to them and their arms freed sufficiently to allow them to eat.  At weekends they were secured from 3 o'clock on Saturday until 9 o'clock on Monday morning, when they would be taken out to the yard and their excrement removed from them with a mop dipped in cold water.

(see: http://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/bethnalhouse.html)

Conditions were subsequently vastly improved, and by the 1st January, 1849, as Henry was writing his New Year greetings to Maria, his father was probably one of 272 male patients in the so-called ‘Red House’. 175 0f these patients were paupers, and 97 ‘private’. There was a charge of just over 9 shillings for weekly maintenance.

It seems highly likely that the following admission entry to Bethnal House Asylum from 1850 is indeed Henry’s father, and that Henry had therefore been named after him:

Thomas was dead within a year of his admission, whether of early-dementia, madness, or some other ailment that the family preferred not to mention, is unclear. As mentioned earlier however, having a father in a lunatic asylum would not have improved Henry’s social standing in the eyes of the likes of Harriett Wombwell, particularly with the dubious and shady possibilities of venereal disease lurking in the background.

Henry Bradley Triumphs

Thus were the musings of Henry Smale Bradley as the year of 1849 dawned in East London, and the year of 1848 passed into history, to be remembered as the great year of European revolutions. Earlier that year, unnoticed by Wombwells, Robinsons, and Bradleys alike, Marx and Engels had published the Communist Manifesto.

What probably did not slip the attention of the family though, was the mass meeting of April 10th 1848, organized by the Chartists on Kennington Common. Even in East London, the presence of soldiers and special constables had been extremely evident, especially around Stepney Green where the demonstrators had congregated at 8.00 in the morning for the start of the day.

Revolutionary ideas were far from the minds of our main actors however and we can be certain that the Robinson children were nowhere near Stepney Green on the morning of April 10th, 1848. Over in Ireland meanwhile the Great Famine was in full flow, devastating the peasant classes who lived on the lands owned by the likes of Harriett Wombwell.

So then, it would always seem to have been. For most working class people, it was onwards and, if fortunate, upwards. Of course, once some success and prosperity had come their way, it was perfectly acceptable to wax poetically about the good old days of family and community, but, one thing is for sure: nobody stuck around for the sake of it, and working class solidarity always foundered on the fact. The thought of our Wombwells, Robinsons or Bradleys at the barricades rather than at the bakers seems almost laughable. When the likes of Marx and later Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky walked the streets of London, observing with curiosity the strange and eccentric behaviour of the English working classes, and trying to assess their revolutionary potential, they must have overlooked something of this. It was not the case at all that the English workers had no class consciousness though. They had it in spades. They were thoroughly conscious of the class they were in and determined to betray it at the first possible opportunity.

In any case, the West India Docks had already had their day.The building of the Tilbury docks would deal another body-blow to the community, and before long this centre of the maritime world, this pride of empire, would be degenerating into twentieth century slums, the taverns, and ironmongers, and joiners, and roperies and breweries, the bustling wharfs and piers, a mere whisper in the memory of those who chose to remain in the area.

And so to the day itself – simple enough if arrangements followed Henry’s plan: – square the servant, send the children, including young Rosetta, also to become a Bradley in years to come, into the yard, throw the trunk into the waiting cart, and all that was left was a romantic ride into the sunset through the streets of Victorian London and around to Jamaica Terrace, to be precise.

Of course, we cannot be quite sure of the details, but on 20th August 1849, Henry Smale Bradley, of 3 Jamaica Terrace, married Maria Harriett Robinson, of 11 Russell Place in the parish church of Shadwell. Henry is recorded as a baker, and his father the same. Maria’s father, Charles Robinson is recorded as a Dockmaster.

The happy day arrives

The witnesses were: Henry's brother, Thomas Edward Bradley, his sister, Louisa Jones and Sarah Ann Bradley, of whom there are no further records to share. And on that balmy day in August 1849, sights and sounds of the Robinsons in the region of Shadwell Parish Church were few and far between. Some continuing family tension in the East End air possibly? It seems more than likely.

St. Paul’s Parish Church, to give the church its proper name, was, as Charles John Robinson, the mariner, would have well known, a church of sea captains, and sat amidst the wharves, roperies, breweries, tanneries and taverns of Docklands. James Cook had on occasion come to the church to worship, and the graveyard was the province almost entirely of seafaring folk.

The name Shadwell, incidentally, derives from ‘Shite Well’, after a particularly foul-smelling well that the area had been famous for in previous years. One wonders which of the Robinsons and Bradleys were aware of that?

Continuing Travails

My Dearest Maria,

I received your note by Jane for which I am very grateful and would only wish that like this it was a little longer – but dearest, I know you cannot – I have hardly time to write this… am working while I write to my affectionate little Ria, my beloved.. I will... another for you when Jane can call again.
I wished to say what course dearest we had better… under present circumstances – but do not see the necessity for delay… that will depend upon you…

…I long dearest to have you – my future partner to consult with in my present difficulty but I know you will ever be faithful and kind to me and that slander nor misfortune will not… any change any more than it…

Your own affectionate, faithfully, Henry.

And so, the travails of Henry continue, snubbed, robbed, assaulted and finally slandered. From who and concerning what we are not told, though by now we can certainly guess. Henry’s script in this letter is even more agitated than normal, and at times his scrawl descends into complete illegibility. Whoever exactly was doing the slandering in question though, Henry seems to have been worried enough that it might just affect Maria’s feelings towards him. More signs that Henry wanted to marry, and that he wanted to marry fast.

Record of Maria Harriett Robinson's death and will. From: http://www.willcalendars.nationalarchives.ie/reels/cwa/005014898/005014898_00038.pdf

A Snub Explained

The following excerpt seems to be an explanation as to why Henry snubbed Sophia Wombwell:

…I looked at her and slightly bowed but (Geo) was with her and as I could not speak to her – without his hearing all, I thought as she did not make any advance to me, she wished me to pass as it were unnoticed. Be sure and tell her dear Maria how this is as I would not upon any consideration have her suppose I passed her with the slightest intention of disrespect.

When I saw you were not with them, I supposed, dearest, you would not forget your Henry – and I am grateful for your kind note as it quite cheered me up. It reminded me and convinced me that although what with false friends and much that has tended to damp my spirits in many other respects – there was one alone who cared for my interest and felt for me and could sympathise with me and I need not say – beloved – who that is – as you know it is none other but yourself and I hope dearest you will remain so as I feel assured I shall ever remain your true and devoted loving Henry – but I know you feel that I shall ever be true as I do that you will be faithfully true to me. I shall take the first opportunity of giving this to Jane – 

Believe me dearest Maria – ever devoted and faithfully affectionate Little Ria – Henry.

Poor Henry – the more you read about these disasters, the less the whiskers of that late Victorian photograph intimidate, and the more the lonesome spirit in his eyes starts to reveal itself. It may be taken that the ‘Geo’ accompanying Aunt Sophia on this occasion was George Robinson, the second son of Charles Robinson and Harriett Wombwell.

One wonders also whether Maria ever started to tire of these plaintive and even tedious proclamations of affection flashing their way across Limehouse and Bow in the hands of the indefatigable Jane? Or whether she felt any irritation at the notes of self-pity that are continually injected into the prose? Probably not. Maria kept these letters bundled up neatly and hidden away till the end of her days, and at a guess thrilled at their touch, not necessarily from the brilliance of the prose but from the hidden manner of their delivery. It was the joy of secrets untold and the fear of their discovery that led to the real inner excitement and trembling in the stomach. Jane may have been no relation but she was an absolutely key operative in this particular family history, let there be no doubt about it.

1851 Record of burial for Henry’s father in St Matthew, Bethnal Green. Henry never mentions him in his letters. This might give another clue as to why Harriett Wombwell had her doubts about releasing Maria to Henry.

Eating Humble Pie

Saturday Morning

It has just struck six and I write these few lines, dearest, because Jane has promised to call about eight. I met her last night in the High Street about a quarter after eleven after leaving my sisters’. This is the first opportunity I have had, Maria of sending any answer to your affectionate note.
I regret dearest to hear that your aunt was hurt that I passed her without speaking but I did not know what to do as she did not look or speak to me. But I will send a note to her to explain… and I hope, dearest, you will go down on Tuesday as it seems such a long time and I am very anxious to see and consult with my own little Ria about a matter of deep importance to me. – I have thought it advisable to take a house in the …Road, about 3 doors from Limehouse Causeway – formerly held by Mr Batty. The house appears to be suitable for my purposes…for business purposes as a Ship Biscuit Bakery… It is pleasantly situated and a very convenient house. I am to pay 30 pounds a year – it has been letting for 40 pounds. I expect I must lay out about 80 pounds on the place for repairs and making shop…but my rent will not commence till Midsummer as I shall repair the house at my own expense.
I hope dearest you will approve of this and if in any way possible get Jane to bring me an answer from you today what you think and if you approve of it. I shall draw out the agreement myself but shall try and put off signing till I hear from you…

How about the …Bella??? Will Chas repair it now he knows it was mine… I hope dear Maria you and all our… well, for I must acknowledge I have a sincere regard for your mother, but you know Beloved she has behaved so queerly to me but I must not continue to be so proud. My happiness depends on you – dear Maria and I must eat humble pie and endeavor at the first opportunity to get in her good graces. I know for myself I not only forgive all but I really forget what has been said about me – I think your mother is of the same disposition – at all events I will try her.

I have no more to say at present dearest but to repeat that you are my own and only love that life has given me – lie yourself I shall always remain true and faithful – In the meantime, believe me ever your own affectionate and … Henry…

Yes, there are all kinds of tantalizing hints that emerge out of Henry’s somewhat disassociated prose, and mysteries too that we shall never now get to the bottom of. Jane is now starting to emerge as a vivid presence in the Limehouse and Poplar area as she runs between Henry and Maria looking for those moments when unseen she can surreptitiously slip into their hands the latest missive.

Henry’s mother, Elizabeth Hounsell, was also close by. In the 1851 census for Poplar she is living in 59 Canton Street. Later both she and her daughter were to move in with Henry and Maria.

As for Henry, he can do little right. On this occasion, we have an offended Aunt Sophia Wombwell, and as suspected all along, a falling out between Henry and Harriett Wombwell. Not that the tempestuous Henry feels that he is in any way in the wrong, mind you, but he is prepared nonetheless to be magnanimous. It can’t have been helping matters either that he also seems to have had an argument of some kind with brother-in-law to be Charles Robinson junior. Henry comes across as a man of an impulsive nature, prone to renting houses, drawing up agreements personally, and planning full scale conversions all within the space it would seem of a mere twenty-four hours.

Of course, the ship’s biscuits business makes perfect sense given the family tradition and skills and their docklands location. But, one can’t help recalling that when 1851 dawned Henry would be a commercial clerk in a building firm and set fair in a career that would eventually see him become a surveyor. This seems to be quite a career jump from biscuit baking for sailors, does it not? Again then, was it issues of social and occupational status that were causing this icy tension with his future mother-in-law? How did Harriett Wombwell respond to Henry’s overtures of peace and forgiveness? Did Maria approve Henry’s biscuit baking plan? Or was it killed off on the drawing board? Such questions, but no answers.

We can though consider the following facts about Limehouse and the surrounding areas. Limehouse Basin had opened in 1820 and basically connected the Thames and the English canal system. The Limehouse area as already discussed was one of the first multi-ethnic areas of England. Even at this time, African and Chinese communities were coming into being as ship’s crews were hired and laid off at either end of their voyages. As for the Chinese, it wasn’t just tea that they brought, for now around Limehouse spread the sinister network of opium dens that Sherlock Holmes would occasionally frequent.

Issues of hygiene and clean-living must also have been at the back of the minds of Harriett Wombwell and Maria Robinson. Back in 1832, the first case of cholera in London had been reported in Limehouse. The epidemic that followed killed 800 people. The second epidemic, as already mentioned, was in 1848, and carried away a further 14,000 victims, and the colds and fevers that are occasionally mentioned in Henry’s letters therefore acquire a somewhat more poignant and immediate significance. A further outbreak was to follow in 1858. If Henry Bradley was in a hurry therefore to get his hands on Maria, we should perhaps forgive him. And if Harriett Wombwell was somewhat inclined to prevent him, there were good reasons all round.

Victorian Surveillance

Blackwall, Monday Night,

My Beloved Maria,

I have just finished your Aunt’s ….. and hope dear Maria you got home quite safe and from all surveillance from those at home. I hope dear aunt was not hurt at my not going… but you know dearest my reasons for not doing so………… I hope you will be able to come on Wednesday to my brother’s. They dine about 2… so will meet you a little before 2 by Bromley Church. I think you know the way dearest – get down at Byford Corner – at the side of Bow Church – thro’ the gates – to the left …. Where I hope to meet you dear Maria – could, dear you let me know if you can come… in the meantime believe me in haste my affectionate tho’ saucy (?) little Ria.. Your own affectionate and faithful Henry.

Maria Robinson and her family in the 1841 census for Poplar

Henry, it appears, was keeping up his contacts with elder brother, Thomas Edward, the baker, and one may guess that with the baker’s ovens fired up, a good meal was always to be had over with brother Thomas and his family. Of course, all these issues of surveillance remain quite intriguing, and Henry and Maria’s pre-marital relationship was certainly conducted in cloak and dagger fashion. But for now, Maria was to be introduced to Thomas Edward, his wife, Ann Jane Chapman, and approval and comfort sought.

Strange to consider too as Henry and Maria sat down for their dinner with Thomas Edward and Ann, that their son, Thomas Edward junior, aged just six, and gazing with fascination up at the young and perhaps beautiful Maria, would, before too many years had passed, be treading the aisle with Maria’s sister, Rosetta, herself, a mere child safely monitored at this very moment no doubt under the keen eye of Elizabeth Parker, Harriett Wombwell’s house servant and factotum.

Not that Maria was precisely a fountain of wisdom, maturity and experience at this point, and it is worth just reminding ourselves that as Maria took her place at Thomas Edward’s dining table on that Wednesday afternoon in 1848 most probably she was not yet twenty years old. If so, there may indeed have been good reasons for the surveillance that Henry snarls at, and one wonders even more what Maria, the silent and enigmatic Maria, whose replies to these letters have never come down to us, made of all Henry’s effusive communications. She was after all still just a teenager.

It may be then that Harriett Wombwell’s major concern was that Maria was in the time-honoured phrase simply ‘too young’. However, you can’t help but feel that there was more to it than this. Harriett herself had married young, and all the evidence suggests she was extremely keen on finding good husbands for her children. Henry, as he seems to have been resentfully aware, somehow did not fall into that category.

1851 Census Record for 65 Four Mills Lane in Bow, where Henry’s brother Thomas Edward ran his bakery business and provided refuge to Henry, and periodically, Maria.

Early Days

My Dearest Maria,

I received your kind note yesterday afternoon and am very sorry to hear that you have been ill. I suppose the church was cold as most country churches are. You say dear Maria you were uneasy at not hearing before. I should have written before but I wanted to see your brother before I wrote and likewise to see how….

You will be glad to hear the concert went off beautiful – in fact as well as we could wish. I was unfortunately taken very ill on Monday at dinner and was afraid almost to go but I faithfully promised to go and receive the checks and take the money at the door. I took some medicine to enable me to go – but I was in much pain all the time – was then and have been an invalid ever since.
I have acted as your advisor regarding George and Sanders. I don’t so much as notice the latter though of course I just speak to your brother – but it is only out of respect to you – I have not seen your father since… last, and I don’t go down so much as I used – I don’t suppose he meant what he said about coming to my house to have a …. He can do as he likes – I shall not put myself out of the way again for him – your brother Chas was to have come last night and spent the evening with me but I suppose he was better engaged…

We had about 150 at the concert and the room was quite full. It all passed off very comfortable. I walked home from the concert with your mother – Miss Field was with us so we only had a general conversation. We all regretted that you were not there. Your intimate Charles may come down. I have heard nothing about it but let me know when you come to town as I should like much dear Maria to meet you and your aunt. If you let me know when you come, I shall easily find out whether Charles has gone down to you…

You say it seems quite a long time…I will not be sorry to come home. I shall be glad when you come home dear Maria. I feel as though I am almost always out of … still, there seems something to make me happy – and I am never so happy as in the society of my Maria – I hope to hear from you dearest Maria when you come to town and wish kind regards to your aunt – 

Believe me, my dearest Maria, yours faithfully and affectionately – H.S. Bradley

This letter is actually dated October 1848, and wedding bells for Henry and Maria were ten months away still. The tone is more formal than some of Henry’s other letters, and his endearments slightly more guarded. Yet, the relationship had already gone on long enough for Henry to have fallen out with more than one member of the Robinson family it would seem, and in between falling ill, Henry makes his resentment perfectly plain.

1841 census for the Bradley family in Poplar

Brotherly Concern

...Then, dearest, Maria, pledge me your troth that as true as I am to you so you will be to me – in a word constant to me, Maria – and, when dearest we have given each other our word to this… we shall be able to stand all trials with ease and fortitude – you know, beloved, I have proved my love to you both in word and in deed, and now pledge it to you as I have done before – why, dearest, why should you… why not frankly confess with me that our love is knitted together and that our happiness depends on the other. – I hope dearest your next sweet note will not be silent on this point, as we know not when we may… do let me entreat you beloved Maria to settle this question – when you write next. You know, dear Maria, we have been expecting to hear from my brother, Ted. The ship has been… ever since last Tuesday – they have lost their anchors and had very bad weather. I have just heard my dear brother has been ill the whole of the voyage home and is not able to write, so as you suppose, our dear mother is low in spirits – we expect him up at 6.00 tonight as she was just below Gravesend this morning.

A little incident happened on Sunday which you will hear of no doubt as it will give an opportunity to make mischief. When I got to the bottom of the stairs…. Miss ??? was standing on the other side and I went over to shake hands with her …. He coloured beautifully red as I walked by her side along with … and Miss Chapman – as far as the end of the lane – he seemed … cross over it but I was all the more pleased at that you may suppose..

It would seem that even Thomas Edward Bradley’s line of business took him out to sea periodically, and more than evident that like it or not that the Bradleys and Robinsons moved in the same circles, and that Victorian gossip, furthermore, was transmitted at lightning speed. Note as well that the 1848-49 cholera outbreak in London was to kill over 14,000 people. Reports of ill health therefore were no trivial matter.

London Fog: From the 1849 London Illustrated News:

http://www.victorianweb.org/science/environment/1.html