The Marriages of George Wombwell Junior

So, having established that George Wombwell junior was most likely a second cousin of Harriett Wombwell, and the nephew of Richard Wombwell and Maria West, we can resume his story, focusing this time more on his domestic arrangements.

To summarise, born in Stoke Newington, probably around 1822 rather than 1817, as later reported by the Victorian press, George was adopted by his Uncle George at age ten, and joined Wombwell’s menagerie when it was in its heyday. 

When George senior died in 1850, he was a national celebrity, and his nephew and adopted son was by default, an eligible young bachelor in his late twenties, living in the reflected glory of the Wombwell phenomenon, and its visits to Windsor Castle. Just shortly before his famous uncle’s death, George married Fanny Eliza Kienlen:

1850 marriage certificate of George Wombwell junior. Maria West’s daughter, Sophia was a witness. The wedding took place at New Gravel Pit Meeting House, Paradise Fields, Hackney on the 7th October. The James Wombwell present was probably George’s younger brother. He later emigrated to the USA.

Present as witnesses were James Wombwell and none other than Harriett Wombwell’s elder sister, Sophia, now Sophia Wallace. The cousins from Stoke Newington had clearly kept in contact with each other down the years.

George and Fanny had one living child when Fanny died in 1863.

In 1869, his fortunes now fast fading, George remarried to Elizabeth Adella Cresey, in Yarmouth, Norfolk on the 22nd February. She died in 1897 in Shoreditch, and was the wife that The Daily Mail reported as being in an infirmary. She was just forty-eight years old at the time of her death. Again, one child survived.

George junior's daughters (third cousins twice removed of Hetty Jane Owen) were:

i. Ann Fanny Wombwell (1851-1923) (daughter of Fanny Eliza Kienlen).
ii. Amelia Gertrude Wombwell (1870-1958) (daughter of Elizabeth Adella Creasey).

George's wives, in short, seem to have fared only marginally better than his elephants.