A Visit to the Old Bailey

The next appearance of the two eldest sons of Zacharias Wombwell is in 1826 in an involuntary visit to The Old Bailey on charges of larceny. Both seem to have been acquitted. A suitably chastened William Wombwell made his way back to Stoke Newington where he was to remain for the rest of his life. He inherited the family cow-keeping business and lived and died at 11 Meadow Street, later to become Lordship Terrace.

Gravestone of William Wombwell in old St Mary, Stoke Newington, also of his wife, Ann Taylor, and two of his children, including Ann Charters, and, presumably, Susanna Wombwell. Wiliam is next door but one to Richard Wombwell and Maria West. The intervening grave has worn away, but may well belong to another member of the Wombwell clan.

The British History website reports that Stoke Newington was one location where eighteenth century butchers chose their cattle en route to Smithfield. By the end of the century, around the time the Wombwells arrived, the pastures of Stoke Newington supported some 120 cows. In 1851, William Wombwell would have been one of four cowkeepers, a number that was to decline and eventually disappear as urbanisation took hold.

William married Ann Taylor (1803-1840) in 1832, and they had six children, all born in Stoke Newington. After Ann's death, William remarried to an Elizabeth. The six children of William and Ann were:

i. Mary Ann Wombwell (1832–1833)
ii. Anne Elizabeth Wombwell (1833–1855). She married William Charters in Bordesley, Warwickshire, in April 1854 and died just months later.
iii. Thomas Westover Wombwell (1835–1905)
iv. Susannah Wombwell (1837–1855). She died in Stoke Newington, as did her younger sister, Charlotte Amelia.
v. William Wombwell (1838–1914)
vi. Charlotte Amelia Wombwell (1840–1841)

The two brothers, Thomas and William, meanwhile took a close look at their prospects and concluded that there must be more to life than tending cows in Stoke Newington, and emigrated to the USA.