The Sad Story of Catherine West Robinson

Catherine West Robinson was born in 1841, and bears the name of her grandmother Maria’s Downpatrick sister – Catherine West. She was born and died in Poplar. This was the Catherine who was the favourite niece of Harriett’s sister, Sophia, and the one who Sophia specifically named in her will, a will slightly carelessly put together by her lawyer who inadvertently included a line referring to future children of Harriett Wombwell, a complete impossibility as Judge Malins was so sagely to observe in 1865. It was not long before, on 30th August 1863, at St. Mary, Stoke Newington, that Catherine West Robinson married Thomas Edmond Carter, a draper from Howick, Norfolk. Her Aunt Sophia died just 12 days later. The marriage certificate lists her father, Charles Robinson as a Captain in the Royal Navy – which no doubt would have pleased the old man.

Had Sophia been rambling in her last days? Or unburdening her conscience? Or had she told her favourite niece stories that she told no-one else and which Catherine in the early days of a romantic infatuation then passed on to Thomas Edmond? 

Whatever the truth of the matter, someone slipped up and Thomas, who must have been a very sharp-eared and sharp-eyed draper indeed, sensed a get-rich-quick opportunity. He thought it prescient, once Sophia’s will was published, to pay a visit to a lawyer and avail that lawyer of various previously unknown facts about Harriett Wombwell and Charles John Robinson’s marriage. As the court-case loomed, Harriett however made her own dispensations, re-legitimising her marriage to Charles and thereby her children, and got herself a lawyer – a better one.

We do not know how Catherine West Carter, now very much caught between the proverbial rock and hard place, coped with this, but the couple had two children, and when she died in 1867, she left her money (under 200 pounds) to her husband. To the rest of the family however, Thomas Edmond Carter must have taken pride of place as Robinson public enemy number one. In her own legacy to the Carter children, Harriett put every legal obstacle she could in front of Thomas laying his opportunistic hands on a penny of the money.

Executive Summary of the Robinson-Neal Court Case

It was not very long before, on 30th August 1863, when Catherine West Robinson married Thomas Edmond Carter, a draper from Howick, Norfolk, in Stoke Newington. Her Aunt Sophia had died just 12 days later.

So, had Sophia been rambling in her last days? Or unburdening her conscience? Or had she told her favourite niece stories that she told no-one else and which Catherine in the early days of a romantic infatuation then passed on to Thomas Edmond Carter? 

Whatever the truth of the matter, someone slipped up and Thomas, who must have been a very sharp-eared and sharp-eyed draper indeed, sensed a get-rich-quick opportunity. He thought it prescient, once Sophia’s will was published, to pay a visit to a lawyer and avail that lawyer of various previously unknown and potentially bigamous facts about Harriett Wombwell and Charles John Robinson’s marriage. As the court-case loomed, Harriett however made her dispensations, re-legitimising her marriage to Charles and thereby her children's inheritance rights, and got herself a lawyer – a better one, as it was to transpire. 

We do not know how Catherine West Carter, now very much caught between the proverbial rock and hard place, coped with this, but the couple had two children, and when she died, aged just twenty-six, in 1867, she left her own money (under 200 pounds) to her husband. 

To the rest of the extended Wombwell-Robinson clan however, Thomas Edmond Carter must now have taken pride of place as family enemy number one. In her own legacy to the Carter children, Harriett put every legal obstacle she could in front of Thomas laying his opportunistic hands on a single penny, or indeed farthing, of the money in question.