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.