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?