New Year, 1849

My dearest little Ria,

I wish you a happy new year dear Maria and hope that this year will prove a more happy one than the last one has been in many respects. I hope Aunt is well and Kate better. I got home Saturday morning about a quarter to three!! quality hours - I have had a cold ever since.. am in Thomas’.. cold today. They are all chaffing me about … Dear Maria, give my love to her … you know what … brothers are when they suspect you. I saw Mr Robinson last night and I had a good talk to him. He says he has a .. of work with them at home and may to… rent Mrs Rath.. Cottage home…. But I will tell you all when I see you.. I  told I had not seen you… He said you were at Aunt’s with Kate, who was ill . … It was then little past 12 o’clock so went to the … to see the New Year in. Your father wanted me to go but of course I didn’t. It is now half past four dear – going out… to my sisters so have not time to say more – I have … today, 

Dear Maria, My brother Tom is trying to snatch this away from me so…

This all tallies up with what we know. The favourite niece, Catherine West Carter is ill and with her aunt Sophia Wombwell. Charles John Robinson makes a fleeting appearance and is cheerful and innocently affable, to the point of inviting Henry to see the New Year in.

Nonetheless Henry feels constrained to lie to him and tell him he has not seen Maria. It is clear also that the elder Robinson sons have Henry under their eye by this point and suspect his attentions.

And furthermore, that Henry’s elder brother, Thomas Edward, would seem to have had enough of Henry mooching around the house composing forlorn love letters…

Henry Bradley's baptism at All Saints, Poplar

Morals to Stories?

Thanks to Stella Wilson, the story of the Carter family can be taken a little further. Stella’s mother, Patricia, was the only daughter of Thomas Kenneth Gregory Carter (born 1908), the son of Thomas Edmond Carter and Catherine West Robinson. Stella’s story is as follows:

Thomas Kenneth Gregory Carter was illegitimate, brought up by a family in Walworth, South London he was left with while his father worked. One day his father never returned. His mother, we believe, was a domestic servant and unable to care for him since she was raising 4 younger brothers and sisters. His father, Thomas Godfrey Carter, was the eldest of the Carter children. It was his inheritance that allowed him to run a wife and a mistress.

Catherine died of TB not long after the court case. Her husband, Thomas Edmund Carter, a draper, took the children to his family in Monmouth. He died a few years later so the Carter children were orphaned. Thomas Godfrey married a girl from the same town, Ellen Teague, and they settled in Clapham, London. Childless, Thomas Godfrey met up with a woman called Kate Morrison. We think they met at the London Temperance Hospital where she worked and he was a patient... he suffered from pancreatitis which eventually killed him in 1921. Three months before his son, aged 14, had found out his real identity and traced his father to his place of work, the Metropolitan Water Board. 

1901 Census showing Thomas Carter junior and Ellen Teague in Clapham

We may safely assume that contacts between the Carters and the Robinsons were definitively severed by this point. The ongoing drama and rupture brought on by the Robinson-Neal court case, do however, in all fairness, suggest further engaging lines of speculation, regarding the relationship of the two Wombwell sisters, Harriett and Sophia, and the motivations and resentments that might have provoked Thomas Carter to head to the courts in chase of the Wombwell legacies. It is hard to avoid in the meantime, the lingering suspicion that Harriett Wombwell may not have been the most conciliatory or compromising of characters. On the other hand, the ill-conceived opportunism of Thomas Carter no doubt led to legal fees that he may or may not have been able to afford, to his departure from London with the two children to Monmouth, and perhaps indeed to his premature death there in 1871, the very same year that Harriett Wombwell herself died.

For those who like morals to their stories, the whole sequence of events brought on by the careless disregard of Charles Robinson for confirming that he was indeed a widower before embarking on a second marriage, provides fertile ground. One can’t help feeling at the end of it though that the primary victims were the Carter children.

The Line of Catherine West Robinson and Thomas Edmond Carter

The descendants of the somewhat incendiary marriage between Catherine West Robinson and Thomas Edmond Carter were as follows:

First Generation
1.			Catherine West Robinson (1841-1867) m. Thomas Edmond Carter (1837-1871)
	2.	i	Thomas Edmund Godfrey Carter was born in Stoke Newington, and died in the London Temperence Hospital on the Hampstead Road. He married Kate Morrison (1883-1971) with whom he had one child. Both Thomas and Effie are located in the 1871 and 1881 censuses in Monmouthshire, Wales, with their Uncle, a John Thomas Carter. Their father was with them in the 1871 census, but died later that same year, and thus the children were orphaned.
		ii	Effie Kate Carter (1867-????). She was born in Bow. No records of her have been located after 1881.
Second Generation (second cousins of Hetty Jane Owen)
2.			Thomas Edmund Godfrey Carter (1865-1921) married Ellen Teague, (born 1870 in Monmouth). The couple were living in Clapham in 1901. Thomas later had a relationship with Kate Morrison (1883-1971). The deserted Ellen died in Monmouth in 1951.
		i	Thomas Kenneth Gregory Carter (1908-1977) was born in South Lambeth and died in Greenwich. He married Margaret May Dillon (1910-1999) in 1930. They had a daughter, Patricia.

The London Temperance Hospital where Catherine West Robinson’s son, Thomas Edmund Godfrey Carter, died in 1921. From: https://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=7298

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. 

The Will of Harriett Wombwell

Harriett Wombwell left an extensive will which made its way in original copy into Harold Eldridge’s box file. It is dated and signed 19th July, 1870, with Harriett’s address now being 29 Cottage Grove, Bow. Harriett was to die on March 8th the following year.

Cottage Grove today, now called Rhonda Grove. Harriett Wombwell lived out her days in one of the houses on this street. This smart town house is the current number 29, and may or may not be where she lived and died. From GOOGLE Maps.

Just like her mother, Maria West back in 1846, what preoccupied Harriett in her last days was the thorny issue of how to deal with business back in County Down, Ireland. She appointed two legal executors, William Nevin Wallace in Downpatrick (a distant family connection, it will be recalled) and Sydney Mayhew in London to tidy up her affairs, with recent events and court-cases very much in her mind.

First, it was time to call in debts. Thomas Gracey of Downpatrick owed her 1000 pounds, and Hugh Wallace of her own legal firm, 500 pounds. Certain notables of County Down had apparently been somewhat remiss in transferring what were presumably land rental debts. It is worth noting that even with a conservative estimate the purchasing power of 1000 pounds in 1871 would be more like 80,000 pounds today. Harriett had been doing very well indeed from her mother’s bequest.

The funds accruing from these debts were to be distributed equally amongst the eight surviving children, with a ninth share to be divided between the two children of her already deceased daughter, Catherine West Carter. Given the attempt through the High Court by Catherine’s husband to swallow up her sister’s legacy, there is an explicit instruction in her bequests to her daughters. The funds to be left to them, were to be left to them alone, and deposited in individual accounts. No wriggle room was to be left for opportunistic husbands, current or future, to engage in any more assaults on her birthright. Not that Harriett had done very badly financially out of the Robinson-Neale court case of 1865. According to the will, resulting just from this case alone, she had over 4,000 pounds of credit set aside.

It is in Harriett’s will also that the decision to sell the Irish lands originates, with Mayhew and Wallace being firmly instructed to auction off or privately sell the lands in question and equitably distribute the profits to her children. It was to take them a full ten years, until July 1881, to succeed in doing so, the delays, according to the lawyers at least, being due to uncertainties as to land boundaries, and other such technical details. 

Other funds left over, including those from Maria West’s will, were shared out on the same principles. By the time numerous legal fees and taxes had been subtracted, it looks like each of the children would have received an initial payout of around 180 pounds, which in those days must have come in very handy indeed.

Harriett by now also had a piano. This she left to her daughter, Rosetta, who appears in the 1871 census as a music teacher. Jewellery, linen and furnishings were also available in sufficient quantities to be distributed amongst her daughters.

The lives of the children of Charles John Robinson and Harriett Wombwell will be detailed in the sections that follow. As will be seen, this was an extremely large family.  Standard genealogical conventions will therefore be adopted to make the lines as accessible as possible. 

Sophia Wombwell: Daughter of Maria West

Sophia Wombwell was born out of wedlock in around 1801 in St. Marylebone the daughter of Richard Wombwell and Maria West. In 1837, she married a mariner, Richard Wallace in Rotherhithe:

Richard died young, in 1840, and Sophia remarried in 1858 to James Feast, a butcher, in Lambeth. James Feast also makes a cameo appearance in the Robinson vs. Neal courtcase in 1865 when the contents of Sophia’s will were being disputed. 

It seems that James had allied himself with Thomas Carter, the husband of Sophia’s favourite niece, Catherine West Robinson to prevent Sophia’s legacy being divided amongst all her sister Harriett’s children. Sophia herself had no children, and had died in 1863. 

The 1861 census provides a slight insight into the drama though. Living with, or at least staying with James and Sophia was the very Catherine West Robinson who was shortly to marry Thomas Carter. It does indeed seem to have been a special relationship that Sophia had with this particular niece. 

Both Bigamy and Perjury?

Page from the Law Times Report about the Robinson vs. Neale 1865 court case.

Back in Belfast, in the Linen Hall Library, the indefatigable Reginald Blackwood was curious enough about the descendants of the Hadzors and Wests to follow up the lines not just of the Dills but also Maria West and Richard Wombwell. Oddly enough, he turned up a slightly different story about the first marriage of Charles Robinson. The story presented in the court of Judge Malins suggested that Charles Robinson could find no trace of his first wife, Mary Weston, after his return from imprisonment in France and thereafter acted on the presumption of her death. However in Blackwood's notes, he records that when Charles Robinson returned from France, he discovered that Mary Weston, his first wife, had become the mother of ‘three dark children’, at which point he left her and ‘never heard from her again.’ 

This really is not quite the way the story was presented in Judge Malin's courtroom. If Blackwood is correct however, it would appear that not only was there a legitimate case for bigamy, but a further charge that might have been levelled for perjury. 

Harriett Wombwell and her husband had taken no chances though, and undergone a 'second' marriage ceremony in 1864, some forty years after their first. 

Since all of these events must have been conducted in the public eye, so to speak, it does make one wonder what kind of impact and trauma was visited on the wider families of all concerned, given the values of the society of the day.

Judge Malins Rules

Sir Richard Malins, who adjudicated in the
1865 Robinson vs. Neale case. Sir Richard Malins
by Leonida Caldesi albumen carte-de-visite, 1860s
NPG Ax39729 © National Portrait Gallery, London

Sir Richard Malins was no small town lawyer.  Born in 1805, he specialized in property and wills. Hence, his interest in the case that arrived on his Lincoln's Inn desk sometime around 1864. 

Sir Richard was the Conservative member of Parliament for Wallingford from 1852 to 1865, and by all reports quite an active MP. In 1866 he was to be appointed a Vice-Chancellor of England. He died in 1882.

Judge Malins examined the case brought by Thomas Carter and his lawyers quite carefully, and, by the 
sound of it, he was not overly impressed. It was not the fault of Harriett Wombwell's husband (Charles Robinson) he opined gravely, that his first wife had disappeared without trace. Furthermore, it was clearly merely a legal or administrative slip in Sophia’s will to suggest that Harriett Wombwell at her age could conceivably have further children. All things considered and properly pondered, he ruled, the will of Sophia should, in its essentials, stand, and that the estate should be distributed amongst Harriett's children, as intended.

What seems most likely then is that in originally putting her Irish lands into trusteeship, Maria West was attempting to circumvent the laws of the time, which disbarred illegitimate children from inheriting. In doing so, she was presumably reflecting on her own pre-marital excursions, conducted in blissful ignorance of the fact that years later she was to receive a substantial inheritance. Of course, whether she was also aware that her daughter, Harriett Wombwell’s marriage had been established on similarly shaky grounds is another matter. But she was certainly by now aware that her own youthful indiscretions had created a problem that needed some kind of resolution. 

Nor is there any doubt that the original trustee to whom she proposed to pass the lands over to, George Wombwell, was none other than the founder of Wombwell’s Menagerie, a man of fame and fortune known across the length and breadth of the country. 

The High Court Gets Involved

Lordship Road, Stoke Newington (where Maria West and Richard Wombwell lived)

Sophia Wombwell, the first daughter of Maria West, married twice, first to  Richard Wallace, and second to James Feast. Neither of these marriages resulted in any children. Sophia did though have a favourite niece, namely Catherine West Carter, daughter of her younger sister, Harriett Wombwell, and quite clearly named after Maria West's sister, Catherine. 

When the time came for Sophia to make her own will, she designated Catherine to receive a specified sum of money from her estate, with the rest to be divided amongst the current children and ‘children to be’ of Harriett. 

It seems that at this point, Catherine’s husband, Thomas Carter, and his lawyers sensed an opportunity of kinds. They headed for the courts, with the result that in 1865 all kinds of skeletons were to come tumbling out of the family cupboard, specifically:

• Sophia Wombwell was illegitimate.
• Her sister, Harriett Wombwell’s own marriage was bigamous, and equally illegitimate, since although her husband, Charles Robinson, had presumed his first wife to be dead when he could not locate her after returning from imprisonment in a Napoleonic prisoner of war camp, she was in fact alive and well, when he remarried.
• Hence, all nine children of Harriett Wombwell were also illegitimate.

The conclusion of Thomas Carter’s legal team, given also that any future children of Harriett were also strangely named as possible beneficiaries was that the legacy should go solely to the one named and designated individual in the will, Catherine West Carter. 

One cannot help but sense here an act on the part of Thomas Carter of opportunistic cynicism of the very first order.

May Street, Belfast, 1881

The selling off of the Irish Lands in 1881

The maiden name of Harriett Robinson was Harriett Wombwell. She was born in St. George in the East, London in 1804, and died in Bow in 1870. In her will, she instructed her solicitors to sell off her holdings in County Down, Ireland and distribute the proceeds between her eight surviving grandchildren and the two grandchildren of her deceased grand-daughter, Catherine West Carter. It took ten years for the lands to reach the auction house, as the lawyers prevaricated, and struggled to ascertain the exact boundaries of the lands in question. Over the years, it seems that various tenants had made some subtle readjustments...