The Children of Ann Wombwell and Henry Morgan

Ann Wombwell’s children through her marriage to Henry Morgan were all, again, x2 removed third cousins of Hetty Jane Owen, and were:

i) Jane Morgan (1805-1879)
ii) Maria Morgan (1807-1849)
iii) Elizabeth Morgan (1810-????)
iv) Caroline Morgan (1812-1881)
v) Henry Morgan (1813-1871)
vi) Amelia Ann Morgan (1815-1904)

These children, for the most part, married, had children and produced lengthy lines. They did so without using the Wombwell name and may or may not have carried a residual store of resentment both at Ann’s cavalier disposal of the family name, and her decision shortly after their father’s death to hit the menagerie trail.

The notable exception is Amelia Ann Morgan, the youngest child, born around the time of her father’s death. This is the Amelia who married George’s business partner, Edmund Bramston, and who, once widowed, returned to live with her mother in Hampstead in her retirement, and who - with her mother - took in George Wombwell junior’s daughter, from his first marriage, Ann Fanny Wombwell, prior to her departure to China. 

Edmund was a close enough friend of George to merit a memorial inscription on his Highgate Cemetery grave, along with Amelia Ann:

Image from PInterest

Ann Wombwell

Of the children of Samuel Wombwell, we have already encountered Ann Wombwell, the companion of George Wombwell, whom he adopted into his circle after the death of her husband, Henry Morgan, in 1815. Ann remains a major - if slightly puzzling - figure in the history of the menagerie.

Ann Wombwell, from Shaun Everett's Website

There is a strong possibility that there may have been more than a certain sleight of hand involved in George’s adoption of his elder brother’s daughter into the menagerie. Ann had lost her husband Henry Morgan by the time she joined the menagerie, in around 1815, and had already given birth to six children. 

In all the references to her, she is however named simply 'Mrs Wombwell', seemingly having reverted back to her maiden name whilst retaining her married title. Small wonder that ever since researchers have acted on the presumption that she was George’s wife and strained themselves in the futile exercise of trying to uncover a marriage certificate.

Of course, it is not entirely inconceivable that George might have embarked on some kind of semi-incestuous relationship with his niece, but the most likely explanation yet again is that his main concern was with the branding of his business. A Mrs Wombwell would meet the bill very nicely, much more so than a widowed Mrs Morgan. And if the public and media chose to assume that he and his niece were a married couple, that would do just fine as well. And so it did, with researchers down the years all mistakenly identifying Ann as George’s wife. The name ‘Morgan’ meanwhile was quietly consigned to the Wombwell recycling service. 

As it happens, and as described in Shaun Everett’s biography, George had in fact got married to one Mary Linn back in 1800 at St. Giles in the Field Church in Soho. It was this Mary who was at home on that fateful day in 1809 when Thomas Soaper came calling and had his unfortunate encounter with the rattlesnake. George himself was nowhere to be seen on that occasion. No children have ever been recorded and Mary disappears without trace from the story, either dead, abandoned, or having absconded. And, as noted, George himself was more than happy for his niece Ann to be seen as the official holder of the Mrs Wombwell title.

The Departure of Ann Fanny Wombwell

It was often assumed that the Mrs Wombwell to whom George Wombwell senior left Menagerie Number One was George's wife. Indeed the 1909 obituary of George Wombwell junior makes precisely this presumption, referring to her as his widow. Since no marriage records have ever been located, a second theory is that she was probably his mistress, and simply adopted his name. It is easy to see where the confusion comes from as Mrs Wombwell had originally been married to a Henry Morgan. When Henry died, George Wombwell senior took her under his wing, and with her young daughter in tow took her out on the road and into the exotic world of his menagerie. Since she soon became known as Mrs Wombwell, it would have been a very fair conclusion that he had married her.

It would also have been the wrong conclusion, for Ann, to use her Christian name, was actually the daughter of George's elder brother, Samuel, and was hence George's niece, and her maiden name was Wombwell. After the death of Henry Morgan, she seems to have kept her married title but reverted to her maiden name, an unconventional move to be sure, but also understandable, for the menagerie was after all brand Wombwell, and George had enough of an intuitive understanding of marketing that he probably did not want the 'Morgan' name distracting from his logos and publicity. The idea that Anne was his wife was therefore something of a gentle deception, and one that he was likely more than happy to allow to be promoted. None of this, by the way, entirely disqualifies the theory that Anne may have been his mistress, but that is another matter.

Belsize Road, today: Copied from Zoopla. Probably, the type of accommodation where Ann Fanny Wombwell would have been living in 1871 with the retired Mrs Wombwell.

Ann Wombwell continued to manage Menagerie Number One until her retirement either in 1862 or 1865 to Hampstead. Living with her in 1871 was another widow, This was her second daughter, Amelia Ann Morgan, who married Edmund Bramston in 1837. Edmund was one of the executors of the will of George Wombwell senior and, it appears, one of his favourite business partners. He died in 1859.

It was with these two widows that Ann Fanny Wombwell, daughter of George Wombwell junior and Fanny Ann Kienlen now found herself living. With her mother having died young, and her father, a hopeless vagrant, remarried, and playing in the menagerie bands up north, it can be imagined that Ann and Amelia put some thought into the future of Ann Fanny Wombwell, very probably a future in which her father would be confined to a very limited role.

The exact time-scale of what happened over the next decade is not quite clear, and nor can it be ascertained as to what extent Ann Fanny’s next move was a reaction against her upbringing, the death of her mother, the all round unreliability of her father, or the matchmaking skills of Mrs Wombwell. 

The facts as they have come down to us are however explicit and straightforward enough. On the 4th April, 1881, Ann Fanny Wombwell married a certain Reverend Herbert Sowerby in, of all places, Shanghai, China.

For more on Ann Wombwell, see: The Enigmatic Mrs Ann Wombwell, wife of the Celebrated Menagerist, George Wombwell.