Who Saw What Part Six

The line of Charles Albert Eldridge through Emily Coulter proceeds, with the line of James Webb opening up in Cranbrook, and England enters a period of turmoil and short-lived republicanism.

Who Saw What Part Five

As we creep back through the generations, new surnames enter the mix of Charles Albert Eldridge's roots, and new villages appear on the map.

The general area of the family locations though remains consistent:

Who Saw What Part Four

From this point on, all the lines that continue back derive from Charles Albert Eldridge's grandmother, Emily Coulter, and the action is exclusively located in Kent.

The map shows the spread of these ancestors around the county, and some indication of the limits of their travels in those days.

The Brothers and Sisters of George Wombwell Junior

Zachariah Wombwell and Mary Webb had a large family, and in keeping with the times, suffered the repeated trauma of losing their children in infancy. These children, including George junior himself were as follows: 

i. William Wombwell (1804-1854)
ii. Edward Edwin Wombwell (1806-1885)
iii. Susanna Wombwell (1808-1808)
iv. Susanna Wombwell (1809-1812)
v. Henry Wombwell (1811-1814)
vi. Joseph Wombwell (1816-1819)
vii. Sophia Wombwell (1818-1865)
viii. George Wombwell (1822-1909)
ix. James Wombwell (1826-????)
x.  Joseph Henry Wombwell (1827-????)

These children were all X3 removed second cousins of Hetty Jane Owen.

The baptismal record of their eldest son, William Wombwell, is useful since it shows the family were already resident in Stoke Newington in 1804:

George Wombwell Junior Timeline

Since this story of George Wombwell junior seems to have take numerous side-turnings and digressions including up the Yangtze River, the Duaro Valley and to Bedford, Virginia, here is a timeline that illustrates some of the main events in his long life:

14 Dec 1822	George is born in Stoke Newington, probably in Lordship Road, the son of Zachariah Wombwell and Mary Webb
19 Mar 1823	He is baptized in Stoke Newington
1832	He is adopted by his Uncle, George Wombwell, founder of Wombwell’s menagerie and heads off on the road.
1833	His father, Zachariah Wombwell, dies in Stoke Newington
1847	At the height of his career, he is a member of the party that meets Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and Prince Edward at Windsor Castle
1849	His mother, Mary Webb, dies in Stoke Newington
7th Oct 1850	He marries Fanny Eliza Kienlen at the New Gravel Pit Meeting House, Paradise Fields, Hackney
1850	His Uncle George dies and leaves one part of his menagerie to George, namely Menagerie Number Three
30 Mar 1851	George is recorded as a Wild Beast Merchant of Wombwell’s Menagerie resident at 79 Corn Hill, Ipswich
1851	His daughter Ann Fanny Wombwell is born in Hackney, London. George’s servant, Thomas Burrows, is crushed by an elephant but survives the experience.
1855	A run of disasters leads to the decimation of George’s Menagerie stock
28 Apr 1855	George’s Menagerie Number Three is auctioned off for a pittance at Nova Scotia Gardens.
2 May 1855	The other Wombwells write to the Times disassociating their own Menageries from any involvement with George’s
18 June 1855	Bankrupted, George is removed from his caravan next to Cremorne Gardens to Whitecross Prison
30 July 1855	George appears in court. He may have been bailed out by members of the Wombwell family, and then worked for them as a hired hand.
26 Oct 1858	Jamrach’s famous Bengal Tiger escapes and wanders off down the Ratcliff Road. George may have been involved in its subsequent purchase.
7 April 1861	He is resident with his wife and daughter at 1 Grove Cottage, Poplar All Saints, and recorded as a photographer and artist.
6 Aug 1863	Death of his first wife, Fanny Eliza Kienlen in Hackney.
1866	Mrs Wombwell commissions George to bring an elephant back from Paris for her. After various disasters, George succeeds in bringing the elephant back to London, where it immediately dies.
22 Feb 1869	George marries Elizabeth Adella Cresey in Yarmouth, Norfolk. Born in 1849, Elizabeth is twenty-seven years younger than George.
1870	Their daughter, Amelia Gertrude Wombwell is born in South Shields, Durham.
2 Apr 1871	George is resident in Stockton, Durham, now a musician. His daughter Ann Fanny Wombwell is now living in Hampstead, London, with Mrs Wombwell, the partner of his Uncle George.
3 Apr 1881	George is living at 132 Provost Street, Shoreditch, Hoxton Town. George is still a musician, and his wife is working as a dressmaker.
11 Apr 1881	His first daughter, Ann Fanny Wombwell marries Herbert Sowerby in Shanghai, China. They are members of the China Inland Mission but shortly after join the American run Protestant Episcopal Mission.
Feb 1882	Ann Fanny Wombwell and Herbert Sowerby head up the Yangtze River to Wuhan and begin their work there.
5 Apr 1891	They are living at 107 Provost Street. His daughter Amelia has now become a shirtmaker.
1894	The marriage is recorded of Amelia Gertrude Wombwell and Jacob Valentine in the civil registration records. Jacob is a member of the Sephardic Jewish community and it is possible they went through a religious ceremony a few years earlier, since their first daughter seems to have been born in 1892. Ann Fanny Wombwell and Herbert Sowerby complete their missionary service in China and possibly return to England to discover that whilst they have been making conversions, George has been leaking them.
4 Jan 1897	The Daily Mail publishes a full-length profile of his life and sets up a subscription fund for him.
5 Mar 1897	The Daily Mail reports that its Subscription Fund has raised three pounds and fifteen shillings.
1897	His second wife, Elizabeth Adella Cresey dies in the Infirmary
Prob 1890s	George is visiting his Bradley relatives probably to get help in writing down memories for sale for publication. The full story of Peto the elephant is thus preserved.
1900	The entire family of Herbert Sowerby and Ann Fanny Wombwell are now settled in Virginia, USA, all to become naturalized American citizens.
31 Mar 1901	George, now a musician and widower, is living at 22 Ottoway Road, Hackney
3 Mar 1909	George’s obituary appears in the newspapers, reporting his death in Tottenham, Edmonton
1923	His first daughter, Ann Fanny Wombwell dies in Bedford, Virginia, USA
1958	His second daughter, Amelia Gertrude Wombwell dies in Shoreditch, London.

Stoke Newington, 1841

1841 marks the date of the very first full UK census, and although George Wombwell junior is not to be found in Stoke Newington, or indeed anywhere else to date, his mother was still there. Mary Wombwell, was recorded in that census as a cow-keeper living on Lordship Road. She was the widow of George’s father, Zacharias (or Zachariah) Wombwell, who had died some years earlier. 

Next door, in the very next census entry, lived another widow, this time listed as a livery stablekeeper. This was Maria West, by now the owner of a lucrative portfolio of Irish fee-farm grants, and the wife of the deceased Richard Wombwell. 

The will of Zacharias Wombwell has survived. Proven in 1834, it names two children as beneficiaries, but not George Wombwell junior, who, after all, had been adopted by his uncle. It is also clear from the will that Zacharias was illiterate. Given that George junior was taken on the road by his uncle at around the age of ten, the case for the ‘Peto the elephant letter’ not being in George junior's own hand becomes more compelling still. 

It seems reasonable as well to suggest that the Richard Wombwell next door, a relative obviously, cannot have come from such a very different background to Zacharias.  On every inspection therefore, the relationship and marriage between Maria West of Downpatrick, County Down and Richard Wombwell seems more and more unlikely. 

It is unquestionable though that the Stoke Newington homes on Lordship Road were more than just family residences. They must rather have been a central part of the Wombwell menagerie supply chain, where animals were kept and fed, and the horses that pulled the wagons tended. We already know from George junior's own account that Zachariah converted an elephant house into the family living room, possibly deeming with a wisdom that his son evidently lacked that life in general would be vastly easier if their accommodation was not shared with the largest land mammals on the planet. 

When Zacharias died in around 1833, he left to his wife, Mary Webb, his cows, goats, horses, and other animals.

As for Maria West, just next door, she had taken over the stables, and in residence with her on census day, 1841, were both her daughter, Sophia Wallace, and a grandson, Charles Robinson, son of Harriett Wombwell.

Born to be a Wild Beast

To return to the Daily Mail of the 4th January, 1897, and going back to earlier days, the investigating journalist paused to note that:

George Wombwell’s uncle was the original menagerie proprietor of that name. Singularly enough, George himself was born in what at one time had done duty as an elephant house, but which had been converted by his father into a living room.

“It made a capital room”, said the old man, “and stood for years by the side of our cottage. People used to say I was born to be a wild beast then and sure enough, when I was ten years old, it was agreed that my uncle should adopt me.” 

Reading between the lines, it rather seems that George's parents, Zachariah Wombwell and Mary Webb, were not displeased to be rid of their 'problem child'. It seems also that Zachariah may well have been working for the menagerie and at one point at least, looking after Wombwell elephants before embarking on one of the more unusual home conversion projects of his or anyone else's time and transforming the elephant house into his living room.

George junior was born in Stoke Newington in around 1822. His mother was still there in 1841, and duly recorded in the census of that year, the very first national census of our times. The Wombwell home, and hence the original elephant house were almost certainly in Lordship Road, just off Church Street. 

From a website devoted to the villas that were built along Lordship Road, beginning around 1835. As a rural area just north of the city, the location would have been ideal as a transit and storage point for the Wombwell menagerie in its early days.

And on that very same census day, the recording officials also duly noted the details for the family living next door. It is just possible that they may have detected in the elderly lady they encountered there a hint or more of an Irish accent. Either way, she was giving no more away than she needed to, and the census record that survives suggests that she was originally from Middlesex. 

All this was very far from being the case however. The lady in question, also carrying the Wombwell surname, was in fact the daughter of an Irish freemason, Godfrey West and grand-daughter of a distinguished Downpatrick doctor and army lieutenant, Seneca Hadzor. Her line stretched back to Norman Irish barons, and to eminent Anglo-Irish families in County Down, from whom roughly a decade earlier she had inherited substantial holdings through her cousin, Elizabeth Carson.

In short, Maria West of Downpatrick would have been very well acquainted with that 'wild beast', who in 1897 was relaying his own memories to the Daily Mail.