Henry Joyce / van der Vliet (1846 to 1927)

We tend to think about family relationships in very 'biological' ways: mother, father, child, sister brother etc.  Henry's story is slightly strange - at least it is to us looking back.    

Henry was the third child born to Jane (nee van der Vliet) and Samuel Joyce. He was born in London 10th January 1846, 8½ months after the birth of his older sister Amelia and 18 months before the birth of his younger brother.  Jane and Samuel had another son born in 1850.  We know these "facts" because all of the relevant birth certificates have been sighted.  

At some point between Henry's birth in 1846 and the Census in 1851, Henry Joyce became Henry Joyce van Der Vliet.  He was permanently adopted by Jane's younger brother Henry Jacob van der Vliet and his wife Elizabeth.  In 1850 Henry Jacob van der Vliet married Elizabeth and their son, William, was born later in the year.  Sadly Henry Jacob died early in 1851 at the age of 25. So Elizabeth was the sole parent of Henry and William.   

Another Joyce family researcher believes this act confirms family folklore that Jane was an extremely loving and compassionate person.  I tend to agree.  Perhaps Jane felt that she was extremely fortunate to have a large family.  The only thing I think is slightly odd is that there was only a small gap between Amelia and Henry.  Possibly Jane felt she could not cope with three children so close in age and always intended to 'give away' the child to Elizabeth.  Elizabeth may have been part of the family life for some time and the gift may have been in response to her earlier assistance.  There obviously were no official records around this gift, so any reasons are conjecture.  Another possibility is that Henry Joyce was actually the son of Elizabeth and Henry Jacob: and because Elizabeth and Henry were not married, Jane and Samuel agreed to register the birth.  This is possible but slightly far fetched given the number of children that were born out of marriage!

In 1854 Jane and Samuel made the decision to (again) migrate to Australia.  They did not return to England and never saw family members again.

Henry remained with his mother, Elizabeth, and later became a boot maker: both Henry Jacob and Elizabeth had worked in this trade.  In 1869 Henry married Christina Young in the Stepney Parish Church, London.  Very soon after their wedding Henry and Christina moved to Hackney where they lived for the rest of their lives.  Their children - whose births were registered using the name 'Vandervliet' - were:

• Christina – born about 1871

• Henry born and died in 1873

• Henry – 1874

• Emily – 1876

• William  - 1880

• Rosina - 1881.

It is possible they had a daughter Elizabeth in 1878, certainly a birth is registered, but cannot be confirmed.

In time Christina, Henry, Emily and William married - each having a number of children.  Sadly Rosina died in 1901 just before her 20th birthday.  Then in mid 1907 William died when he was 27 leaving his wife a widow with young children (reminiscent of Henry's own mother).  

In early 1921 Christina, Henry's wife of 52 years died.  

By the mid 1920s Henry's grandchildren were getting married.  In early 1927 Joyce Vandervliet was born.  She was the great-grandchild of Henry (Henry - Henry - Henry - Joyce).  It was an interesting choice of name.  Presumably young Henry knew it was his grandfather's middle name; I like to think that Henry was pleased his great-grandchild shared his middle name!  Perhaps by this time, Henry was not well.  In mid 1927 Henry Joyce Vandervleit died at the age of 81.

It is also not known if Henry knew the circumstances of his birth.  Certainly the children of Jane and Samuel Joyce did not seem to know anything.

Relationship to SNR = Brother / cousin of great, great grandfather

Joseph Bray (1835 - 1918)

When I first expressed interest in the family I was given a hand written family history on the Bray family prepared by one of Joseph’s grandchildren in England.  I didn’t want to rely on the document, given that it was relatively sketchy.  However, it now appears that the information in the document was correct – well, the details match the information that I discovered. It’s very hard to know when to trust such information, but it is still nice to receive (and makes me think that I should include sources all the time – which I haven’t done to date on this blog, but could if someone asked!).  But that family tree wasn't really what attracts me to Joseph Bray.  I love the letter that he wrote to his grandson - it was very endearing...

Joseph Bray was born on 16 May 1835 at Whitechapel, Middlesex, England – just about as close to the centre of London as you can get!  His father, also called Joseph Bray, was a coachman; and his mother was Frances French.  They had married at St Mary’s Whitechapel on 1 January 1826.  It is believed that Joseph had at least one other sibling that lived to adulthood and two others that died as children.  Further details of these siblings are not known.

By 1841 both of Joseph’s parents had died and young Joseph was placed in the care of his father’s brother, Richard, and his wife Caroline, who lived at 22 South Street, Enfield. 

Enfield is about 16 kilometres north of London.  It was a small market town on the edge of a forest.  At the time, the town consisted of two main streets, which had a number of well-built houses – originally built by wealthy Londoners who came to the town to hunt!  There was a large small arms factory at Enfield, plus a brewery, corn-mill, and saw-mills.  Richard was a labourer who worked on roads!  Richard and Caroline also had a son, Richard, who was five years younger than Joseph. The other member of the household was Thomas Bray, uncle of Joseph and brother of Richard.  This family structure (being Richard, Caroline, Richard, Joseph, Thomas) was unchanged from the 1841 Census to the 1851 Census – and indeed, at the 1861 Census, Richard, Caroline and Thomas still resided together! (I wonder what Caroline thought about that!)

On Tuesday, 27 October 1859, at the age of 22, Joseph married Alice Ison at St Andrews, Enfield.   The couple lived at Ponders End – Alice’s birthplace.  Ponders End was a hamlet in the parish of Enfield and was known for its manufacture of crape, a thin woven silk fabric often used for mourning dresses.  Joseph was an office worker.

Joseph and Alice Bray had at least eight children over the next 18 years:

• Alice Mary – born 1858
• Elizabeth Emma – 1860
•  Joseph Richard – 1863
• Annie Eliza – 1867
•  Emily Ada – 1868
•  Edward John – 1870
•  Herbert William – 1873
•  Maude Ison – 1876.

The Family lived in High Street, Ponders End for all of their children’s births. The eldest daughter, Alice, married in 1879 and Joseph became a grandfather in 1880 – at the age of 45!  Sometime between 1881 and 1891, the family moved to Tottenham, about five kilometres south of Enfield (towards London).  The Census states they lived at 29 Fresherfield Road, but that address does not exist now. 

On 8 September 1895 Alice Bray died; she was 61.  Joseph and children, Emily, Edward and Maude, were living at 7 Winshelsea Road, Tottenham at the 1901 Census.  At least Edward and Maude married while in Tottenham and then in 1910 his eldest daughter immigrated to Australia with her family.  By the 1911 Census Joseph was back in Enfield, living with his daughter Maude, her husband Frederick Brown, and their son Eric.   Maude, Frederick, Eric and Joseph moved to Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, sometime between 1911 and 1917.

In 1914 England declared War on Germany and a number of Joseph’s grandchildren enlisted for service.  Joseph wrote the following letter (transcribed as written) to his grandson, Wilfrid Crofts, in 1917:

My Dear Wilf

I hear your birthday is very near.  I wish you may have many happy ones to come and it may please God to spare you and bring you safe out of this cruel war and land you safe home to the love ones far away.  My Dear boy I don’t forget you all night and morning in my prayers that it may be so.  I am please to know that you are walking in the good old paths and may the Lord keep you safe in them as he promise to do.  So if you trust him and ask his help.  I have found him so during my long life which I shall be 82 if I live to the 16th of May.  What a long winter we are having.  Snowing very hard this morning. I shall be very glad when the warmer weather comes. It tries my breath of in the morning otherwise I am fairly well.

I think things are looking brighter your way.  I do hope this cruel war will soon come to an end.

This is a very short note from me and I hope you will be able to make it out and pass over the bad spelling. I don’t think is bad for a youngster of 82 is it.

Auntie Maude is the one for long letters.

With kind regards to your friends and with love to yourself.

From you old Granpa Bray

Love from Auntie Maude and Eric 

Having been a widower for 23 years, Joseph died at Leigh-on-Sea on 11 November 1918: the day that the Great War officially ended - Armistice Day!  He was 83.

Relationship to SNR = Great, great, great grandfather

Marry Cullen / Watson / Luker (1793 - 1862)

Mary Cullen was born in about 1793 at Greenstreet, Kent, England. Greenstreet is 80 km from London and was initially part of the ancient trackway used between Canterbury and St Albans; it is likely that Chaucer’s pilgrims travelled through Greenstreet. In 1793 it was a very small village, little more than the orchard. There were many Cullens in Greenstreet around that time.  Greenstreet was at the northern part of the parish of Lynsted, and it was at the Saint Peter and Paul church in Lynsted that Mary was baptised on 10 March 1793 by her parents Mary and William.

Nothing is known of Mary’s early life, including any siblings or her parents' lives - except that her father was a gardener.  Sometime before 1819 she married Thomas Watson and they had at least three children; Clarissa Ann (born 1819); George (1826) and Alfred (1828).  Thomas died before 1841, but we don’t know exactly when.  Indeed, nothing is known of Thomas except that he must have existed at the time that his children were baptised!  

At the 1841 Census, Mary Watson was living at St Pauls, Deptford, Greenwich, Kent with Clarissa and Alfred.  George, who would have been 15, was not with his mother.  His fate is unknown. In the same building, but a different unit, lived Edwin Luker, a carpenter.  On 29 July 1841 Mary married Edwin at St Leonards, Shoreditch, Middlesex.  They were both in their late forties.  Mary’s son Alfred also became a carpenter – and it was possibly due to Edwin Luker.

Mary's grand-daughter owned some old photographs taken by a photographer based in Greenwich. It is believed that two of these are photographs of Mary.  I've included this below.

Mary Cullen / Watson / Luker

  

By the 1851 Census both Clarissa and Alfred were married - their stories will be told in due course.  Mary was living at 6 Victoria Place, St Paul Deptford, Greenwich with her daughter Clarissa, and Clarissa’s family.  Edwin Luker was at the Greenwich Union Workhouse, Greenwich.  People ended up in Workhouses for a number of reasons.  Potentially Edwin had significant health issues and couldn’t be cared for in Clarissa’s house.  Perhaps Mary and Edwin’s marriage had not been successful and they were estranged.  In any case, it must have been something rather unfortunate!  The 1861 Census told a similar story.  Mary, still living with her daughter and family; and Edwin living at the Workhouse.  Mary Luker died in 1862 at Greenwich.  She was 69.  Edwin Luker died in 1883 – having lived for over 30 years at the Workhouse in Greenwich.  Life was tough…

[Relationship to SNR = Great-great-great-great-great grandmother]

Ann Bunn / Reeder / Fernsby (1819 to 1860)

It took me a while to "find" Ann Bunn.  And it was partly her fault. She couldn't write very well and so when she registered the birth of her youngest son, her spelling of their surname was totally incorrect! In some ways she led an interesting life, but it had a number of hardships and wasn't a "long" life.

Ann Bunn was born in Damgate Street, Wymondham, Norfolk in late 1819 and was baptised in the Parish Church on 26 December 1819.  Wymondham is about 15 kilometres south-west of Norwich, on the road to London (although it is by-passed now!).  Just over 5,000 people lived in the town when Ann was born.  She was a daughter of Mary (née Bowhill) and Thomas Bunn.  Both of her parents had also been born in Wymondham and had married there in 1817, but some time before 1838 the family moved to Bethnal Green in London.  Potentially her family moved because her father, Thomas, was no longer able to work as a weaver in Wymondham: the number of looms operating in the village went from 600 to 60 during the 1830s.  I can't find any evidence of siblings other than a sister born in 1838!

Ann married William Henry Reeder on Sunday 25 December 1842 at Saint Dunstan, Stepney in London.  The couple had four sons:

·      John Thomas born 1844;

·      William Henry born 1846;

·      Edmund born 1849; and

·      Richardson born 1851.

Unfortunately for Ann, her husband died at the same time of their youngest son's birth. Ann’s options at this time were probably extremely limited. Fortunately for Ann, she remarried relatively quickly. Her second husband was Richard Fernsby who was 15 years older than her, and was in the Army.  They married on Tuesday 3 May 1853 at St James the Less in Bethnal Green.  The Church was built in the 1840′s, one of ten churches which were built in Bethnal Green around that time.  The then Bishop, James Blomfield, had a vision that Bethnal Green should have a church named after each apostle in the Bible!  The Church suffered significant bomb damage during World War II and did not reopen until 1960 (the Gatehouse School was used for worship).

Ann and Richard’s only child was George, born on Friday 15 February 1856 when the family was living at 8 Northampton Street, Bethnal Green.  I believe that another child, also named George was born but died in 1854.

Ann died in 1860 when she was about 40.  Her five sons were aged between 16 and four years. Perhaps her dying wish was that her sons were adequately cared for.  Certainly that is what her second husband tried to do (but I'll put that information into Richard’s story).  

Ann Fernsby - a short, difficult life...

[Relationship to SNR = Great-great-great-great grandmother]