George Blakesley 1784-1862

Early life 1784-1806

George Blakesley was born 28 August 1784, at his parents' home on Cowcross Street in Farringdon, London, the fifth child of Ann Jenks and Richard Blakesley. He was probably named after the then-king, George III, since the name George does not appear anywhere else on either side of his family. He was baptised at the parish church of St Sepulchre on 17 October[1]. At the time of his birth he had at least two surviving older siblings - Ann Elizabeth (b.1777) and Richard (b.1779). There was also an older brother named William (b.1781), but since no trace of him can be found beyond his baptism he may have died in infancy. The eldest siblings, Elizabeth Ann (b.1776), had died about seven months before George's birth. A sixth and final child was born a year after George, and was named Elizabeth.

Cowcross Street, then typically known simply as Cow Cross, was an especially poor part of the city, and one strongly associated with crime and drunkenness. In 1789 the local vestry complained about the number of taverns on the street and demanded that four not have their licenses renewed. The landlord of one establishment, William Lancaster, was later found to be moonlighting as a highwayman on Hounslow Heath. Being close to Smithfields meat market, there were also a great many slaughterhouses. These too were the subject of a petition to grant fewer licenses, this time on the basis that the large number of premises were a target for horse thieves. Many of the dwellings on Cow Cross were old timber buildings, some of them dating back as far as the medieval period[2].

George's father Richard worked as a maker of watch pinions. Men of the Blakesley family had been engaged in this profession for several generations, working for an unknown watchmaking firm in Finsbury, and it may have been expected that George too would follow them into this trade, as his older brother Richard did. It is not known whether George ever went to school. His youngest sibling Elizabeth was able to confidently write her own name, and their father was similarly literate. However George and his elder sister Ann would only be able to sign their names with a cross in adulthood. It was then quite common for working class pre-teens to receive some form of basic education from a charitable school, but even if George did learn to read and write at such a school, he may have lost the ability if he never had cause to use it as an adult.

Growing up in such a crime-riddled neighbourhood, it is not surprising that at least one member of the Blakesley family should fall foul of the law. In 1800 George's brother Richard was convicted of burglary and the theft of various items of furniture and crockery, which he had then attempted to sell. He was initially sentenced to death, but this was commuted to transportation for life. He was sent to Australia, and was probably never seen again by the rest of the family. Whether or not the then sixteen-year-old George had ever accompanied his brother on criminal endeavours, we have no way of knowing.

At some point during George's childhood, the family may have moved from Cowcross to Finsbury. Our last evidence that they were at Cow Cross was Elizabeth's birth in 1785. A land tax record from 1807 places George's father at Bell Alley in Finsbury[3]. In 1802 Elizabeth married in the parish of St Giles Cripplegate which adjoined St Luke Finsbury, but we have no way of knowing whether she lived with the rest of the family at that time.

In adulthood George worked as a whipmaker. Although our first evidence of him holding this profession comes from 1812[4], people rarely changed careers in this period and we can assume he started in his teens or younger. His employer was probably the firm of James & John Skinner of 17 Finsbury Place[5], later John Skinner & Son. Our evidence for this does not arrive until 1825, when his teenage son was described as a whipmaker working for Mr Skinner[6], but the firm existed since at least 1782[7], and seems to have been the only whip manufacturer based in or near Finsbury.

Marriage and fatherhood 1806-1842

By 1806 George was living in the parish of St Leonard's Shoreditch. He married nineteen-year-old Jane Brown at St Leonard's church on 17 July that year. Little is known of Jane's background. She was born in central London to parents of Scottish descent. The official witnesses to the ceremony were George's uncle Samuel Blakesley, and the parish clerk George Limming[8]. The presence of Uncle Samuel on the marriage record, and not George's own father, may demonstrate a falling out between father and son. It is especially conspicuous since Samuel signs with an X, so he hardly seems better qualified to sign things than his literate brother, and Richard did witness the weddings of George's sisters Ann and Elizabeth. There could of course be a less drastic explanation, such as Richard perhaps being in poor health at the time of the wedding. It could also be noted that George would not name any of his sons Richard, although this may also have been caused by the name falling out of favour in the family following George's brother's conviction.

There do not appear to have been any children in the first five years of the marriage. The first born was born in March 1811 and named George. He was baptised at St Luke Finsbury. He must have died in infancy, since the couple's second child would also be named George. This second child was probably born either in late 1812 or early in 1813. His baptism records indicate that they had now returned to George's birth parish of St Sepulchre, where they lived on Cock Lane. This would only be their address briefly, since by 1815 they were back in Finsbury and living at Ratcliff Gardens, where third child Jane was born.

Ratcliff Gardens would be the family's home for the next eleven years. I have not been able to find it on any of the contemporary maps of London, but a single newspaper reference suggests it was a small court or alley off St John's Row, now named Lever Street, in the northern part of Finsbury[9]. The building must have been fairly new, since maps as recent as 1797 show St John's Row as semi-rural and bordered by fields[10]. The area would continue to expand over the coming decade with the arrival of City Road Basin, a terminal of Regent's Canal, in 1820.

A further five children were born to George and Jane at Ratcliffe Gardens. There was William born in 1817, probably named after Jane's father, and Frederick in 1820. The name Frederick had not appeared in either family previously; it may have been chosen in honour of Prince Frederick, Duke of York, who became heir presumptive to the British throne a few days after this Frederick's birth. Next was Ann born in 1822 and named after George's mother, followed by Edward Daniel born in 1824. The inspiration for Edward Daniel's names is not entirely obvious, but a man whose full name was Edward Daniel (born 1800) lived in or near Finsbury around that time, and may have been a friend of the family. Goerge and Jane's youngest child was born in 1826 and named Harriet. The reason for this choice of name is entirely unclear, so was perhaps simply a name they liked the sound of.

In 1825 George's thirteen-year-old son George appeared at the Old Bailey as a witness to the theft of a box of printing type. Apparently George Junior had followed the thieves along several streets before losing sight of them. This willingness to aid the law stands in contrast to his transported uncle Richard, which makes me wonder if George Senior had instilled a sense of lawfulness into his children in the hope that they would avoid his brother's fate. Not everyone in the family was similarly inclined however. In 1831 George Senior's seventeen-year-old niece Ann Anning (daughter of his sister Elizabeth) appeared at the same courthouse charged with stealing a pair of sleeves from a second-hand clothes merchant. She received good character witnesses, was recommended to mercy, and fined a shilling.

In either late 1826 or early 1827 the family moved eastwards to Bethnal Green, a fast-growing suburb associated with the weaving industry. We have no evidence of their exact address. Shortly after they moved here, youngest child Harriet died at the age of thirteen months. Tragedy struck again in 1830 when second son William died aged thirteen. His cause of death is not known, but may have been scarlet fever, which was then a global pandemic[11], and most severely affects children between the ages of five and fifteen. The fate of eldest son George is unknown. At the time of his court appearance in 1825 he was already working for Skinner's whipmaking firm, and lived separately from his parents at an address on St John's Row, perhaps living with another relative. He cannot be found on any later record.

Very little can be said about George's life in the subsequent two decades. His father died in 1829. and his mother in 1838. Both had remained in Finsbury. In approximately 1835 George became a grandfather, when his daughter Jane gave birth to an illegitimate son named George[Note 1]. She would marry the purported father, a cabinet maker named George Coffin, in 1837 whilst pregnant with a second child. The fact that they didn't marry until then could indicate that George had denied her permission while she was still underage (she would have been aged about twenty when her first child was born). However George's sons Frederick and Edward Daniel married in 1840 and 1842 at the ages of nineteen and eighteen respectively, so if this was the case then George cannot have applied such restrictions equally to all his children. Of the two sons, Frederick became a whipmaker like his father, whereas Edward became a cabinet maker, perhaps making him a colleague of Jane's husband.

George and his household cannot be found on the census of 1841. The 1841 returns for Finsbury are lost, but the ones for Bethnal Green are not[12], which suggests that they had moved back to the former district at some point.

Later life 1843-1862

In 1848 George's youngest son Edward Daniel died at the age of 24. George and Jane took in Edward's infant daughter Caroline, Edward's widow apparently unable to provide for her. On the 1851 census they are living in Bishopsgate, at 8 Merritt's Buildings. The household consists of George, Jane, daughter Ann and granddaughter Caroline. George was still a whipmaker. At age twenty-nine, Ann was the only one of the surviving children not to have left home. She was working as a tailoress. The address was shared with two other families, both of them consisting of a widow and her adult child. One of the widows, fifty-one year old Esther Weston is described as a whip brader, so was presumably a work colleague of George. It seems likely that George still worked for the Skinner family, as their whipmaking firm continued to exist at Finsbury Place[13] just a few minutes walk away. Merritt's Buildings was a small collection of dwellings around the intersection of Foster Street and an alley[14]. The area would be extensively redeveloped a couple of decades later to make way for Liverpool Street Station, and Merritt's Buildings are now long gone.

In 1853 George's daughter Ann married and moved out. She and her husband appear to have taken over the care of George's granddaughter Caroline, as she is living with them on the 1861 census. George and Jane were not far away, now living at 10 Mulberry Court in Shoreditch, while Ann and her husband were at Number 2. I have not been able to pinpoint Mulberry Court on a map, but the census schedule seems to imply it was off Long Alley (now Appold Street), and thus not far from their previous residence. Again these were multi-family residences, and they shared the building with three other households. Their other children Jane and Frederick were a short distance away in Bethnal Green. George had by this point at least seventeen surviving grandchildren[Note 2]. He had become a great-grandfather in 1856, when his daughter Jane's illegitimate son George had his first child, also named George.

George died aged seventy-seven on 12 March 1862, at 2 Hague Street in Bethnal Green. This probably means that he and Jane had moved again in the eleven months since the census, as it does not appear to be the address of any other family member around that time. His dying would be reported by his daughter Ann, who was present at the death. The cause of death was stated to be marasmus, an extreme form of malnutrition which could be down to a straightforward lack of food intake, but could also be caused by a health condition that inhibits the absorption of nutrients[15]. The exact circumstances in George's case are impossible to tell, although it seems unlikely to me that he would have simply starved to death with so many children and grandchildren in steady work living nearby. What can be said for certain however is that George would have been severely debilitated for weeks if not months perior to his death. He is described on the death certificate as "a master whip maker".

Notes

1. No definite baptism record can be found for this child. However there is a baptism record at St Leonards Shoreditch in February 1835 for a George Richard Coffin Blakesley, born to a George and Ann Blakesley of Bethnal Green, with the father's occupation being Cabinet Maker. I suspect this is actually the baptism record for Jane's child, and not a child born to George Blakesley Jr. The child did definitely exist, since he appears on later records.
2. At the time of the 1861 census George's daughter Jane had ten living children, Frederick had four, Ann two, and then there was Edward's daughter Caroline. All seventeen are accounted for and living in London in 1861. It is possible that eldest son George Junior was still alive somewhere, perhaps living abroad, and also had children.

References

1. St Sepulchre Holborn baptisms 1766-1787, The London Archives
2. Cowcross Street and Turnmill Street, British History Online; accessed 25 September 2024
3. Land Tax Assessment Book, St Luke Old Street, 1807; The London Archives
4. St Sepulchre Holborn baptisms 1813-1835, The London Archives
5. Holden's Annual London and Country Directory, of the United Kingdoms, and Wales, in Three Volumes, for the Year 1811. Vol. I-III, London; 1811
6. Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 7 April 1825, reference t18250407-113, Old Bailey Proceedings Online
7. Kentish Gazette, 2 Oct 1782
8. St Leonard's Shoreditch marriages 1805-1808, The London Archives
9. Morning Advertiser (London); 14 August 1841
10. Wallis, John (1797): Wallis's Plan of the Cities of London; The British Library; accessed via Old Maps Online
11. Swedlund, Alan C. and Donta, Alison K (2003): Scarlet Fever Epidemics of the Nineteenth Century: A Case of Evolved Pathologenic Virulence?, Cambridge University Press
12. Census for England, Wales and Scotland: Missing Pieces, Findmypast; accessed 29 Sep 2024
13. Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser (London), 20 Apr 1872
14. Haywood, William (1854): General Plan of the City of London, The British Library; accessed via Old Maps Online
15. Marasmmus: A Type of Malnutrition, Medical News Today; accessed 30 Sep 2024

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