Leah King c.1800-1864

Early life c.1799-1816

Leah King was probably born between 1798 and 1802, with 1800 perhaps being the most likely year[Note 1]. She was born in the Liberty of Norton Folgate in London, the daughter of Job King and Mary Madden[Note 2]. No baptismal record survives for her. This could be because the family belonged to a non-conformist denomination which eschewed infant baptism, or to a chapel whose baptismal records are lost, or they may simply have not cared about baptising their children for one reason or another. Leah's maternal grandfather had been baptised a Roman Catholic, but there is no evidence that anyone else in the family continued to follow that faith. Leah may have had one or two siblings, but if so I have not found them.

At some point in Leah's early childhood, the family moved to Blue Anchor Yard in Whitechapel. Her father died here in November 1802, no doubt leaving Leah with little or no memory of him. Blue Anchor Yard was described by the journalist Henry Mayhew in the 1840s as "one of the poorest places and with a half-built look"[2].

Leah's mother remarried in October 1812, to a man named Peter Irvine. Almost nothing is known about Peter; I cannot pinpoint him on any record besides the marriage. He was however clearly held in high regard by Leah, who would go on to name her second son after him. The marriage took place in Bishopsgate, so Leah's mother at least was now back in that part of London. One of the witnesses was Leah's maternal aunt Susannah. It appears that the Madden family were rather close-knit, with Leah's uncle James Madden and aunts Ann and Susannah appearing as witnesses to each other's weddings.

Since Leah's mother was only in her early 30s at the time of her remarriage, it is entirely possible that Leah had several half-siblings fathered by Peter Irvine. However the lack of recorded baptisms for the family means that this, like so many other aspects of Leah's early years, is purely a matter of speculation.

Bermondsey, Southwark and Walworth (c.1816-c.1822)

In the spring of 1816, when Leah was aged around sixteen years old, she became pregnant. The father was a 31-year-old widower named Thomas Brown. It is not clear how they knew each other. My best guess is that Leah had been employed by Thomas who, having been widowed about eighteen months prior to the pregnancy, required someone to help take care of his children. These children were Ann (born 1808) and Sarah (born 1811), although since Sarah appears on no records beyond her baptism she may have died in infancy leaving just Ann. Thomas was originally from Cripplegate, the district of London in which Leah's mother's family had lived in the 1790s, so it is possible the Maddens and the Browns already knew each other. Thomas, who worked as a cooper, now lived south of the river in Bermondsey.

Leah and Thomas were married on 1 June 1816 at the parish church of St Mary Magdalen in Bermondsey. The official witnesses were John Wheeler and Elizabeth Moss, both of whom appear to have been connected to the church rather than to Leah and Thomas personally. Leah signs the register with a "+"[3].

Leah's marriage at this young age was certainly not typical, the average age for brides in England and Wales at that time being around 24[4]. She would have needed the consent of her mother to marry, which appears to have been given since the words "with consent of" on the marriage registration form are visible whereas on most other records they are crossed out, but no name has been filled in. The age difference between her and Thomas was also unusual, with just 2.6% of English marriages between 1750 and 1837 having an age gap between partners of fifteen years or more[5]. This is almost identical to the modern figure of 2.5% in 2021[6], so it is not unreasonable to assume that the ages of Leah and her groom would have drawn just as much comment then as they would today..

Exactly six months after the wedding, Leah gave birth to her first child, named Thomas like his father. His baptism reveals their address to be Fair Street in Horsleydown, a parish of Southwark. By 1819 they had moved again, and were now living on Gibraltar Row in the parish of St George's Southwark. Here in June 1819 Leah's second child was born, and named Peter Irvine Brown in honour of her stepfather. This child almost certainly died in infancy[Note 3].

The family's next move was to Walworth, about a mile to the southwest. Contemporary maps show that this was a fast-growing suburb, with new streets being laid down and fields disappearing rapidly through the 1810s and 1820s[7][8]. We now enter a fifteen-year period in Leah and Thomas's marriage when none of their children have recorded baptisms, and are only attested from later records. As such we don't have an exact address for them in Walworth, and it is only from the recorded birthplaces of their children in adulthood that we know they lived there at all. The only child known to have been born there was Peter, probably born in 1821 or 1822. Another son, named Joseph, was probably born in either 1823 or 1824. Most of Joseph's adult records indicate he was born in Rotherhithe, the Browns' next place of residence, but one states Walworth, suggesting perhaps that he was born around the time they moved from one to other.

The reason for the lack of baptismal records during this period is not known. The family may have aligned themselves with a baptist chapel or some other non-conformist group who either did not practice infant baptism or whose records are lost. Most of Leah's children similarly have no baptisms recorded for their own children, but for only one of them have I found a link to a non-conformist church. This was Peter, who would have a long association with Jamaica Row Independent chapel in Bermondsey, which was described as either Baptist or Congregrationalist. The earliest reference I can find to the Jamaica Row chapel is from 1835, but this is a death notice for a previous reverend's widow[9], which implies that it was already in existence for some time before this. An interesting point to note is that Leah's aunt Susannah would begin taking her children for baptism from 1833, which is around the same time that baptisms start appearing again for Leah's children. So it may be that Leah's family had belonged to the Baptist faith before collectively becoming Anglicans in the mid-1830s. This of course would not explain why Leah's first two children were baptised in the Church of England. It may have been the preference of her husband Thomas.

Rotherhithe (c.1823-1852)

In comparison to Walworth, which had been growing into the south London urban sprawl, Rotherhithe was still firmly rural and would remain so for several decades more. Once again the family's initial presence here is only attested through the later recordings of the children's birthplaces. The aforementioned Joseph was likely born in 1823 or 1824, followed by Mary Ann in about 1830. The rather large gap between these two suggests there may have been one or two other children born in between who did not survive into adulthood, or else Leah may have suffered miscarriages. The final child with no baptism was Henrietta (also sometimes known as Harriet), born in about 1832.

The baptism of Leah and Thomas's next child, Henry, at Rotherhithe's parish church in 1835, finally gives us an address for the Brown family. This was Lemon Valley, a residential building on Corbet's Lane which housed around half a dozen working class families. Adjacent to Lemon Valley, and the only other buildings on Corbet's Lane at that time, were the St Helena Tavern, Tea Gardens and Pleasure Grounds. This was a long-established recreational site, sometimes known as East Vauxhall, presumably in reference to the more well-known pleasure gardens of that district. They are described in some detail in an article in the London Mercury from 1848, which laments how they had declined since the previous century, with a spa once visited by aristocrats now replaced with "a plebian public-house". The writer had more favourable words for the assembly room and gardens:

Among the signs of antiquity which this room presents may be mentioned the three old-fashioned chandeliers [...] The window frames have also an ancestral appearance and upon one pane of glass a diamond has inscribed the following couplet preceded by the date of 1784:-

Dearest, come unto my arms,
And I'll reward you for your charms

At the upper end of the room is a stage where, at night, a very respectable concert is given, varied by ballet, feats of strength and pantomime [...] The evening is wound up with a dance.

From the assembly-room a door conducts by a flight of steps to the gardens. That part immediately adjacent to the saloon is beautifully laid out as a grove, and around it are disposed refreshment boxes. On the left hand side two parallel rows of lofty poplars are silent witness to the antiquity of the place [...] Passing through the poplar alley, and by a small stream, an open plot of ground is reached, [...] whence at present arises a platform for dancers, and above that a stage for the band. The gardens in the evening are partially illuminated with variegated lamps, and immediately previous to the dancing, a display of fireworks takes place upon the lawn.[10]

Whether or not Leah was ever herself a patron of the St Helena establishment we cannot know, but the lights, fireworks, and general air of revelry surrounding the place she was no doubt keenly aware of. This may have been the countryside, but it was clearly far from quiet!

By 1837 the family had moved to another shared residential building named Baltic Place. This was on Deptford Road, just around the corner from their previous address, and still very close to St Helena's. Here Leah's two youngest children were born, Ellen (also sometimes known as Hellen, Eleanor or Nora) in 1837 and Frances Elizabeth in 1839. In 1836 the eldest child, Ann, became the first to get married. She and her husband settled in nearby Deptford. Despite not being Leah's biological daughter, Ann was evidently fond of her step-mother, naming her own second daughter Elizabeth Leah. Elizabeth was her husband's mother's name, so the implication here is that Ann regarded Leah as her own mother.

It appears that not all of Leah's children were educated to the same level. As a working class family, the Browns would likely have had to rely upon whatever charitable schools were available locally. While Thomas, Peter, Mary Ann, and Henry were all able to quite confidently write their own names, Ann, Joseph, Ellen and Frances were apparently not able to, signing their marriage registers with an X. The ability of Henrietta to write is unkonwn, but I would err on the side of her not being able to since her son would complete the census schedule for their household in 1911. The disparity is mostly divided along gender lines, but the exceptions of Joseph and Mary Ann tell us that this cannot have been the only reason. A free school for girls was established in Rotherhithe in 1846, but had an annual intake of just fourteen pupils, and stated that applicants must be ... of decided piety, members of Churches, and attached, on principle, to scholastic engagements[11].

By the time of the 1841 census, the family had again moved to another dwelling in the same part of Rotherhithe, this one named Cape of Good Hope. This was home to ten households. One of these was that of Leah's eldest biological child, Thomas, who had also recently married but apparently remained very close to home. He and the second-eldest son Peter were both working as coopers alongside their father.

If we count the children of her stepdaughter Ann, then Leah had become a grandmother in 1837, when Ann's first child Alfred James was born. If we only count biological grandchildren, then she became a grandmother in Autumn 1841, when Thomas's first child Emma Rachel was born. Both Emma Rachel and Thomas's first wife died at some point during the 1840s.

Peter was the next to marry, followed by Joseph, in 1843 and 1844 respectively. Peter would settle in Bermondsey while Joseph went to the more densely-populated northern part of Rotherhithe. At some point during the 1840s, Leah moved to yet another home in that same semi-rural part of Rotherhithe, 2 Cottage Place. For once, they seem to have had a place to themselves, as they were the only family at that address. Mary Ann, the eldest child still living at home, married the literal man next door in 1849, and set up home with home at a neighbouring set of cottages.

On the 1851 census Leah is at 2 Cottage Place with Thomas and their four younger children - Henrietta, Henry, Ellen and Frances Elizabeth. Eighteen-year-old Henrietta has an occupation described as "needle-work", meaning she was probably doing tailoring as piece-work, whilst Henry had begun work as a cooper as all his brothers had. No occupation is listed for Leah, as is almost always the case for married women on these early censuses, the labour of housewives going unrecorded.

On 12 June 1852 Leah's husband Thomas died of natural causes at the age of sixty-seven. Second son Peter was present at the death and took responsibility for the reporting of it.

Final Years (1852-1864)

Leah was probably supported during her widowhood with help from her children's income. Peter in particular would have been doing quite well financially, having attained the position of foreman at a local factory. Leah may well also have begun working herself, perhaps as seamstress as both Henrietta and Ellen would do at various times. This would have involved working from home making clothing for a tailoring company according to their designs, and was a common way widows and single women to earn a few shillings a week[12].

As for Leah's younger children, Henrietta moved out in the early 1850s, and went to live with a married police officer. They could not legally marry due to his wife still being alive, but remained together as if they were and had several children together. Henry did not marry until relatively late in life, and so probably remained living with Leah. Ellen gave birth to an illegitimate child in 1858 and named him Jonathan Job. It is not clear who the father was or if she ever lived with him. The middle name Job may be a coincidence, but it may also have been at Leah's request, since none of her own children were named after her father.

Despite these differences in lifestyle, the siblings were apparently close with each other, as evidenced by them witnessing each other's marriages and naming children after each other, amongst other things.

In 1859, Leah's eldest son Thomas died after five years of suffering with heart disease, which caused edema in his final months. Aged just forty-two, he was the only one of her grown-up children who predeceased her. The combination of heart illness with edema probably indicates Congestive Heart Failure. Around the same time Leah too began showing symptoms of an unspecified heart condition, suggesting it was probably hereditary but had for some reason affected Thomas significantly earlier in life. Her symptoms at this stage probably consisted primarily of breathlessness and fatigue[13].

There was some good news during 1859 - Peter inherited the glue factory he had been foreman of, along with a substantial amount of money when its owner died. This enormous change in fortune for one member of a working class family must have had an impact on Leah and her other children. Although we have no direct evidence, we would hope that he provided at least some financial support for his mother during her final years.

It is not clear where Leah lived during this time, except that she was still somewhere within Rotherhithe. The 1861 census returns for the district are lost. She may have been at George Street (now Renforth Street) in the urbanised northern part of Rotherhithe, as this is where Ellen was when she had her illegitimate baby. Of her other children, Peter and Joseph were about a mile away in Bermondsey, Frances Elizabeth was within Rotherhithe, while Ann, Mary Ann and Henrietta were slightly further away, in Camberwell, Erith and Croydon respectively.

Leah's address by the end of her life was 3 Debnams Row, part of a new development in the western part of Rotherhithe[Note 4]. Ellen also lived there, although it is not clear whether this was a case of Ellen still living with her mother, or Leah moving in with her daughter when her health deteriorated. The census of 1871 shows it as home for two working class families with several children each, so it is unlikely that Leah and Ellen lived there alone in the 1860s. The road must have been quite noisy, as it was right next to the Greenwich and London railway line. This had been in place since 1838[14], but Leah's previous known addresses were about half a mile from it. Meanwhile the growing urban sprawl of south London was finally starting to catch up with Rotherhithe, and the cottages and country lanes where Leah had lived for the last thirty years were slowly being replaced by rows of modern terraces, while a street simply named "Rotherhithe New Road" cut across what had long been open farmland[15].

At the beginning 1864, after years of suffering with heart disease, Leah also began showing signs of edema. This painful swelling condition, which would have mainly affected her hands, feet and lower legs, mirrors the pattern of symptoms seen in Leah's son Thomas five years earlier. She must have suspected she did not have long left.

In the end, she held on a little longer than her son had. Eventually she developed bronchitis, perhaps as an additional complication or as a result of an unrelated infection. By now her symptoms would have been severe, with pain, fatigue and breathlessness even when resting. She died at home on 5 November 1864. The death was reported by Ellen, who had been present.

Besides her seven living children, Leah left behind at least twenty-seven surviving grandchildren, three of whom (daughters of Mary Ann, Henrietta and Frances Elizabeth) were named Leah in her honour.

Notes

1. Her parents were married in 1798, and her father died in 1802. We then have three pieces of evidence which indicate her age. The 1841 census suggests a year of birth 1795 and 1801 (ages on this census were rounded down to the nearest five); the 1851 census 1799 or 1800; and her death certificate 1800 or 1801. If the age indicated in 1851 and her death certificate were accurate, this would point to a birth between March and November of 1800. It is possible, perhaps even likely, that Leah and her family were not entirely sure of her exact age (for comparison, her husband's age was never accurately recorded on any record during adulthood). Birthdates outside the 1798-1802 range are also possible, if she was born prior to her parents marriage, or several months after her father's death. I have opted for 1800 as being the most likely purely because it agrees most with the later records, and 1799 being second most likely only because I find it more probable that she was older at the time of her as opposed to younger.
2. Since we have no baptism record for Leah I have no proof that these were her parents, but I have amassed enough circumstantial evidence that I am virtually certain. My evidence is:
- One of Leah's children was given the name Peter Irvine Brown. Peter Irvine was the name of Mary Madden's second husband and thus would have been Leah's stepfather.
- Mary Madden's mother was named Leah. FindMyPast contains just 152 baptismal records for a child named Leah in England during the year 1800, out of a total of 731,320 baptisms, suggesting that only 0.02% of children were named Leah. The name was even rarer at the time of the elder Leah's birth (1762), when Leahs made up only 0.01% of all baptismal records for the year[1]. Since family names were typically passed down, this would explain why Leah came to have this exceptionally uncommon name.
- Job and Mary married at St Leonard's Shoredtich, and Job was born in the parish of St Botolph Bishopsgate. Both these parishes adjoin the Liberty of Norton Folgate, where Leah was born according to the 1851 census.
- At least three of Mary Madden's siblings were married, and yet no recorded baptisms exist for any children from these marriages (with the exception of the two youngest children of Mary's sister Susannah). So it seems likely that the Madden family had a common reason for not baptising their children or not having surviving baptismal records for them. Leah also has no baptism record.
- Mary Madden was of Irish descent. Two of Leah's sons married women from the Irish diaspora. They would perhaps have been more inclined to do so if they considered themselves part of the Anglo-Irish community.
3. Some researchers have assumed that Peter Irvine Brown born 1819 is the same person as Leah's son Peter Brown (died 1908). However I find this unlikely as all sources for the latter Peter indicate a birthplace of Walworth, not Southwark, and a birth year of 1821 or 1822.
4. I am assuming that Debnams Row was on or around what is now called Debnams Road, although it is not labelled on earlier maps. The road must have been built in the first half of the 1860s, since it appears on Whitbread's 1865 map of London, but not on Smith's 1860 map.

References

1. Find My Past; searches run 7 Oct 2024
2. Mayhew, Henry (1851): London Labour and the London Poor: Volume II
3. Saint Mary Magdalen Bermondsey marriages 1795-1837; The London Archives
4. Wrigley, E.A.; Davies, R.S.; Oeppen, J.E and Schofield, R.S.: English Population History from Family Reconstituion, Cambridge University Press; p130
5. Op cit; p153
6. People's living arrangements in England and Wales: Census 2021, Office for National Statistics
7. Leigh, Samuel (1818): New Plan of London
8. C&J Greenwood (1827): A Map of London made from an actual survey in the years 1824, 1825 & 1826
9. Berkshire Chronicle; 5 Dec 1835
10. The London Mercury, 6 May 1848
11. The Patriot (London), 28 May 1846
12. Treble, J.H. (1979): Urban Poverty in Britain, Batsford; p12
13. Sherrell, Zia (2023): Heart Failure and Edema: What Is the Link?, Medical News Today; accessed 13 Oct 2024
14. History of the Greenwich Line, Greenwich Line User's Group; accessed 12 Oct 2024
15. C. Smith & Son (1860): Smith's New Map of London

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