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Section 33
Webb, Freeman & Smedley

33.A
  From Freeman to Webb

Laura Nellie Webb was my paternal grandmother; she married Arthur Wesley Brush in 1922.  Her mother was a Freeman and this chapter begins at the end of the 18th century with John Freeman.

John Freeman, estimated DOB 1798, married Eleanor Ann and had a son Thomas Freeman.  

Thomas married Marie Eliza Hobbs in Q2 1858 in Coventry. The naming of his wife as Eliza is a bit of a mystery.  At her baptism and in later census entries she is Marie (or Maria) Helen.  They had three children:

Sarah Hellen, born at home, 9 Hall Fold Bilston, Staffordshire on 1 September 1859. The birth certificate identifies the parents as Thomas Freeman, a pork butcher journeyman, and Marie Helen formerly Hobbs. Hall Fold seems to have been on the north west side of Bilston the road to Wolverhampton and close to Ettingshall.

John Thomas, born in Hanley, Staffordshire in or before 1862.  There is a baptism at Shelton (which is right next to Hanley) on 1 June 1862 for John Thomas Freeman son of Thomas and Mary Ellen. Hanley is named in the 1881 census.  His story continues in chapter 33.B

William Henry, born in Coventry in 1866/7.  Coventry is identifed in the 1871 and 1881 censuses. Nothing more is known of him.

Sometime between the conception of William Henry and early 1871 census Thomas Freeman dies.   At the 1871 census Maria Helen Freeman, widow age 33, is living in Coventry with children Sarah Helen age 12 b Bilston, John Thomas age 8 b ?Hanley? and William Henry age 4 b Coventry.

The birth loction of Bulkington, Warks is not what we would expect to see.  A mishearing by an enumerator of Buckingham? Bulkington is a village just northeast of Coventry.

In 1881 they appear as Eliza Helen Freeman, widow age 43 dressmaker, Sarah Helen age 22, b Bilston, John Thomas 19 b Hanley and William Henry 13 bCoventry.

There is a GRO index entry in Q4 1884 in Coventry RD for the death of Mary Ellen Freeman, age 48 (so born 1835/6).

At 1891 Sarah Helen is the head of a household with brother William Henry. There is a death registration for their mother in Q1 1891.

Sarah was my G2-Grandmother. She married Thomas WEBB in 1892 in Coventry. (On 16 April from FWB scroll)  They had two children, my grandmother Laura Nellie on 15 January 1894 in Leicester and William Bernal (or Burnal?) John on 4 December 1898 in Coventry.  His baptism record on 14 December 1898 says his father Thomas was a painter and gives his mother's name as 'Lellie".  Their address is 1c 8r Hertford Street.(or 1 Court 8 house?)

Burnal is an unusual forename.  It was the maiden name of Sarah's mother Marie Helen of which more below.

At 1901 Sarah is listed as the head of the family, working as a ribbon weaver. Thomas has disappeared and we have no clue of where he went, or why. Sarah and the two chidren are living at room 8 in 1 court on Hertford Street Coventry.  Although my grandmother lived with my parents until I was 24 I cannot recall her saying anything of her childhood - which appears to have been fairly grim.  An omission which illustrates perfectly the need to interview elderly relatives while they are still with us.

By the 1911 census Sarah Hellen and Bernal are still living in 1 Court in Coventry but are now in house 3 with three rooms - which they share with a boarder.  Sarah is a silk Weaver at (the/a) silk factory.  Silk weaving had been an important and dominant industry in Coventry for centuries but seems to have been well into its decline by 1900.  The big name who may have been her employer were the Cash family.  My father's notes (take from where?) state that at 1913 they were at 4 court 3 house in Cox street and in 1918 at 3 court 4 Cox street.  Sarah Helen dies at 19 April 1928 (from fwb scroll).

Laura Nellie was not with them in 1911. She was then living as the adopted daughter of Fred and Mary Elson at Meeting House Lane in Berkswell in Warwickshire, assisting in the family business.  There is lots of information about the Elson family in my father's autobiography. How and why she was adopted I am sad to say that I did not know.

While she was there she met my grandfather Arthur Wesley BRUSH, who she married in 1922, as covered in the mainline story of the Brush family in chapter xx.x. She died at Berkhamsted on 4 April 1979.

Her brother Burnal became a Salvation Army Officer and married Irene Florence Warriner Vincent in 1926. They had a son Roy in 1927 and a daughter daughter Joy WEBB in 1932, who also became a Salvation Army officer focused on music and reached the UK pop charts with her 1960's group The Joy Strings.

To return to the Freeman story and to the mother of Sarah Helen. She was born in Buckingham in 1836 and baptised as Marie Helen HOBBS. Her baptism is one of the most perfect records a geneologist could hope for and discloses that Burnell was the maiden name of Marie Helen's mother.

This extract from the Methodist register of baptisms identifies not only her date of birth and the names of both her parents but also her mother's parents. Plus the name of the surgeon who attended her birth and another relative who was present at the birth.

At 1841 the family is living at Red Lion Row in Buckingham. It includes not just Marie Helen but also an older brother George.

George Burnel HOBBS had received a Methodist baptism in 1832 in Buckingham. In 1851 he was a carpenters apprentice living with Carpenter and Farrier Robert Holt at London Road Buckingham.  He married Sarah Molineux in Ettingshall, Staffordshire and had a daughter Maria Helen Hobbs in nearby Bilston in 1856. Was he the magnet which pulled his sister Maria Helen and her husband Thomas Freeman to Bilston?  Only the use of the Burnell family name enables us to securely make these links from county to county.

And from country to country. John Thomas Freeman, the brother of Sarah Helen emigrated to Australia and also named on of his sons Burnal. Contact has been maintained by my family over the years, and to this day, with one branch of the Australian cousins, descended from Thomas Freeman and Marie Helen nee Hobbs.

TEXT

Taking the story back a generation, the most likely baptism of George Burnell seemed to be 29 Dec 1805 at Hardwick,Buckingham,England, the son of James Burnell and Hannah (FHL FILM NUMBER:919230). BUT.... I cannot find their marriage but