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Previous:     Chapter 27.B  Charles Alfred

Section 27
The children of Samuel of Harrow

Samuel of Harrow and his wife Lucy had seven children of whom three survived childhood, married and had children. George, Charles Alfred, and Mary Ann

27.C Mary Ann  1809-18

Mary Ann Brush[83] was probably born in 1809.  Her parents Samuel and Lucy lived at Greenhill , a hamlet in the parish of Harrow, just north of Harrow itself.  Unusually she is recorded as being baptised twice - on 3 December 1809 and again on 7 January 1810.  Could this have been an emergency private baptism and then a public one?

Mary Ann married William Butcher BURWOOD at St James's, Paddington on 11 April 1825.  If her birth was indeed in late 1809 she was just 15.

There is a story attached to identifying her.  We had no idea what had become of her.  We did know of a Mary Ann BRUSH who had married in Paddington in 1825 but on all our usual assumptions the gap was rather too short to be credible.

Making the connection came through the facility of the Genes Reunited website.  I was approached by another member interested in our Harrow references since the Mary Ann married in Paddington, his GGGgrandmother, gave her birth place as Harrow in census records.   The information he had gathered on the BURWOOD family she had married into, from death certificates and census records, demonstrated clearly that they were one and the same.  She had indeed married at the tender age of 15.  It appears that from 1823 to 1929 the minimum permitted age for marriage was 14 for men and 12 for women.(1)  Her husband, William Butcher BURWOOD, had been born at Lowestoft in Suffolk , somewhere around 1804, and at various points in his life was a servant, stable keeper, labourer, painter and coach painter.  Despite the quality of the Lowestoft parish register his birth/baptism has not been clearly identified.

Having married young William, himself aged only 19, Mary Ann went on to have 13 children including a Lucy, a Samuel and a Charles Alfred (born around 1838 according to 1841 census).   The first child, Henry was baptised at St Mary's Harrow on Christmas Day 1827.   Their abode is given as Greenhill.  William is identified as a servant.

Multiple Burwood family trees, on Ancestry, assert that an Elizabeth Brush (the illegitimate daughter of Mary Ann and William) was baptised at Paddington in December 1824.  Most of those trees give no source for that baptism and my searches for it come up with nothing. Nor do they give any other informaion about her.  It seems likely that most are simply duplicating one of the other trees. However, one tree, the best sourced of them, provides more detail. The tree owner (JJ) has confirmed in correspondence that she has seen the record (at the London Metropolitan Archives?) and that William was named as the father on the register.

Following children were born in Chelsea and Pimlico where they lived until her new family moved around 1839 to Smethwick, Birmingham.

In the winter of 1835 they buried three children at St George Hanover Square, Lucy Jane on 29 November and then Mary Ann and Isaac George on 15 December.  Casualties of an epidemic? Cholera? Typhoid? Smallpox? Influenza?   Their address is given as 19 Ecclestone Place, Pimlico. Eccleston Place is not the same as Eccleston Square, it is a quarter of a mile north west, just north of what is now Victoria coach station.  Nearby Victoria station and the rail lines into it were not built at this time.

At 1836 they were still living at Ecclestone Place, working for Richard Davis - as evidenced in the proceedings of the Old Bailey:

"1083. JAMES READ was indicted for stealing, on the 2nd of April, 1 cushion, value 6s., the goods of Richard Davis.

WILLIAM BUTCHER BURWOOD . I live in Eccleston-place, Pimlico, and am a stable-keeper. On the evening of the 2nd of April I went with a fly to the Opera, about half-past twelve o'clock, and then I drove it to Eccleston place, and left it at the stable-door-I opened the fly-door to put down the glass-I took the horse in, and when I came out I saw the door open, the steps down, and the cushion gone-this was about twenty minutes before one o'clock on Sunday morning-Richard Davis is the owner of the fly.

{Further police evidence}

Read was found not guilty. "

Residence at Eccleston Place is confirmed in the 5 June 1836 baptism of Samuel Butcher Burwood (born 16 May 1836) at St Luke's Chelsea where William is again identifed as a servant.  

The Butcher name is obviously significant in the Burwood family.  In 1835 a James Burwood in Lowestoft baptises another William Butcher Burwood. William's paternal grandmother's maiden name was Butcher.

His full name appears again at the 1841 census when they are living (and apparently working) in Smethwick at the Cape of Good Hope inn - formerly at the junction of Cape Hill and Grove Lane. Willam is listed as a stable hand.  At the time Smethwick is part of the parish of Harborne in Staffordshire, now it is simply a part of Birmingham on the WNW side on the way to West Bromwich.  They were still there at the 1843 birth of son Edward James.

More children were born after this move bringing the total to a startling 13. Mary Ann died, age 54 in 1863, confirming 1809 as her birth date.

At the 1851 census they were living at Dudley Road in the Birmingham All Saints Parish.  Henry is listed as age 48, a painter. His wife is named Margaret though her age (41) and place of birth (Harrow) both support the view that this is an error.   Seven children age 1 to 24 (Henry) are listed.

At 1861 the family is at 8 Fordries Buildings, Dudley Road, Birmingham, preumably the same location as Fawdrey's Building, Oldbury Road, Ladywood, Birmingham given as the address of Mary Ann at her death on 7 April 1863.  Her death certificate ( as transcribed by JJ) records her as age 54, wife of William Burwood, a carriage painter.  Cause of death congestion of the brain.   Registered by Henry Burwood, (?son) of 112 Great Barr Street, Birmingham, present at the death.

At 1871 William age 68, widowed, a painter plus son Edward, his wife Eliza and their children Elizabeth, Edward J and Margaret A are at No 2 House, No 4 Court, Vauxhall Road, Aston, Warwickshire,

William dies on 23 Nov 1875 at 4 Court, Vauxhall Road, Aston, Warwickshire.  Age 69, a coach painter.  Cause of death, chronic bronchitis and exhaustion-21 days. Registered by son Edward, of same address, present at the death.  The information again from a certifiate transcribed by JJ.

The children of William Butcher BURWOOD and Mary Ann (Brush)

Elizabeth, illegitimate baptised 1824. Nothing further is known of her.

Henry born baptised Harrow

Mary Ann born 27 February 1829 South Street Chelsea and baptised March 1829 at . Buried, with her brother Isaac George on 14 December 1835 at St George, Hanover Square - though her age is overstated by a year as 7.

Lucy Jane 14 December 1831 Eccleston Place, Pimlico, died age 4 in November 1835 and was buried at St George, Hanover Square on 29 November. The burial record is an unusual one. It appears to provide very precise detail of where she, and others, are buried - sometimes by coordinates and sometimes by reference to neighbouring graves.

The burials of Lucy, Mary and Isaac

Susan Ellen 13 June 1833 Eccleston Place, Pimlico

Isaac George. Buried, with his sister Mary Ann on 14 December 1835 at St George, Hanover Square

Samuel Butcher 16 May 1836 Eccleston Place, Pimlico

Charles Alfred. JJ gives his birth details as 13 November 1837, Pimlico. He is certainly registered in Q4 1837 in the St George Hanover Square RD and the 1851 and 1871 censuses show Pimlico. (Though in the 1861 census he gives his birthplace as Harrow - did he ask his brother Henry "where were we born?")

Edward James JJ gives his birth details as 8 April 1843 Cape of Good Hope, Smethwick.  The birth is recorded in the Kings Norton RD - which covered a very large area.  Baptised at Smethwick 30 July 1843.

Age 21 he marries Eliza Booth at St John's, Ladywood, Birmingham on 26 October 1864.  His address remains the Cape of Good Hope Inn, his occupation is a 'Turner'. At the 1883 marriage of daughter Elizabeth Hannah this is listed as 'Iron Turner'.  At 1871 and 81 they are living in Duddeston, Aston with three children. In 1871 his widowed father William is living with them (or they with him according to the census).The children are shown as being born at Warwick.  This would seem to mean Warwickshire rather than Warwick itself. In 1876, when daughter Margaret Ann is baptised they are living at Vauxhall Road in the parish of Ashted - which appears to be within the Duddeston area.

 In 1884 he (plus wife Emma and the youngest daughter Margaret Ann) emigrated to Australia on the ship Quetta, arriving at Brisbane on 24 September 1884. He died in Brisbane on 24 July 1912.

Harriet Elizabeth. Born Q1 Birmingham RD. 1861 census gives her birthplace as Birmingham Heath, which is on the northern outskirts of Birmingham on the area now known as Winson Green.

Daughter Elizabeth Hannah (born Q4 1865 in Aston RD) marries William Pugh on 30 December 1883 at St John's, Ashted, whch is just north east of Birmingham.The address for both is given as Vauxhall Road.

Son Edward John (born Q4 1868 Aston RD)

Daughter Margaret Ann is born on 9 January 1876 and baptised on 25 October 1876 at St James the Less', Ashted. She goes with her parents to Australia and on 29 March 1899 marries in Queensland (possibly Brisbane or Gympie, 174km north) to Walter James Barker NIAL By 1903 they are in Gympie whre she dies in 1938.

Next: ???

(1)     I haven't researched this properly. This comes from a forum discussion in the rootschat site, but it sounds convincing: www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=262062.0 back to text