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The
Mansfield family: Huntingdonshire's underclass
My Mother's Father's Mother's Mother's family
The narrative can be read in conjunction with the Cornwell family tree. You can see
places significant to the Mansfield family on the site map of
Cambridge and district.
This family story includes material from, and links with,
the stories of the Cornwell, Huckle and Mortlock families. My direct ancestors are highlighted
in bold the first time they appear in the
narrative.
In 1815, the year that Wellington defeated Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo and thus the year that the 19th Century began in earnest, my great-great-great-grandfather Abraham Mansfield was born in Needingworth on the border between Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire. Abraham's father Joseph was an agricultural labourer - indeed, he was still being shown as such on the 1861 census, when he was well into his eighties - but in general the Mansfield family had a reputation for living outside the law, rarely marrying and producing illegitimate children at a prodigious rate. However, Abraham married my great-great-great-grandmother Kezia Clarke Mansfield in 1833 when he was in his late teens.
Several of my sixteen ancestral families through my great-great-grandparents had a close relationship with the workhouse, but the Mansfields were more familiar with it than most. In 1851, for example, a large minority of the inhabitants of the St Ives workhouse (actually in the village of Hemingford Grey, just outside of St Ives) had the Mansfield surname, including Joseph and his wife Mary and several of their childrens' families, including that of Abraham and his wife Kezia. Abraham himself, however, was no longer around. He had been caught breaking into a dwelling house, and on 28th June 1841 he was sentenced at Huntingdon Assizes to seven years transportation. After a short spell in Worcester prison, he was received onto the prison hulk ship Warrior in the Thames Estuary on the 25th August 1841. The hulks will be familiar to readers of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, and this is extraordinary to me, because at that time another of my great-great-great-grandfathers, John Harrall, was living as a boy in the village of Higham in Kent, beside which the hulks were moored and which was the setting for Pip's home and the churchyard in Great Expectations. Dickens novel is set at exactly this time. The Mansfields were on my mother's side of the family and the Harralls on my father's side. I feel as if I were the first direct descendant of both Abel Magwitch and Philip Pirrip.
It was almost a year before Abraham Mansfield was transferred to the prison ship which would take him to Australia. This was the Triton, and it left the Thames Estuary on 4th August 1842. It was bound for Van Diemens Land, which is today called Tasmania. There is no evidence that Abraham Mansfield ever returned to England. He seems to have been well-behaved as a transportee, receiving his Ticket of Leave in 1846 and his Certificate of Freedom in 1848. At the time of the 1851 census, his wife Kezia in the St Ives workhouse described herself as married, but by 1861 she was calling herself a widow. However, there is a record of an Abraham Mansfield, general dealer of Lymington, Tasmania, applying for discharge from bankruptcy in 1863.
Kezia had at least eight children, but there were probably more. In the main, they were not baptised, and so we only know them through the census data, marriages and burials until civil registration started in 1837. Several of them were convicted of criminal offences and sent to prison. Only the eldest three, including my great-great-grandmother Eliza Mansfield, can possibly be Abraham's children.
| Joseph
Mansfield Born Needingworth in 1835 and baptised in Holywells church on 22nd February. His father Abraham was recorded as a labourer. In 1841 Joseph was the eldest of three children at home in Church Lane, Needingworth, but by 1851 he was in the St Ives workhouse. On 24 February 1855, the Cambridge Independent Press reported that Joseph Mansfield, a member of a benefit club in Needingworth, summoned Fisher Webster, treasurer to the club, for refusing to pay him 9s a week sick money. The case was dismissed. On 5th January 1857 he was sentenced at Cambridge Assizes to six months with hard labour for larceny of goods. On 16th May 1857, the Cambridge Independent Press reported an inquest into the death of 24 year old Joseph Mansfield of Needingworth, who had died in Cambridge Gaol. It noted that, due to ill health, the 'hard labour' portion of his sentence had not been applied, but he had been employed as a cook. However, his health had declined and he had been removed to the gaol infirmary, where he had died. The inquest noted that Joseph was a veteran of the Crimean War, having served two seasons in the trenches. The gaol surgeon Mr Hammond deposed that Joseph's death was due to consumption (ie, tuberculosis) and the inquest returned a verdict of Natural Death. He was buried in Holywel churchyard on 11th May 1857, when it was recorded in the parish register that Joseph was lately a soldier. Abram
Mansfield Eliza
Mansfield Samuel
Mansfield Emma
Mansfield Harriet
Mansfield Edward
Mansfield Henry
William Mansfield |
Eliza was living in the St Ives workhouse in 1851, along with her mother, grandparents, brothers, sisters and cousins. But before the next census her life would be turned around. On 16th January 1861, Eliza married my great-great-grandfather Thomas Moody Mortlock at Needingworth parish church. Thomas was just 19 years old, two years younger than his bride. He came from a fairly prosperous household, his father a mealsman, a dealer in cereals and grain. Eliza was six months pregnant at the time of the marriage. The witnesses were Thomas's elder sister Hephzibah and Eliza's brother Samuel, recently released from prison. It cannot have been seen as a good match by Thomas's parents. Nevertheless, the census of April that year finds the couple living with Thomas's parents, and their first child Samuel was already a month old, born three months after their marriage.
It is worth reflecting that girls from the Mansfield family very often got pregnant in their late teens and early twenties, and very rarely got married. They would continue to have further children without marriage; often, presumably, by different fathers. Whole generations of the Mansfield family went by without anyone marrying. The impetus for the marriage between Thomas Moody Mortlock and Eliza Mansfield must, therefore, have come from the Mortlock family. For Eliza, it was an event which would change her life, taking her away from the feral underclass into the stability of an honest hard-working family. That the Mortlocks would ensure the future comfort of Eliza's mother Kezia, even as far as making sure she had a headstone when she died, is even greater to their credit.
By the time Thomas
and Eliza's daughter, my great-grandmother Eliza
Mortlock, was born in 1865, The family
were living respectably in High Street, Needingworth, and
they would live there for the rest of their lives. Thomas
was a bricklayer, probably in his Uncle John's business.
These are the fourteen children of Thomas and Eliza
Mortlock. In general, the girls went into service, the
boys into their father's trade. They travelled further
than any of my other great-grandparents' families, the
censuses finding them living in Coventry, Essex,
Bradford, Leeds and Wiltshire; several of them ended up
in the east end of London. And yet, most of them came
home again. Two of the children died in infancy, another
while still relatively young, but most of Thomas and
Eliza's children lived to a good age.
| Samuel
Mortlock Born Swavesey 1861. Samuel's birth, a few days after the 1861 census, was three months after his parents' marriage. He was born in the house of his grandparents, John and Mary Mortlock. The family moved to Needingworth a few months later. Samuel was baptised at Holywell church on 1st June 1873, when he was 12 years old. Samuel became a bricklayer like his father. He married Mary Ellen Toyn at Spilsby in Lincolnshire in July 1884; she had probably been in domestic service in the St Ives area. Samuel and Mary moved into 15 Gloucester Street Cambridge, a road off of Castle Hill. They had five children: Matilda, Lawrence, Harold, Nellie and Geoffrey. In 1911, the sixteen year old Geoffrey was an apprentice electrical engineer, probably with Pye. Mary Ellen died on 26th September 1915 at the age of 55. She was buried in the St Giles burial ground (today the Ascension burial ground) on Huntingdon Road, Cambridge. On the same headstone is her daughter Nellie May, wife of BT Wolfe, who died two years after Mary Ellen. Samuel died in Cambridge on September 17th 1930, and was buried in the same plot. He was 69 years old. The headstone is easily found, immediately to the east of the famous memorial to Ludwig Wittgenstein. Emma
Mortlock By the time of the 1901 census, the two younger children Edwin and Florence were living with their grandparents Thomas and Eliza Mortlock in Needingworth. Merrington, however, was an inmate in Bedford Prison at the age of sixteen. On 2nd November 1900 the Cambridge Independent Press had reported that Merrington was charged at Huntingdon Assizes, along with three other youths, with the rape of one Florence Emily Swales in St Neots. Four other youths were also charged with being implicated. The rape charges were dropped against all the defendants, but several of the others were found guilty of carnal knowledge of an under age girl, and Merrington was found guilty of indecent assault, for which he received the sentence of twelve months hard labour. After leaving prison, he joined the Dragoon Guards at Northampton, giving his name as Merrington Mortlake Smith, incidentally declaring on his attestation form that he had never been 'imprisoned by the civil power'. He gave his brothers Edwin and Thomas as his next of kin, and in February 1904 he was posted to India, where he served for four years, followed by a spell of two years in South Africa. He was transferred to the Reserve in 1910, and discharged from duty five months before the outbreak of the First World War. By 1911, Florence was living with her aunt Kate Mortlock at 80 Meanley Road, Manor Park in East London, where they worked together as dressmakers. Merrington was also in East London, working as a tram conductor and living at 165 Grove Road, Bethnal Green with his new bride, 19 year old Naomi, née West, whom he had married a few weeks earlier. They would have three children. One of Merrington's great-granddaughters in Australia sent me photographs of Merrington in his Dragoon Guards uniform, Merrington in his later years, and Merrington and Naomi with their three children. He died in east London in 1960, at the age of 75. Hephzibah
Mortlock Annoyingly, I have not yet found Hephzibah on the 1911 census. But whatever befell her in the years in between, Hephzibah returned to Needingworth, because she died there in 1946, apparently unmarried, and was buried in the Holywell-cum-Needingworth churchyard at the age of 84, beside the grave of her grandmother, my great-great-great-grandmother, Kezia Mansfield. She shares the headstone with her younger brother. The inscription reads In loving memory of Hephzibah Mortlock who entered into rest 10th March 1946. Also her brother JOHN MORTLOCK who entered into rest 1st October 1944 aged 71 years. Resting. Eliza
Mortlock Thomas
Mortlock Kate
Ann Mortlock Kate
Mortlock In the second quarter of 1917, when Kate was 45 years old, she married John Payne at Romford in Essex, and they lived in Westcliff-on-Sea in the suburbs of Southend. But Kate came back to Needingworth after John's death. She died herself in 1955. Her grave in Holywell-cum-Needingworth churchyard reads: In Loving Memory of KATE PAYNE, Widow of John Charles Payne, Late of Westcliff-on-Sea and Daughter of Thomas M and Eliza Mortlock, who entered into rest 26th June 1955 aged 83 years. Until the day break and the shadows flee away. John
Mortlock Ann
Caroline Mortlock Jeanette
Mortlock Jeanette married John James Manning Medlock at Needingworth church on 10th March 1897 when she was 22 years old. Medlock was from Cambridge, but the 1901 census finds Jeanette and James living in Station Street East, Coventry in Warwickshire, where James was the superintendent of a tramcar shed. They had two children, Reginald and Doris, and living with them was Jeanette's sister Julia, who gave her occupation as a cook, presumably for another household. Ten years later, there were three more children, Vincent, Maud and Ada, although Maud was actually the illegitimate daughter of Jeanette's sister Julia. Living in the household was Johns's cousin Arthur Medlock, also born in Cambridge, and working as a tram conductor. In 1925, John died at the age of 56. Jeanette died in 1942, in Salisbury in Wiltshire, while visiting her daughter Doris. She was 72 years old, and her death was registered under the name Jeanetta. Julia
Mortlock In 1917, Julia Mortlock was recorded in the Chelmsford Chronicle as one of the subscribers to a retirement gift presented by her employer James Glasse to the Rector of Willingale Doe. In the last quarter of 1922, Julia's daughter Maud married John Middleton in Coventry. She gave her father's name as John Medlock. A photograph around the time of her marriage shows Jeanette sitting bottom right with Maud beside her. Soon after, Maud and John Middleton emigrated to Australia. On the 18th July 1924, the Chelmsford Chronicle reported in its wills and bequests column that Mr JF Glass (sic) of Berners Hall had left £50 to his housekeeper Miss Julia Mortlock if in his service, and one months wages to other servants. His entire estate amounted to almost £25,000. The Berners Hall Farm was bought by the Co-operative Society, who still run it today. In Australia, Maud had two daughters, Moya and Aileen Julia (does the middle name of her second daughter suggest that Maud did indeed know who her real mother was?). Both girls, Julia's granddaughters, lived into their eighties, dying within a few months of each other in 2011. Maud herself had lived into her nineties, dying on 15th July 1997. Her granddaughter Judy recalls that right up until her death, her mind was as sharp as a whip. She and my mum would write to each other every week and her handwriting was perfect. It does not appear that Julia ever married, and she returned to Needingworth, where she died in 1957. Her grave in Needingworth churchyard reads: In Loving Memory of JULIA MORTLOCK who entered into rest 7th February 1957 aged 80 years. Resting. Ruth
Elizabeth Mortlock Martha
Ethel Mortlock Alice
Maud Kezia Mortlock |
Thomas's father John Mortlock died in Huntingdonshire in October 1872. He was 79 years old. An interesting incident is recorded the following year in the Holywell-cum-Needingworth parish records. On the 1st June 1873, Thomas and Eliza took the eight children that had been born to them so far to church and had them baptised, probably with water from the holy well in the churchyard which gives the hamlet its name. The occasion was the baptism of their new infant son, John. Perhaps the parish had a new Rector who was filled with enthusiasm, or perhaps Thomas and Eliza underwent a conversion of some kind - Thomas himself had been baptised three months earlier. Or perhaps it was simply his father's death that had concentrated Thomas's mind.
Thomas declared himself as self-employed on the 1911 census, when he was 69. He died seven years later. Eliza lived for almost another twenty years, dying in Needingworth in the first quarter of 1938 when she was a few weeks short of her 99th birthday. Their gravestone in Needingworth churchyard reads In loving memory of THOMAS MOODY MORTLOCK who entered into rest March 3rd 1919 in his 78th year. "Today Thou shalt be with me in Paradise". Also of ELIZA MORTLOCK wife of the above who entered into rest March 23rd 1938 aged 98. Until the day break and the shadows flee away. Six of their children also have memorials in the churchyard, two of them next to Thomas and Eliza's headstone.
My great-grandmother Eliza Mortlock was living at home in Needingworth at the time of the 1871 census, but by the age of 15 she was living as a servant in the household of James Stevens, a grocer of Alexandra Place in St Ives. Four years later, Eliza married William Huckle Cornwell, an agricultural labourer, on the 22nd March 1885 at St Andrew's Church, Histon, Cambridgeshire. William signed the register with a cross, indicating that he was illiterate, but Eliza was able to sign her own name. The witnesses were John Royal Hounsham and William's sister Hannah. If Hounsham were William's friend and witness, it suggests that Hannah Cornwell was Eliza's, and that Eliza and William had met because Eliza and Hannah were friends. John Hounsham and Hannah Cornwell would marry later in the year.
William
and Eliza lived in High Street, Histon, and their first
child was born the following December. By 1891, they had
two further children, and then the Cornwells moved a mile
or so to Oakington before the next census, and were
living in Dry Drayton Road. There would be five further
children before their youngest child my grandfather Edmund Stanley Cecil
Cornwell was born in 1903. These are the
nine children of William and Eliza Cornwell:
| Clarence
Charles Cornwell Born Histon, Cambridgeshire on the 19th December 1885. His birth was registered under the surname Cornell rather than Cornwell, but when he was baptised at St Andrew's church in Histon on 17th January 1886, his surname was recorded as Cornwell. In 1911, Charles was still living at home and working as a farm labourer. However, in the second quarter of 1911 he married Caroline Flack of Trumpington in the Chesterton Registration District. When the First World War broke out, Charles enlisted as a private soldier with the Cambridgeshire Regiment, but was transferred to become a Lance-Corporal in the Military Foot Police. His medal record shows that he landed in France on the 14th February 1915, when he was 29 years old. He survived the War, and remained in the forces, joining the Grenadier Guards. My mother remembers him visiting her family in uniform when she was a child in the 1940s. Clarence died in Cambridge in the 4th quarter of 1956. Lily Elizabeth Cornwell
Walter
Eric Cornwell Violet
Maude Cornwell Catherine
Ayliffe Grace Cornwell Frances
Eliza Cornwell Ruth
Mortlock Cornwell William
Arthur James Cornwell Edmund Stanley
Cecil Cornwell |
When Edmund Stanley 'Stan' Cornwell was born, Stan's father William gave his occupation on the birth certificate as a bricklayer's labourer, but by 1911 he is shown as a roadman for Chesterton Rural District Council, and this would also appear on his death certificate 33 years later. William had adapted his parents' surname of Cornell into Cornwell. Nevertheless, some of Stan's siblings had their births registered under the surname Cornell rather than Cornwell. In later years,
Edmund was always known as Stan. He
married my grandmother Winifred Ellen Reynolds in 1923. She came from the neighbouring
village of Dry Drayton, but they married in Lichfield,
Staffordshire when they were both just 19 years old. They
gave false ages to acquire the certificate, as one of
them had to be of age, that is to say 21 or over. They
were in Staffordshire because my grandmother was
pregnant, and they had run away to get married. Stan's
older sister Ruth lived at Colton on the outskirts of
Rugeley, and she arranged the marriage for them. Their
first child was born less than three months later. He had
a learning disability, and lived with his mother for the
rest of her life.
Stan and Win returned to Cambridge after the birth of
their first child, and lived firstly at Oakington with
Stan's parents and then in Castle Row near to Win's
parents. In the late 1920s they moved away, first to
Barway near Ely and then to Grunty Fen on the other side
of the river, before settling in Little Thetford.
His parents William and Eliza were still living in Oakington, in a house in Wheeler Street. Eliza trained and worked as a midwife, cycling around the south Cambridgeshire villages. She died of a cerebral hemorrhage on 16th February 1929 at the age of 63. William outlived his wife, and died at the age of 80 on December 3rd 1944, while staying with his daughter Lily at Hamstall Ridware near Rugeley in Staffordshire. My mother tells a story of how, after he died, another daughter Frances went to his cottage wanting to retrieve a memento. Unable to get in, she smashed a window and took a tea strainer off of the draining board. My mother knew him as Grandpa William, and she was photographed with him in July 1938, when she was two and he was seventy-four.
These are the nine children of Edmund Stanley Cornwell and Winifred Ellen Reynolds:
| Cecil
Thomas Walter Cornwell Born Colton, Staffordshire on 29th October 1923. Cecil had a learning disability, and lived with his mother for the rest of her life. After her death, he lived in a care home at Toft, Cambridgeshire. He died in his sleep there in February 1990. Stanley Arthur James
Cornwell Jack
Travers Cornwell Reginald
Trevor Cornwell Edward
Malcolm Cornwell Betty
Katherine Cornwell June
Frances Cornwell Marion
Patricia Cornwell Albert
Paul Cornwell |
Stan was a farrier, working with horses on farms in the Isle of Ely. During the Second World War he was in the Cambridgeshire Regiment. He was missing for six months before his family discovered he was in a hospital. He is the only one of my grandparents that I did not know - he died of a heart attack at the age of 50, in 1953, nine years after his father died and eight years before I was born. He is buried in Little Thetford cemetery.
AT A GLANCE: DETAILS FROM REGISTERS AND CENSUS DATA all addresses are in Huntingdonshire or Cambridgeshire unless otherwise stated. |
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