Common Ancestor Tales

Harriet Lock was born in Sunbury on Thames. Her father John Charles Lock was a gardener. Her mother Hannah Hatch was also from the Sunbury area. Harriet was the eldest of a family of 7 children and she had a large extended family.

Two of her siblings had ten children each and there were many aunts and uncles in the area too. So the Lock family was numerous and had populated the area for many generations. Many of the Locks were involved in the market garden business that provided much of the food for London at the time. The Lock family did not travel so Harriet’s later life must have been difficult for them to understand.

Harriet married Richard in Aldershot in June 1872 when she was 20. They had six children all born in South Camp, Aldershot. It is likely that the family lived in old wooden barracks that were not fit for purpose. In 1890 the following was written in a report:“The roofs of the huts, which are 35 years old, are flattening down, and the lower frames are rotten. More than 500 have had to be propped up.”

Later she went with Richard and the family to live in Egypt.
Again they lived in the barracks in a large British Army community. Four of her children married into other service families in Egypt. Richard was tragically lost in Egypt in 1898.

She may have stayed in Egypt for some time as many of her children were still there.

Harriet died in West Ashford, Kent. She was 63. Presumably at that point she lived with or near her daughter Blanche and Schilizzi grand-daughters.

Richard Colvin was born in Walworth to Susan Phillis Harris and Henry Colvin. His father was a shoemaker. They moved from Walworth to Bermondsey not long after he was born. The family lived in Pages Walk a large tenement a short walk from the Leather Market.

His father Henry was from Ditchling, Sussex. His mother was born and bred in Covent Garden, Westminster.

Richard was the result of his mother’s second marriage and he had five older half siblings whose surname was Rycroft. He also had a younger sister Sarah. Sadly his father died when he was 5 and his younger sister when he was 8.

Richard left London to join the army in Aldershot. He met and married Harriet and they were married in Aldershot. The couple had had six kids in the married quarter there before they went out to live in Egypt.

Richard died in service in Alexandria aged 54. He had given 25 years service to the British Army.

I think Richard’s story shows how the army provided an education to many and allowed him to leave what were difficult conditions in the slums of London. For both Harriet and Richard travelling to Egypt was a huge step in improving the long term fortunes of their family.

Ann Evans was born in Pembroke Dock, South Wales to Martha Bevan and John Evans. Ann was the third child of six, five of which were girls. One of her sisters became a cook in London and ended up in Kent. I have struggled to find information about the others. Her brother Thomas had eight children all born in Pembroke Dock.

Both Ann’s parents were from the small coastal mining village of Amroth, Pembrokeshire where they had worked in the mines as children. Both their families had been mining in that area for many hundreds of years. The Coal was a form that has Iron with it (anthracite coal). So some worked in the mines and others at the Iron works.

Ann would definitely have been brought up with a good knowledge of Amroth and the mining community there. They were probably a welsh speaking community although all their records are in English. Mining was a hard life by the mid 1800’s many people were starting to look for better employment. John seems to have managed to get trained up to be a Sawyer or Carpenter. He worked in the shipyard at Pembroke Dock.

Ann married William in 1865 aged 16 and she had her first child Mary Ann in Pembroke Dock. However the young family soon moved to Netley Barrack near Southampton. And the next four children were born there. Although some are recorded as being born in Hound and South Stoneham so they may have lived off site.

Annie the sixth child was born in Jersey, Channel Islands, so we know the family spent a short while there. The next child Daisy was born in Edinburgh and then Ada was born in Inverness.

William finally retired from the army in 1881 and took a position at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary as a porter. This position came with accomodation and the whole family lived there for many years. They had three further children in Edinburgh

Sadly five years later in 1886 Ann died of pelvic inflammation – possibly this was a post partum infection as she had just given birth to her 10th child Nelly. William was present at her death. She was buried in Morningside Cemetery in Edinburgh.

William Smith was born in Liverpool. His father Simpson Smith was a successful stone mason who had a large family. As a small child William lived in Peach Street which was a fashionable cobble stoned part of Liverpool. Peach Street is now one of the main pedestrianised roads that runs through the University of Liverpool and all the houses have been knocked down. However there are many similar streets in the area that have been preserved.

Simpson had had a large family with his first wife Hannah and had sadly been widowed. William and his full brother Boyle were the two youngest children. Their mother was Sarah Foster (Fulstone on William’s death certificate) who came from Birmingham. When William was a little older his father bought a large yard a bit further out of town and the family continued to live there. Records say that Simpson’s father was a Robert Smith also a Stone Mason from Glasgow. So perhaps William always had a Scottish identity.

William joined the medical corp of the army when he was 18. He joined up in Liverpool. He spent a year and a half in the East Indies with the medical corp from 1859. He was then stationed for a while near Pembroke Dock. Whilst he was there he met Ann and they married.

William then worked at Netley hospital near Southampton for about 5 years. They did a short spell on Jersey and then moved to Edinburgh and Inverness. Finally in 1881 they moved back to Edinburgh where William left the army after almost 24 years service. At that point he started to work as a porter at the Royal Infirmary.

William was widowed in 1886 at 44. He continued to work as a porter and live at the hospital for many more years.

There then followed a run of deaths in the family. In 1897 his daughter Nelly died aged 11. In 1898 both his eldest daughter Mary Ann died in Edinburgh and his son George died in Cairo Egypt.
In 1899 his daughter Daisy died aged 20. In 1902 his daughter Rebecca died. In 1907 his eldest son William John died in Edinburgh aged 44. He also lost two grandsons Frederick Coles aged 7 in 1904 and in 1917 (William George Richard Smith at Ypres on the battle field).

So William was predeceased by his wife, 5 of his children and two of his grandchildren. It must have been a very hard decade.