Family Secrets
Do you have a complicated set up with some of your family, a little bit of a dubios marriage, or a falling out? I would be surprised if there wasn't something in every family and most of the families I have researched for clients tend to dig up something. To my mind, this is what makes it all so interesting because you never know what you are going to find when you start investigating. Ordinary people living ordinary lives and making the same mistakes generation after generation. There is nothing new under the sun as the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes tells us in Ch1 V9 "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."
My own family is no exception to this. They were chimney sweeps, and not particularly well off - well my branch wasn't, the great uncles side was much better off!
Joseph Holloway Boulter, the third son of Samuel and Elizabeth Boulter, was born in Dover on 29 December 1812. He wasn't christened until nearly 10 years later at St Mary's, Dover on 29 March 1822, the same day as one of his younger brothers. I don't know how he came to be 'missed', the majority of the 13 children seem to have been 'done' at the usual time, shortly after birth, but at a wide variety of chapels and churches, both nonconformist and anglican.
Samuel was a shoemaker but only one son followed in his father's footsteps. Of the six boys that survived to adulthood four went into the trade of chimney sweeping.
My own family is no exception to this. They were chimney sweeps, and not particularly well off - well my branch wasn't, the great uncles side was much better off!
Joseph Holloway Boulter, the third son of Samuel and Elizabeth Boulter, was born in Dover on 29 December 1812. He wasn't christened until nearly 10 years later at St Mary's, Dover on 29 March 1822, the same day as one of his younger brothers. I don't know how he came to be 'missed', the majority of the 13 children seem to have been 'done' at the usual time, shortly after birth, but at a wide variety of chapels and churches, both nonconformist and anglican.
Samuel was a shoemaker but only one son followed in his father's footsteps. Of the six boys that survived to adulthood four went into the trade of chimney sweeping.
Joseph married Harriet Langridge at All Saints, Hastings, SSX on 23 December 1832 and at sometime they moved to Brighton, SSX and then on to Southsea, HAM. They had seven children over the course of the next 20 years - three boys and four girls.
In 1841 Joseph was a sweep living on Circus Street, Brighton, SSX, employing one apprentice, two sweeps and one female servant. In 1845, the christening record for one of his sons shows him as a hawker, which is backed up by a newspaper report of his brushes being stolen from Harriet whilst she was dealing with a shopkeeper. By 1851 the fortunes seem to have changed, with noone listed as in their employ, or maybe they just didn't live with the family.
They were living on Mariaborne [sic] Street, Portsmouth, HAM. Joseph is listed as a chimney sweep, and Harriet 'at home', with the children attending school.
Things were to get even worse for the family though, as in July 1852 Joseph took himself off for a drink after his tea. He never returned home alive, for after a few sociable drinks with his friends and whilst under the influence he took part in a swimming race from Southsea Pier. He vomited whilst in the water and inhaled this thus suffocating himself. By the time he was brought back to the beach he was dead. The newspaper report of the inquest goes into great detail about what happened - involving carrying him upside down as he was naked from skinny dipping [to preserve the ladies blushes!] and trying to revive him in hot water as well as the fact that he had had cabbage for tea and this was the food in his throat that had suffocated him.
Now Harriet was a widow and in the late stages of pregnancy with the couples youngest daughter. With five children and one on the way life cannot have been much fun.
However, all is not lost - enter husband number two in the form of one Charles Gordon Eneas, also a chimney sweep. Charles was from Rye, SSX and had been living in Brighton at the same time as Joseph and Harriet. In 1851 he was working as a bricklayers labourer - Harriet's father was a bricklayer. At this stage he was married to Elizabeth but she must have died in the next couple of years as on 5 April 1854 Charles married Harriet at Portsmouth Parish Church.
March 1864 saw the birth of their only daughter, Ellen, nearly 10 years after their marriage had taken place. Within a month, Harriet had died leaving her new born baby in the care of her youngest daughter by Joseph, Mary Ann. Mary Ann Charlotte Boulter was just four when her father drowned, and 16 when her mother died.
Mary obviously caught the eye of her stepfather as she married him a year after her mother's death on 24 April 1865 at St Mary's, Portsea. In June she gave birth to a daughter, Mary Elizabeth. Charles and Mary went on to have a total of 13 children. Both Ellen and Mary Elizabeth died in December 1868 and were buried together. Charles died in 1897 and Mary in 1915.
In 1841 Joseph was a sweep living on Circus Street, Brighton, SSX, employing one apprentice, two sweeps and one female servant. In 1845, the christening record for one of his sons shows him as a hawker, which is backed up by a newspaper report of his brushes being stolen from Harriet whilst she was dealing with a shopkeeper. By 1851 the fortunes seem to have changed, with noone listed as in their employ, or maybe they just didn't live with the family.
They were living on Mariaborne [sic] Street, Portsmouth, HAM. Joseph is listed as a chimney sweep, and Harriet 'at home', with the children attending school.
Things were to get even worse for the family though, as in July 1852 Joseph took himself off for a drink after his tea. He never returned home alive, for after a few sociable drinks with his friends and whilst under the influence he took part in a swimming race from Southsea Pier. He vomited whilst in the water and inhaled this thus suffocating himself. By the time he was brought back to the beach he was dead. The newspaper report of the inquest goes into great detail about what happened - involving carrying him upside down as he was naked from skinny dipping [to preserve the ladies blushes!] and trying to revive him in hot water as well as the fact that he had had cabbage for tea and this was the food in his throat that had suffocated him.
Now Harriet was a widow and in the late stages of pregnancy with the couples youngest daughter. With five children and one on the way life cannot have been much fun.
However, all is not lost - enter husband number two in the form of one Charles Gordon Eneas, also a chimney sweep. Charles was from Rye, SSX and had been living in Brighton at the same time as Joseph and Harriet. In 1851 he was working as a bricklayers labourer - Harriet's father was a bricklayer. At this stage he was married to Elizabeth but she must have died in the next couple of years as on 5 April 1854 Charles married Harriet at Portsmouth Parish Church.
March 1864 saw the birth of their only daughter, Ellen, nearly 10 years after their marriage had taken place. Within a month, Harriet had died leaving her new born baby in the care of her youngest daughter by Joseph, Mary Ann. Mary Ann Charlotte Boulter was just four when her father drowned, and 16 when her mother died.
Mary obviously caught the eye of her stepfather as she married him a year after her mother's death on 24 April 1865 at St Mary's, Portsea. In June she gave birth to a daughter, Mary Elizabeth. Charles and Mary went on to have a total of 13 children. Both Ellen and Mary Elizabeth died in December 1868 and were buried together. Charles died in 1897 and Mary in 1915.
Was Charles marriage to Harriet one of convenience, a means by which he bought himself a chimney sweeping business, or a way for Harriet to continue to provide for her children with the business her first husband had built up, their sons too young to successfully manage on their own. When Charles married step daughter Mary, notices appeared in the paper in which he disassociated himself from Joseph and Thomas, two of Harriet and Joseph's sons. Did they not approve of their sister marrying their step father? I can't think of many people who would. Perhaps they had been left with nothing when their mother died, the business going to Charles. Without written evidence I shall never know but it is still an intriguing set of circumstances, one which I will try to get to the bottom of if given the chance.
This photograph was thought to be Joseph & Harriet, but cannot be as they didn't have twins [note the identically dressed children in the centre]. Plus it is unlikely that they could afford a photograph in the earliest days of photography. It is more likely to be one of their sons, Joseph Samuel Boulter, brother to my ancestor Thomas Jones Boulter. Joseph was successful in his chimney sweeping business and lived in a more prosperous area of Southsea, Thomas lived in one of the poorer areas, one which was cleared in slum clearances of the early C20th. [with thanks to family member for supplying this photograph]
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