Edwin (1841-82) and Mary Ann (1839-1925) ANTHONY of east London
Revised 5 October 2014.
Links:
Immediate ancestors: Charles and Sarah ANTHONY - Immediate descendants: Henry and Maria Ann ANTHONY
The Anthony story - ANTHONY research notes
index of surnames
Mary is the mother of our next ancestor Henry according to his birth certificate, and their appearing as parent and child in censuses. In 1881, this young Henry is the only one in London of the right age (to within two years) to match later censuses (and in fact his age is spot on and his birth parish matches too). This is not a totally straightforward story so please see her page for more details.
However, the evidence for Edwin being Henry's father (censuses, and Edwin's marriage certificate) is not found before Henry is about 4. Henry's birth certificate gives a different father (see Mary's page). Henry took Edwin’s surname of ANTHONY and kept it all his life, and Edwin is recorded as Henry’s father in the 1871 census, 1881 census and Henry’s 1884 marriage certificate. Despite all this, he may technically only have been a step-father to Henry. Or, since Henry's natural father is a bit of a puzzle, it may yet have been Edwin.
Edwin's parents were Charles and Sarah ANTHONY. His childhood census entries are detailed on their page. They had Edwin in April 1841 in Devonport, Devon. This birth date and place match Edwin's adult census entries as detailed below, and are the only child entries in the census index that do (repeat this search to check how tightly).
Mary's parents were Isaac Elias and Ann ABENDANA, members of London's Portuguese Jewish community, into which Mary was born. They are shown to be Mary's parents by her birth and marriage certificates and by the 1841 and 1851 censuses having them as a family.
Edwin's childhood is detailed on his parents' page. By the 1861 census, Edwin is absent from that family. He'd have been aged about 19, so he may well have gone away from home to work. I should continue to look for him in that census and any other records from the 1860s – see discussion in the Family Life section. His parents lived in Essex about 1855, when he'd have been about 15 and then they moved to east London, so the most likely place to look in 1861 would be east London or Essex.
Mary's life before she is recorded with Edwin is something of a conundrum - there is full discussion on her own page.
An open question is when Edwin and Mary first got together. It must have been by 1870 – he is registered as the father of ‘their’ fourth child, Charlotte (see next section). However: I have found neither of them in the 1861 census, I have not found a marriage record for them, and I have found no evidence of Edwin in earlier birth registrations (see below). All I can say is that it doesn’t look like they were admittedly living as a couple in or before 1867. But at the more casual or clandestine level their relationship might have started any time in the 1860s or even a bit earlier. Both families seem to have been from Mile End at this time, but I really need to find at least one of Edwin and Mary in 1861 to see where they were and with whom.
Anyway, Mary evidently had some sort of male company. There are three children that she brought up with Edwin but whose birth dates are before the two are recorded together:
Anne or Anna born 1864 in Mile End Old Town (Plummer's Row). Registered to Henry BENDON and Mary Ann BENDON formerly BENDON. Plumber's Row is in what my map now calls Whitechapel, between Whitechapel Road and Commercial Road near where they meet.
Moses in 1866 in Mile End Old Town (York Street). Registered to Henry BENDON and Mary Ann BENDON formerly BENDON
Israel in 1868 in Mile End Old Town (Plummer's Row). Registered to Israel BENDON and Mary Ann BENDON formerly BENDON.
For a discussion of this supposed Henry/Israel BENDON, see Mary's page.
Then there are five more children, who we can say with confidence were Edwin's as well as Mary's:
Charlotte in 1870 in the parish of St George in the East. She is registered to Edward ANTHONY and Mary Ann ANTHONY formerly BENDON.
Elizabeth in 1872 in St George's. Registered with same parents.
Hannah in 1874 in St George's.
Edwin Herbert in 1875 in St George's. Registered with same parents.
Mary Ann in 1878 in St George's.
The family lived at a number of addresses in the parish of St George in the East, and Edwin worked at at least two fairly menial (as far as I can tell) jobs in manufacturing firms.
In 1870, at Charlotte's birth, they are living at Grove Street, St George's, and Edwin is a porter in a mustard[?] mills.
In 1871, at the census, they are at the same address, but Edwin is given as a packer - this may be the same job he had for the next several years. The family is enumerated as Edward, Mary, Anne, Moses, Isreal and Charlotte. There is another couple, with their six children, at the same address - this was rather crowded accommodation.
In 1872, at Elizabeth's birth, they are living on Providence Street, St George's, and Edwin is a packer in a toy warehouse.
By 1874, they were on Jane Street, St George's, where they stayed for the rest of Edwin's life. Jane Street is south off Commercial Road, near to the modern Shadwell station on the Docklands Light Railway. The road is rated as 'Poor - 18 to 21s a Week' in Charles Booth's Descriptive Map of London Poverty 1889. That's the third category from the bottom in a 7-point scale.
The address is first known from a record of Charlotte, aged 4, enrolling at Berners Street Board School. According to a somewhat later description, this school was housed at least partly in an old industrial building and had a majority of Jewish pupils. Charlotte and the other girls would have learned cookery, laundry, sewing, English (many did not initially speak it), reading and writing, drawing tables, some science, and religion. The boys at the school studied crafts such as woodwork and metalwork instead of the housework type skills of the girls. Berners Street was renamed Henriques Street, which is also south of Commercial Road in Whitechapel, but further west than Jane Street, nearer to Aldgate East underground station and Plumber's Row mentioned above.
In 1875 at Edwin junior's birth they are at the same address; at this date and in 1878 when little Edwin died, Edwin senior was still a packer.
In the 1881 census, they are again still at the Jane Street address and Edwin is still a packer (this time Mary is a furrier as well). The interesting point about this census is that the names of the family are enumerated somewhat differently: Edwin, Mary, Anna, Henry, Isedoar, Charlotte, Elizabeth, Hannah and Mary Ann. Judging from the ages, Henry is Moses, Isedoar is Israel - there looks to be some shift from Jewish to 'English'.
There are two other couples at the address this time, but only one with a couple of kids, and the ANTHONYs are listed first so may occupy more of the house.
I was initially thrown by the name differences for the two older boys, and wondered whether I had the right family. But there are so many similarities, and connections later in life (fuller details on Mary’s page because more of them involve her), that I am convinced.
In 1882, Edwin died, of tuberculosis. His death certificate shows that he was still living on Jane Street, and that his occupation was warehouseman. This may have been synonymous with his previous description of packer in a warehouse, but I sort of suspect it reflected a shift from the core business of packing, which presumably had to be done with rapidity and may have involved some heavy lifting or carrying, to lighter duties around the place as he got seriously ill. Mary Ann was with him when he died and registered the death. The surviving children were aged from 18 (Anne) down to 4 (Mary Ann).
Mary Ann married again (possibly in fact for the first official time) in 1886, but had no further children. She was 47 by then, though she apparently claimed to be 39. She died in 1925. There are more details on her own page.
I have not yet looked for wills or similar.
Henry has his own family page. There is some more information about some of the others on Mary's page.
If you are interested in this family I'll be pleased to hear from you. Click this link to email me at deletethis.ianwilliamson161@gmail.com but delete everything up to and including the first dot, leaving just my initial and surname @ service provider. Please do not delete the automatically-generated subject line, so that I know your email is not spam. You can add more to the subject but if you delete what appears I may not read your mail.
Links:
Immediate ancestors: Charles and Sarah ANTHONY - Immediate descendants: Henry and Maria Ann ANTHONY
The Anthony story - ANTHONY research notes
index of surnames