I had to smile

I had to smile.  One of the hints on Ancestry for Ellen Jane Ansell (nee Howard) was a memorial card.  On it were the words: “A true wife, a loving mother, a faithful friend”.  Lovely words, yes, but I have to tell you that it was a wry smile as I had just stumbled across the very messy divorce papers for Ellen and her first husband, George Maxted.

My connection in all of this is Thomas Ansell, Ellen’s second husband. Born in Reigate, Surrey, in 1862, he was the son of Jane Philpott (from West Grinstead, Sussex) and Eldred Ansell (from Horsham).  By 1881 Thomas was working as a live-in groom in Reigate.  By 1887 he was clearly living in London as in February that year he married Kathleen Cullum in Hampstead, address of both given as Winchester Mews.  Thomas had risen to become a coachman.  But tragedy struck only two years later as in the spring of 1889 Kathleen died, around the time of the birth of their son Thomas, so perhaps there were complications with the birth.  I don’t know who looked after little Thomas in his early years as two years later the 1891 census records Thomas senior, widower, living alone at 27 Bathurst Mews, Paddington (coachman, domestic).

In that same census, George Maxted, valet, his wife Ellen and their baby son Cecil Howard were living at number 44 Bathurst Mews.  It would seem that, three years after Kathleen’s death, Thomas and Ellen formed a relationship.  By June 1892 they were living together and Ellen gave birth to a son Douglas in November that year. 

I had never encountered a divorce petition relating to an ancestor before, but there is much detail in the one lodged by Ellen’s husband George in 1893 and which I found as a hint on Ancestry.  There are many changes of address cited for all parties involved, but George claimed that Thomas visited Ellen at an address in Paddington during February and March 1892 and that they subsequently lived together at 80 Fernhead Road, Harrow Road.  George stated that he was not the father of Ellen’s son Douglas.  He claimed damages of £100, asked for the marriage to be dissolved and requested custody of their son Cecil. 

Now it turns out that Ellen’s parents were also living in Bathurst Mews at the time of the 1891 census and that Ellen’s father Moses was also a coachman, so it is quite possible that Thomas knew Moses through his work as well as through living in the same road. 

When Charles Booth’s Descriptive Map of London Poverty was published in 1889, Bathurst Mews was classed as ‘fairly comfortable – good ordinary earnings’. Looking on Street View you can get a good sense of how everyone would have known each other in this narrow, cobbled area, where two bedroom properties are now selling for well over a million pounds!!

The Decree Nisi was granted in July 1894 and the Final Decree in Jan 1895, with Thomas to pay damages of £50 and Cecil Howard to remain in the custody of his father.  In June 1895 Thomas and Ellen travelled to Greenwich to be married (well away from anyone who knew them, no doubt!). They had another son together, Cecil William, in 1899.  He was born in Holyport, Berkshire, so it seems that Thomas had a brief period working away from London. In 1901 they were enumerated at 28 Devonshire Place Mews, Marylebone, where Thomas was working as a coachman, domestic.  This was an address that Ellen knew well as she had been living there with her parents at the time of the 1871 and 1881 censuses! Thomas junior was living with them at this time, aged 11.  By 1911 the family had moved back to Paddington, minus Thomas, but now with Ellen’s widowed father Moses living with them. This points to continuing good relations with her parents, despite the divorce.

Back to that memorial card: “true, loving, faithful”.  I do wonder what happened that led Ellen to leave George, abandon her baby son and start a new life with Thomas?  Her husband George had a good job, but who knows what the relationship was like?  Clearly at the time of her death in 1925 Thomas wanted to highlight her commitment to the family despite the early marital turmoil.  Did Ellen manage to maintain any sort of relationship with her first son Cecil Howard, I wonder?  The fact that she called her third son Cecil as well, almost seems to point to her sorrow at effectively losing her first son Cecil, I think.  No formal access arrangements then, one would guess.  There is absolutely nothing to go on, but is it just possible that Ellen found herself in an abusive/controlling relationship with George and that meeting Thomas led to a way out, albeit at the heavy cost of losing her son?  We can only speculate.

Thomas Ansell died just over five years after his wife, in January 1931.  There is a memorial card for him, too – his family obviously held him in great affection:

“Kind was his heart, in friendship true and sound

Patient in pain, beloved by all around

His grief now o’er, his pain for ever done

A life of endless joy we hope he’s now begun”.

Memorial card first posted by Susan Ansell on Ancestry