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Henry William Southwellc Married Married Married Martha Blanche Hobsonc | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Martha Blanche Southwell [CFT #3982] Born: 1822 Died: 1910 |
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| b St Pancras, London d Weston Super Mare Martha Blanche’s father was Henry William Southwell [1781 - 1839]. He was a successful ship broker specialising in Hamburg trade from 1802 until the French occupation of Hamburg in 1807 after which he was forced to switch his trading to the New World for fifteen years until 1822 when Hamburg recovered and he was able to revert to his speciality. He married Martha Blanche (the mother) [1793 - 1867] in 1815 after the Battle of Waterloo, believing correctly that, with the defeat of the French, the ship brokering business would once again become very profitable. We don’t know the mother’s maiden name. The family lived at 16 Clifton Street North, Shoreditch, his office was at Westminster Bridge Wharf, he is buried at St Mary cemetery, Moorfields. The first four children of Henry William Southwell [Martha’s father] were: (1) Henry William [the son] born 1816 well educated - 23 when his father died - pursued a career as a civil servant starting as a writ office clerk at The Queens Bench and steadily progressing in the civil service. Married Antonia Marina Tagliabue [1824 - 1902] in 1845. No surviving children from marriage but took responsibility for two of three children of sister Mary Sarah [Meynell] when she died in 1860. Henry William died in 1903 age 87 a year after his wife [Antonia] died age 78. (2) Martha Blanche herself born 1822 well educated - 17 when her father died. Some indication she tried to take over her father’s business but this is not proven. She went to Hamburg immediately after the Great Fire for reasons unknown possibly to find out what had happened to their trading contacts. Married Henry Augustus in 1842. She returned to London with him and he/they took on the family name Preeston. (3) Mary Sarah born 1827 - age 12 when her father died. At age 21 she married Thomas Meynell on 1st June 1848 at the Belgian Chapel, Southwark. Her husband was age 25, a brewer and maltster whose home was at St Augustine’s Gate, Hedon, Yorkshire. She died tragically in early 1860 at the age of 32. She had three children, viz : Mary Agnes [born 1849], Eliza Mary [born 1850] and Thomas Henry [born 1852]. After her death her brother agreed to take responsibility for Eliza and Thomas Henry and they moved to London to live with him and his wife Antonia. Thomas Henry went on to be a successful solicitor at Furnival’s Inn, London. (4) Teresa Southwell (1830-1904). She was age 9 when her father died and her mother placed her in a convent. She took Holy Orders in 1854, and became a nun at St. Augustine’s Priory, Newton Abbot, Devon. In 1886 Teresa together with three other nuns founded St. Monica’s Priory at South Mimms, Barnet. To do this they took advantage of an estate bequeathing Clare Hall, South Mimms, for either religious or charitable purposes. A court case arose on May 5, 1897 when one of the Boursot brothers accused Teresa (in her capacity as lady superior/prioress) of profiting from the unproven will of one of the Boursot sisters (Louise). She had unwittingly become the victim of a feud between the two oldest Boursot brothers and the youngest brother over their father’s estate. The court found in favour of Teresa Southwell/St Monica’s Priory but in a complicated way the case was triggered by financial problems at the Priory and despite the favourable outcome, very soon after the priory ceased for financial reasons and Clare Hall became a small-pox hospital. The case is a legal landmark and is covered in The Times 5 May 1897 page 4 and 6 May 1897 page 13. Martha Blanche and Henry arrived in London in 1842 and set up home 28 Cloudesley Square, Islington and Henry went into partnership in an international merchandizing business. Their first son Ferdinand Francis was born on 15 Nov 1843 and their daughter Rachel Hester Maria was born in 1845. They moved to 9 Albion Grove West, Islington, shortly after their next son Percival was born on 29 Sept 1847. They moved to16 Canonbury Park Villas North, Islington, shortly after their next daughter Rebecca was born in 1850. On 12 March 1853 Martha Blanche gave premature birth to a girl who only lived 15 minutes. Tragedy struck in November 1854 when their eldest son, Ferdinand Francis, died on 16 nov [age 11] from Scarlet Fever and their eldest daughter Rachel Hester Maria died three days later on 19 nov [age 9] also from Scarlet Fever. Neither Percival [7 at the time] nor Rebecca [4 at the time] contracted the disease. Following this tragedy Martha Blanche and Henry decided to move away from Islington which they considered unhealthy [by all contemporary accounts it was very unhealthy]. In 1852 Henry was naturalised as a British Citizen which gave him the right to own property and in summer 1855 they bought Tanners Hall, 144 Tanners End in Edmonton [today London N18, at that time it was out in the countryside ]. Later that year [1855] Martha gave birth to premature daughter [Leah Mary] who only lived for a few days. Martha had a son on 13 apr 1859 who was christened John Henry Southwell Preeston. He was eleven years younger than his brother Percival. A daughter was born early in 1862 [Cecilia Rachel Martha Mary] but she only lived a little over two years. Percival was now enrolled in Bruce Castle School and Rebecca was a boarder in a Convent. In 1861 Henry took sole ownership of his business [H.A. Preeston & Co, 7 Mincing Lane, London] and four years later [1865] Percival joined the business as a partner. On 30 nov 1867 the seventeen year old Rebecca married Adolphe Charles Boursot. Youngest son John Henry Southwell Preeston was 8 years old and a boarder at a Roman Catholic School in Paddington. With Rebecca living with her husband in Kensington, Percival and John Henry also in London, their house Tanners Hall in Edmonton became inconvenient so they sold it and moved into a deluxe serviced apartment at 52 Welbeck Street, Marylebone. By 1877, Rebecca had given birth to 3 daughters and 4 sons and at this point Martha moved in with her daughter Rebecca and son-in-law Adolphe in order to help with Rebecca’s expanding family. Her help was especially useful because Rebecca and husband Adolphe Boursot spent many months each year in at the family Chateaux St Pierre near Calais, France, leaving Martha to run the London family home at 12 Vicerage Gate, Kensington. When Martha moved to 12 Vicerage Gate, Henry moved into a residential boarding house at 8 Mandeville Place, Marylebone where he remained until he died in 1884. Daughter Rebecca went on to have 12 daughters and 4 sons the last being born in 1892 when Martha was 70 and Rebecca was 42. Martha continued to be deputy-mother to Rebecca’s large brood of children until 1907 when at 85 years old she retired to an old age home at Weston Super Mare where she remained until she died late in 1910 at the age of 88. The beneficiaries of her will were her daughter Rebecca, her son John and her grandson Reginald Anselm Preeston [John’s son and only child]. John had fallen on hard times and the lifetime trust her estate set for him must have been very welcome. An interesting point in social attitudes of the era is that while Martha, husband Henry and son Percival were protestants, daughter Rebecca and siblings Henry, Mary, and Teresa were devout Catholics, this did not hinder fond relationships between them. A few decades earlier this would not necessarily have been the case. Martha was fondly remembered as a kind, interesting and gentle person by her grand-daughter, Clare [Rebecca’s 15th child] who was born in 1890 when Martha was 68. Grand-daughter Clare was 20 when Martha died. Married to a very unusual man [Henry] who stayed at the forefront of his business until the day he died, an eldest son [Percival] who was at one time amongst the most prominent and wealthiest of London stockbrokers, a daughter [Rebecca] who gave her 12 grand-daughters some of whom married very prominent men in politics and the military, one son-in-law who had the largest Champaign importing business in London [Adolphe Boursot] and also one daughter-in-law [Caroline] who was an exceptionally accomplished musician, she must have had a very exciting life with never a dull moment ! Rodney Gilbert 2012 |
1: 1843 Ferdinand Francis Preestonc 2: 1845 Rachel Hester Maria Preestonc 3: 1847 Percival Robert Southwell Preestonc W/C 4: 1850 Rebecca Martha Preestonc H/C 5: 1850 Rebecca Martha Preeston 6: 1855 Leah Mary Preestonc 7: 1859 John Henry Southwell Preestonc W/C 8: 1862 Cecelia Rachel Mary Preestonc | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 8 Children | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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