11.4 Early life and first marriage of 4xgreat grandmother Mary Ann Pearce

 When William Moorhouse Stoney married on Boxing Day, 1825, at St Giles Camberwell, both he and his bride – Mary Ann Rowney – were shown as widowed. I searched for a pre-1825 marriage for a Mr Rowney and a Mary Ann, and found that they had married six years earlier, on 23^rd September 1819 at St John Horsleydown:

The marriage record (extract left) at Ancestry shows that the bride was formerly Mary Ann Pearce, a spinster, and that the witnesses were Amy Pearce, J Merryweather and Catherine Merryweather.

A comparison of this with the marriage record of William Moorhouse Stoney and Mary Ann Rowney in 1825 shows that the signature of Amy Pearce (also a witness in 1825, with William Pearce) is very similar. It is likely, then, that these are family members. There is also an Alice Pearce, aged 75, ‘Independent’, living with the couple at the time of the 1841 census who might also be related.

Her appearances with her husband and children in the censuses reveal that Mary Ann Pearce was probably born around 1791-1794. There is a baptism at St John Horsleydown for two children of William Pearce, a Wool Stapler, and his wife Alice, on 1 May 1796. The record shows that daughter Mary Ann was born on 17^th October 1793. The Alice Pearce in the 1851 census is therefore likely to be Mary Ann’s mother (and my 5xgreat grandmother).

I have reconstructed the family to show that Mary Ann had five siblings, including William J Pearce (marriage witness in 1825), b.1789, and Amy Pearce (witness to both marriages), b.1800. Her sister Catherine Pearce married John Merryweather in 1811; both she and her husband are witnesses to Mary Ann Pearce’s first marriage in 1819.

Emma Amelia Rowney was baptised at St Mary Newington on 30^th July 1820 (born 11^th June 1820). She was the daughter of Mary Ann Rowney and James Rowney (deceased) of East Lane. It seems that Mary Ann’s husband died within months of their wedding in 1819. Emma A(melia) is living with William Moorhouse Stoney and her mother at the time of the 1851 census, using the surname Stoney. She is shown as aged 30, which would fit with her 1820 birth. When she married in 1852 (to Henry Howard), her father’s name is shown as ‘not known’ (marriage record at Ancestry). Her mother should really have been able to tell her who her father was, even though he died before she was born. Her half-sister Catherine Alice Stoney’s husband Aaron Wales was a witness at the wedding.

For the sources mentioned in bold, see blogpost: MyRoots: Lesly's family history: Sources and resources: A quick view