7.3 David Windebank and Elizabeth Topper: Births, baptisms, deaths and burials

In the censuses, David Windebank variously gives his year of birth as between 1827-1830. His birthplace is consistently somewhere in Berkshire beginning with B, spelt: Baselton, Bazelton, Bateldon, Baddelton and Baselton. A google search indicates that this is probably Basildon in Berkshire, an area now known as Lower Basildon, and just seven miles from Reading, where he married Elizabeth Topper in 1847, when he would have been around 18-20 years old. His father is named on their marriage certificate as Jeremiah Windebank.

Ancestry, FamilySearch and FindMyPast all have transcriptions of a baptism in Basildon, Berkshire, of David Windebank, son of Jeremiah Windebank and his wife Eleanor on 23 September 1827 (born on 25th July 1827). I have not seen a digital image of the record. His next appearance in the records that I have found is in the 1841 census, where he is shown as aged 13, an Ag. Lab, living in or next door to the household of Edward Parsons, a Smith (the digital image at Ancestry is particularly poor; it is not transcribed at all at The Genealogist). Perhaps he learnt his smithing trade from Mr Parsons.

After a full life working as a shoeing smith/farrier in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and London, David Windebank died, aged 75, on 15^th January 1903. I was a bit puzzled at his place of death on the death certificate:

He died at The Ragged School, Gedling Street, Bermondsey. He was aged 75, described as a Farrier of 298 Lynton Road, Bermondsey. His death was sudden of ‘syncope due to atheroma of aortic valves and fatty degeneration of the heart, natural causes’. A post mortem was performed and an inquest held on 19^th January, so the informant is H.R. Oswald, Coroner for London.

 

The Ragged School in Gedling Street may well have been something to do with the London City Mission in which David Windebank’s son-in-law, John Davis, London City Missionary and husband of Susan Windebank, was a leading figure. He later founded a mission specifically to support US Civil War Veterans like himself at Gedling Street in 1910. There is a short snippet from the London City Press of 1919 which notes a meeting of the London Association of the Civil War Veterans at the Ragged School, Gedling Street, which perhaps proves the link. I had hoped to find an account of the inquest in the newspapers collection at FindMyPast, but have not so far found anything. He was buried in Nunhead Cemetery on 24 January 1903. 

Elizabeth Topper’s places of birth given in the censuses are not as consistent as those of her husband David Windebank. They include: Knightsbridge, Lambeth (twice), Westminster (three times) and Bermondsey. Her year of birth is more consistent, given as 1826 apart from the 1861 census, when it is 1829. We know that her father was Charles James Topper from her marriage certificate. His occupation was difficult to read – possibly Watchman or Waterman.

Ancestry has a baptism record for an Elizabeth Topper at St Mary Lambeth on 4^th October 1826, daughter of Charles and Susan Topper of Mason Street, St Mary, Lambeth. Her date of birth is shown in the margin as 26^th September. Intriguingly, her father’s occupation is given as ‘Bow Street Officer’. Although this doesn’t tie in with ‘Watchman’ in 1847, it is, at a stretch, a similar monitoring/security occupation. 

In the 1841 census, she appears to be living away from home, aged 15, working as a servant to Robert Clark, a Coach Carver, at James Street, Marylebone, London. Perhaps she found her way to Reading as a servant, which is where she later met David Windebank? We may never know, as there are few records of female servants outside the censuses and poor law records (and she doesn’t seem to appear in those as far as I can tell). After their marriage, she appears on all the censuses with her husband, apart from the 1881 census, when she is living with her son, Charles James Windebank, Farrier, and daughter-in-law. She is described as Charles’ mother and a ‘monthly nurse’. Her son has a week-old son, so Elizabeth Windebank presumably was there to help look after her new grandson.

Elizabeth Windebank (née Topper), died five years after her husband, on 20^th March 1908. Her death certificate shows that she died of ‘senile decay, certified’, at the Bermondsey Workhouse – probably the only infirmary care they could afford. She is shown as 81 years old, Widow of David Windebank, Farrier (journeyman) of 298 Lynton Road, Bermondsey. The informant is her daughter Elizabeth Sarah Evans (her second husband’s name) of 14 Beechfield Road, Catford. She was buried in Southwark on 28^th March 1908.

 

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

Elizabeth Windebank (Topper): Death certificate 1908

 

Lewisham in the County of London
20th March 1908
Bermondsey Workhouse
Elizabeth Windebank
Female
81 years
Widow of David Windebank, Farrier (Journeyman) of 298 Lynton Road, Bermondsey
Senile Decay, Certified by J T McNamara, LS CP
Informant: The mark of Elizabeth Sarah Evans, Daughter, 14 Beechfield Road, Catford

David Windebank: Death Certificate 1903

 

St Olave Bermondsey in the County of London
15th January 1903
Ragged School Gedling Street
David Windebank
Male
75 years
Farrier of 298 Lynton Road, Bermondsey
Cause: Syncope due to atheroma of aortic valves and fatty degeneration of the heart, natural causes, P.M
Certificate received from H. R. Oswald, Coroner for London, Inquest held 19th January 1903
 

7.2 The interesting lives of the children of David Windebank and Elizabeth Topper

I always like to research the children and siblings of my direct ancestors, because they (generally) didn’t live their lives isolated from family or their family environment. Of the ten children of David Windebank and Elizabeth Topper, several lived fairly ordinary but nonetheless interesting lives, while one married into a place in history, and at least one ended in tragedy.

Interesting: 2^nd great grand aunt Susan Windebank was their third child after Elizabeth Sarah Windebank, born in Dorney, Buckinghamshire, in 1851. By the 1871 census she is working as a servant in the household of a Charles Brooks, Chemist, at 355 Wandsworth Road, Lambeth. In the July-September quarter of 1878, aged nearly 30, she married widower John Davis, who was around ten years her senior. I was surprised to see her husband’s occupation in the 1881 census as ‘London City Missionary’ and, in 1911, US Naval Pensioner, US Citizen by naturalisation’. Intrigued, I googled the Mission and the man’s name, only to find that he was a well-known character at the time.

John Davis was born in Meonstoke Hampshire on 23 November 1839. An article on the Internet recounts that he ran away to sea aged 14, and that “By his mid-twenties, his life consisted of drinking, gambling and womanising. Penniless and with little option, he signs up for the Unionist side of the American Civil War”. Aged 29, in 1864, he found himself thrown from the USS Tulip into the Potomac river after an explosion that killed 47 men. He later found his way to Australia at the time of the gold rush, and then found rather more prosaic work as a dock worker in London, where it is said he was inspired by the preaching of evangelist Dwight L Moody. He gave up drink and joined the London City Mission, later founding a branch in Gedling Street, Bermondsey, for US Civil War veterans like himself.

After his brush with death in the US, John came to London and in 1867 married Martha Maria Aulert, daughter of a mariner, and possibly one of John’s former naval colleagues. They had three children before Martha died (probably in childbirth) after their third child was born in 1877, a year before he married Susan Windebank.

John Davis and his wife Susan lived at Blue Anchor Lane, Bermondsey, for several decades, close to Susan’s parents David Windebank and Elizabeth Topper and Susan’s married sister Elizabeth Sarah Hill. In the heart of Bermondsey, there were no doubt many who John and Susan reached out to as part of the Mission. John died in 1917 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Nunhead Cemetery. A memorial was placed there by his great great grandson recently. Several of their children emigrated to Canada, married and had families there. This may have been related to their father’s missionary work with the London City Mission, as the Ragged School movement (Davis set up his Association for US Civil War Veterans at the Gedling Street Ragged School) sent Victorian poor children to Canada to start a new life.

Tragic: Charles James Windebank was born in Reading in 1854 and followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a Farrier. He married Adelaide Tilley in 1875 in Newington, and they had four children, the youngest, Lillie, in 1890. Sadly a year later, Charles is recorded on the 1891 census at the London Lunatic Asylum as a patient. He was said by one of his descendants to have been kicked in the head by a horse just before Lillie’s birth, and spent the rest of his life in institutions. He is recorded in the 1901 census as a patient, as he is in 1911, (record at The Genealogist) this time at Cane Hill Asylum in Coulsdon, Surrey. Only his initials are shown, as was often the practice with institutions in the censuses, but the entry reads starkly: ‘CJW, Patient, 56, Married, Farrier, b.Berkshire, Reading, Lunatic 35 years’.  He died in the asylum in 1919.

The rest of the children led fairly ordinary, generally respectable lives, for relatively poor Victorian Londoners:

Caroline Windebank was born in Reading in 1853. By the 1871 census she is working as a servant in the household of Norman Beklin from Hamburg, a Tutor in languages, in Kew. In the 1881 census she is visiting her married sister Elizabeth Sarah Hill at Blue Anchor Lane, Bermondsey and gives her occupation as a ‘shirt trimmer, cuffs’. In 1884, she married John Stratford, then a commercial traveller but who, by the 1901 census, is a ‘baker/confectioner on own account’ at 1 Juxon Street, Lambeth Walk, Lambeth. She is assisting her husband in the confectionary business, still at the same address, by the 1911 census, where they record that they have been married for 27 years and have had no children. She died aged in 66 in Lambeth in 1920.

Charlotte Sarah Windebank was born in 1858 in Turnham Green, the first of her siblings to be born in London. She married Charles Jenner, a Blacksmith’s Labourer, in 1883 (perhaps he worked for her father?). They are living with her parents and their six year old son in Blue Anchor Lane in the 1891 census. By the 1911 census she is recorded as a widow (her husband died earlier in 1911) and working as a cleaner for the LCC (London County Council). She had been married for 28 years, and four of her eight children had died (I have only found records for five of them). On the census, 19 year old daughter Rosetta is shown as ‘fits, 5 years’. Perhaps she suffered from a form of epilepsy.

Thomas Windebank married twice. He was born in Lambeth just after the 1861 census and married for the first time in 1885 to Jane Warburton. At that time he is described as a ‘Provisions Dealer’. Jane died (presumably – record not found) before 1891, as Thomas married for a second time – as SINGLE, not a widower - in March 1891 in Hendon-cum-Kingsbury to Annie Beatrice Kirby. His occupation is given as Milkman. His signature and father’s name and occupation match those on his first marriage certificate. He is recorded as a Milkman in the 1891 census at Derby Buildings, St Pancras. I haven’t found them in later censuses.

Sarah Windebank married George Gilham, a Hop Porter, in 1889, when she was 26. They had nine children in the 21 years of marriage up to the 1911 census, all of whom had survived. She died in Lewisham in 1931.

Question marks: I haven’t been able to trace 2^nd great grand uncles David Windebank (b1850) nor William G (b1859) in later censuses. More research to do.

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

7.1 David Windebank & Elizabeth Topper: Baptist marriage and a career in Smithing

2xgreat grandmother Elizabeth Sarah Windebank was born in Upton-cum-Chalvey in Buckinghamshire in October 1849, daughter of David Windebank, a Smith & Farrier, and his wife, formerly Elizabeth Topper.

At the time of the 1851 census, the family is in Dorney Village, Buckinghamshire, and comprises David Windebank (spelt Windybank), Blacksmith, aged 24 (b1827, ‘Bazeltone, Berkshire’), his wife Elizabeth (25, b1826, in Knightsbridge) and their children David (3) and [Elizabeth] Sarah (15months). This would suggest that David Windebank married Elizabeth Topper around 1847-8, possibly in Berkshire or Buckinghamshire, or even London.

A search of FreeBMD easily found their marriage entry for the July-September quarter of 1847 in the district of Reading. The resulting certificate from the GRO shows that they married at the Baptist Meeting House in Reading, Berkshire on 31^st August 1847. Both are under 21 (‘minor’), single, of 43 Hosier Street, Reading: 

David Windebank is a Smith, son of Jeremiah Windebank, a Labourer. Elizabeth Topper is a servant, daughter of Charles Topper. Her father’s occupation is indistinct, and could be waterman or watchman. The Witnesses are Charles Smallbone and Charlotte Topper.  All parties sign the register.

The baptists have a long history in Reading (380 years+); the meeting house where David Windebank and Elizabeth Topper married is likely to be the one opened in 1834, in King’s Road, but the previous meeting house had been in Hosier Street, where they are living at no.43 at the time of marriage. John Jenkyn Brown was the officiating minister between 1847-1855, and it is he who signs the register together with the Registrar, Frederick West. From the 1850s, 43 Hosier Street was the site of the Queens Arms pub; perhaps it was already an inn and lodging house in 1847, and David Windebank and Elizabeth Topper were lodging there before their marriage or, as Elizabeth was a servant, the pub may have been her place of work?

The couple move home several times after their marriage, presumably in search of work. They are in Upton-cum-Chalvey, Buckinghamshire, by the time their daughter Elizabeth Sarah Windebank is born in 1849 and their daughter Susan was baptised in Dorney, Bucks, in June 1851 (so probably born a couple of months after the 1851 census). The next two children were born in Reading, Berkshire: Caroline (1853) and Charles James (1854). By the time their sixth child, Charlotte Sarah, was born in 1858, they have moved to Turnham Green in Middlesex; a year later, their son William is born in Acton and their eighth child Thomas will be born in May 1861 in Lambeth, not long after the 1861 census.

David Windebank is consistently described as a Blacksmith, Smith & Farrier or just Farrier on the censuses and his children’s baptisms. The couple had ten children in all (as far as I can tell) over a twenty year period between 1848 and 1868. The three youngest were all baptised at St John the Evangelist, Lambeth, on 9^th April 1871, a week after the 1871 census, where they are shown as living at 2 Pear Tree Street, Lambeth. Charles  Booth’s survey of 1898, some twenty years later, described Pear Tree Street as a “cul-de-sac, quiet, 14 2-storey houses … rents 7/6 to 9/-“. It is just off Waterloo Road, a short walk from the Thames and Waterloo station.

David Windebank and Elizabeth Topper stay in London for the rest of their lives. They appear in the 1881 and 1891 censuses (Ancestry), first at 2 Hooks Road, Camberwell and then at 4 Blue Anchor Lane, Bermondsey. Their daughters Susan (who married City Missionary John Davis) and Elizabeth Sarah (who married John Hill) are living in the same street in 1891. David Windebank is described as Farrier, Smith or Shoeing Smith on his children’s marriage records through the 1880s and 1890s.

According to the London Transport Museum, “by the 1890s, London had over 2,000 horse buses and 25,000 horses, with stables and a small army of grooms, blacksmiths and saddlers. But in 1899 the LGOC started its first trials with motorised buses, powered first by steam and later petrol. Change happened slowly, but the process had begun”. London was clearly a good source of work for a shoeing smith / farrier like David Windebank. As those times began to change, at the turn of the century, the couple were in their 70s and, by the 1901 census, the couple, are living alone at 298 Lynton Road, Bermondsey. With no occupation given, it is likely that David Windebank had finally given up working. 

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

David Windebank and Elizabeth Topper: Marriage certificate 1847

Baptist Meeting House in the district of Reading in the County of Berkshire
31st August 1847
David Windebank, Minor, Bachelor, Smith, 43 Hosier Street
Elizabeth Topper, Minor, Spinster, servant, 43 Hosier Street 

Groom's father: Jeremiah Windebank, Labourer
Bride's father: Charles Topper, Watchman?

Witnesses:
Charles Smallbone
Charlotte Topper

John Hill (b1804): Death certificate 1869

 

Harting in the County of Sussex
Eighth September 1869
Harting
John Hill
Male
66 years
Agricultural Labourer
Disease of the heart certified
Informant: Eunice Glue, present at the death, Harting 

6.2 Tracing births, baptisms, deaths and burials of John Hill and Mary Upfield

From the censuses, it seems likely that John Hill was born in Elsted around 1804-6, son of another John Hill and his wife Mary. FamilySearch has a copy of the Elsted parish register showing the baptism of John Hill, son of John and Mary Hill, on 2^nd September 1804 (the last baptism of that year):

I have no other records related to John Hill’s early life, before his (probable) marriage to Mary Upfield in 1829 in Bepton, when he was around 25 years old.

Mary Upfield has proved to be more difficult to trace, and I am still uncertain as to her birth/baptism and parentage. Her surname can be written in various ways (Upfield, Uppfield, Upfold, Upfeld) and her first name is hardly uncommon. In the 1851 census she says she was born in ‘Honiker’ (Halnaker), and her age in the censuses indicate a birth around 1811-1814. In later censuses she gives her birthplace as Elsted.

FindMyPast has a transcription of a possible baptism in Rogate, and FamilySearch has images of the parish registers, including a baptism record for a Mary Upfield in Rogate, Sussex (18 miles from Halnaker), on 24 October 1813, illegitimate daughter of Ann Uppfield and a John Briggs:

Halnaker doesn’t itself have a church, but 18 miles seems a long way to go from Elsted or Halnaker, so this may not be the correct Mary Upfield. I haven’t found any information online relating to any bastardy bonds or affiliation orders online relating to John Briggs, but from this entry it was clear he was recognised as the father.

The only other baptism around the right date and area is for Mary Uppfold in Arundel on 3 December 1810, daughter of William and Sarah (FindMyPast), but again, this seems a long way from Halnaker or Elsted.

Her name on the censuses is shown as Mary (1841, 1871) and Mary Ann (1851, 1861); but which is she?

My 3xgreat grandmother Mary Upfield may have to remain a bit of a mystery for a while longer; not only am I uncertain about her birth, but I have failed so far to find an obvious death record for her. At the time of the 1871 census, she is living with her third eldest son William Hill at East Harting Street, in Harting, Sussex (I think!). She is shown as head of household, a widow aged 57 (b1814, Elsted), working as a seamstress. Son William is a 36 year-old agricultural labourer, unmarried. Next door is a family with the surname Glue, with another family member with the name Kemp – which appeared as Hill family neighbours in earlier censuses.

Her husband John Hill died two years before this census, on 8^th September 1869 (the year is given as 1868 on the copy of the certificate from the GRO, but the original entry shows 1869):

The death certificate shows that John Hill died in Harting, aged 66, from ‘disease of the heart, certified’. The informant was Eunice Glue, present at the death. It took me some time to accept that this was ‘my’ John Hill, given the place of death and the name of the informant. Some of the Glue family are living next door to his widow, in Harting, in 1871 (but not Eunice). It turns out that Eunice Glue is the daughter of John Hill’s cousin, Charlotte Hall (née Hill).

John Hill was buried in Harting on 12^th September 1869, aged 66 years. More research is needed to find out when his widow, Mary Hill née Upfield was born and died. 

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

6.1 John and Mary Hill: Marriage, and early family life

When my 2xgreat grandfather John Hill was baptised in Elsted, Sussex, on 11^th December 1836, his parents are named as John Hill and Mary (transcript at FamilySearch, extract from register, below, from FamilySearch).

Five years later, at the time of the 1841 census, the Hill family, comprising John Hill, aged 35 (b1806), wife Mary, 30 (b1811), and five of their children, are living at Elsted, where John Hill the father is an Agricultural Labourer. John Hill the son is five years old; his youngest sibling is sister Lucy, aged 1. On the previous Elsted, census page, there is an entry for another John Hill and wife Mary, aged 60 and 50. Both Hill families have immediate neighbours or other household members with the surname Kemp.

The eldest child listed with John Hill in 1841 is Ann, aged 11, which might suggest that he married around 1829-30 (assuming Ann was their first child). The youngest, Lucy, was born around 1839-40, after the introduction of civil registration, so if her birth was registered, her mother’s maiden name will be recorded. A search for her birth in the indexes at the GRO show that a Lucy Hill’s birth was registered in the Oct-Dec quarter of 1839 in the Midhurst district (which covers Elsted), mother’s maiden name Upfield. The youngest child on the 1861 census is George (aged 6), and his birth was registered in the September quarter of 1850, mother's maiden name Upfield.

Lucy Hill witnessed her brother John Hill’s first marriage to Fanny Taylor in 1859, with her husband-to-be Thomas Saunders.

Searches for the marriage of John Hill and Mary Upfield in Sussex around 1830 revealed one result at Ancestry (transcription) and FamilySearch (image, extract below) on 14^th November 1829, at Bepton, Sussex:

Both parties are single and ‘of this parish’, and were married in the parish church of Bepton after banns. Their witnesses were William Baignet and Mary Sherlock (the latter makes her mark, as do the bride and groom).

Bepton is in the district of Midhurst, near Chichester, West Sussex, as is Elsted, three miles away, where the family is presumably living by 1831 when their eldest daughter Anne was baptised, and still there ten years later in 1841. The ancient church of St Mary, Bepton, was built in Norman times and still stands, grade I listed, in the village today. 

By the 1851 census, the two John Hill families in Elsted are living next door to each other; John Hill was born around 1804 in Elsted, while his wife Mary Upfield was born in what looks like ‘Honiker’ (probably Halnaker, West Sussex). They have eight children still at home, including John Hill born 1836, and his younger sister Lucy, now 12. Next door, the head of household is listed as John Hill Snr, presumably to distinguish him from his son next door. He is 70, his wife Mary 74, and their 44-year old son James Hill, a shepherd, is with them on census night with his wife Mary, and a Thomas Parr, aged 12, described as ‘Nephew’. The latter’s place of birth looks like ‘Paris and ?, Middlesex’. That means three lots of John Hills living next door to each other:

4xgreat grandfather John Hill b1780 and wife Mary
3xgreat grandfather John Hill b1804 and wife Mary Upfield
2xgreat grandfather John Hill b1836, who later married Fanny Taylor (1859) and Elizabeth Sarah Windebank (1869).

By the 1861 census, son James Hill and his wife Mary have moved next door to his parents John Hill (b1804) and family. We know that John Hill b1836 had left home and was living with his first wife Fanny in Sunbury on Thames at the time. John Hill senior (b1780) and his wife Mary are no longer living in Elsted, and would appear to have died in the intervening ten years since their last appearance on the 1851 census.

As far as I have found out, John Hill and Mary Upfield had ten children in total between 1830 and 1854: four girls and six boys. They had two sons called George, the first born in 1850 who died aged two years. Their next and last child was also George, born in 1854, two years after the first George’s death. The family has been frustratingly difficult to trace after the 1861/1871 census. More research needed.

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