8.3 Thomas Stocking & Susan Brown: A second marriage? Later lives and deaths

 By the 1861 census, my 4xgreat grandfather Thomas Stocken is living at 4 Ann’s Place, Kent Road, Aged 52 (b.1809) with ‘wife’ Hannah, b1808, from Cork, Ireland, with 15 year old son William (b1846). What had happened to my 4xgreat grandmother Susan Brown?

I found her death record at the end of 1851. The death certificate shows that Susan Stocking died on 18th November 1851 at 1 Castle Street, Kent Road, aged 48 (b1803). She is described as Wife of Thomas Stocking, Mat Maker. The cause of death was ‘fever, 3 weeks certified’ and the informant was Mary Ann Stocking, her daughter-in-law, wife of James Thomas Stocking, who was also living at Castle Street at the time.

Three years later, in 1854, there was a significant cholera outbreak (see report at The Wellcome Library). Her ‘fever’ may or may not have been related, or was simply a bad bout of influenza or other infectious disease.

The marriage banns (At Ancestry) for Thomas Stocking (widower) and Hannah Lee (widow) were called twice, first on 9^th-23^rd March 1856 at St Mary Newington, and then again on 13-27 July of the same year, in the same church. I have not, however, so far found any record of the marriage taking place.

Widow Hannah Lee is described as the wife of Thomas Stocken on the 1861 census. 

His death certificate shows that he died, aged 55, at 4 Ann’s Place, on 8^th December 1864. He is described as a Rope Mat Maker, and the cause of death is ‘Fever, 14 days certified’. Perhaps a leftover of the cholera outbreak from the previous year or, as with his wife Susan, just another infectious disease causing fever. The informant is ‘Hannah Stocking’, present at the death (although no relationship such as ‘wife’ is given).

I haven’t found a burial record for Susan Stocking, but Thomas Stocking was buried on 18^th December 1864 at the City of London and Tower Hamlets Cemetery. Called Bow Cemetery by locals, it opened in 1841, and is considered (by Wikipedia) as one of the seven great London cemeteries.

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

8.1 Thomas Stocking & Susan Brown: Infant mortality, Mat making and two brick walls

Although I have found quite a few references to Thomas Stocking and his wife Susan in the censuses, their children’s baptisms and marriages, and their own marriage, I have failed to find any reliable evidence of their own baptisms and, therefore, who their parents were. They are my first ‘brickwalls’ in the ancestry of my great-grandfather James Aaron Stocking (b1876).

From their appearances in the 1841 and 1851 censuses, Thomas Stocking was born around 1806-7 in St Georges, Southwark, and Susan came from nearby Newington, born in 1806-8. In both censuses, they are living at Castle Street, Kent Road, Southwark.

Ancestry has a copy of what I believe to be the couple’s marriage record at St Peter’s, Walworth, on Christmas Eve 1826 (extract below). The church was completed just the year before. They are both single and ‘of this parish’, and the bride’s full name is Susan Brown.

They would have been around 18-20 years old at the time although there is no mention of their being under age (perhaps they didn’t let on, and no family were present to say); the witnesses are James and Mary Ann Clark. 

I suppose it is possible that Mary Ann was Susan’s married sister, but I have not found any evidence for this.

Infant mortality was rife in the poverty-stricken and overcrowded streets of Southwark in the first half of the 19^th century, and the Stockings did not escape. As far as I have been able to find out from baptisms records and the censuses, they had seven children between 1827 and 1846: the first, Susannah, was born in 1827 and died in 1829. Their second daughter was born in 1832, and was also named Susannah. Sadly, she died in 1839, aged 7. Son John, b1839, also died in infancy in 1841, before the 1841 census. Their sons James Stocking (b1829), Thomas (b1836) and William (b1846) lived to relatively old age. The 1851 census also shows a ten year old daughter Mary, born in Bethnal Green, but I have not been able to trace any more information on her.

Thomas Stocking is variously described as a Labourer or Rope Mat Maker in the censuses and on his children’s baptisms and marriage records. Their address is either ‘Kent Road, Southwark’ or more specifically Castle Street, Kent Road.

The London Picture Archive has images of Castle St looking towards Southwark Bridge Road in 1837, and an 1840 'improvement map' of the same area. The Wellcome Library has a health report on deaths from cholera, including Castle St and Ann's Place, from 1854. The area is close to the Elephant and Castle and Borough, and was closely-packed (The Mint slum was also nearby, as was The Clink prison -now a museum). There were vinegar works, breweries and other industry.

I have not found any reliable evidence for Thomas' birth around 1806-1809, but he was likely born close to the streets in which he lived in later life, ie Castle Street, Ann's Place, Old Kent Road, St George the Martyr. Records show him at 'Kent Street' or 'Castle Street' from the time of his marriage in 1826. Similarly, and particularly with such common names, I have no firm evidence for a baptism of Susan Brown in Newington or Walworth around 1806-8 that would confirm her parents’ names.

My 4xgreat-grandparents Thomas Stocking and Susan Brown remain brick walls for now. Without their baptism records I cannot tell who their parents were (although other online trees link Thomas with another family, there is no evidence to support this). More research to do.

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

Susan Stocking (Brown): Death certificate 1851

 

Kent Road, St George the Martyr Southwark, in the County of Surrey
18th November 1851, Castle Street
Susan Stocking
Female
48 years
Wife of Thomas Stocking, Mat Maker
Fever 3 weeks certified
Informant: The mark of Mary Ann Stocking, present at the death, 1 Castle Street, Southwark