Superintendent Registrar's District: Uxbridge Union
Registrar's District: Hayes
1857 DEATHS in the District of Hayes in the County of Middlesex
When died: Third May 1857. Botwell, Hayes
Name: Elizabeth Topper
Sex: Female
Age: 76 years
Rank or profession: Widow of Thomas Topper, Manager of a Telegraph
Cause: Paralysis 2 1/2 years certified
Description of informant: X the mark of Susan Topper Present at the death, Botwell, Hayes
When registered: Tenth May 1857
Four of her children are living with Susannah Griffin at the time of the 1841 census: Charlotte, Charles, Ellen and Susan. The eldest, Elizabeth Topper, who would have been about 14-15 years old, is not at home on census night and may be working as a female servant to a Coach Builder in James Street, Marylebone.
1. Elizabeth Topper was my 3xgreat grandmother, born
in Lambeth in 1826 and married David Windebank, a Smith, at the Baptist
Meeting House in Reading in 1847, when she was about 20 years old. The family
moved to Dorney, Buckinghamshire – now part of High Wycombe – in the 1850s,
before returning to London via Reading again. As her mother was from Loudwater,
Bucks, there may have been some family connection that drew them there.
2. Charlotte Sarah Topper was born around 1828 in Lambeth,
Surrey. I haven’t found a baptism record for her. She names her father as Charles
James Topper, Porter, on her marriage record of 12 July 1853, when she
married William Jones, a Labourer, at Norwood, Middlesex. At the time of the 1851
census, she is working as a house servant to ‘House Proprietor and Fund
Holder’ Mr White, at nearby Hanwell. They had six known children between 1855
and 1874. Her husband William Jones worked as a Labourer throughout their
married life, although in the 1871 census their address, like others in
the street, is given as ‘Shop’ on Lindfield Street, Battersea – perhaps they
were living above commercial premises. There is a death registration for a
Charlotte Jones in the July quarter of 1885, although given the common surname
I cannot be certain if this is the right person (likewise, for her husband’s
death).
3. Charles James Topper was baptised on 3 October 1830 at St
John the Evangelist, Lambeth. His parents are Charles James Topper, a ‘Serjeant
of Police’, and his wife Susan, of Montpelier Row. A Charles Topper,
aged 28, was admitted to the Dreadnought Seamans’ Hospital on 20 April 1859.
His birthplace is given as Lambeth (although on most censuses his birthplace is
Knightsbridge), and he is said to have had eight years’ service in the merchant
navy, his last ship being the Patent Derrick. In the 1851 census he is
described as a Labourer, as he is in the 1861 census. He is said to be 5’5”
tall, and to be suffering from a dislocated thumb. He was discharged a week
later to convalescence and was living in Greenwich, as a lodger, by the time of
the 1861 census.
Five years later, there is a report of a trial at Old
Bailey Online which features Charles Topper and five other men who “were indicted for that they, on the high
seas, on board the British ship Scotland , did practically and feloniously make a
revolt.” However, newspaper accounts of the trial name the man as
Charles Tupper, and one gives his age as 23 – whereas Charles James Topper
would have been about 36 at the time. At the time of the 1871 census, a
Charles J Topper, aged 41, is lodging at Sun Street, Greenwich, close to the
Oil and Colour Works, said to be working as a Foreman Stoker. His birthplace is
shown as Knightsbridge.
He married Lucy Tull at St George the Martyr, Battersea on
10 September 1876, his age shown as 43. His father is named as Charles James
Topper, Foreman Porter. His own occupation is Oil Refiner. His bride is the
daughter of Benjamin Tull, a Labourer, and is 25 years old. In 1881,
they are living in Bermondsey with their two young children, and a year later,
he is probably the ‘son, Oil Refiner residing at Bermondsey Dock Head’ who gave
evidence at the inquest on his mother’s death after a fall downstairs. At the
time of the 1891 census, he has once again changed occupation, this time
working as a Gardener in ‘public gardens’, and living at Rotherhithe with wife
Lucy and four children. Ten years later, by then aged 71, he is listed as an
inmate at St Olave Union Workhouse, Horsleydown, described as a widower and ‘Retired
Ship’s Stoker’. He died three years later in Lewisham, and was buried there on
6 July 1904.
4. Ellen Topper appears with her mother, aged two years, on
the 1841 census. I have not found a birth, marriage or death record for
her (including variations on her name), nor found her in any other censuses.
She may have died young.
5. Susan Selway Topper was baptised 22 February 1841 at
Stanford, Berkshire, daughter of Charles James and Susan Topper. She
appears with her mother and siblings, aged 4 months, at the time of the 1841
census, in Stanford, and with her parents in Hayes, Middlesex, in 1851. She
married John James Archer at St Mary Ealing on 22 February 1863. Her husband
was a Lighterman, as her father had been early in his working life. By the time
of the 1871 census, they are living at Bromley and have three children,
all born in Brentford. They appear in subsequent censuses with their growing
family; John’s occupation is usually Lighterman or Lighterman (barge). By 1901
they are living at Devonport Street, Ratcliff, Stepney. The
Lost Hamlet Of Ratcliff | Spitalfields Life indicates that this area was
once known as ‘Sailor Town’ which had a poor reputation for centuries but
which, by the turn of the century, had had its act cleaned up a bit. By 1911,
now aged 70, she has been widowed and is living at ‘4 Waterman’s Asylum’ in
Penge, Croydon. She says she was married for 48 years, and had six children,
five of whom were still living. Royal
Watermen’s Almshouses | Penge Heritage (pengeheritagetrail.org.uk) were ‘for aged watermen and lightermen and were built in
1839-40.’ There were 46 Almshouses in all; presumably she moved there with her
husband and remained after his death.
Her middle name Selway derives from her paternal grandmother’s
maiden name: Elizabeth Selway.
For the sources mentioned in bold, see blogpost: MyRoots: Lesly's family history: Sources and resources: A quick view
We know from her entries in the 1851-1881 censuses, that my 4xgreat-grandmother Susannah Griffin was born in Loudwater, Buckinghamshire, 2.5 miles from High Wycombe. Her age in the censuses varies, indicating a year of birth around 1805-1808. By 1824, aged around 20, she had found her way to London, where she married Charles James Topper at St George, Hanover Square. Around the time of their marriage, her husband had stopped working as a Thames Lighterman and started a ten-year career with the London police force.
In the 1841 census, she is enumerated on her own with
four young children aged 4 months to ten years; they are living at Stanford in
Berkshire and she is described, aged 35, as ‘Independent’. I have yet to find
her husband elsewhere in the census, but by then he was already working as a
Foreman Porter for the Great Western Railway at Brentford Docks. In the 1851
and 1861 censuses, she is with her husband at Botwell, Hayes,
Middlesex.
In 1871, in Hayes Village, she is described as a ‘Monthly Nurse’ to the family of 30 year old brickmaker William Smith and his wife, and their family of seven, including a five year old son, as yet unnamed. She moved with Charles James Topper to 36 Catherine Wheel Yard, near the Brentford Docks, and was still living there in 1881, two years after he died following an accident at work. She is still described as a monthly nurse, but is not living with any particular family at the time.
Victorian Monthly
Nurses, Midwives & Wet Nurses : (genealogystories.co.uk) offers some
insights into the nature of the position of Monthly Nurse, the qualities
required (according to various books of advice to mothers of the day) and the short-term
nature of employment. Presumably Susannah Griffin – by now aged in her
mid-late 70s – had a reasonable reputation, but was ‘out of place’ at the time
of the 1881 census.
Her death was subject to a coroner’s inquest, like her
husband’s, and was reported in the newspapers of the day. On 28 February 1882, it
seems that she got out of bed and fell downstairs, fracturing her thigh. The
fall proved fatal to the elderly woman, and she died just over a week later on
8 March 1882. The coroner was the same Dr Diplock who oversaw the inquest on
her husband three years earlier; it took place, as did his, at the Catherine
Wheel Inn, High Street, Brentford.
Her son appears to have given evidence to the effect that
she had been able to explain to him how the accident had come about; his name
is not given in the newspaper report, but is presumably her only son, Charles
James Topper, named after his father.
Her death certificate describes her death as ‘Violent’ and
gives the date of the inquest.
Her age at death is shown as 76 years, indicating a birth
year – like the censuses – of around 1806. A search for her baptism in
Loudwater, Buckinghamshire, five years either side of 1806, finds nothing
obvious at Ancestry, but FindMyPast has a Bishop’s Transcript
that could be the right one. It is in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, and shows
that a Susanna Griffin was baptised on 11 March 1804, daughter of Samuel
Griffin and his wife Lezey. Loudwater was a ‘chapelry’ within High
Wycombe, the brick built St Peter’s church dedicated in 1788 (and still
standing), so there may be other registers available that are not online. Buckinghamshire
Archives only has Loudwater baptism records from 1866, so earlier records
may not have survived.
For the sources mentioned in bold, see blogpost: MyRoots: Lesly's family history: Sources and resources: A quick view
When my 3xgreat grandmother Elizabeth Topper was baptised at St Mary Lambeth on 4 October 1826, her parents are named as Charles Topper, Bow Street Officer, and his wife Susan, of Mason Street.
Finding a Bow Street Runner in the family was an exciting
discovery; researching him further in the British Newspaper Archive at FindMyPast,
The Proceedings of the Old Bailey Online and general searches at all the
main Family History sites shows that he had an interesting and varied career
spanning over 50 years until his accidental death in 1879. His father, brothers
and grandfather also all had interesting lives and made their marks – usually on
the right side of the law – in the newspapers and criminal records.
He married Susannah Griffin (also known as Susan) at
St George Hanover Square on 10 November 1824. The parish register entry shows
that the witnesses were Alfred Davey Topper (later found to be his brother) and
Elizabeth Topper, probably his mother.
Charles signs the register, as do the two witnesses, but
Susannah simply makes her mark.
The couple had four more known children after Elizabeth Topper:
Charlotte (1828), Charles (1830), Ellen (1839) and Susan Selway Topper (1841).
Charles James Topper was born on 19 April 1801 in
Chelsea, and baptised at St Luke, Chelsea, on 17 June that year, son of Thomas
Topper and his wife Elizabeth.
On 31 August 1824, the Morning Advertiser reports on the
Lambeth Regatta (The
British Newspaper Archive | findmypast.co.uk) where competition for the
‘new Wherry and other prizes, given … as an encouragement to the Waterman’,
where Charles James Topper, with fellow rower George Maynard, won the
Prize Wherry after several exciting heats.
A few months later he has married, and by the time his first
child, Elizabeth Topper, was born in 1826, he is employed as a Bow
Street Officer. He is also described as a Serjeant of Police on his son's
baptism record in 1830.
Keen to find out if there were any records of his time as a
Bow Street Officer, I searched the records of The Old Bailey Online.
Three years after daughter Elizabeth was born, Central
Criminal Court (oldbaileyonline.org) has an account of him giving evidence
in the trial of James Bagley and George Rider, who were accused of stealing “1 cap, value 9s., the goods of John
Morton , from the person of William Morton.”
The accused were found guilty but recommended to mercy and
therefore ‘discharged and whipped’.
In 1833, the same source sees him giving evidence in the trial of 18 year old Charlotte Baker, servant of Elizabeth Bangham of Hammersmith, accused of stealing a ‘reading glass’ from her mistress and exchanging it for a pair of boots at a ‘sale shop’. She was found guilty and ‘confined for one month’.
The Bow Street runners were disbanded in 1839 (associated officers had been incorporated into the new Metropolitan Police ten years’ earlier). In 1838, after more than ten years' service with the police, he takes up a role as Porter for the GWR at Brentford Dock. By then he would have been 37 years old.
I have not found him in the 1841 census. His wife Susan
Griffin is enumerated at Stanford, Berkshire, with their four youngest
children – including Susan, aged just a few months – and is described as
‘Ind[ependent], which is a little odd. However, they are together as a married
couple living at Botwell, Hayes, Middlesex, by the time of the 1851 census. His
birthplace is confirmed as Chelsea, and his occupation is now shown as Foreman
Porter GWR. Son Charles James and daughter Susan are still at home with them:
On 9 May 1853, he is once again on familiar ground at the Central Criminal Court (oldbaileyonline.org). He declares himself ‘porter to the Great Western Railway, at Bull's Bridge wharf’ and gives evidence in the case against Thomas Hammond, accused of stealing a box of biscuits which had been loaded onto a truck. The accused’s father had been buried on the day he was finally apprehended; he was recommended to mercy on account of his good character, and sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment.
Charles James
Topper’s occupation is
also given as Porter on his daughter Charlotte’s marriage certificate in the
same year. In the 1861 census, he is still described as a Porter for the
GWR, still at Botwell, Hayes, Middlesex. Their children have all left home, but
their 11 year old granddaughter Elizabeth Windebank (their daughter Elizabeth
Topper’s child), is with them on census night. Ten years later, he is
living at Catherine Wheel Yard, New Brentford, close to the docks where he
worked. His wife isn’t in the household on census night, but their 15 year old
grandson Charles Jones is.
Charles James Topper’s service with GWR at Brentford
Docks lasts for 41 years until his death – by an accident at work – in 1879,
aged 78. The Acton Gazette at The
British Newspaper Archive | findmypast.co.uk reveals some of the gruesome
details and the coroner’s reprimand to his employers:
The Middlesex Chronicle of 4 October at The British Newspaper Archive | findmypast.co.uk reports in more detail: Charles James Topper was ‘better known as ‘Old Topper’, and in the words of his son who gave evidence at the inquest ‘very active and hearty for his age’.
His death certificate echoes the coroner’s verdict: ‘Violent death Run over by Railway Trucks accidentally’.His occupation is given as ‘Foreman of porters at dock’, and
the place of death is ‘At Brentford Dock on Great Western Railway, New Brentford’.
The certificate also gives the date of the inquest (1 October 1879).
For the sources mentioned in bold, see blogpost: MyRoots: Lesly's family history: Sources and resources: A quick view
