25.8 4th great granduncle Alfred Davey Topper (1806-1866): Letter Carrier

My 5xgreat grandparents Thomas Topper and Elizabeth Selway married at St George, Hanover Square, London, on 12 April 1798. Their marriage lasted 40 years, before Thomas Topper’s death, aged 69, of apoplexy, on 27 September 1838.

Their son Charles James Topper was born in 1801 and was to become my 4xgreat grandfather. Their third son, Alfred Davey or Alfred David Topper (records vary), was baptised at St Mary, Lambeth on 12 Nov 1806. His father was a telegrapher for the Admiralty, working first (as far as I know) at the shutter telegraph at the Royal Hospital Chelsea. By 1806 it seems he had moved to West Square, Lambeth (from the telegraph window there he was witness to an attempted murder, on which he gave evidence at the Old Bailey).

On the 13 November 1823, he was ‘bound’ apprentice to his older brother Charles James Topper as a Thames Lighterman. He was 17 at the time (from the Register of Thames Lightermen at FindMyPast). Three years later, on 2 September 1826, he married Sarah Sophia Stevenson at St George Hanover Square. His brother and sister-in-law Charles James and Elizabeth Topper were witnesses.

He appears to have given up the Lighterman trade, just as his brother did, as in the same year he married, he is reported as giving evidence at a trial at The Old Bailey. The report at Page Image - Central Criminal Court (oldbaileyonline.org) is of the trial of a Robert Barton for giving a forged cheque for £5 at St Margaret, Westminster, on 30 October 1829. 

Alfred declares he has been a postman for three years, which would mean he started work at the post office around the time of his marriage. Sadly, the defendant was sentenced to death.

 On 14 February 1836, in Cheam, Surrey, he and his wife baptised four of their children on the same day (Sarah Sophia, William Charles, Elizabeth Jane and Thomas Robert). Alfred is described as a Letter Carrier on the baptism record. By the time of the 1841 census, the family has moved to Bath Road, St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol – an area close to Temple Meads Railway station. Alfred is now working as a porter, and many of his neighbours have occupations related to the railways.

The history of Bristol Temple Meads station - Network Rail shows that Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s gothic station was opened at the end of August 1840, a year before the census and about the same time that their (by then) youngest son Walter was born, in London, so their move must have been fairly recent. Whether Alfred was a porter at the station is not known; by the 1851 census the family has moved back to London, to 11 Hudson Terrace, West Ham. Alfred is definitely working with the railway now, as he is described as a Labourer – Rail. Their two youngest sons, Walter 10 and Robert, 7, are the only ones left at home, and are still at school. Again, their neighbours’ occupations are associated with the railways, including boiler makers and engineers. Ten years later, the couple seem to have fallen on hard times (or into ill-health) as they are both enumerated as inmates at the Leyton Union Workhouse. Alfred is 60, his wife 58, and his occupation is given as Boiler Maker, hers Charwoman.

Alfred may have died in 1866 as there is a death index entry for the December quarter of that year. However, the age at the GRO is given as 68 (he would have been 60), so this may not be the correct record.

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I have not found too much out about their seven children, apart from some early deaths and some possible occupational and criminal records.  

1. The eldest – Alfred George – was baptised at Christ Church St Marylebone on 24 June 1827, the record annotated with his birth date of 26 May 1827, eight months after his parents married. He appears as the eldest child with his parents in Bristol at the time of the 1841 census, aged 16, with no occupation listed. He is not listed in the 1851 census. At FindMyPast there is a record of a death of an Alfred G Topper in the British Armed Forces And Overseas Deaths And Burials collection. 

It reads: Name of deceased: Topper, Alfred G, registered ticket number: 305.394, Place of death: Bolivar, belonging to the Port of London, Master’s name: Bergman/Berryman?, Date of engagement: 3/11/52, Date and place of death: died @ Nevis? 11/3/53, when paid: 11/6/53, where paid: Poplar, Amount: £1, 9/5-, When sent to Board of Trade: 1/4/53.

There is nothing in this record (original at TNA) which confirms this man’s age or origins, or even if his second name was George. If it is the same man, he would have been about 25 years old.

According to the Lloyds Register of Shipping for 1853, the Bolivar was a Brig built at Whitehaven in 1824; in 1853, her intended destination was the West Indies. This would tie in with Alfred G Topper’s death on the vessel ‘at Nevis’, part of the Leeward Islands making up the West Indies. I have found no other records for Alfred George, so perhaps he did follow in his forefathers’ maritime footsteps.

2. Their second son, baptised with his siblings in 1836 in Cheam, Surrey, appears to have been Thomas Robert, probably born around 1828. There is a death index entry for a Thomas Robert Topper in Bristol in 1841, and a burial record for him on 6 June that year at Temple Church in Bristol, aged 14. This would make sense as his parents were shown living at nearby St Mary Redcliffe in the 1841 census (which, incidentally, was taken on the night of his burial).

3. Their daughter Sarah Sophia, named after her mother, was also baptised in 1836 at Cheam. She does not appear with the rest of the family in 1841, so it is possible that she died before they moved to Bristol. However, I have not found any burial record for her.

4. William Charles Topper was born around 1832, one of the four children to be baptised at Cheam in 1836. He appears with his parents and siblings in Bristol on the 1841 census, aged 9. It is possible that he is the same William Charles Topper, aged 12, sentenced to two months hard labour and whipping at Bristol sessions in 1846 for larceny (FindMyPast). A William Charles Topper, son of Alfred, married Emma Baxter in Shoreditch on 12 November 1860. He is described as a Mariner, his father as a Labourer. The groom is shown as 24 (whereas ‘our’ William would have been about 24). In 1851, Alfred Davey Topper is described as a Labourer (rail), although by 1861 he is a Boiler Maker. Unfortunately, I have not been able to prove this connection, and have found no other reliable records for him, although there is a William and Emma Topper living in Stratford in the 1861 census, but the names of relatives don’t tie up, and he is described as a labourer rather than mariner, and born in Stratford.

5. Their second daughter, Elizabeth Jane, was born around 1835 and baptised with three siblings at Cheam in 1836. She appears with the family in Bristol in the 1841 census, aged 6. I haven’t found any other reliable records for her; she doesn’t appear with the family in Stratford in the 1851 census, when she would have been about 16 years old.

6. Walter Topper was born about 1840 according to his age given in the 1841 and 1851 censuses. He also appears to have died fairly young; there is a death index entry for him at West Ham in 1854, and a burial record on 29 January 1854, when he would have been 14. 

7. Their youngest son, Robert Topper, seems to have become insane and attempted to kill his wife. He was born in Bristol in 1843, and married Sarah Ann Lunniss at Potton, Bedfordshire, in 1870, when he was 26. In 1872, the Bedfordshire Times and Independent of 23 November 1872 carries a notice of the transfer of the license of the Barley Mow beer house in Potton to Robert Topper from George Lunniss (presumably a relative of his wife).

The role of publican does not seem to have suited him, as a report in the same paper from 19 July 1873 shows:

It seems that George Lunniss was Sarah’s father.

By the 1881 census they are living in Cambridgeshire, where he is working, like his father, as a Boiler Maker. Ten years later they are living in West Ham, like his parents before him. 

On 20 July 1896, he was brought to trial at The Old Bailey for “Feloniously shooting at Sarah Ann Topper, with intent to murder. Second Count— With intent to do grievous bodily harm”.

Sarah Ann is the first to give evidence:

It sounds from her description that he had been ‘wandering’ in his mind for about a year. His defence is rather odd, and her response perhaps explains it:

“The Prisoner's statement before the Magistrate: "The night before last my wife got hold of me by the throat and nearly strangled me; that was what excited me, and caused me to do what I did."

SARAH ANN TOPPER (Re-called). My husband and I were always living together—it was an unusual thing for him to come home and ask to have a wash; he generally came in—he had a blow on his head which affected him.”

 Robert was found guilty of the second count – unlawful wounding – and was sentenced to six months hard labour at Pentonville Prison.

A correspondent to the Women’s Signal (FindMyPast – BNA) of 30 July 1896 is unforgiving in her view on Robert Topper’s crime:

By 1896, Robert and Sarah had had eight children, although at least one had died in infancy. Things did not improve, although whether his behaviour was due to drink or mental illness is not known; on 31 July 1901, Robert was admitted to the Essex County Asylum, although discharged two months later. He was not listed with his wife and children in the 1901 census earlier that year (they are at Catherine Street, Canning Town, their three eldest sons all boiler makers).

It seems that he had at least one return to insanity, as he is enumerated at Ilford Asylum as a patient at the time of the 1911 census. He is aged 68, a boiler maker at the railway works by trade, married and described as ‘lunatic at 68’ – presumably his age at admission, ie quite recently.

His death is recorded at the Romford Asylum, Essex, in May 1915. His widow died in 1931 in West Ham. 

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

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