11.5 4x great grandparents William Moorhouse Stoney & Mary Ann Pearce: Married life, more debt, and death

William Moorhouse Stoney seems to have been in need of money for much of his life. He may have been imprisoned for debt in 1814-15, was convicted of fraud and held on a Prison Hulk from 1819-1823. When his son was baptised in 1828, he was a Coal Merchant of Sion Place, East Street and was in debtors’ prison in 1829, from the same address and similar occupation, around the time his daughter Catherine Alice Stoney was born. Ancestry, The London Gazette and FindMyPast hold records suggesting that he continued in the same vein in later life.

In 1836, there is a criminal record at Ancestry for a William Stoney, aged 68 (b1767), convicted of fraud at Surrey Assizes and sentenced to six months in prison; at present, I have nothing to connect this record to ‘my’ William Moorhouse Stoney, particularly as the age is out by about ten years, but it could be him.

On 17^th May 1843, he is in Horsemonger Lane Gaol for debt; the London Gazette has his petition for relief, citing his occupation as Commission and General Agent, late of No.6 Sion Place, Walworth. The following month, there is another entry where he is shown as:

William Moorhouse Stoney (sued and committed as W.M.Stoney), late of No.6 Sion-Place, East-street, Walworth, Surrey, General Dealer, and Commission, Discount and General Agent, twice a Prisoner for Debt in the County Gaol for Surrey, Horsemonger-lane, my wife a Dress Maker.”

His wife, Mary Ann Pearce, is shown as a Dressmaker on the 1841-1851 censuses.

By the 1861 census, her much older husband has died, leaving her a 67-year old widow living with her daughter Catherine Alice Stoney and husband Aaron Wales (my 3xgreat grandparents) at No.2 Cottage Row, Newington.

William Moorhouse Stoney died on 17^th January 1857, at 1 Cottage Row, Locks Fields, Newington. The death certificate shows that he was 89 (born 1768) and died of apoplexy.

An Elizabeth Stoney is the informant – probably his daughter-in-law. He was buried on 25^th January 1857 at City of London and Tower Hamlets Cemetery.

Mary Ann Stoney (nee Pearce) died on 14^th March 1863 in the same house as her husband, next door to where she was living with her daughter and son-in-law at the time of the 1861 census.

Her death certificate shows the cause of death as Apoplexy, 45 minutes, certified. Her age is given as 69 (b1794) and she is described as the Widow of William Moorhouse Stoney, annuitant. Informant: C A Stoney, present at the death, 1 Cottage Row.

She was buried at The City of London and Tower Hamlets Cemetery like her husband. There is a note in the burial register that the coffin was 2ft 2” wide. 

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

Mary Ann Stoney (Pearce) b1793: Death certificate 1863

 

Newington, Trinity Newington, in the County of Surrey
14th March 1863, 1 Cottage Row
Mary Ann Stoney
Female
69 years
Widow of William Moorhouse Stoney, Annuitant
Cause: Apoplexy, 45 minutes, certified
Informant: C. A. Wales, present at the death, 1 Cottage Row, Newington

William Moorhouse Stoney b1776?: Death certificate 1857

 

Newington, Trinity Newington, in the County of Surrey
Seventeenth January 1857, 1 Cottage Row
William Moorhouse Stoney
Male
89 years
Commercial Traveller
Cause: Apoplexy certified
Informant: X the mark of Elizabeth Stoney, present at the death, 11 Swan Street, Newington

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

William Moorhouse Stoney and Mary Ann Rowney (Pearce): Marriage record 1825

 

Marriage in the Parish of Camberwell [St Giles - from full record] in the County of Surrey in the year 1825.

William Moorhouse Stoney of this parish Widower and Mary Ann Rowney of this parish widow were married in this church by banns this twenty sixth day of December in the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty five. By me ... 

Witnesses: William Pearce, Amy Pearce.

Full record at Ancestry. 

11.3 4xGreat grandfather William Moorhouse Stoney: Born a Yorkshire lad, a debtor in London?

Having found the trial and sentencing of William Moorhouse Stoney iin 1819 in the records at The Old Bailey Online, Ancestry and FindMyPast, further indications of his life before this particular crime (fraud) began to emerge in search results.

In 1828, when son William Moorhouse Stoney was baptised, the family address is given as Sion Place, East Street, and the father’s occupation is Coal Merchant. The London Gazette holds a number of references to William Moorhouse Stoney in its insolvency and debtors pages from 1829 through to 1843. FindMyPast also holds these and earlier records of debtors from The Marshalsea Prison.

On 4^th May 1829, “William Moorhouse Stoney (sued as William Stoney) formerly of Zion Place, Walworth, Surrey, General Commission Agent and Dealer in Coals …” was a prisoner petitioning “ in the Court for Relief of Insolvent Debtors” at Lincoln’s Inn (Extract from The London Gazette, 1829, at FindMyPast).

His daughter Catherine Alice Stoney was born in 1829 – perhaps I have not found her baptism as her father was in debtor’s prison at the time?

A William Stoney also appears as a debtor in the Marshalsea Prison records at Ancestry, first in 1814, and again in July 1815. There is no other information – such as age, address or occupation – in these discharge records that can firmly link them to ‘my’ William Stoney, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were him.

Financial troubles seem to have dogged him for much of his working life – but what of his birth?

The Hulk Registers of 1819-1823 confirm his place of birth as Kettlewell, Yorkshire, his birth year as around 1778. Kettlewell is in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in Wharfdale, postal town Skipton (which William Moorhouse Stoney gives as his birthplace in the 1851 census). His birth year in the censuses ranges from 1765 (probably rounded down)-1771. I have not found a baptism for any William Moorhouse Stoney in online records between 1765-1778. I did find a baptism at Kettlewell in 1776:

The entry from FindMyPast reads (2^nd line in image, right): William, natural son of Mary Stoney, Bapt. Dec 31st

There are many other baptisms in West Yorkshire, particularly Pateley Bridge, Leeds and Huddersfield within a similar period. The baptism at Kettlewell (at FindMyPast) seems the most likely in terms of date and place and FindMyPast has records of Stoneys living at Kettlewell from the 1600s. However, the surname is widespread across Yorkshire.

I have undertaken some research into Mary Stoney of Kettlewell, potential mother of ‘my’ William Stoney – but that’s another story. 

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

11.2 4xgreat grandfather William Moorhouse Stoney: Trial and Retribution

The distinctive middle name of William Moorhouse Stoney led me to first one, then several more, criminal records. The first was an account of a trial that took place at The Old Bailey on 27^th October 1819. William Moorhouse Stoney was indicted “for unlawfully, and by false pretences, obtaining three [£1] Bank notes, and 40 s. from John Campbell , with intent to defraud him thereof”. It seems that the defendant promised to obtain a position for John Campbell as a Tide-Waiter at The Custom House, in return for £30. He received £5 as a first instalment and spent, in his own words, “ten days in going backwards and forwards”, but John Campbell decided enough was enough and called the police to take him in charge. William Moorhouse Stoney was found guilty of fraud, and sentenced to seven years’ transportation.

The indictment and following trial were also reported in the newspapers of the time, found in the British Library Newspaper Collection at FindMyPast. The Morning Advertiser of 16 October 1819 reported on the preliminary hearing that led to the Old Bailey Trial:

A few days earlier, on 11 October, the Hampshire Chronicle used some rather more picturesque terms in its account, describing William Stoney as ‘a well known character’, and the prosecutor, John Campbell, as ‘fresh from “The land o’ cakes”’ [Scotland]. 

These and other newspaper accounts use the name William Stoney, without a middle name. The first use of William Moorhouse Stoney appears part-way through the trial process, on 27 October 1819.

I was unsure whether this was the same man, a widower, who married widow Mary Ann Rowney six years later, the parents of 3xgreat grandmother Catherine Alice Stoney. If he were transported to Australia in 1819 for seven years, how did he appear again in London by 1825?  

His story gradually unfolded as more records became available. In the Newgate Calendar of Prisoners on 27 October 1819 (Ancestry), he is listed as awaiting transportation for seven years, convicted of fraud. The record of 15^th December 1819 gives us a physical description, more information relating to his age and place of birth, his trial and sentence:

The full record is at Ancestry, derived from The National Archives (The National Archives Series PCOM2 Piece number 193 Record set England & Wales, Crime, Prisons & Punishment, 1770-1935).

The extract above shows that he was 5ft 11 ½” tall, with dark complexion, dark hair and hazel eyes and being ‘stoutish made’, and born at Kettlewell, Yorkshire, in 1778 (age 41), occupation Grocer. The full record gives the full name of Willm Moorhouse Stoney and shows that he was brought into custody on 20th October 1819, tried on 3 November, convicted and sentenced to seven years transportation, and discharged from Newgate Prison on 15^th December 1819 to be held on the Prison Hulk Retribution at Sheerness.

According to the Victorian Crime & Punishment site, Prison Hulks were ships that were decommissioned and put to service as floating prisons. Retribution (formerly HMS Edgar) was originally built around the same time as William Moorhouse Stoney was born and saw service in The American Revolutionary, French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars before being turned into a Hulk in 1814, five years before William Moorhouse Stoney was imprisoned there.

The Hulk Registers at The Digital Panopticon provide more information on the Hulks and the records now available.

So far, the name(s), age, place of birth and occupation (Grocer) appeared to fit with what I knew of Catherine Alice Stoney’s father from later records. But I still didn’t know how he came to be freed before his sentence was complete, and how he found himself in London rather than Australia.

The final piece of this particular jigsaw fell into place with the release of the Hulk Registers and Letter Books at Ancestry. These show that Wm Moorhouse Stoney was pardoned on 6^th February 1823 (year more visible in other records). 

Further records were released at FindMyPast showing the digitised letter granting the King’s Pardon to William Stoney, amongst others, and signed by the famous Robert Peel himself on the King’s behalf. It reads:

“Whereas the following persons are now under sentence of transportation on board the Retribution convict hulk at Sheerness, they having been convicted of felony at the times and places hereafter mentioned viz ... William Stoney at the Old Bailey, November 1819 ... we in consideration of some favourable circumstances humbly represented unto us in their behalf, are graciously pleased to extend our Grace and mercy unto them and to grant them our free pardon for the crimes of which they stand convicted. Our will and pleasure therefore is that you cause them, the said .... William Stoney [and 11 others] to be discharged out of custody and for so doing this shall be your warrant. Given at our court at Carlton House the 4 day of September 1823 in the fourth year of our reign. To our trusty and well beloved John Henry Capper Esq Superintendent of convicts, and all others whom it may concern. By his majesty's command, Robert Peel.”

Extract (right) showing Robert Peel’s signature on the King’s grant of pardon to William Stoney and 11 others on 6^th Feb 1823. From original records at The National Archives, digitised and transcribed at FindMyPast.

So, William Moorhouse Stoney, formerly a Grocer from Kettlewell, Yorkshire, convicted at The Old Bailey of fraud in October 1819 and transferred to the Prison Hulk Retribution on 3^rd December 1819 awaiting transportation, appears to have served four years’ of his sentence on the Hulk, and then been freed by the King’s Pardon. Nearly three years later, on 26th December 1825, he married Mary Ann Rowney, widow, and had two children with her, including my 3xgreat grandmother Catherine Alice Stoney.

But there were more puzzles to come, as I uncovered more potential records from his life before imprisonment, and later financial troubles. 

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