The Mystery of Mary Ann - secrets and lies

Mary Ann 2 years before she left home

As those of you who read this blog regularly know, one of my family mysteries is that of my great aunt Mary Ann Diggory, or Annie, as she was known.

Annie walked out of the family home in 1904, aged 16 and, it was alleged, never made any contact with her family until she was in her 90s when shortly before she died her local vicar tracked down her youngest and only surviving sibling, my grandmother, Edith Alice, ten years her junior.

The story has always intrigued me. Why did she go? Where did she go? And what happened to her in the intervening years from 1904 until 1982 when she sought out my gran. So since I began my family history research, it's been my mission to find out some answers.

It was no secret that Annie became a nurse, training at Reigate and Redhill Hospital, Surrey between 1912 and 1915.

In the previous post which I wrote about her, I said I'd learned that nurses were obliged to pay for their training and as Annie came from a family of six children and of modest means, I doubted it had been they who paid.

Annie had volunteered for the Red Cross during WW2 and I discovered that she'd given her next of kin, not as a family member but couple she referred to as "friends", Mr & Mrs Edwin F Murrell, of Shrewsbury, whom Annie had been living with in 1939.

Annie during her nursing years

I wondered if the Murrells had been Annie's benefactor and I sent away for Edwin Murrell's will, wondering whether Annie was mentioned in it. But, no. There was no reference to her at all.

However I have discovered something which blows apart the allegation that Annie had no contact with her family during her lifetime in previous years.

Ancestry.co.uk recently added a database of nurses's registration. Details gave qualifications, where qualified and the entrant's addresses. Annie's name appeared several times over a number of years, the earliest being 1925 when the record shows that by then she had returned to Shrewsbury and was living at 34 Bishop Street.

I decided to check the 1911 census (the closest I could get to this date) to see who was then resident at that address. I discovered a widow, Mary Downes, born in Leebotwood in 1846,  was living there alone and "on own means". So who was Mary Downes, I wondered? A check back to the previous census showed her at the same address. In the census before, in 1891, her husband was still alive, though then they were living in Cannock, Staffordshire, where her husband was a grocer.

Ancestry likes to be as helpful as it can and often makes suggestions as to other records which fit the person being investigated. I saw that a Mary Downes had died in 1935 and that her will was listed in the probate registry. I clicked on the entry and bingo! One of her beneficiaries was none other than Mary Ann Diggory!

But what was the connection? I knew from the 1891 census that Mary's husband was Samuel Downes so I searched the marriages on FreeBMD for Samuel Downes in Shropshire hoping that would give me more information. There was a Samuel Downes who'd married a Mary Finch but that didn't ring any bells.

Then another of Ancestry's prompts pointed me towards marriages across the border in Staffordshire and I hit the jackpot. Samuel Downes had married Mary Roberts, father, Timothy Roberts in 1890, in Sedgely, Staffordshire, the same place where Annie's family lived. Roberts was the maiden name of Annie's mother, Eliza. Elisa's father was also called Timothy and her elder brother, Thomas, had been born in Leebotwood, like Mary. Got it! Mary was Eliza's sister and therefore Annie's aunt!

While it's comforting to know Annie wasn't completely estranged from her family, I'm curious about who knew that Annie was living with her aunt. Was it a secret between the sisters, perhaps? Or was Mary the only family member not to turn her back on the young woman?

That, sadly, sounds like the case given that Mary died in 1935 and if bridges had been mended during her lifetime, Annie wouldn't have cited the Murrells as her next of kin during the 1940s.

But I still don't even know what her connection was with the Murrells! As ever, the mystery continues and the search for the truth goes on.

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I found Annie living with the Murrells on the 1939 Register. You can search the database via Findmypast website.

If you know when someone died, you can search the probate records and order a copy of a will via the government Probate website.

Romance in the records

photo courtesy of riptheskull (flickr)

The story of how couples met and fell in love is an appealing one. My parents met at a Wolverhampton dance hall when my father asked my mother to dance.

My husband's parents met on a flag day, when they were both standing outside Westminster Abbey, collecting for Great Ormond Street Hospital.

My maternal grandparents met while treading the boards across the country [see Strictly Music Hall].

For our ancestors further back, although we can't always know the details, information in the records may give us a clue to the story behind how couples came to know one another.

My great-grandfather Thomas Diggory was a groom living in Frodesley, Shropshire on the 1881 census. At the rectory, Richard Gleadon the rector had in his employ, a cook called Eliza Roberts, my great-grandmother. She and Thomas would marry 5 years later.

Thomas James Diggory b 1857

As I discovered last week [Great Witley Gives Up its Secrets], my great-great grandmother, Eleanor Williams's future husband James Hick, was the lodger!

While tracking Susan Sawyer, wife of the unfortunate Charles Gabriel Baker [Ancestors in the Spotlight] I found her on the 1851 census, aged 18, working as a milliner in James Smith's establishment in 58-59 South Audley Street, Mayfair. Amongst the other 30 milliners, drapers, haberdashers and silk mercers, also residents of 58-59 South Audley Street, was another milliner called Ellen J Baker.

Ellen Jane Baker was Charles Baker's sister. At first I thought it likely that Susan met Charles through her fellow worker. Perhaps the two girls were friends? Perhaps Charles visited his sister in London?

But Ellen was 4 years older than Susan, 7 years older than Charles, who would have been only 15 in 1851. Later that year, Ellen married Thomas Moxon and so would have no longer worked and lived alongside Susan. If they had been friends, perhaps she was invited to the wedding and met Charles there!

But one fascinating find concerning matters of the heart came to light on the 1881 census in Lambeth. It concerns the infamous black sheep in my family called Edward Henry Coules Colley who vanished from the family home some time after 1881 "never to be heard of again". In my post, Ancestors in the Spotlight, I revealed that he had run away to Australia in 1887 with a certain Elizabeth Woolf, who he eventually married (bigamously, I believe) in 1906, after fathering 8 children.

However, it seems that the passionate affair was not a recent liaison but had started several years before. Elizabeth had given birth to a boy, Leon, in 1876. Edward's wife Frances, had had daughter Maud in the same year. In 1880, Frances gave birth to Nelly, and Elizabeth to Albert.

By the time the 1881 census was taken, while Edward was still living with his wife, Frances in one part of Lambeth, Elizabeth was living at her uncle's house a few streets away and calling herself Mrs Colley.

Abandoned wife Frances Colley (nee Ellisdon)

By the time Edward and Elizabeth sailed to the Antipodes, their son Reuben had been born in 1882 and their daughter Violet in 1884.

I wonder how long Edward intended to maintain this 'double life'. Did he finally decide it was time to leave or did Frances discover his adultery and throw him out? And when? In 1887 when they left for Australia? Or before? As always, one disclosure merely leads to another question...