It might be interesting to look at a few key bits of information about the principal residents of the first three houses on Charles Street, just for the halibut as they say down at the docks.
No. 1: Thomas Charles March, civil servant, age 52
Born: July 4, 1819, Marylebone
Married: March 23, 1867.
Spouse: Sarah Cooper, later called Arabella, b. 1839, Basingstoke
Children: Arabella (Daughter of Arabella, apparently adopted by Thomas), b. 1857, Chelsea; Thomas, b. 1868, St. George's [Hanover Square?], died at age 8; Reginald George March, b. 1874.
Died: 1898, age 79 approx.
Occupation: In the Royal Household his whole life, mainly in the Lord Chamberlain's officer; Paymaster; finally Secretary of Board of the Green Cloth. A high-ranking civil servant handling the finances of the Royal Household.
Highest honour: CB, Companion of the Order of the Bath
Value of estate: 1898, £15,387/0/8. The website Measuring Worth.com says this is worth £1.280 million in 2008 using the retail price index, or £7.04 million in 2008 using average earnings.
Parents: Thomas March, Esq. and Mary Ann Gonne, both British subjects born in Portugal to wine merchants. Gonne is an Irish surname. Mary Ann was distantly related to Maud Gonne of a later generation. There was intra-family litigation between Thomas and Mary Ann's brothers after Mary Ann's father died and Thomas went bankrupt, involving Mary Ann's marriage settlement. The case was reported in the bankruptcy law books.
Siblings: At least three sisters and two brothers. The family appears to have been wealthy and to have retained or improved their social standing.
Other notes: In 1852, Thomas represented the Royal Household in escorting the body of the Duke of Wellington to Westminster for his state funeral.
Queen Victoria Number: 1
Dracula Number: 2
Left Charles Street around 1872.
No. 2: Henry Fleming, civil servant, age about 69
Born: about 1812, apparently in Birmingham. His exact age was something of a mystery to his social circle.
Married: Never.
Died: 1876, age about 74
Occupation: Lifelong civil servant, mainly as Permanent Secretary to the Poor Law Board where it appears he was not particularly effective. He was more successful socially. Known as "The Flea", his role from at least the 1840s was literally to spread gossip strategically in political and intellectual circles. He knew Prime Ministers Palmerston, Gladstone and Disraeli, and was described a few times in the letters of Thomas Carlyle. He introduced the painter George Frederic Watts to the much younger beauty, Virginia Pattle, at a party given by Lady Holland. It goes on and on.
Highest honour: Nothing official I'm afraid.
Value of estate: Less than £3,000. In 2008 terms, either £210,000, or £1.560 million, depending on the computation method used.
Parents: Irish army officer Captain Valentine Fleming of Tuam, County Galway, and Catherine Emma Gowan, whose father was a notorious anti-Catholic, Hunter Gowan. One of Catherine's half-brothers, Ogle Gowan, started the Orange Lodge in Canada.
Siblings: Sir Valentine Fleming, a lawyer (as was Henry, though he didn't practice), Chief Justice of Tasmania; James Fleming, also a lawyer, and Chancellor of the Palatinate of Durham. James's eldest son, Frances Fleming, was Governor of Antigua, and of Hong Kong, among other postings, including service in Africa. Henry also had a sister, Emma, of whom I have seen very little.
Other notes: The brothers Fleming attempted unsuccessfully to prove themselves the lawful descendants of the Barons of Slane. No castle for you!
Henry's nickname was "The Flea". Someone should write a thesis about his role in mid-nineteenth century communication.
He died at home in 1876, at No. 2 Charles Street.
Queen Victoria Number: 2
Dracula Number: 3
No. 3: George Thomas Lambert, later, Sir George Lambert, civil servant, age 34
Born: 1837, Ireland
Married: Never
Died: 1918, age 81
Occupation: Private secretary to the Admiralty
Highest honour: Companion of the Order of the Bath (1897), Knight Bachelor (1903)
Value of estate: £22,946/9/8. Value in 2008: £833,000 or £4.1 million, again, depending on the computation method used.
Parents: Henry Lambert of Carnagh, Ireland, and Catherine Talbot, both of prominent Irish families.
Siblings: Many.
Other notes: Prominent Catholic.
Queen Victoria Number: 1
Dracula Number: 3
Frankenstein Number: 3
Winners and Losers?
Lifespan:
81 Lambert
79 March
74 Fleming
Money at the end:
£7.04 million March
£4.1 million Lambert
Less than £1.560 million Fleming
Descendants:
Of the three men, only Thomas March had children. His adopted daughter, Arabella, was unmarried. His second son, Reginald, died in 1918, leaving (at least) a daughter, Marjorie (b. 1911, the rest, unknown), and a son, Thomas (1915-1999). There may be March descendants living today.
March 1, the others zero.
Highest honours:
Lambert CB and Knighthood
March CB
Fleming Nada
Best remembered:
Fleming
March and Lambert tied, far behind
The Score:
11 March
9 Lambert
6 Fleming
Who had the most fun?
Showing posts with label thomas charles march. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thomas charles march. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Maud Gonne and Thomas Charles March and the English wine merchants who brought us port
Who were these people?
OK, apologies to those of you who've been religiously keeping score. The rest of you, go back and read every single post since January 2011.
Oh, all right, I'll make it easier.
1. I recently figured out (the penny dropped) that I come from a vampire bloodline.
2. Decided to see if Bram Stoker (author of Dracula) was influenced by my vampire family.
3. Looked Bram and family up in the census returns for 1881, 1891, 1901, and 1911, when they were in England.
4. Obsessively started figuring out not just where the Stokers lived, but who lived with them: the servants.
5. This led me to a man named Charles Jarrald, whose wife was the Stoker's nursery nurse in 1881. Charles was dead by then; his wife was a widow working for the Stokers.
6. Going back 10 years, I found Charles working on what turned out to be a pretty posh street. He was a servant at No. 27 Charles Street, Berkeley Square.
7. Since the street was crammed with the upper class in 1871, I decided to do a house-by-house analysis, starting at No. 1.
8. To keep everyone from falling asleep, I also decided to play Six Degrees of Separation with the people in the houses, figuring out how close the people are to (a) Queen Victoria and (b) Dracula, or at least, Bram Stoker.
9. At No. 1 Charles Street, was the family of Thomas Charles March, an interesting enough fellow who was one of the top non-political servants in the Royal Household of Queen Victoria, having a career that went from about 1840 (ish) to his death in 1898.
A few notes on the March family and the connection to Maud Gonne
Thomas Charles March was the second of six children, three boys and three girls.
His two brothers had equally distinguished careers, it appears, and at least one brother (George) moved in high society circles.
The parents, Thomas March and Mary Anne nee Gonne, were both born in Portugal in the late 1700s. I am fairly certain both fathers were wine merchants and also that both families were well off.
Thomas the father was a bankrupt, with a wife and six children, in the mid-1830s. This led to a lawsuit, which is a reported case I found online. It was all intra-familial and a little complicated in its details, but essentially Thomas's creditors (also family) tried to get the money Mary Anne brought with her as a marriage settlement, and which had been set up in a sort of trust to generate income for her and the children. The interesting social background is the law and attitudes about married women having property (or not). Also there is some ongoing intrigue and political scheming between Portugal and England during the period. Thomas's bankruptcy may have been the result of the Portuguese kicking the English merchants out. (I know very little about this but it's fascinating history.)
One of Thomas Charles March's sisters married a clergyman from a noble family in Yorkshire, and another sister lived with them at least for a time. The married sister and her husband had at least two sons.
I sort of lost the third sister and hope she will turn up one day.
The brother George worked in the diplomatic service, I think.
Now to switch to Maud Gonne, known variously as a political radical, Ireland's Joan of Arc, the mystic lover of the poet William Butler Yeats, and the mother of Nobel Peace Prize winner Sean McBride. You may have recognized the same last name, Gonne, as the mother of Thomas Charles March, Mary Anne nee Gonne.
At one point, when Maud was being attacked for her political views, she mentioned in a letter that eventually questions of her ancestry would be cleared up, and that her great-grandfather had been William Gonne, a wine merchant in Portugal.
I haven't constructed a chronology, and it's getting a bit too complicated to pursue it just now, but that William Gonne would fit the generation of Mary Anne's father, whose name wasThomas Gonne. INCORRECT! Correction: Her father's name was William Gonne Esquire, possibly the same William Gonne as was Maud's great-grandfather.
Scholars of Maud Gonne, please, jump in any time and leave a comment if you know more about Maud's exact family tree. I am a lazy researcher working my way down the street, long before Maud was born, and not even the street where she lived. My Maud Gonne contribution may have to end here.
The Gonne and March families in the wine trade in Portugal would have been shipping port to England. A notable contribution to life there, wouldn't you say? I also suspect that the merchant community in Oporto may have done a little soft espionage on the side. Just a thought.
One more coincidence. Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee was in 1897. Maud Gonne protested against it. Her distant cousin, Thomas March, may have supervised the organizing of it, given his senior position within the staff of the Royal Household. Whether these two acknowledged each other as relatives, I don't know.
Thomas March is the first of many interesting people we will meet on Charles Street in 1871. His story starts with Thomas March of 1 Charles Street: One degree from Queen Victoria.
This article is one in an ongoing series, starting with Bram Stoker, author of Dracula in public records: BMD (Birth, Marriage, Death).
Next: We leave No. 1 Charles Street, and move along to No. 2. On census night in 1871, this house was occupied by Henry Fleming and two servants.
No. 2 Charles Street, Berkeley Square, Mayfair, London, in 1871.
OK, apologies to those of you who've been religiously keeping score. The rest of you, go back and read every single post since January 2011.
Oh, all right, I'll make it easier.
1. I recently figured out (the penny dropped) that I come from a vampire bloodline.
2. Decided to see if Bram Stoker (author of Dracula) was influenced by my vampire family.
3. Looked Bram and family up in the census returns for 1881, 1891, 1901, and 1911, when they were in England.
4. Obsessively started figuring out not just where the Stokers lived, but who lived with them: the servants.
5. This led me to a man named Charles Jarrald, whose wife was the Stoker's nursery nurse in 1881. Charles was dead by then; his wife was a widow working for the Stokers.
6. Going back 10 years, I found Charles working on what turned out to be a pretty posh street. He was a servant at No. 27 Charles Street, Berkeley Square.
7. Since the street was crammed with the upper class in 1871, I decided to do a house-by-house analysis, starting at No. 1.
8. To keep everyone from falling asleep, I also decided to play Six Degrees of Separation with the people in the houses, figuring out how close the people are to (a) Queen Victoria and (b) Dracula, or at least, Bram Stoker.
9. At No. 1 Charles Street, was the family of Thomas Charles March, an interesting enough fellow who was one of the top non-political servants in the Royal Household of Queen Victoria, having a career that went from about 1840 (ish) to his death in 1898.
A few notes on the March family and the connection to Maud Gonne
Thomas Charles March was the second of six children, three boys and three girls.
His two brothers had equally distinguished careers, it appears, and at least one brother (George) moved in high society circles.
The parents, Thomas March and Mary Anne nee Gonne, were both born in Portugal in the late 1700s. I am fairly certain both fathers were wine merchants and also that both families were well off.
Thomas the father was a bankrupt, with a wife and six children, in the mid-1830s. This led to a lawsuit, which is a reported case I found online. It was all intra-familial and a little complicated in its details, but essentially Thomas's creditors (also family) tried to get the money Mary Anne brought with her as a marriage settlement, and which had been set up in a sort of trust to generate income for her and the children. The interesting social background is the law and attitudes about married women having property (or not). Also there is some ongoing intrigue and political scheming between Portugal and England during the period. Thomas's bankruptcy may have been the result of the Portuguese kicking the English merchants out. (I know very little about this but it's fascinating history.)
One of Thomas Charles March's sisters married a clergyman from a noble family in Yorkshire, and another sister lived with them at least for a time. The married sister and her husband had at least two sons.
I sort of lost the third sister and hope she will turn up one day.
The brother George worked in the diplomatic service, I think.
Now to switch to Maud Gonne, known variously as a political radical, Ireland's Joan of Arc, the mystic lover of the poet William Butler Yeats, and the mother of Nobel Peace Prize winner Sean McBride. You may have recognized the same last name, Gonne, as the mother of Thomas Charles March, Mary Anne nee Gonne.
At one point, when Maud was being attacked for her political views, she mentioned in a letter that eventually questions of her ancestry would be cleared up, and that her great-grandfather had been William Gonne, a wine merchant in Portugal.
I haven't constructed a chronology, and it's getting a bit too complicated to pursue it just now, but that William Gonne would fit the generation of Mary Anne's father, whose name was
Scholars of Maud Gonne, please, jump in any time and leave a comment if you know more about Maud's exact family tree. I am a lazy researcher working my way down the street, long before Maud was born, and not even the street where she lived. My Maud Gonne contribution may have to end here.
The Gonne and March families in the wine trade in Portugal would have been shipping port to England. A notable contribution to life there, wouldn't you say? I also suspect that the merchant community in Oporto may have done a little soft espionage on the side. Just a thought.
One more coincidence. Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee was in 1897. Maud Gonne protested against it. Her distant cousin, Thomas March, may have supervised the organizing of it, given his senior position within the staff of the Royal Household. Whether these two acknowledged each other as relatives, I don't know.
Thomas March is the first of many interesting people we will meet on Charles Street in 1871. His story starts with Thomas March of 1 Charles Street: One degree from Queen Victoria.
This article is one in an ongoing series, starting with Bram Stoker, author of Dracula in public records: BMD (Birth, Marriage, Death).
Next: We leave No. 1 Charles Street, and move along to No. 2. On census night in 1871, this house was occupied by Henry Fleming and two servants.
No. 2 Charles Street, Berkeley Square, Mayfair, London, in 1871.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Six degrees of Queen Victoria: How the Thomas Charles MARCH family were connected
To recap, this is a potted history of the people at No. 1 Charles Street in 1871. If you would like to see a fuller version, just look in the post archives and you'll see a series of posts before this one, about the MARCH family.
Thomas Charles MARCH was a lifelong member of Queen Victoria's household staff, finishing his days as one of the top employees. One of the highlights of his career, in the easy-to-find public records, was representing the Royal Household in the procession bringing the Duke of Wellington's body from Kent to London for a state funeral.
Arabella S. MARCH, nee Sarah COOPER, born in Basingstoke, Hampshire, was a spinster with a child (Arabella) when she married Thomas (who was 20 years older) in 1867. How she came to have a child and a house on Sloane Street, and funds before she married Thomas, I don't know.
Arabella MARCH, the daughter, born in St. Luke's, Chelsea, didn't marry and disappeared from my view after selling the family's country home, Forest Lodge in Ashtead, Surrey, around 1901.
Thomas C. MARCH in the 1871 census is Thomas Charles MARCH, who matches a boy who died at the age of 8.
Not shown in the 1871 census, because he wasn't yet born, Reginald George MARCH was the youngest child I'm aware of, and the only one with children, again, as far as I know. He was born at Holmwood, Surrey in 1874, was, like his father, a Clerk in the Lord Chamberlain's office, fought in South Africa with Lord Paget's Horse, was married, and had at least two children. He enlisted for the First World War but does not appear to have seen active duty outside the United Kingdom.
The only person I'm aware of to carry on the MARCH name from this family was Reginald's son, Thomas Charles MARCH, who matches a gentleman who died in 1999 in Winchester.
I promised I would play Six Degrees of Separation, in two forms, for these people:
Six Degrees of Queen Victoria
and
Six Degrees of Dracula.
The Queen Victoria numbers are from 1 to 3.
1, Personal connection to Queen Victoria
Thomas Charles MARCH. Having served so long and in such important positions, I'm guessing he bumped into Her Majesty the Small Queen at least once in a while.
His son Reginald George MARCH, based on his position in the Lord Chamberlain's office, which could be a stretch. If not a 1, he is a 2, like the rest of the family.
2, Personal connection to a person with a Queen Victoria number of 1
Connected through Thomas Charles MARCH:
His wife Arabella S. MARCH
His daughter Arabella MARCH
His son Thomas C. MARCH.
Next: The Dracula scores.
That takes a bit of explaining.
Thomas March is the first of many interesting people we will meet on Charles Street in 1871. His story starts with Thomas March of 1 Charles Street: One degree from Queen Victoria.
This article is one in an ongoing series, starting with Bram Stoker, author of Dracula in public records: BMD (Birth, Marriage, Death).
Next: What was Thomas Charles March's Dracula number? Six degrees.
Thomas Charles MARCH was a lifelong member of Queen Victoria's household staff, finishing his days as one of the top employees. One of the highlights of his career, in the easy-to-find public records, was representing the Royal Household in the procession bringing the Duke of Wellington's body from Kent to London for a state funeral.
Arabella S. MARCH, nee Sarah COOPER, born in Basingstoke, Hampshire, was a spinster with a child (Arabella) when she married Thomas (who was 20 years older) in 1867. How she came to have a child and a house on Sloane Street, and funds before she married Thomas, I don't know.
Arabella MARCH, the daughter, born in St. Luke's, Chelsea, didn't marry and disappeared from my view after selling the family's country home, Forest Lodge in Ashtead, Surrey, around 1901.
Thomas C. MARCH in the 1871 census is Thomas Charles MARCH, who matches a boy who died at the age of 8.
Not shown in the 1871 census, because he wasn't yet born, Reginald George MARCH was the youngest child I'm aware of, and the only one with children, again, as far as I know. He was born at Holmwood, Surrey in 1874, was, like his father, a Clerk in the Lord Chamberlain's office, fought in South Africa with Lord Paget's Horse, was married, and had at least two children. He enlisted for the First World War but does not appear to have seen active duty outside the United Kingdom.
The only person I'm aware of to carry on the MARCH name from this family was Reginald's son, Thomas Charles MARCH, who matches a gentleman who died in 1999 in Winchester.
I promised I would play Six Degrees of Separation, in two forms, for these people:
Six Degrees of Queen Victoria
and
Six Degrees of Dracula.
The Queen Victoria numbers are from 1 to 3.
1, Personal connection to Queen Victoria
Thomas Charles MARCH. Having served so long and in such important positions, I'm guessing he bumped into Her Majesty the Small Queen at least once in a while.
His son Reginald George MARCH, based on his position in the Lord Chamberlain's office, which could be a stretch. If not a 1, he is a 2, like the rest of the family.
2, Personal connection to a person with a Queen Victoria number of 1
Connected through Thomas Charles MARCH:
His wife Arabella S. MARCH
His daughter Arabella MARCH
His son Thomas C. MARCH.
Next: The Dracula scores.
That takes a bit of explaining.
Thomas March is the first of many interesting people we will meet on Charles Street in 1871. His story starts with Thomas March of 1 Charles Street: One degree from Queen Victoria.
This article is one in an ongoing series, starting with Bram Stoker, author of Dracula in public records: BMD (Birth, Marriage, Death).
Next: What was Thomas Charles March's Dracula number? Six degrees.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
The end of Thomas Charles MARCH, his wife and children, apart from one important detail
The story so far:
Thomas Charles MARCH was a lifelong servant of the royal household during Queen Victoria's reign. He rose through the ranks of the Lord Chamberlain's office and by 1881 was Pay-master of the Royal Household. In sequential census returns, and in some of the other public records Ancestry.co.uk (Ancestry.com) has online, as well as what others have posted to the Web, I have been tracing Thomas and his family. The larger context started out with Bram STOKER and is explained in previous posts.
Bram Stoker and family in the 1881 English census
I looked more closely at the three servants:
Emma Barton, Bram Stoker's 15-year-old parlourmaid in 1881
Harriet Daw, Bram Stoker's Cook in 1881. The problem of a small spelling error
and
A brick wall: Elizabeth Jarrald, widow, Nurse to Bram Stoker's baby son in 1881.
Researching Elizabeth led me to the man I think she married:
Charles Jarrald, a well-placed servant indeed.
And then I got on to the MARCH family. I started using the common convention of putting surnames in ALL CAPS when I got to the MARCH family because it's too easy to confuse their name with the month of March.
Thomas Charles MARCH marries
Thomas Charles MARCH married Sarah COOPER in 1867. She brought with her a daughter, Arabella, who went by MARCH for the rest of her life. I think the daughter matches the Arabella MARCH who died in 1944. The probate records for 1944 are not yet available online but when I can get a look at them, I'll be interested to see the size of the fortune, or lack of it, that Arabella had when she died. I haven't found her in the census after 1891. I rather hope she was installed in a nice grace and favour apartment somewhere on the grounds of Buckingham Palace or even Hampton Court Palace for the rest of her days.
MARCH family life in the 1880s and later
Thomas and Sarah had two little brothers for Arabella, Thomas Charles MARCH, b. 1867, and Reginald George MARCH, b. 1874. Sadly, it appears little Thomas died at the age of 8.
By 1881, the MARCH family had decamped from London and were living at a very nice country house called Forest Lodge in Ashtead, Surrey.You can read a bit about it online, courtesy of the Surrey History Centre Archives and their website, Exploring Surrey's Past. They had probably left London for Surrey earlier, in the 1870s, as Reginald was born in Holmwood, Surrey in 1874, and the boy Thomas died, probably at Ashtead (Epsom registration district), in 1876. In 1881, Thomas (the father) was 61 and as mentioned, Pay-master of the Queen's Household.
Reginald was away at school in Cheltenham for the 1891 census. Thomas and the daughter Arabella were the only ones at Forest Lodge. This was Arabella's home until about three years after her father died (he died in 1898), when she sold it to Mr. Augustus MEYERS, who built a beautiful new home there.
Here is what the Surrey History Centre Archives' website says:
"In the early 19th century, the Haunch of Venison inn stood [where Forest Lodge was] but, during the 1860s, Henry Parsons converted it into a house, where, in 1871, he lived with a large household, including five servants. In the 1879 sale of Ashtead Park, Forest Lodge was bought for £3,700 on behalf of Lord Rosebery, although it was occupied at the time by Thomas C March, who held important positions in the royal household and who subsequently purchased the property. After his death, it was sold by his daughter, Arabella.
"Augustus Meyers purchased the estate in 1901 and lived there for nearly fifty years. Soon after he acquired the property, he built the present Forest Lodge, set well back from the road behind the site of the original inn, which had stood near the present entrance. The laying out of the grounds, including the demolition of the earlier house, had been completed by 1911."
Just a side-note about Lord Rosebery: he became Prime Minister of England. He was born in 1847 at No. 20, Charles Street, Berkeley Square. You may recall that Charles Street is what got us here. Thomas Charles MARCH lived at No. 1 in 1861.
There is a privately-published book called Photographic Views of Interior and Gardens, Forest Lodge, Ashtead, Surrey (1911) displayed on the website of Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, as part of an exhibit called "Of Making Many Books There is No End", that will close on March 31, 2011. Only the cover and one photograph (the one the cover picture is based on) are pictured on the website. The book was, I assume, prepared for Mr. MEYERS and depicts his new house, but that is just my best guess.
Sarah, Arabella's mother, died at Forest Lodge on July 7, 1888. Probate was granted, not to her husband, but to her spinster daughter Arabella MARCH on August 13, 1888. Sarah's will may have been set up to name Arabella as executrix because, with Thomas being about 20 years her elder, Sarah expected to outlive him. Sarah's personal estate was valued at £633/0/11.
Before her marriage to Thomas, the 1861 census showed Sarah living at 78 Sloane Street, Chelsea with her occupation being "House and Funded Proprietor". If that means she owned the house on Sloane Street, her fortune could have been considerable. Maybe that was invested in Forest Lodge, or maybe she was less wealthy than I imagine. Students of women's history can perhaps shed some light on the situation of a married woman's property in 1888. Did it remain hers, or did it become part of her husband's wealth upon marriage? I would only be guessing if I answered that question either way.
Link to the map and Google Street View of present day 78 Sloane Street. Dorchester Court, the modern red brick building on the left, is No. 77 through 81.The white building with the blue plaques is No. 76 (at the end close to Dorchester Court).
View Larger Map
It appears Thomas worked for Her Majesty's household until his death in 1898. His occupation in the 1891 census was "Secretary of Board of Green Cloth, Queen's Household". Probate was granted to Reginald George MARCH, his son, who was then a Clerk to the Lord Chamberlain, on August 10, 1898.
Thomas's estate was valued at £15,387/0/8.
In the National Probate Calendar (Ref: England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations),1861-1941 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010.Original data: Principal Probate Registry. Calendar of the Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration made in the Probate Registries of the High Court of Justice in England. London, England © Crown copyright.), Thomas was called Thomas Charles MARCH of 82 Ebury-street Middlesex C.B.
The C.B. was news to me, and stands for Companion of the The Most Honourable Order of the Bath, an honour bestowed by the Queen, to a senior civil servant. I have not been able to find details of when Thomas MARCH was given this honour.
Here is a link to the Google Street View and map for 82 Ebury-street (modern day; the black door on the right, with the two white squares of what looks like paper), in case the embedded map below is not visible. In the 1891 census, this was a lodging house kept by a widow. On census night the widow, two female servants, and one 21-year-old man, an Assistant Engineer in the navy, were there. I would guess this was a convenient place for Thomas MARCH to stay when in London on business, but not likely the sort of place his daughter would have moved to after selling Forest Lodge, if it catered to gentlemen civil servants.
View Larger Map
The two surviving family members, Arabella and Reginald appear, from the scanty collection of records I have seen, to have gone their separate ways. I don't mean they were estranged (who knows?), only that I haven't found them living together. I don't know where Arabella was between about 1901 (the sale of Forest Lodge) and 1944, her death.
I couldn't find Reginald in the 1901 census, either, but I did find a good explanation for that.
In 1914, when the First World War started, Reginald enlisted and gave his occupation as "motor lorry driver". That's rather unexpected for a Clerk to the Lord Chamberlain. The reason comes from his prior military service as a member of Lord Paget's Horse. This was a private regiment raised by Lord Paget to fight in the South African (aka Boer) War. It appears they were in South Africa on census night, 1901.
Lord Paget's Horse recruited gentlemen, and its official initials, PH, were jokingly said to stand for "Piccadilly Heroes".
Also mentioned in Reginald's First World War attestation papers is the fact that he was married, and the papers identify his wife and two children.
Reginald enlisted for "Short Service (One Year With the Colours)" on October 5, 1914 at the age of 30. As mentioned, his stated Trade or Calling was "Motor Lorry Driver". There was also a note "Speaks French fluently and German [illegible]". On November 17, 1917, he was discharged as being medically unfit for service, being over age. His service record shows that he was at Home (i.e., the UK), not sent abroad to fight.
He died in 1918, leaving £2,686/8/1 and naming his wife Ella and two solicitors as executors. It's possible Ella went on to remarry (I found a possible match in 1927 to John MAYLE) and also that she travelled to the U.S.A., and that she died in Winchester in 1973. I haven't tried to check those things out (too remote).
Of his children, the little bit of searching I did suggests (doesn't prove) that his daughter Marjorie Eva went to the U.S.A. in 1930, for 3 months at the age of 19. The Marjorie MARCH who made that trip listed Mrs. MAYYLE [sic] as her mother on the ship's passenger list, so it all fits.
Reginald's son, Thomas Charles MARCH, matches the age and name of a gentleman who died in Winchester in 1999.
I have a little more information about Reginald that I won't put here; we've strayed rather far from Thomas, his father, already.
The MARCH family into which Thomas Charles MARCH the father was born did very well for themselves. I will show how well in a couple of posts from now.
Next time, I want to show the Six Degrees of Queen Victoria and Six Degrees of Dracula for the MARCH family we've looked at so far.
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If you find these stories interesting, or have a question, please leave a comment. Let me know what catches your fancy and I'll find more.
Thomas March is the first of many interesting people we will meet on Charles Street in 1871. His story starts with Thomas March of 1 Charles Street: One degree from Queen Victoria.
This article is one in an ongoing series, starting with Bram Stoker, author of Dracula in public records: BMD (Birth, Marriage, Death).
Next: Six degrees of Queen Victoria: How the Thomas Charles March family were connected.
Thomas Charles MARCH was a lifelong servant of the royal household during Queen Victoria's reign. He rose through the ranks of the Lord Chamberlain's office and by 1881 was Pay-master of the Royal Household. In sequential census returns, and in some of the other public records Ancestry.co.uk (Ancestry.com) has online, as well as what others have posted to the Web, I have been tracing Thomas and his family. The larger context started out with Bram STOKER and is explained in previous posts.
Bram Stoker and family in the 1881 English census
I looked more closely at the three servants:
Emma Barton, Bram Stoker's 15-year-old parlourmaid in 1881
Harriet Daw, Bram Stoker's Cook in 1881. The problem of a small spelling error
and
A brick wall: Elizabeth Jarrald, widow, Nurse to Bram Stoker's baby son in 1881.
Researching Elizabeth led me to the man I think she married:
Charles Jarrald, a well-placed servant indeed.
And then I got on to the MARCH family. I started using the common convention of putting surnames in ALL CAPS when I got to the MARCH family because it's too easy to confuse their name with the month of March.
Thomas Charles MARCH marries
Thomas Charles MARCH married Sarah COOPER in 1867. She brought with her a daughter, Arabella, who went by MARCH for the rest of her life. I think the daughter matches the Arabella MARCH who died in 1944. The probate records for 1944 are not yet available online but when I can get a look at them, I'll be interested to see the size of the fortune, or lack of it, that Arabella had when she died. I haven't found her in the census after 1891. I rather hope she was installed in a nice grace and favour apartment somewhere on the grounds of Buckingham Palace or even Hampton Court Palace for the rest of her days.
MARCH family life in the 1880s and later
Thomas and Sarah had two little brothers for Arabella, Thomas Charles MARCH, b. 1867, and Reginald George MARCH, b. 1874. Sadly, it appears little Thomas died at the age of 8.
By 1881, the MARCH family had decamped from London and were living at a very nice country house called Forest Lodge in Ashtead, Surrey.You can read a bit about it online, courtesy of the Surrey History Centre Archives and their website, Exploring Surrey's Past. They had probably left London for Surrey earlier, in the 1870s, as Reginald was born in Holmwood, Surrey in 1874, and the boy Thomas died, probably at Ashtead (Epsom registration district), in 1876. In 1881, Thomas (the father) was 61 and as mentioned, Pay-master of the Queen's Household.
Reginald was away at school in Cheltenham for the 1891 census. Thomas and the daughter Arabella were the only ones at Forest Lodge. This was Arabella's home until about three years after her father died (he died in 1898), when she sold it to Mr. Augustus MEYERS, who built a beautiful new home there.
Here is what the Surrey History Centre Archives' website says:
"In the early 19th century, the Haunch of Venison inn stood [where Forest Lodge was] but, during the 1860s, Henry Parsons converted it into a house, where, in 1871, he lived with a large household, including five servants. In the 1879 sale of Ashtead Park, Forest Lodge was bought for £3,700 on behalf of Lord Rosebery, although it was occupied at the time by Thomas C March, who held important positions in the royal household and who subsequently purchased the property. After his death, it was sold by his daughter, Arabella.
"Augustus Meyers purchased the estate in 1901 and lived there for nearly fifty years. Soon after he acquired the property, he built the present Forest Lodge, set well back from the road behind the site of the original inn, which had stood near the present entrance. The laying out of the grounds, including the demolition of the earlier house, had been completed by 1911."
Just a side-note about Lord Rosebery: he became Prime Minister of England. He was born in 1847 at No. 20, Charles Street, Berkeley Square. You may recall that Charles Street is what got us here. Thomas Charles MARCH lived at No. 1 in 1861.
There is a privately-published book called Photographic Views of Interior and Gardens, Forest Lodge, Ashtead, Surrey (1911) displayed on the website of Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, as part of an exhibit called "Of Making Many Books There is No End", that will close on March 31, 2011. Only the cover and one photograph (the one the cover picture is based on) are pictured on the website. The book was, I assume, prepared for Mr. MEYERS and depicts his new house, but that is just my best guess.
Sarah, Arabella's mother, died at Forest Lodge on July 7, 1888. Probate was granted, not to her husband, but to her spinster daughter Arabella MARCH on August 13, 1888. Sarah's will may have been set up to name Arabella as executrix because, with Thomas being about 20 years her elder, Sarah expected to outlive him. Sarah's personal estate was valued at £633/0/11.
Before her marriage to Thomas, the 1861 census showed Sarah living at 78 Sloane Street, Chelsea with her occupation being "House and Funded Proprietor". If that means she owned the house on Sloane Street, her fortune could have been considerable. Maybe that was invested in Forest Lodge, or maybe she was less wealthy than I imagine. Students of women's history can perhaps shed some light on the situation of a married woman's property in 1888. Did it remain hers, or did it become part of her husband's wealth upon marriage? I would only be guessing if I answered that question either way.
Link to the map and Google Street View of present day 78 Sloane Street. Dorchester Court, the modern red brick building on the left, is No. 77 through 81.The white building with the blue plaques is No. 76 (at the end close to Dorchester Court).
View Larger Map
It appears Thomas worked for Her Majesty's household until his death in 1898. His occupation in the 1891 census was "Secretary of Board of Green Cloth, Queen's Household". Probate was granted to Reginald George MARCH, his son, who was then a Clerk to the Lord Chamberlain, on August 10, 1898.
Thomas's estate was valued at £15,387/0/8.
In the National Probate Calendar (Ref: England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations),1861-1941 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010.Original data: Principal Probate Registry. Calendar of the Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration made in the Probate Registries of the High Court of Justice in England. London, England © Crown copyright.), Thomas was called Thomas Charles MARCH of 82 Ebury-street Middlesex C.B.
The C.B. was news to me, and stands for Companion of the The Most Honourable Order of the Bath, an honour bestowed by the Queen, to a senior civil servant. I have not been able to find details of when Thomas MARCH was given this honour.
Here is a link to the Google Street View and map for 82 Ebury-street (modern day; the black door on the right, with the two white squares of what looks like paper), in case the embedded map below is not visible. In the 1891 census, this was a lodging house kept by a widow. On census night the widow, two female servants, and one 21-year-old man, an Assistant Engineer in the navy, were there. I would guess this was a convenient place for Thomas MARCH to stay when in London on business, but not likely the sort of place his daughter would have moved to after selling Forest Lodge, if it catered to gentlemen civil servants.
View Larger Map
The two surviving family members, Arabella and Reginald appear, from the scanty collection of records I have seen, to have gone their separate ways. I don't mean they were estranged (who knows?), only that I haven't found them living together. I don't know where Arabella was between about 1901 (the sale of Forest Lodge) and 1944, her death.
I couldn't find Reginald in the 1901 census, either, but I did find a good explanation for that.
In 1914, when the First World War started, Reginald enlisted and gave his occupation as "motor lorry driver". That's rather unexpected for a Clerk to the Lord Chamberlain. The reason comes from his prior military service as a member of Lord Paget's Horse. This was a private regiment raised by Lord Paget to fight in the South African (aka Boer) War. It appears they were in South Africa on census night, 1901.
Lord Paget's Horse recruited gentlemen, and its official initials, PH, were jokingly said to stand for "Piccadilly Heroes".
Also mentioned in Reginald's First World War attestation papers is the fact that he was married, and the papers identify his wife and two children.
Reginald enlisted for "Short Service (One Year With the Colours)" on October 5, 1914 at the age of 30. As mentioned, his stated Trade or Calling was "Motor Lorry Driver". There was also a note "Speaks French fluently and German [illegible]". On November 17, 1917, he was discharged as being medically unfit for service, being over age. His service record shows that he was at Home (i.e., the UK), not sent abroad to fight.
He died in 1918, leaving £2,686/8/1 and naming his wife Ella and two solicitors as executors. It's possible Ella went on to remarry (I found a possible match in 1927 to John MAYLE) and also that she travelled to the U.S.A., and that she died in Winchester in 1973. I haven't tried to check those things out (too remote).
Of his children, the little bit of searching I did suggests (doesn't prove) that his daughter Marjorie Eva went to the U.S.A. in 1930, for 3 months at the age of 19. The Marjorie MARCH who made that trip listed Mrs. MAYYLE [sic] as her mother on the ship's passenger list, so it all fits.
Reginald's son, Thomas Charles MARCH, matches the age and name of a gentleman who died in Winchester in 1999.
I have a little more information about Reginald that I won't put here; we've strayed rather far from Thomas, his father, already.
The MARCH family into which Thomas Charles MARCH the father was born did very well for themselves. I will show how well in a couple of posts from now.
Next time, I want to show the Six Degrees of Queen Victoria and Six Degrees of Dracula for the MARCH family we've looked at so far.
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Thomas March is the first of many interesting people we will meet on Charles Street in 1871. His story starts with Thomas March of 1 Charles Street: One degree from Queen Victoria.
This article is one in an ongoing series, starting with Bram Stoker, author of Dracula in public records: BMD (Birth, Marriage, Death).
Next: Six degrees of Queen Victoria: How the Thomas Charles March family were connected.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Applying some Jane Austen logic to the marriage of Thomas Charles MARCH, Queen Victoria's Pay-master
I've been tracing the residents of Charles Street, Berkeley Square, based on the 1871 census. This started with the family of Bram STOKER, the author of Dracula, but it is not he who lived on Charles Street. I looked at the Bram Stoker household beginning in 1881, their first appearance in the English census, including examining the three women servants they had then. One, Elizabeth JARRALD, was a widow in 1881, but I found her (assumed) husband, Charles JARRALD in 1871. Even though Elizabeth and Charles were already married then, he, a 22-year-old servant, was at his employer's house on census night in 1871. That house was No. 27 Charles Street.
A little nosing around at who Charles's employer might be quickly showed that Charles Street was full of the upper classes, and so I decided to detour a bit away from the STOKERs, but don't worry, we will get back to Mr. Dracula eventually.
To keep the connection with Drac going, I am now playing two concurrent games:
Six Degrees of Queen Victoria
and
Six Degrees of Dracula.
The Head of the household at No. 1 Charles Street in the 1871 census, Thomas Charles MARCH, has a Queen Victoria number of 1. In a couple of posts from now, I'll reveal his Dracula number, which may surprise you.
Here's a recap of the 1871 census return for No. 1 Charles Street, from the post "Thomas March of 1 Charles Street: One degree from Queen Victoria".
At home: Thomas, age 50, married, Clerk Lord Chamberlain's Office, born in Marylebone.
His wife, Arabella S. MARCH, 32, born in Basingstoke.
Daughter, Arabella MARCH, 14, born in London St. Luke's Chelsea.
Son, Thomas C. MARCH, 3, born in London, St. George's [Hanover Square].
Thomas and Arabella got married some time after the 1861 census.
There are two little nits about the details of that marriage that make it less straightforward than at first appears.
The first is the name of Thomas's wife. In the 1871 census she is Arabella S. MARCH. I haven't found a matching lady named Arabella in a search for the marriage in the Ancestry.co.uk database (which searches the GRO Index and Free BMD, among others). The closest match I've found hangs on the "S": Sarah COOPER. Her age and place of birth match Arabella S. MARCH from the 1871 census, so I have provisionally assumed them to be the same person. There is no other likely Thomas Charles MARCH who matches nearly so closely.
Making assumptions in a blog post doesn't bother me. I try to make it very clear when I am crawling out on a limb, and I hope anyone reading this who has more information, will tell me. In the meantime I hate to let the absence of concrete proof of the facts get in the way of a good story.
The parish marriage register for the Parish of St. Thomas Portman Square (shown in Ancestry.com's database as St. Thomas Marylebone), shows:
On March 23, 1867, Thomas Charles MARCH, of full age, bachelor, Gentleman, of 93 Wimpole Street, Father's name Thomas MARCH (deceased), Gentleman,
married
Sarah COOPER, of full age, spinster, of 93 Wimpole Street, Father's name William COOPER, Gentleman.
The relevant entry is #425, found on page 213.
Source citation, from Ancestry: London Metropolitan Archives, Saint Thomas, Saint Marylebone, Register of marriages, P89/TMS, Item 006
The second nit is about Thomas's daughter, also called Arabella. On the one hand, she would appear to have been named for her mother, or at least, for the name her mother used in the 1871 census and later, but on the other hand, her birthdate is from the 1850s, before Thomas and Sarah (later Arabella) got married in 1867.
Arabella MARCH, Thomas's daughter in every census from 1871 on, was reportedly born around 1857, about 10 years before her parents' marriage.
I tend to assume, perhaps incorrectly, that single mothers in the second half of the 19th century were ostracized by society. Given that Thomas was working in the household more noted than any in English history for its propriety, Queen Victoria's, he is literally one of the last people I would expect to do anything remotely unconventional or scandalous.
This leads to some conclusions and assumptions.
The first assumption is that Arabella COOPER, later known as Arabella MARCH, the daughter, was born to married parents.
Given that, then the question is, were Sarah and Thomas actually married already when they got married in 1867? That seems unorthodox too, and is not my preferred hunch.
The second choice is that Arabella had either a different father, or a different mother, or both, and that one or both parents was either divorced or widowed. I rejected divorce, again because of propriety. It's something I wouldn't rule out conclusively, but it's low on the list of assumptions.
Then we consider: which parent was widowed? To conclude that either was, we have to assume that the marriage register was in error in calling the couple a bachelor and spinster. That does not seem likely, given who we're talking about, but I did look for evidence that either party had been married before. I found no evidence and decided to start a different line of inquiry: that Sarah gave birth to Arabella without marrying Arabella's father or that Sarah is Arabella's mother by adoption.
The out of wedlock birth seems almost inconceivable (pun intended and apologized for). Still, it was something I had to check out.
I searched in Ancestry.co.uk for a census return in 1861 for a woman born about 1838 in Basingstoke, with a daughter named Arabella.
Lo and behold, there emerged Sarah COOPER, unmarried, born about 1838 in Basingstoke with a daughter, Arabella COOPER, born about 1856 in St. Luke's Chelsea. Bingo! This doesn't prove Sarah to be Arabella's biological mother, but it does provide more clues. I would like to work more on the adoption hypothesis some time.
There is also the possibility that Sarah COOPER died and Thomas MARCH remarried between 1867 and 1871. I have not found evidence of such a death or such a remarriage, but my search has not been exhaustive. However, when Sarah COOPER, then Sarah MARCH died in 1888, the name under which probate was granted to her spinster daughter Arabella MARCH, was simply Sarah MARCH, no mention of Arabella.
And now, dear reader, cast your mind to the immortal words of Jane Austen as spoken by the insufferable Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice:
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
It is probably a truth also universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a husband.
Sarah COOPER in 1861 lived with her daughter and one servant (Louisa HIGGS, b. 1843 in Cornwall), at 78 Sloane Street, Chelsea. Her occupation was "House and Funded Proprietor". Ka-ching! I think I hear the sound of the accountant's mind jumping into gear as Thomas MARCH meets the younger, apparently wealthy woman with a daughter, Sarah COOPER.
Or am I too cynical?
Regardless of the reasons, Thomas and Sarah I think we can safely conclude, are the people I've identified as Thomas and Arabella in later years. How Sarah became a Sloane Ranger and the mother of Arabella, and whether Thomas was taking a social risk by marrying her, are questions upon which someone else can base a good Victorian romance, but that won't be me. Believe it or not, I have focus, and it's Thomas I came here to talk about today.
Thomas March is the first of many interesting people we will meet on Charles Street in 1871. His story starts with Thomas March of 1 Charles Street: One degree from Queen Victoria.
This article is one in an ongoing series, starting with Bram Stoker, author of Dracula in public records: BMD (Birth, Marriage, Death).
Next: The end of Thomas Charles March, his wife and children, apart from one important detail
A little nosing around at who Charles's employer might be quickly showed that Charles Street was full of the upper classes, and so I decided to detour a bit away from the STOKERs, but don't worry, we will get back to Mr. Dracula eventually.
To keep the connection with Drac going, I am now playing two concurrent games:
Six Degrees of Queen Victoria
and
Six Degrees of Dracula.
The Head of the household at No. 1 Charles Street in the 1871 census, Thomas Charles MARCH, has a Queen Victoria number of 1. In a couple of posts from now, I'll reveal his Dracula number, which may surprise you.
Here's a recap of the 1871 census return for No. 1 Charles Street, from the post "Thomas March of 1 Charles Street: One degree from Queen Victoria".
At home: Thomas, age 50, married, Clerk Lord Chamberlain's Office, born in Marylebone.
His wife, Arabella S. MARCH, 32, born in Basingstoke.
Daughter, Arabella MARCH, 14, born in London St. Luke's Chelsea.
Son, Thomas C. MARCH, 3, born in London, St. George's [Hanover Square].
Thomas and Arabella got married some time after the 1861 census.
There are two little nits about the details of that marriage that make it less straightforward than at first appears.
The first is the name of Thomas's wife. In the 1871 census she is Arabella S. MARCH. I haven't found a matching lady named Arabella in a search for the marriage in the Ancestry.co.uk database (which searches the GRO Index and Free BMD, among others). The closest match I've found hangs on the "S": Sarah COOPER. Her age and place of birth match Arabella S. MARCH from the 1871 census, so I have provisionally assumed them to be the same person. There is no other likely Thomas Charles MARCH who matches nearly so closely.
Making assumptions in a blog post doesn't bother me. I try to make it very clear when I am crawling out on a limb, and I hope anyone reading this who has more information, will tell me. In the meantime I hate to let the absence of concrete proof of the facts get in the way of a good story.
The parish marriage register for the Parish of St. Thomas Portman Square (shown in Ancestry.com's database as St. Thomas Marylebone), shows:
On March 23, 1867, Thomas Charles MARCH, of full age, bachelor, Gentleman, of 93 Wimpole Street, Father's name Thomas MARCH (deceased), Gentleman,
married
Sarah COOPER, of full age, spinster, of 93 Wimpole Street, Father's name William COOPER, Gentleman.
The relevant entry is #425, found on page 213.
Source citation, from Ancestry: London Metropolitan Archives, Saint Thomas, Saint Marylebone, Register of marriages, P89/TMS, Item 006
The second nit is about Thomas's daughter, also called Arabella. On the one hand, she would appear to have been named for her mother, or at least, for the name her mother used in the 1871 census and later, but on the other hand, her birthdate is from the 1850s, before Thomas and Sarah (later Arabella) got married in 1867.
Arabella MARCH, Thomas's daughter in every census from 1871 on, was reportedly born around 1857, about 10 years before her parents' marriage.
I tend to assume, perhaps incorrectly, that single mothers in the second half of the 19th century were ostracized by society. Given that Thomas was working in the household more noted than any in English history for its propriety, Queen Victoria's, he is literally one of the last people I would expect to do anything remotely unconventional or scandalous.
This leads to some conclusions and assumptions.
The first assumption is that Arabella COOPER, later known as Arabella MARCH, the daughter, was born to married parents.
Given that, then the question is, were Sarah and Thomas actually married already when they got married in 1867? That seems unorthodox too, and is not my preferred hunch.
The second choice is that Arabella had either a different father, or a different mother, or both, and that one or both parents was either divorced or widowed. I rejected divorce, again because of propriety. It's something I wouldn't rule out conclusively, but it's low on the list of assumptions.
Then we consider: which parent was widowed? To conclude that either was, we have to assume that the marriage register was in error in calling the couple a bachelor and spinster. That does not seem likely, given who we're talking about, but I did look for evidence that either party had been married before. I found no evidence and decided to start a different line of inquiry: that Sarah gave birth to Arabella without marrying Arabella's father or that Sarah is Arabella's mother by adoption.
The out of wedlock birth seems almost inconceivable (pun intended and apologized for). Still, it was something I had to check out.
I searched in Ancestry.co.uk for a census return in 1861 for a woman born about 1838 in Basingstoke, with a daughter named Arabella.
Lo and behold, there emerged Sarah COOPER, unmarried, born about 1838 in Basingstoke with a daughter, Arabella COOPER, born about 1856 in St. Luke's Chelsea. Bingo! This doesn't prove Sarah to be Arabella's biological mother, but it does provide more clues. I would like to work more on the adoption hypothesis some time.
There is also the possibility that Sarah COOPER died and Thomas MARCH remarried between 1867 and 1871. I have not found evidence of such a death or such a remarriage, but my search has not been exhaustive. However, when Sarah COOPER, then Sarah MARCH died in 1888, the name under which probate was granted to her spinster daughter Arabella MARCH, was simply Sarah MARCH, no mention of Arabella.
And now, dear reader, cast your mind to the immortal words of Jane Austen as spoken by the insufferable Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice:
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
It is probably a truth also universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a husband.
Sarah COOPER in 1861 lived with her daughter and one servant (Louisa HIGGS, b. 1843 in Cornwall), at 78 Sloane Street, Chelsea. Her occupation was "House and Funded Proprietor". Ka-ching! I think I hear the sound of the accountant's mind jumping into gear as Thomas MARCH meets the younger, apparently wealthy woman with a daughter, Sarah COOPER.
Or am I too cynical?
Regardless of the reasons, Thomas and Sarah I think we can safely conclude, are the people I've identified as Thomas and Arabella in later years. How Sarah became a Sloane Ranger and the mother of Arabella, and whether Thomas was taking a social risk by marrying her, are questions upon which someone else can base a good Victorian romance, but that won't be me. Believe it or not, I have focus, and it's Thomas I came here to talk about today.
Thomas March is the first of many interesting people we will meet on Charles Street in 1871. His story starts with Thomas March of 1 Charles Street: One degree from Queen Victoria.
This article is one in an ongoing series, starting with Bram Stoker, author of Dracula in public records: BMD (Birth, Marriage, Death).
Next: The end of Thomas Charles March, his wife and children, apart from one important detail
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Thomas Charles March, and his rise through the ranks at Queen Victoria's household
In 1871, Thomas Charles MARCH lived at 1 Charles Street, Berkeley Square, in London. (I usually use "London" to describe the modern metropolis. Many places were more properly described as being in Westminster rather than London, in the 19th century.) His career was spent in the service of Queen Victoria, and by the time he died in 1898, he was at the top of her household staff.
Thomas MARCH: One degree from Queen Victoria
I have traced Thomas and his family, mainly through the census returns using Ancestry.co.uk, as well as a few other online sources. At every turn I find something rather unexpected and interesting. Hope you find it so, too.
Where and what Thomas MARCH was in the census
1841: Don't know yet. I have looked, and looked, and looked. More to come about what I know of his family from about 1800 up to 1851.
1851: St. James's Palace, Stable Yard, No. 4, Thomas C. MARCH: unmarried, age 31, (occupation) Lord Chamberlain's Office, living with his two unmarried brothers, William (36, also of the Lord Chamberlain's Office) and George (22, No Occupation), and an unmarried woman servant, Elizabeth BARTLEY, age 70 (or possibly 40).
Census Reference (from Ancestry.com): Class: HO107; Piece: 1481; Folio: 10; Page: 12; GSU roll: 87806.
Modern Google Map for Stable Yard Road
The official website of the British Monarchy, "St James's Palace"
1861: St. James's Palace, Thomas C. MARCH, Head, unmarried, 41, [Clerk?] Lord Chamberlain's Office, living in a dwelling (not sure of what sort) with his brother William G. MARCH, unmarred, 43, "Ditto" (i.e., also a clerk in the Lord Chamberlain's office) and a 54-year-old widow, Sarah LOW, as their general servant.
Census Reference (from Ancestry.com): Class: RG9; Piece: 56; Folio: 17; Page: 29; GSU roll: 542565
With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that Thomas rose through the ranks of the Royal Household to become what appears to be the top financial manager. The Lord Chamberlain, his boss for most of Thomas's years in service, was a political appointment. There were about 13 of them, some with multiple terms of office, during Thomas's career. I envision Thomas as the Victoria equivalent of Sir Humphrey Appleby.
(Link to video in case the embedded video is not showing.)
Sometime in the 1860s it appears Thomas got married. In the census returns before 1871, he was shown as unmarried. (This is not the same as widowed, which is usually specified.) I hard quite a hard time figuring out the identity of Thomas's wife. That's coming next.
Thomas March is the first of many interesting people we will meet on Charles Street in 1871. His story starts with Thomas March of 1 Charles Street: One degree from Queen Victoria.
This article is one in an ongoing series, starting with Bram Stoker, author of Dracula in public records: BMD (Birth, Marriage, Death).
Next: Applying some Jane Austen logic to the marriage of Thomas Charles March, Queen Victoria's Pay-master
Thomas MARCH: One degree from Queen Victoria
I have traced Thomas and his family, mainly through the census returns using Ancestry.co.uk, as well as a few other online sources. At every turn I find something rather unexpected and interesting. Hope you find it so, too.
Where and what Thomas MARCH was in the census
1841: Don't know yet. I have looked, and looked, and looked. More to come about what I know of his family from about 1800 up to 1851.
1851: St. James's Palace, Stable Yard, No. 4, Thomas C. MARCH: unmarried, age 31, (occupation) Lord Chamberlain's Office, living with his two unmarried brothers, William (36, also of the Lord Chamberlain's Office) and George (22, No Occupation), and an unmarried woman servant, Elizabeth BARTLEY, age 70 (or possibly 40).
Census Reference (from Ancestry.com): Class: HO107; Piece: 1481; Folio: 10; Page: 12; GSU roll: 87806.
Modern Google Map for Stable Yard Road
The official website of the British Monarchy, "St James's Palace"
1861: St. James's Palace, Thomas C. MARCH, Head, unmarried, 41, [Clerk?] Lord Chamberlain's Office, living in a dwelling (not sure of what sort) with his brother William G. MARCH, unmarred, 43, "Ditto" (i.e., also a clerk in the Lord Chamberlain's office) and a 54-year-old widow, Sarah LOW, as their general servant.
Census Reference (from Ancestry.com): Class: RG9; Piece: 56; Folio: 17; Page: 29; GSU roll: 542565
With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that Thomas rose through the ranks of the Royal Household to become what appears to be the top financial manager. The Lord Chamberlain, his boss for most of Thomas's years in service, was a political appointment. There were about 13 of them, some with multiple terms of office, during Thomas's career. I envision Thomas as the Victoria equivalent of Sir Humphrey Appleby.
(Link to video in case the embedded video is not showing.)
Sometime in the 1860s it appears Thomas got married. In the census returns before 1871, he was shown as unmarried. (This is not the same as widowed, which is usually specified.) I hard quite a hard time figuring out the identity of Thomas's wife. That's coming next.
Thomas March is the first of many interesting people we will meet on Charles Street in 1871. His story starts with Thomas March of 1 Charles Street: One degree from Queen Victoria.
This article is one in an ongoing series, starting with Bram Stoker, author of Dracula in public records: BMD (Birth, Marriage, Death).
Next: Applying some Jane Austen logic to the marriage of Thomas Charles March, Queen Victoria's Pay-master
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