William Genn the younger of St Stephen,Coleman London died 1830

I am confident that William here was son of the William in the last post, though I freely admit that I rely purely on circumstantial proof.

William here was born in Ely Trinity (ie near the Cathedral) in 1766.  Whilst a babe in arms he was transported to Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire where he stayed until 1774, perhaps 1776.  His father then clearly moved to London where he appears in 1777.

St Stephen Coleman

William here then seems to have spent some years in Islington, at least until 1788 it seems.

Lydia Philpott was born in St George's in the East (East End of London) in 1773 to John and Sarah, John was a Bricklayer.  They were a large family, and Lydia was obviously close to her brother Richard.

Lydia married William Genn at Bermondsey of all places in 1793, she was barely 20 and he 27.  The marriage is incorrectly indexed on Ancestry (Genn transcribed as Gown) and this caused me a problem for a while, though I knew that Lydia had been a Philpott.

The marriage

The couple lived first in St Georges, because I know that Lydia was a Mantua (Dress) maker, and she took an apprentice, a local girl called Sarah Household in 1798, and was expressed to be wife of William. The Land Tax has them there to 1808, they lived  in a tenanted house at the north end of Princes Square, so they had their own place. William and Lydia sadly never had any children.  By 1810 they were living in the Minories in the City and by 1812 they were living at 7 Great Bell Alley, St Stephen Coleman in the City , likely moving in 1810  because of Bill's new job, see below. It sadly no longer stands as it was, being demolished in the Blitz of 1940.

The United States of America have inherited from their English cousins and former founding colonists the role of  County Sheriff, which is more than 1000 years old (Shire Reeve in Anglo Saxon times) and still exists in England, though large ceremonial today.

In London there were two Sheriffs elected each year -there still are. The Sheriffs are part of the machinery of the City of London, linked to the Guilds and the Lord Mayor of London (below). Their role by 1800 was largely in the serving and enforcement of writs, some involvement at the Old Bailey (Central Criminal Court) and the sad duty of making sure that criminals sentenced to hang received their punishment.

What we know is that both William and his  Brother in Law, Richard Philpott, were  Sheriffs's Officers by 1810, in other words they were Court Officers and "Enforcers".  They lived  local to the job and in fact even lived  together at No 7 - in Great Bell Alley/

It was perhaps a natural job for William, his grandfather Richard (who he had known as a boy) had been Constable for both the City of Ely and Hoddesdon, and Bill had likely been attracted by the respect that grandfather Dick had commanded.

Great Bell Alley was like much of London of Dickens, rows of houses with families in tenements above and below but Bill seems to have all of his house - the houses were three storey and  the area lively - day and night.  Illustrations of 1818 and 1823 show the adjacent Little Bell Alley below - I particularly love the washing line.

 It was a long alley and though still there (rebuilt in the 1980s and before ) is much shorter than in William's day.

As I say, William and Lydia never had any children.  William died at Great Bell Alley in 1830 with a quoted age of 64, exactly correct (wrongly transcribed as 54 on Ancestry).  He  was buried at St Stephens. He left a will ( PCC) and left everything he owned to Lydia.

Richard Philpott continued to live with Lydia at 7  Great Bell Alley  and became the householder in the Street Directory of 1832 but by 1842 was at No 13, because Lydia remarried.

Street Directory 1842

In 1838 Lydia married a certain Joseph Voy from Gravesend in Kent, a widower and Ship's Pilot.  She spent her last days there, dying in Gravesend in 1847 aged 74.