John Ginn of Thorley d. c.1800

John here is son of John of Farnham in my post of  23rd March 2013. 

But I have chosen to begin this story early on, with a certain William Phillips who married a Mary Mallyon at Thorley in 1757. The couple had three children: James, John and Mary, before John died in infancy and his mother followed soon after in August 1763.

William immediately remarried, his new wife (Martha Nicolson) marrying him in Bishop’s Stortford in 1764 and having two further children (William & Sarah) before William himself died at Thorley in 1770.

William’s daughter Mary Phillips (born in 1763) married a certain John Waters at Thorley in 1781.  Waters was a labourer and the couple had five children before John’s untimely death in August 1789.  These children are important to this narrative and were as follows: Mary (1782) William (1783) Martha (1785) John (1787) and James (1790)

                       

Mary obviously had problems, with five young children and no father to provide for them.  John Ginn had arrived in Thorley (Militia List) in 1787. It looks like he travelled with his sister Ann.  His Farnham origins were confirmed by DNA matches in late 2022.  He was “living in” locally as an agricultural servant and in November 1790 he quite bravely took on Mary Waters (“widow”) and her children, all of whom were clearly alive at this date.

It was the fact that John had taken on a “ready made” family that influenced the choice of names for his own sons; a choice that had always puzzled me.  For Mary could scarcely have further sons by John that were given either his name or those traditional to the Farnham clan: i.e. John, James and William.  A little originality was thus in order.

The couple had a further five children, all sons, then John Ginn is known to have died between 1799 and 1801 as Mary is thereafter referred to as a widow in local charity records (D/P 108 25/1 etc. at HRO).  John has no burial entry at Thorley or in any other local register and it is just possible that he became worn down with the responsibility of providing for so many children and absconded, leaving his children in the care of the parish.  Three of his Ginn nephews at various times attempted the same.

John was a labourer and this couple were certainly poor, not least because of the number of children.  In 1799 the local charity doled out bread for the family, at that time counting them with 7 children, though most probably only children under 11 or 12 were considered eligible infants and unable to work on a permanent basis.  Widow Ginn and her children continued to receive bread for the next few years, and as the family’s circumstances were now dire it is certain that steps were taken to find early employment for the kids.

It is known that William, Martha and John Waters survived childhood: both William and Martha later marrying and John being mentioned in records compiled under the 1803 Defence Acts.  

In 1805 Mary had an illegitimate son - Frederick Ginn (see below).  She eventually got her elder children off her hands and in 1812 remarried a William Wrist (generally Rist) which though an unusual surname was not uncommon in the villages of nearby Widford and the Hadhams.  It seems clear that the William Rist in question was born in Little Hadham in 1760, because it was that chap who was later at Much Hadham, where Mary is known to have been living in 1814.  For in 1814 she received the little property and effects left by her deceased son Samuel, the army records (WO 25 2967 at the PRO) giving her address in July 1814 as “Much Hadham, Bishops Stortford, Herts”. William Rist died there in 1831 with Mary apparently still alive - I have not yet researched Mary further.

John and Mary had five sons

Samuel - went to war with the 95th Foot and was killed in 1813 - see post of 26th January 2013.  He gets more "hits" on his post on this site than anybody else save one here - a fitting memorial

George - see next post

David - see later post 

Benjamin - he married Mary Brace at Tottenham in 1825.  There is no trace of the pair thereafter

Charles - see later post

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Frederick - obviously not a “blood” Ginn.  Frederick was the subject of a maintenance order in 1806 against a Richard Osborn.  In  1811, he is mentioned in surviving records, being given a New Testament and Prayer book that year (Charity papers: HRO).  That he lived seemed certain, his half-brother Charles naming a son after him.

He was finally found in 2010.  He joined the army and died in York Hospital (in Chelsea) for wounded soldiers in 1827 aged 22.   We were not at war then and I suspect he died of tuberculosis.  I do not yet know which regiment he joined and it would be a nice touch to find he joined the Rifle Brigade (the former 95th)

David Ginn/Gynn of Tottenham and West Ham d. 1871

David, son  of John of Thorley in my post of today, began life as a Ginn and ended it as Gynn.  He was five when his father died or disappeared and does not seem to have known his Dad's christian name.  He was barely eleven when his eldest brother Sam marched off to war and Dave seems to have believed that his Dad was called Samuel.  David has been the very devil to research because he never stayed in once place for more than a year or two - a habit that seems to have been passed on to his grandsons in the Merchant Navy.

He arrived in Walthamstow with his brother George during the last year or two of the Napoleonic Wars and married Elizabeth Asquith there in 1814 , soon moving to Bethnal Green where the first three children were born. 

 He and Elizabeth then moved to Tottenham (brother George being there again) and was there for some considerable period but I could not find him in the 1841 Census (it is a big area) and lost him, my research at that time being in the original records, none such being available online in the early 1990s.   In 2007 he was found in the online 1841 census in Hackney. At this time he was a Coachman.  He was there as Gynn (indexed as Gunn in the census on Ancestry) and was confusingly in the same building as a David Ginn and his wife and two children from Ireland.

I could not find him in 1851 for ages, then he turned up as Gynn (indexed as Guynn) and by then was a shopkeeper in West Ham  with wife Ann and a couple of servants (possibly employees at the shop) and lodgers.  It is considered certain that the 1848 marriage at St Pancras (David Ginn to Ann Bailey) is him although the wrong father (Samuel) is given and the name is spelt Ginn - because he gives his occupation as gardener, which is what his daughter Eliza (below) said of him the same year, and it is likely as said he may not have known his father’s true Christian name. 

In 1861 he has turned up as Gynn born Thorley in West Ham with a grandchild, what is likely a housekeeper  and a host of  (6 – one from Thorley) boarders and was running something like a lodging house.  He remarried Sarah Gifford or Jifford at West Ham in 1862, he a widower and she widowed .

Whether he invested what money he made and lived off of the savings I known not, but in 1871 he was in Bromley (Poplar) as David Gynn born Thorley (indexed as Grave) and was clearly in lodgings as a “Gentleman”  He died later that year in Poplar aged 76.

David and Elizabeth had seven children

David - see later post

Emma  - in Hackney in 1841.  Married  Thomas Huddell at Edmonton 1842

Samuel - I tracked this lad down by going to the Greater London Record office in 2006 and looking up the marriage.  He married at St Leonard’s Shoreditch (as Gynn)  in 1846, a gardener.  Sarah Boulton was born in Esher.  In 1851 they were in Finsbury, Islington  and had one child, Eliza aged 4. In 1861 I found them as Gywn at Camden Passage, Islington – Samuel was still  a gardener and there were no children there. In 1861, Eliza/ Elizabeth was in West Ham staying with her grandfather though described as his niece.  She married Charles William Douglas in Islington in 1866.

 My friend Michael Ginn discovered that Samuel died at the age of 41 in Shoreditch from a stroke (1845)

Eliza - married Thomas Mills at Spitalfields in 1848

George and Elizabeth - not in the 1841 census and assumed to have died young

Maria - died infancy

Charles Ginn of Harlow d. 1848

Son of John of Thorley in my post of the same date, I currently have no information on Charles until he turned up in Harlow in 1825 when he married Ann Rowe that year.  He was a labourer, still living in Harlow in 1841.  

 Harlow was then a village of course.  Sadly I know nothing of this family save names and dates at present.  Ann died at Harlow in 1843, likely in childbirth with a quoted age of 39.  Charlie soon followed her in 1848, leaving five orphans:  The surviving children later seem to have scattered across London and Surrey.

Mary Ann - married Charles Perrin at Newington in 1846

Elizabeth - in the 1851 census, she was a 23 year old servant in the home of Charles Yardley, a Chief Clerk in a Police Office.  The family lived at 3 Bayham Cottages, Marylebone. She claimed her father to have been a farmer when she married William Perrin at Newington in 1857

Frederick - went to live with his uncle George when he was orphaned.  See last post.  Fred will be dealt with in a later post

Sarah - witnessed a family marriage or two, a servant in Newington in 1871 when she was 39

Emily - in the 1901 census, she is in Newington as a domestic servamt under her maiden name, aged 59

Charles and Emma - died in infancy

George Ginn of Tottenham d. 1878

Son of John in my last post.  Given the challenges of his early life, George did exceptionally well for himself.  He was originally with brother David at Walthamstow where he married Elizabeth Callandine in 1818, then 25. 

They moved to Tottenham  where George set himself up as a market gardener in Marsh Lane. He held 40 acres of land in and around Marsh Lane,  the market gardens were apparently on the north side, and employed 6 men.  

                                               Tottenham Baptist Church in 1909

Tottenham Baptish Church (which still stands) was built in the 1820s and soon built a congregation of several hundred people, which clearly came to include George and Elizabeth.  This was to have significant consequences, because George brought up his nephew Fred after his brother Charles died in 1848 and the Baptist link was passed on,  some of Fred's Ginn descendants were Baptist missionaries wordwide, being sent forth from this self same church.

Tragedy struck in 1837 when Elizabeth died in an accident.  The pair had been out in their gig and had stopped for their horse to take water somewhere in Kingsland, Hackney.  An omnibus came by and startled their horse which took fright and bolted with Elizabeth on board.  Elizabeth was thrown from the gig but when it crashed it ran over her head and she was killed instantly.  The Inquest is reported in “The Times” no less. 

Nothing of her death at all was known until this information was discovered in 2008.  Elizabeth was 45.  She is buried in a Maze Pond Baptist Cemetery in Southwark . George remarried Elizabeth Cambridge some time after in 1839.

George and Elizabeth took in his nephew Frederick when Fred was orphaned in 1848 and it seems clear that Fred and Uncle George were close,   Fred initially helping George with the business and then taking it over, for Fred was later to also be a Market Gardener.  After Fred married his uncle George lived with he and his wife until George's death.

Elizabeth died at Tottenham in 1852, George dying in 1878 aged 84.

Thomas Ginn of Brooklyn, New York d. 1901

Tom here, brother of Joe in the last post also emigrated to the USA.  Comparatively few people in this Study emigrated to the USA after America ceased to be a British colony and I discuss this further below *

He was an adventurous sort as in 1865 aged 12 he ran away from home with his brother Frederick and was many miles away in London and put in the Workhouse in Westminster before being returned home to Hertford (see workhouse records on Ancestry). 

In 1871 Tom was in Bexleyheath in London as a Baker.  Joe and his family emigrated to Canada and then found their way into New York in about 1873. and Tom clearly went with them.  It was a bold move for a twenty year old but his mother was dead and he may well have welcomed the adventure.

Tom continued to work as a Baker in New York and settled in Brooklyn, where he married Ann Brown, an Englishwoman who had also emigrated, in 1877.

Tom and Ann had two children but sadly Ann died in 1886, she was 41.  A descendant, Sylvia Howes Mastroyannakis has kindly sent me a photo of Tom and his first grandchild Clifford Graham (b1898) which is below and which I think is a wonderful photo

  

Sadly Thomas Ginn developed tuberculosis and died not long after this photograph was taken, he was 48 and he and Ann are buried in Green-wood Cemetery, Brooklyn.

Thomas and Ann had two daughters, so the Ginn line ended with them:

Florence - she married William Louis Penfield in 1906 in Brooklyn.  William had a  prior family and no children are known  - she died in 1933, William in 1922.

Bertha - she married Herbert Graham in Brooklyn in 1898.  They had three children and there are quite a number of descendants.  Bertha died in Berkeley, Alameda, California in 1935.  Herbert died in 1947

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* It is surprising perhaps, but relatively few people from this Study emigrated to the USA once it had ceased to be a British colony.  By far the vast majority emigrated to the continuing colonies and dominions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and in a couple of cases, South Africa.  At various times in the 19th century, there were Ginns from this Study in every continent and sub-continent.

The position before 1776 is unclear, but I have researched all Ginn records for 25 years now and I think that I can express a view.  

The name Ginn is comparatively rare in Scotland, though more common in the northern counties of Ireland, essentially Ulster.  Most people with the name come from England however (they form the great majority of Ginn men in the army of the Napoleonic Wars for example, where a third of that army were Irish and not a few Scots).  My view then is that the vast majority of early Ginn men in America were of English origin, most likely from London (in Stepney there were a great number of Ginn mariners) and from the West Country (there was a large number of Gynn and Ginn in Cornwall) which had a maritime connection with America from the 1600s.  I further think that, before 1850, the great majority of Ginns in America were descendants of very early settlers, in short that there was little emigration in the 1700s.  It is obviously just my view.

Joseph Ginn of Watertown, New York d. 1911

Joe Ginn here, son of John in my last post led an eventful life.

He originally (aged 19) enlisted with the Royal Artillery ("H" Battery of the 9th Brigade Field Artillery) in September 1859.  He spent two and a half years with them but things did not work out - he was imprisoned for a disciplinary offence and discharged at Shorncliffe, Kent in 1862 with the caustic comment "unworthy"

He returned smartly to Hertford and in 1863 married Ann Lowen, an Edmonton girl (like my wife) at Edmonton, North London.  They went to live in Hertford at the notorious Chequers Yard.

The couple had four children, one of whom died in infancy but things were still not working out for Joe who at this point was a Butcher.  I know this because in 1871  Joseph Ginn appears in the "Police Gazette"  (8th February 1871) no less as a wanted man, albeit not exactly as a hardened criminal, for Joe (obviously unemployed) had absconded from Hertford Workhouse (below) with a couple of blankets.  We have a description, he was aged 30, 5foot 6ins tall, with light brown hair, a round face with a tuft of hair on his chin and, yes, a "rather gruff voice" !

I have no idea whether Joseph and Annie took the decision voluntarily, or whether they thought that things were forced upon them, but at this point they decided there was nothing for them in England and that they would emigrate.  The "Hertfordshire Mercury" newpaper of Saturday, December 16th 1871 reports that Joe applied to the Board of Guardians of the workhouse at Hertford for money for him, his wife and three children to emigrate.  He needed £30 all told, had promises of under £20 from family and wellwishers and needed £12 from the Board.  They offered him £10.  The amusing thing is that at this stage the family were looking to emigrate to Queensland, Australia.  They emigrated with their remaining three children and Joe's younger brother Tom.  As yet neither I nor any descendant has traced the ship they went out on - likely in 1872/3, but they went across the Atlantic, not to Australia.

They first went to Ontario, Canada, but by 1875 were in New York where the East River Bridge had just been constructed, connecting New York and Brooklyn, the latter where Tom Ginn was to settle.

Joe Ginn jnr was born in New York in 1875, and by the time of the 1880 census the family were in Massena, Joe now being a Painter, an occupation he kept for the rest of his life.


The family eventually settled in Watertown, New York State.  Joseph Ginn died there in 1911 aged 71.  Annie died there in 1917  aged 73.  They are buried in Brookside Cemetery (Findagrave).  There is no doubt that their decision to emigrate was a good one.

Joe and Annie had seven known children:

Lowen - became a New York attorney.  He married Alberta Sloan in 1887.  They had four sons and one daughter. Three sons married but have no descendants.  Lowen died in 1942 and Alberta in 1951. 

 

Joe jnr - married Cleora Johnston in 1912.  Joe bought a clothing store and lived in Chateaugay, New York State.  No children known.  He died in 1940 and is buried with Cleora (d.1976) in East Side Cemetery (Findagrave)

Henry Walpole- married Emogene Cardinal in 1900.  Had a gas station.  They had one surviving son who has Ginn descendants alive today.  Henry died in 1968, Emogene in 1955.  They are in Watertown (Findagrave)

Ellen Lowen - took me a while to track her down.  She married George W Foster, a Merchant. They lived in Chateaugay.  She died in Florida in 1958.  One child known

Lilian (Annie/Lillie) married William T. Manson, a Farmer, of Stormont, Ontario, Canada in 1897.   They lived in Stormont.  No children known.

Josephine - apparently died young

Sarah - died in infancy

John Ginn of Hertford d. 1875

John Ginn here was son of Charles in my post of  1st April 2013.  John was a Maltmaker.  This was a major trade locally and it is possible that he worked at McMullens Brewery, Hertford which is shown below as of 1891 and is still going as the smell of malt in Hertford at times will amply testify.

In 1839 he married Eliza Ellen Coulson at Hertford.  They mostly lived in Chequers Yard where John's parents had lived and, as I have said before, conditions in these yards, even into the early 20th century were pretty terrible - a number of houses sharing an outside privy and a well.  They were disease ridden cottages and well illustrated by the picture of Maidenhead Yard nearby below.  The slum housing was not finally cleared away until the 1930s.

John and Eliza had a huge family and she, exhausted, died sometime between 1867 and 1871.  John died in 1875.

The couple had fifteen children:

Joseph - see next post

William - see later post

Ebenezer - see later post

Thomas  - see later post

Selina - married James Norris in 1884

George - see later post

Frederick - he shows in the 1861 census and in 1865 turns up aged 14 in the Westminster Workhouse in London having run away from home with his brother Tom who was 12  !  The entry (on Ancestry) says that he and Tom were sent back home to dad John at Chequers Yard.  He likely died but may have joined the army and not show in any census.  

Amelia - untraced

Lilian - untraced

Harriet - married William Goldsmith in 1877

Charles, John, Henry, Edwin and Sarah - all died young

Joseph Ginn of Potton d. 1807

Joseph Ginn here was son of Thomas in my post of  31st December 2012 .  He had three brothers who also seem to have survived childhood with him, Thomas, Benjamin and Robert but try as I might (I have looked very carefully and in some unusual records) I can find no trace of any of those three at all.  It is all very strange.  Joe named his sons after himself and his brothers which suggests that his siblings did live.

Joseph met Jane Game from Ashwell in Herts, quite some distance from where he was born.  This suggests that he was very much on the move looking for work.  Jane was born to Richard and Jemima Game (nee Saunders) in 1761 and Joe and Jane married at Ashwell in 1781.

Something induced the couple to move to Potton in Bedfordshire by 1784, the cause most likely being the availability of work, for in 1783, Potton (a successful market town) suffered a great fire "The Great Fire of Potton" which substantially damaged the town as the summary below sets out:

There was a great fire in Potton in 1783 in which many important documents and buildings were destroyed. Before the fire Potton was a busy, prosperous market town dealing mainly in wool. Around the market square were the large houses and stores of the wool staplers, farmers and gentlemen. On 14th August a hay stack in King Street burst into flames and the resulting sparks set fire to half the town in half an hour. Four hours later the fire was out and the best part of the town burnt down. Two great inns and the buildings all round the market place and in the road leading to it, along with the great houses and woolhouses, stables, grain stores and barns belonging to Messrs Raymond, Livelong and Butler, were destroyed. The workshop of Mr Millar and the furniture and clothing in the curate’s house were gone. Every house except one in King Street had burnt down. The town never fully recovered its former importance.

As I say, by 1784 Joe and Jane were in Potton, my guess being that the great rebuilding required labour and Joe needed work.

Joseph died in 1807,  he was 51.   Jane soldiered on alone for a long while, she died in 1842 with a quoted age of 84, she was 81.

Joe and Jane had seven children:

Joseph - see later post

Thomas - see later post

Robert - see later post

Benjamin - see later post

Charlotte - the second of that name married Joseph Lenton at Potton in 1819.  Had a good number of children.  Joe was an Ag Lab and they lived in Potton.

Jane - is untraced

William Ginn/Gynn of Tottenham d.1860s

William Ginn here was son of Richard in my post of 24th March 2013 .  Over his life (not I suspect as a result of a conscious decision by Bill but more because of the spelling by the parish clerk - his surname became Gynn and this it stayed.) 

Bill was a labourer in the brickfields at Tottenham for much of his life. He married Sarah Merry who was also from Tottenham (born 1804 to William and Ann, William being a Sawyer) at Cheshunt in Hertfordshire in 1823, possibly marrying there because Sarah was underage and did not have her Dad's consent, her mother having died in 1814.

For the greater part of their early married life (at least until 1851) Bill and Sarah lived at Ship Yard which was next to the "Ship" public house on the west side of the High Street.  Research indicates that this was built in the 1830s replacing a nearby Inn which had been demolished years before.   The pub still stands and is shown above.  There was a yard at the back which now seems to be what is perhaps optimistically called a "beer garden" and I believe that there was a cottage there where the Ginn family lived. 

As I say, the Ginn surname went through a transformation to Gynn during Bill's lifetime.

Both Bill and Sarah were alive in 1861, but the Tottenham churchyard closed in 1857 and neither of their deaths being registered, I do not know exactly in the 1860s when the couple died.

William and Sarah had ten known children, they were not scrupulous in having them baptised and there could be more:

Caroline -  born in about 1827, she was a Corset maker (Gynn indexed as Gegan) in the 1851 census.  She claimed to be 24 and was at Stoke Newington.  No record of her thereafter has been found

William- see later post

James - see later post

Louisa - In 2010 she was traced and clearly married George Partridge of Camberwell in Surrey in 1852.  I cannot find them as a couple thereafter, George later appearing as a widower.  She likely died in childbirth soon after the marriage

Eliza Perry - A servant at Stoke Newington in 1861.  Married William Rule at Shoreditch in 1865.   They were at Tottenham in 1871 and she died in Whitechapel in 1881.  No children known

Elizabeth Jane - married Joseph Sawyer at Edmonton in 1856

Richard - died infancy

Sarah - there were three of that name, unfortunately none seem to have survived childhood

William Ginn of Great Munden d. 1828

William here was the son of John in my last post.  It is to be regretted, but as so often with the Munden family, I know nothing more than names and dates.

William was a Labourer.  He lived in Gt. Munden all his life and died there in 1828, aged 75.  The age quoted in the register is exactly correct.  Sadly that is all I know.

 

A Hertfordshire couple of a slightly later period but the smock frock of the labourer was universal of the 19th century

Sarah, "the wife of William Jenn" died in 1794, presumably in childbirth.  There is no evidence that William remarried.

William and Sarah had five children:

Thomas - went to live in Sacombe.  See  later post

James - likely went to Cottered - see later post

William and John - have not been traced.

Sarah - married James Lincoln in 1818

John Ginn of Great Munden d. 1773

John Ginn is a mystery man.  He is the origin of what I call the "Ginn family of Munden" but I do not know his own origins.  For years I had a theory that he was the son of Thomas Ginn who married Jane Smith at Braughing in 1724, this Thomas (according to my theory which was highly likely) the son of William Ginn the Miller of Braughing (see post of  4th September 2012).   This highly likely theory was however exploded when it was discovered beyond doubt that Thomas Ginn of Braughing was apprenticed as a carpenter in London and married and set himself up there (see post of 8th November 2012).   So who this John was I have no idea.

All that I know is that John Ginn was a Labourer .  He is the first Ginn to show himself in Munden in "modern" times, though there were Ginns in Munden in the medieval period, marrying Ann Coleman there in 1751.  I still think that he likely connects to the Braughing family but cannot rule out other connections

He was in the Munden Militia list until 1762, which would accord with his having more than three infant children alive from that year (and thus no longer eligible for the Militia).  

John died in January 1773, likely aged about 48.  I have not traced Ann's burial record; it seems to have been missed.

Their children

William - see next post

John -a "presumed" unbaptised son as in  the 1773 Militia List.  Untraced

Thomas - married twice.  His first wife Elizabeth Robinson died, and Thomas "a widower" remarried Mary Hillsden.  He only had one child (William -1786 by Elizabeth - see below).

Thomas was a Labourer, who lived and died at Green End, Little Munden.  He died in 1817, aged 58.  Mary, "widow of Green End” died in 1825, she was 67.

Thomas’ son, William, is a bit of a mystery.  He died in Hertford workhouse in 1863 aged 77.  He was then said to be “of Watton”.  I have traced him in the 1841 and 1851 census at Watton.  At both times he was clearly already the widower he claimed to be in the 1861 Hertford return.  There is no credible marriage entry in any extant Hertfordshire register, so this man may have married outside the county.  Children are unlikely, but cannot be ruled out.

James - see later post

Elizabeth - she had an illegitimate child, Jane, in 1786.  This was 8 years prior to her marriage to Daniel Wallis.

Mary - one died in infancy - the other is untraced

Jane - died infancy

Martha - is untraced

Benjamin Ginn of Royston & London d. 1888

Benjamin Ginn was son of Benjamin in my post of  8th March 2014 and was a Coachman.  He moved to Wandsworth in Surrey though kept in touch with all in Royston.  He first married Eliza Crane at St Saviour, London in 1843 and the couple had five children.  It is unclear when Eliza died but in 1879 he remarried Elizabeth Drew and the couple retired and moved back to Royston  He died in a London hospital in 1888, but is buried at Royston. Eliza died in 1892.

It is evident that the two sons grew up with Dad with a love of horses.

Their five children


Mary - was a servant and died unmarried aged 30 in 1874

Benjamin - joined the 17th Lancers - see post of 25th July 2012

Willliam John - at some point this man also joined the Cavalry, in his case another fine regiment –  “the Blues”  ie Royal Horse Guards, part of the Household Cavalry at Buckingham Palace.  He was in barracks in London in 1871 and was a Trooper.  Yet another Ginn to have obviously come across Queen Victoria.

He clearly left the regiment in the 1870s and subsequently married Harriet Clarke at Eton in 1878 and became a  Police Constable, presumably in the Buckinghamshire Constabulary.

William John and Harriett had three children: 

                       William Benjamin      

                        Eliza Sarah          

                        Lawrence Arthur      
  

 William Benjamin Ginn  was also a Policeman in Buckinghamshire and  in his 50s married Rose Welford in 1930 in Thame.  He died in 1942 and Rose who was a good deal younger as late as 1982.   No children known.  Eliza was alive at the time of the 1901 census and is believed to have emigrated. Lawrence died in World War One – he was a gunner in the Royal Field Artillery.  It seems likely he was at Gallipoli and may have been taken prisoner/wounded and he died in 1916 in Turkey.  He is on the Slough War Memorial below

William John  died in Slough in 1909.  Harriet had died in 1903.

Thomas - died in Wandsworth in 1865, aged 15

Eliza Ann - married the much older Thomas Weston of Royston at Bloomsbury in 1891.  They had two children and lived in Royston