George Genn of Quadring, India and Tasmania d. 1854

 George here was the son of Denton Genn the elder (see my  post of  27th August 2013)

He was born at Quadring in 1818.  I could find no further British record of him and even wondered if he had died in infancy, and then in 2009 I was looking on the FORBIS datebase regarding fasmilies in India and he was mentioned as having joined the East India Company Army and having gone out to India on the "Essex" in 1840.

I no longer live near London and further research was impossible, but in August 2015 I bundled a number of military research references together and engaged the specialist researcher Ann Swabey to dig them out.  George Genn's service record being one of them.

George as I say was born in 1818.  He was uncle to William Mackinder Genn who would have known of him if never met him, and had various other family members who had sons called George named after him.

George was born under a wandering star.   He has proved an interesting and frustrating cove to research and as I write this I am still digging.

I have never found any British record of him after his birth, but by April 1840 George was in London, enlisting in the army of the East India Company.  George was a farrier, ie a blacksmith (like his brother Charles) and with all the sense of the army they put him in the infantry rather than the cavalry.

The East India Company was a private mercantile company that effectively (until 1858) adminstered India and other Far Eastern British possessions on behalf of, and for the benefit of, the British Empire (and itself), the government of Britain itself not having control at this time.  It had done so since the British had defeated the French in the struggle for India in the mid 1700s.

The Company was very rich and had a vast bureaucracy and a large private army and navy, both of the latter being modelled on the lines of the regular British army and navy.

The Company divided India into three "Presidencies" or administrative geographical chunks, these being Bengal, Bombay and Madras to the south.  Each presidency had its own army.  The vast majority of the regiments were comprised of native soldiers commanded by British officers, but each army had a small number of regiments comprised solely of Europeans (not necessarily of exclusively British stock).

George was enlisted into the 2nd Madras European Regiment, initially recruited in 1839 and to be known as the 2nd Madras European Light Infantry.  He was 5ft 5 ins tall, with brown hair and grey eyes.

He sailed for India on the East Indiaman "Essex" and arrived at the centre of the Madras Presidency, Fort St George, later that year.  It is still there and shown below in the 1850s.

The East India Company European regiments modelled themselves on the British army in training and dress and we can perhaps see George reflected in illustrations of the period with the guys standing at the back below right being a fair reflection

 and the dashing fellows below a further shot.

 The 2nd Madras European Light Infantry wore red coats of course, blue trousers and buff facings.

Whilst many other company's regiments saw active service in the 1840s (his cousin Billett Genn saw service with the 3rd Lancers in the Sikh Wars of 1848/9), George's was not among them, and he spent nine hot and sweaty years on mostly garrison duty in Madras.


George took his discharge to pension in September 1849.  He was then 31 and there is no record in the Company records (they allowed wives) of any spouse.

The last record of him in the Company records is "embarked for NS Wales 19th September 1849".  This is New South Wales, Australia of course.  The Company paid your passage home but few men of the Company ever went home, most emigrated further or stayed in India.

I checked the Australian records, George not being on Ancestry or mentioned in the NSW Archives..  George did not go to New South Wales, he sailed on for Tasmania.

George is in the Tasmanian records.  He arrived in Hobart Town on 4th November 1849 - his ship was the 454 tonne sailing barque "Johannes Sarkies" ironically carrying a few transported convicts that had been convicted of offences in India.  The barque did a regular run from India to Australia and back at this time.

                                        Hobart 1850s

We know that George was carrying a rupture, indeed that may have been the reason for his leaving the army.  On arrival he is listed as an (army) pensioner.

Things did not work out for George.  It may be that his injury affected his ability to work.  It may be that there simply was little work, there being so much convict labour about. Stefan Petrow of the University of Tasmania in his paper of policing in Tasmania at the time, says that there was an economic downturn in the island in the late 1840s and that "both convicts and the increasing number of free  emigrants found work scarce".  He goes on to say"large numbers of people, not just convicts, were in financial need and were forced to steal to survive".

George was on his own and between a rock and a hard place. What is known sadly is that George and two others stole from his employer, 3 bushels of wheat to the value of 15 shillings and received a 7 years sentence at Hobart Town Quarter Sessions on 30th August 1851. An extract from the "Colonial Times" of 2nd September 1851 reporting the Quarter Sessions hearing ..

George was clean shaven with dark brown hair, a long face and a large nose.  He carried a fair number of tatoos, being bracelets on both wrists, the regimental motto (cede nullis - yield to none) and the bugle symbol of the light infantry (below) with the figure  "2" inside it denoting his regiment on his left arm, and on the right a tatoo of a woman and the initials "MR" whoever she was.

George had to be put in the work or probation gangs as they were known, and he was required to work on those for eighteen months, being known to have worked at the Cascades Probation Station in 1851/2 which was one of the worst in Tasmania, the convicts being required (George already had a rupture) to cut and draw logs a long distance at the timbered area called Cascades at Hobart.  He was not built for it and it must have nearly killed him.

Subsequently George must have been assigned to work in the colony, but he was not well and at the end of 1853 we find repeated references to him in the "PB" (prison barracks) and Hobart Hospital.  He died at Hobart Hospital on 19th March 1854 - he was 35.  A sad end.

Joseph Ginn of Wrestlingworth d. 1870

Joe (son of Joseph in my post of 11th September 2014)  married Sara Gillions at Wrestlingworth (next to Potton) in 1808.  The couple obviously had children before 1814 but the first baptism (presumably when she was in infancy) was Mary in 1814. The family seems to have lived in Wrestlingworth throughout their lives. 

 Joseph was an Agricultural Labourer and lead a seemingly hard working uneventful life.  He died in 1870. Sara predeceased him in 1860.

Joe and Sara had nine known children

Joseph - see later post

William -  was a Labourer and married Frances Darts at Wrestlingworth in 1842. They were friends of Sarah Dazley "The Potton Poisoner"  and last woman to be hanged outside Bedford Gaol in 1843.  Sarah (just google the name) was skilled with arsenic and saw a few people off "The Bedfordshire Murders", being hanged for the murder of her last husband.  It is said that the whole population of Wrestlingworth went over to Bedford Gaol for the public hanging.  William and Fanny testified at the trial (see reports in the Morning Chronicle)

It is self evident that Bill was not entirely right himself, and in 1851 he had a bit of a moment and over several days in October set fire to several houses etc.  We are not told why.  Nobody died fortunately.  The authorities were not exactly best chuffed though and Bill was sentenced to 15 years transportation for arson. We know from his gaol record that he was 5ft 7ins tall and had brown hair and hazel eyes.  Luckily transportation as such ended at this time and he spent his time in Preston Gaol and on the Isle of Wight.

The couple had no children.  They spent quite some years in Leeds after William was released.  Bill died in 1903, Fanny in 1886.

James - see later post

Simeon - see later post

Ann - married Thomas Tole at Wrestlingworth in 1844.  The couple are shown below (photo courtesy of Nick Ginn a descendant of Ann's brother Simeon)

Sarah -  married John Cartwright in 1833


Frances - married John Stratton in 1840


Mary - married Samuel Lindsay in 1832


Charlotte - may have died in infancy - untraced

Charles Ginn of Hertford d.1881

For various reasons have not had the time to update the blog over the last few months, but hope to catch up a little over the next few weeks.

Charles here is the son of Charles snr of Hertford in my post of 1st April 2013.

He married Jane Binton at Hertford in 1848 and soon after he and Jane had thoughts of emigration.

I knew that they had spent a few years in South Africa before returning to Hertford when researching in the early 1990s, but had no idea what happened.  In later years a few things turned up in my research.

Charles joined the Merchant Navy in about 1850, clearly with the intention of emigrating, as in about that year he and the pregnant Jane took ship to Cape Town.  Their first child, Hannah, was born on the voyage down.

The Cape had been annexed by the British from the Dutch in the Napoleonic Wars, indeed Charles' distant cousin John Ginn was part of the original British garrison.  The garrison was not just there to resist invasion from another European country, but to provide some protection from the native tribes, in the Cape these being known as the Xhosa or more generally and racially as Kaffirs.  A series of wars were fought ("the Kaffir Wars") between the British and these tribes when the colony expanded and land and resources were contested.

Charles clearly thought that he was emigrating from peaceful Hertford to a settled non threatening colony like New South Wales in Australia, instead he and Jane turned up in the Cape when the military and the settlers were caught up in the latest of the Kaffir Wars.  If not quite frontier country  it was obviously a bit of a shock for them and, believe it or not, there is a surviving letter from the couple letting us know what happened !

Charles wrote back to his family in early 1851 and his brother Thomas thought that its contents should be passed on to the local newspaper "The Hertfordshire Mercury" so he took the letter in to them.  The comments were published in the edition of  17th May 1851 along with the marriage notice of Tom to Rebecca Klusman.

Charles had written on 7th March 1851.  Reading between the lines he was not a happy man.  He said that the Kaffir Wars had raised prices and there was a dearth of provisions - as a result he could not any money aside - despite having found work at the Cape Town Gas Works.  He tried to put a gloss on it.  "In all other respects however he was prospering with an increasing family which he was managing to find sufficient for in spite of the Kaffirs" Their second child John was born in Cape Town.

They would have been better off going on to Australia or whatever, but by December 1853 they had had enough and took ship on the "Cleopatra" and returned to England.  There was nothing for them there, just the slum housing in Hertford thast they had left.

Charles was a labourer.  He and Jane in total had ten children before Jane died in 1874.  John followed in 1881 leaving a number of young orphans

Their children

Hannah - probable sighting of her in Spitalfields in the 1871 census.  She was called Anna and was a needlewoman.

John - the only son to stay in Hertford.  Married Ellen Drew in 1875 and Elizabeth Hurrell in 1908.  Had ten children by his first wife.

Elizabeth - married Joshua Shadbolt

Susan - alive 1881

Rebecca - married Walter Harvey

Albert - he was in jail in St Albans at the time of the 1881 census and was a small time crook.  Died in 1906 aged 33.

Benjamin - he used a middle name of Charles when he married Ruth Stockwell in 1893.  I have a note that at one time he was a soldier (pre WW1) but have no further information at present.  He was a Bricklayer's labourer later.  He and Ruth had three children 

Joseph - he was in Ware Workhouse with his brother Benjamin (called Richard) in the 1881 census – the two of them now being orphans.

He joined the army in 1885 or so (he was 16). Presumably he lied about his age.

Joseph joined the Bedfordshire Regiment and appears to have served in the 2^nd Battalion.  He served with them for twelve years, and I believe he probably spent some time on the North West Frontier fighting the Afghans.

At some point Joe appears to have married (or acquired a companion) whilst in the army. This seems likely to have occurred abroad.

Joe was discharged from the army in late 1896.  He volunteered for the Army Reserve and in January 1897 was a bricklayer’s labourer at Hounslow where he was attested for the Middlesex Militia.  In June of 1897, he stated that he was married with one child. At present I have no idea of whom he married or the name of the child.  He was 5ft 8 ins tall with hazel eyes and brown hair.  Both forearms were tattooed.

The Boer War started in 1899.  The Middlesex Militia were “embodied” (ie called up) in that year.  

 It seems that Joseph’s first "wife"  died and in 1899 he married Louisa Mooney – possibly in anticipation of being sent overseas.  (He declared himself to be a bachelor on the marriage certificate in 1899).  He went out to South Africa, ironically where he father had spent a few years.  He was in the 2^nd Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment.

Joseph Ginn may have arrived too late for the Battle at Spion Kop which was a very bloody engagement  involving the Middlesex in January 1900.  He was with the 2^nd Battalion by February however, because he was at The Battle for the Tugela Heights and was involved in Buller’s march to relieve the Siege of Ladysmith. He received the South Africa Medal and clasps for both these engagements were attached.

Joe was discharged from the army in January 1901.  Back as a bricklayer’s labourer, he was at Finsbury in the 1901 census with Louisa.  They had no children then, but Louisa was 28 and subsequently they had three children.  Joseph  was called up to joined Royal Engineers in 1915 aged 46 and worked as a Pioneer throughout WW1. 

Charles and Henry - died in infancy