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.

William Genn the elder of Ely, Hoddesdon & London died 1780s ?

William was son of Richard Genn of Ely and Hoddesdon (see post  of  3rd February 2013)  and after twenty years is still being researched.  I am the first to research him.  He was a Shoemaker/Cordwainer.  He married Hannah Eastwell at Ely in 1764 and they had one child there, William, before in October 1766 making the move to Hertfordshire with his parents.  

I have absolutely no idea why he moved so far south and why to Hoddesdon.  His Certificate of Settlement for the Poor Laws is referenced D/P24A/13/5 at the Hertfordshire Archives, shoemakers barely made a subsistence wage it seems.  I have a copy somewhere and will add it to the blog shortly.  At the time of the move his brother John appeared before the Ely Justices to swear that the signature of the Churchwardens of Trinity Ely was affixed in his presence.

Whilst in Broxboume (the parish in which Hoddesdon is situated) he and Hannah had a further three children, two of whom died in infancy.  Hannah herself died in October 1773 and William remarried (as Genn) to Jane Bain at Gt Amwell Herts in January  1774. Whist in Hoddesdon the parish clerk invariably recorded them as Ginn.

Until 2019 I was confident that Jane was the "Jane Ginn of this parish" who was buried at Broxbourne in the summer of 1776, probably in childbirth I thought.  Events in 2019 have made me wonder.

Hertfordshire is very lucky in that the 18th century Militia Lists for the county invariably survive - they record every male of a certain age and, if in Broxbourne, should have counted William until he either had three children or was 45.  William is in the Militia List at Broxboume until 1773 (stated to have three children) as a Shoemaker.   His children William, Hannah and Richard were alive at this point.

What happened to William was a mystery.  He disappeared from Hertfordshire but did not go back to Cambridgeshire.  The name is far rarer than Ginn and that is rare, but I could not find him.  His son Richard died at Hoddesdon in 1774, and Jane I thought in 1776 - so where did he go?

Now 2019 has seen me almost certainly finding his son, so he likely went to London, but where was William snr ?

There is no mention of William on Family Search, or Findmypast, or Ancestry, but look at Londonlives and I am sure he turns up in the Middlesex Sessions (Court records) for in 1777 and again in 1781 we have William Genn and his wife Jane, he a shoemaker, coming up before the Magistrates for Assault - he and Jane were a pugnacious couple it seems.  Ironically, that same year, ie 1781, he was one of the many Constables of St Lukes, so he followed his father in that. So either the first Jane did die and he swiftly found another (like he replaced Hannah) or the first Jane survived.  The most likely scenario is that the buried Jane was an unbaptised infant of the couple - the parish clerk did not distinguish children from adults.  We even have an exact address, they lived at 73 Golden Lane, which is St Lukes Islington, North London, pretty much where I would expect immigrants from Hoddesdon to turn up and where Ginns from this blog had arrived previously …. research continues......but the Land Tax shows William there until at least 1788 (when son William was 22)……..

                                     William Genn in London 1781

William and Hannah had four children and he and Jane one

William - born in Ely but  went to Hoddesdon as an infant and alive aged 7 in 1773.  See next post

Mary - died infancy

Hannah  - alive in 1773 aged 2.  Untraced

Richard - died in 1774 in infancy

--------------------------------------------------------

Jane - died infancy in 1776