Benjamin Ginn of Royston d. 1859

The Royston Ginns seem to have been involved with virtually every occupation involving inns and coaching.  Benjamin here, son of Benjamin in my post of  19th March 2013, was no exception, being variously described as an ostler, maltster, postboy (postilion), post chaise-driver and alehouse keeper. 

In their early married life the couple lived in Royston High Street, suggesting that they lived in one of the inns (as Ben Snr had done) though I doubt that it was the ‘Black Swan”.  Keziah has not been researched but would appear to have been about 34 when she married, suggesting an age of 48 or so when she had her last child.  There does not appear to be an entry in the Royston burial register, but is it known through an M.I. that Keziah died in 1834, quoted as being 54 years of age.  In 1837 Ben remarried Charlotte Beale, a spinster from an old Royston family of bakers and millers.  She was 39 and they only had the one child, Emma, but sadly she died in infancy.

                                           Barkway church

It took me many years to work out, but by the early to mid 1840s the couple had bought the "White Horse" public house in Barkway, selling this in 1849 and buying the “Fox and Duck”, an alehouse on Market Hill in Royston which is now, alas, no more. (see papers from Rowley & Sons (Estate Agents & Auctioneers) at CRO (ref. 296/B330).
 

Ben Jnr died in 1859, he was 70 and is mentioned on his eldest son’s M.I. Charlotte took over the pub and was running it throughout much of the 1860s and later.  Sadly she died in the workhouse in 1882; she was 83.

Benjamin and his wives had a number of children

William - he married Mary Livings in 1838 but they did not have any children.  Originally an ostler and postilion, William was the landlord of the “Catherine Wheel” pub in Melbourne Street for a great many years.  It was discovered in 1998 that he also owned and ran a small firm called “Ginn & Co’ from the same address.

Ginn and Co is not (so far as I know) mentioned in any surviving directory, but the sale particulars of the stock are mentioned in the personal name index to be found at the Cambs Record Office: the auction details were deposited there.

It appears that William ran a small omnibus enterprise from the pub, this consisting of two horse drawn vehicles with a respective capacity for 11 and 7 passengers.  It seems likely that this (obviously limited) service provided transportation to Cambridge, though he had stiff competition as Royston was on a major coaching route, the reason for the vast number of inns in the town.

A number of books have been written on the development of the Hertfordshire railway system, all are universal in their mention of the devastating results for the various omnibus services.  The Hitchin line was extended to Royston in October 1850, and it is no surprise to find that within a year Ginn and Co was no more, William putting the stock up for sale in the autumn of 1851.

Still running the pub, William died in 1868: he was 53.  There is a large monumental stone in Royston churchyard which mentions him, his parents and a number of his brothers and sisters.  Mary died in 1907: she was 94 and is also mentioned on the memorial.

Benjamin - see later post

Thomas - a coachman.  He worked in London, never married and his body was sadly pulled out of the Thames near Upper Mall, Hammersmith on 3rd April 1881.  He was 62, and although the Inquest verdict is unknown it is not thought that the drowning resulted from foul-play

Eliza - died unmarried at 21.  She is noted on her brother’s MI.

Hester - It was the local historian, Tom Doig, who discovered the marriage of Hester.  She married John Taylor at Barkway Independent Chapel in 1843.

George Henry - as a young man he helped out in the local shops.  He died at Tilbury in 1861 (aged 33) but the death was registered at Royston and he is on his brother’s M.I.  He is presumably buried there.  It is not believed that he ever married.

Ann and Emma - both died in infancy,  Emma is buried at Barkway

William Mackinder Genn of Texas & Oklahoma USA d. 1920

This fellow led quite a life.  He was born in Quadring Lincolnshire in 1844 to Denton Genn (last post).  There are various stories about how and when he emigrated, most of which appear to be conjecture, but in  1862 he took ship on the "Neptune" with the Bloodworth family (his cousins by marriage) aged 18.  For some reason he is not indexed on Ancestry and he went out as "Gen" mistranscribed as coming from Ireland, but it is him. It is likely that he was in part influenced in his decision by the presence of his Uncle Charles Genn in Wisconsin, and may not at the time of their emigration have known of his illness - Charles died in December 1862 - see post of 16th September 2015.

He arrived in New York.  It became apparent in 2024 that both William and the Bloodworths settled in Winfield, New York State, a small place of some 1500 souls in the Census of 1870 and only about 2000 now.. When next we hear of William  he was enlisting in New York into the newly raised 152nd Regiment of the New York Volunteer Infantry, part of the Union Army during the course of the American Civil War.  The information as to the regiment came from Nathan (see comment below) who had researched William and has access to his war medals.  In 2024 I came across the digitized Roster for the regiment and extracted William's record.  You can see below that he enlisted in Winfield. 

 This regiment (see it's banner below) had William serve for the next three years, save for a few weeks when he deserted to the cavalry (it is thought he may have got tired of walking !) before being returned. 

 He was involved in some 13 battles/actions, including most notably perhaps the Battle of the Wilderness.  One of his comrades from the regiment is also shown below.  

 William was discharged from the Army in 1865.  He was discharged in Virginia, at Munson's Hill, which had been the subject of a well known action in the Civil War in 1861.

                                     Munson's Hill in 1864 or so

 In 2023 I heard from a correspondent (who shall remain anonymous - some readers may not like what I am going to say) who told me (and it is clearly correct) that he then returned to Winfield and had a brief relationship in 1865/1866 with his first cousin by marriage Mary Bloodworth and got her pregnant (see post on the Genns of Oregon of 23rd April 2021)  We do not know the full story, merely that he clearly did - that Mary adopted the name Genn (there is no evidence that they married) and that William had some input into the naming of his son as it was named after his deceased brother John Thomas.  The relationship broke down.

We also know that at some point he travelled to Chicago, where in 1867  (the year that John Thomas was born in New York State) he married Edith Wright, an Englishwoman whose step father's name was Pogmore and she married under that name.

After the period of the Civil War the American government was anxious to promote settlement of some of the newly annexed regions and gave financial assistance.  William most likely took advantage of those and he and Edith headed for Kansas (by 1869) soon afterwards settling in Texas where he established himself as a Farmer. 

The couple had a good number of children, Frank being born in Kansas but the others in Texas. Edith unfortunately died in May 1877 when Charlie was three weeks old,  buried at Ennis, Ellis County Texas.

In October 1879 William remarried, a widow of the name of Harriet Elizabeth Palmer Vaughan (nee Herndon), who had two teenage sons at home: John and Rufus.  Harriet carne from Illinois and met William while visiting her married daughters who lived locally.  Harriet was some years older than William and the couple had no further children.

                                      William and Harriet in 1879

Harriet died in 1910.  William Mackinder Genn died in 1920 and is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery, Ardmore, Oklahoma.

       George, Frank, William Jnr (rear) William Mackinder and Margaret Genn

William and Edith had five children

Franklin -  Frank was a stockman/cowboy  in Texas.  He married and had a son and daughter.  There are liivng descendants through the latter. 

George - a farmer and grocery store owner.  Likely named after his great uncle George Genn (see post of 25th August 2015). Married twice and had nine children  There are many descendants today.

William - married and had five children.  Descendants alive today.

Charlie - likely named after his great uncle Charles Genn.  Married and had two children. 

Margaret - married and descendants alive today I believe

Acknowledgement -  I have corresponded with many descendants of this family, and am particularly grateful to Dorothy Wylodene "Dene" Nall Morgan, a descendant of Harriet through her first marriage who did a lot of work with Dr Herb Brown in producing the book on the American Genn family.

Denton Genn Jnr of Quadring d. 1861

Nobody appears to know anything about Denton, son of Denton in my post of 27th August 2013 .  Denton is stated to have been a Labourer in the 1844 birth certificate for his son William and this is confirmed in the 1841 and 1851 census.  He spent much time in Quadring, but moved around a fair bit, obviously following the work.  He married Jane Mackinder at Boston, Lincolnshire in 1827.

Jane Mackinder was born in Boston in about 1810.  We do not know her parents for certain (yet) but they are almost certainly William Mackinder and his wife Susanna (nee Lawis) who are the only couple living in Boston and apparently having children at the relevant time.  Hopefully I will get access to the full Boston records in due course. 

The list of children may well not be complete, two unknown children being discovered in 2012.  Jane died in 1859 (National Burial Index).  After a long search I finally found Denton in the National Burial Index (he was indexed as Duelen Gen).  He died at Quadring in February1861 with a quoted age of 60. 

The deaths of the parents obviously caused a crisis, Denton the younger apparently being placed in the workhouse, he was there in 1861.  I think we must assume that William Mackinder was staring at the same fate and obviously decided to takes their chances in America

Denton and Jane had a number of children

John Thomas - two died in infancy

Rebecca  - married Thomas Bloodworth of Hawthorpe, an agricultural labourer, in 1860.  He was clearly son of Thomas & Angelina Bloodworth of Hawthorpe and it is clearly his sister Mary born 1837 who had a relationship with William Mackinder Genn in New York in 1866 and  was in the emigration of 1862 – this  Mary Bloodworth  having a suggested tentative birthplace of “Ilethorpe”,  clearly Hawthorpe mistranscribed  .  Thomas and Angelina Bloodworth are both on the New York passenger lists on Ancestry as is their daughter Mary. 

Isabella  - a servant.  She died a spinster in 1868 

Denton -  in the workhouse at one point.  A shoemaker - he died  unmarried in 1872   

William Mackinder - emigrated to the USA when he was 18 with the Bloodworths above.  See next post

Eliza & Phoebe - died infancy

Newcombe Ginn, Police Constable of London d. 1890

Newcombe Ginn was illegitimate, son of Sarah Ginn of Hertford (see post of 17th March 2013) and brought up by his mother and step father, Thomas Clark.  They lived in Cheshunt High Street, Clark being a butcher.  Indeed, when Newcombe married, he gave his father's name as Thomas Ginn, a butcher.

In 1851 Newcombe was staying at the "Haunch of Venison" pub on Cheshunt High Street (below).  Tom Clark's butchers was nearby. This pub was rebuilt in the late 19th century but was completely demolished in the late 1990s.  I knew it well as a child.

In the early 1850s Newcombe went to London, marrying Elizabeth Baker at Islington (living Bryant Place, Caledonian Rd) in 1854 when he described himself as a baker.  Soon afterwards he joined the Metropolitan Police.

There do not seem to be any surviving recruitment/service records for men who joined up at this precise time (a few years are missing) but I know that Newcombe is the only Ginn mentioned in the card index of early Met pensioners in the main search room at the National Archives.  This could throw some light on his career.

                               Met. Police Constable in the 1850s

I have a note in my records that in 1861 the family were at Derby Buildings, St Pancras - this being close to Britannia Street.  In 1871 they were at 87 Stanley Buildings, Old St Pancras Road.

Newcombe retired from the Met during the 1870s, taking his pension and going to work as a railway porter at Kings Cross/St Pancras Station.

He died in 1890.  It is unclear what happened to Elizabeth.  It may well be her who died in Edmonton in 1914.

Newcombe and Elizabeth had five children

James Newcombe - see later post

Elizabeth Sarah - not sure what happened

Amy - married at Islington in 1881

Florence - married at Islington in 1890

William Albert - died infancy

Francis Ginn of Broxbourne d. 1803

Francis was born in Weston in 1758, son of Francis in my post of  9th February 2013 .  The baptism entry is in the register, but not in the IGI.  This caused a problem for at least one researcher of my acquaintance. We are very fortunate in that when Francis married Sarah Young in 1783 and moved to Broxbourne, he was examined by the local magistrates.  This examination (HRO) a copy of which is produced here: cites that he was born Weston and married in Broxbourne and wished to settle there.

The Weston Ginn family, what I call "The Aston Ginns", because they are the remains of descent from William Ginn of Aston's (d.1520) eldest son, had thus split in two.  Both branches continued to use the name Francis in memory of their long past ancestor Francis Ginn (b.1603).

The couple had a large family.  We cannot be certain, but I suspect that Francis had some job concerned with the Victualling trade.  Certainly, his father, and virtually all his sons were.

                    Broxbourne Church in 1807 below and broadly

                                  the same view today above

My guess (and more research needs to be done) is that Francis and Sarah lived in the Hoddesdon/Great Amwell border area, almost certainly on the Gt. Amwell side of Hoddesdon.

In 1803, aged 45, Francis was taken fatally ill. TB is likely.  He was either nursed in - or his body was transported to - Weston, because the Weston register reads “Buried Francis Ginn Labourer, brought from Broxbourne".  There is some question over Sarah's burial entry.  I suspect that she is the Sarah "from Amwell" in the Broxbourne register for 1804.   

Francis and Sarah had a large number of children

Francis - see later post 
 

William - see later post
 

John - married Sarah Dighton illegitimate daughter of Joseph Dighton (a surgeon) at St Geo Hanover Square in 1839.  There is evidence she was brought up by a man called Perry (a publican) who was living with this couple later on.  She was too old to have children.  The couple ran the “George the 4th” public house at Great Amwell; it is still there and my wife and I have had a lovely meal there in the past.  John died in 1864 leaving will/admin to widow Sarah and brother George.

George - see later post

Ann - married Joseph Dighton

Mary -  married George Harknett

Judith - married Benjamin Welch

Sarah - is untraced - she may be the Sarah who died in 1804

James Ginn of Farnham and Tasmania d. 1885

 James, son of William in the last post was born in 1813, and as we have seen his family were not that well off.  The 1830s and 40s were a bad time for all Labourers, food was short, prices were high.  James was a young man, and in 1834 he did a very foolish thing.

 James and his friend Abraham Chapple knew William Skingle, Skingle was a Farmer in Farnham, James and Abe may have worked for him.  I can think of few things more foolish than to steal from someone you know in broad daylight, so have assumed that James and Abe bore some kind of grudge.  Possibly James and Abe felt that they were owed unpaid wages, who knows?

In any event, on 23rd October 1834, Skingle went to Bishop's Stortford to collect some money.  I have wondered if this was a regular thing, perhaps he went to collect the week's wages for his men.

He was walking hone to Farnham, when James and Abe met him, took his money and fled.

The road from Stortford to Farnham runs from North Street, it passes through Northgate End and then curls north, where it becomes a country lane.  When I visited, in the summer of 1995, the road was overgrown, bordered by fields, and very quiet.  I imagine that in 1834 it was a great deal quieter.

James and Abe were never going to get away with it, of course.  They must have been caught quite quickly, and their case (reported in the "Chelmsford Chronicle") was heard at the Essex Assizes (Lent: 1835).  Jennifer Clark (nee Ginn) has also sent me the snippet from the radical newspaper "The True Sun" (Charles Dickens was a contributor) which is reproduced below.

Abe (at 25) was some four years older than James, but the pair were both dealt with in the same way.  Highway Robbery was a hanging offence, though the sentence was seldom carried out for that crime by 1835.  The pair of them were thus sentenced  to death, allowed to "sweat" for a couple of weeks, their sentence then being commuted to transportation "for the term of their natural lives" (see Criminal Trials Register: National Archives).

James was placed in Springfield Gaol in Chelmsford (illustration)

and in 2014 the following information came to light ("Hertfordshire Mercury") which had been unknown to me in my 25 years of research

 

James was subsequently taken to the Convict ships or "Hulks"  for a few months,  his transport ship "The Aurora" departing in June 1835  arriving in Hobart, Tasmania on 8th October 1835.

                                                           Early Hobart

A description was taken of James on arrival.  In summary he was "a Ploughman; Height 5ft 7ins; Age 22; Complexion Brown; Hair Dark brown; Face Freckled; Native Place Farnham"

He was immediately assigned out to a local farmer, and served out some twelve years before being given a Conditional Pardon on 8th October 1847.  This left him free within the colony, but he could not go home.

In any event, James had no wish to go home, because in 1845 (7th October) he married Jane Cox (a freewoman, from a local land owning family) at St John's Church in Launceston.

It is fair to say that in material terms the court that sent James to Tasmania did him a favour.  Indeed, by the 1840s many convicted criminals preferred transportation, it gave them the prospect of a new life for freed convicts were given land allocations.

By 1860, James had been allocated some 50 acres of bushland at Pipers River, by 1867 owning some 160 acres of land at The Black Sugar Loaf at Westbury, while being the tenant of some 500 more (at the same place) owned by the Crown.  He held this land for the rest of his life.

Jane was born in 1825, at Norfolk Plains, Tasmania.  The couple only had the three children, because sadly Jane died of measles in 1854; she was 29.

James Ginn, "Farmer" died in 1885, aged 71.  The cause of death was given as stricture.

James and Jane had three sons:

George - a farmer, married Sarah Bullock in 1869 and had Elizabeth, Jane, Sarah (d. infancy) and James by her.  Sarah died in 1877 and George remarried Emma Hall in 1883 and had a further child, Emma by her.  George (shown right below with son James) died in 1912, Emma dying the same year.

Arthur Alfred - married Louisa Sturzaker in 1876 and had Arthur (died infancy) Amelia, Hilda, Ethel, Ernest, David, Ella and Rita.  A farmer, Arthur died in 1931 and Louisa in 1932

.

James - there were various family stories about what happened to James, the major one saying that he went blind.  It has recently been discovered that his mother carried a genetic condition called Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) the gene passes down through the female line but the actual disease (which manifests itself with blindness between the ages of 20-30) usually only occurs in males. The majority of people who have  the gene may never suffer from the illness.

James jnr acquired land and appears in various land records until 1878 when he was 26.  It is likely that soon after this he went blind.  The condition comes on suddenly and is untreatable even today.  The likelihood is that he was placed in what was called the "Invalid Depot" in Launceston in Tasmania.  Tasmania suffered from the fact that it had been established as a penal colony, had no welfare system equivalent to the local workhouse provision in England (inadequate as that was) and was run centrally with little compassion or empathy for people who could not look after themselves.  The conditions in the Depot were very poor and run almost on military lines.  Contemporary records of the Depot do not appear to survive, but the fact that the land that James held was put up for auction in 1880 indicates that he died that year - he was 28.

Acknowledgement - I am indebted to my friend Jennifer Clark (nee Ginn) a descendant of James, for the vast majority of what appears here in respect of what happened after James arrived in Tasmania

           

William Ginn of Farnham d. 1842

Son of John (post of 23rd March 2013) William Ginn and his family are a classic example of the social change that was sweeping England at he close of the 18th century.  At this time, social and political change resulted in "a vast flood of pauperism" engulfing "virtually the whole of the labouring classes" (W.E Tate "The Parish Chest").

William was born in 1773.  His mother died when he was 8, his father when he was 15. 

It is quite possible that William spent part of his early life at Stocking Pelham.  In any event, doubtless he visited fairly often. It is clear that he and his cousin Cornelius were quite close.

Ann King was clearly a Stocking Pelham girl.  She and William must have come into contact through his visits.   

Ann seems quite clearly to have been the daughter of James King and Ann (nee Turner) of Stocking Pelham.  The parish register and Militia lists do not agree, so there were obviously more children than those shown in the register.  She was born in circa 1777.

The couple married in 1798.  Ann immediately turned her charm on Cornelius Ginn, persuading him to let one of his vacant cottages to her father.  The Kings, incidentally, had originally come from Essendon in Herts.  (See Quarter Sessions reords)

As I have mentioned, the close of the 18th century was not a good time to be an Agricultural Labourer.  There were various reasons for this.  A rising population was a major contributor, as was a greater industrialisation of agricultural work, and thus a decline in the need for labourers.  Other factors played a part however, particularly the rise in the price of corn during the French wars, the very low wages, and last, but not least, the system which prevented a man moving from village to village if he was likely to be a burden on the poor rates.

All of these created conditions that made it very difficult for William and his family.  Their having such a large family did not help.

In truth, I can think of better places to live (from the employment point of view) than Farnham.  It is very small, was not a particularly dynamic place, and unless a man could get to Bishop's Stortford (where many headed for) I can see how men must have faced unemployment.  Certainly William did.

We have records for Farnham's overseers from 1808.  From the first, William and his family were in a bad way.  He was completely unemployed, or had "lost time" quite frequently before 1813, after which things improved for a few years.  It is probable that the improvement had much to do with the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1814/5) and the resulting reduction in the price of bread.

The improvement was only temporary.  The ending of the wars eventually led to higher unemployment (as thousands of men came home).  The population grew even faster, while continuing enclosures of common land increased deprivation.  William's fortunes declined sharply after 1818.

It may be that William and Ann had hoped for some help from Cornelius.  But, as we have seen, Cornelius was in considerable debt, and he had no real assistance to offer.  Any meagre help handed out would simply have been deducted from the couple's poor relief.  They couldn't win.

By 1827 Ann was worn out.  She had had many children, and possibly with the last, died.  She was quoted as 50.

William struggled on for a little while.  He was probably prematurely aged; by the work, the poor diet and lack of medical care (not to mention all the children!).  In 1832 (aged 59) he became a permanent parish relief "Pensioner".  We know that he was in a cottage at Farnham Green (Tithe Map) somewhere in the area called "Lincolns" or "The Folly".  In 1841, he was living with sons Henry and Timothy.

William was buried on January 29th 1842.  He was quoted as being 73; he was in fact 69.  The cause of death was dropsy.  He received one final brief obituary in the Overseers book - "bought a coffin.  William Ginn. .15 shillings".  William had always known it was going to be a hard life.

William and Ann had a good number of children including a magnificent nine sons:

William - Stayed in the local area.  See later post

John - Also stayed locally.  See later post

George - At least initially in the local area.  See later post

Charles - Was transported to Australia - see post of 7th July 2012

James - Got into a bit of trouble and was transported to Australia.  See later post.

David - In the summer of 1836, David was mentioned in the Farnham Overseers book; he was being paid for looking after an invalid, so may have been periodically unemployed at the time.

In late October 1839, a recruiting party of the 2nd Battalion, Rifle Brigade, arrived in Bishops Stortford. These were formerly the 95th Rifles, the regiment portrayed in the "Sharpe” novels and TV series and the regiment that David's first cousin Sam Ginn had joined in the Napoleonic Wars- see post of 26th January 2013.

Some nine men and boys were recruited, including (on 18th October) David Ginn, 20 years of age and all of 5ft 6ins.

David was marched back to Windsor, where he spent most of his short army life.  In the summer of 1840, the 2nd Battalion were ordered to Newport, Wales.  This being part of an increased army presence in South Wales, resulting from the Newport Chartist Rising in November 1839.

                                                          Group of Rifle Brigade

                                                         (Imperial War Museum)

Unfortunately David became ill, spending much of the last year of his life in hospital.  He died of tuberculosis on 17th September 1841; he was a mere 22 years of age.  The regimental records give his next of kin as his brother John, of "Thornham [sic] in Essex”.  All David's army service, and his registered death, were under the name "Gin".

Henry - Joined the Royal Marines and died at Balaclava in the Crimean War - see post of 21st September 2012

Timothy - Took voluntary emigration to Australia  - see post of 7th September 2012

Susannah - married William Monk

Rebecca - died aged 20

Cornelius - clearly named after William's cousin.  He is the only of William's nine sons that I cannot trace.  I have assumed he joined the forces and died in obscurity somewhere abroad - descendants of his siblings continued his name