.
.
Previous: Section 31:
Lewis & Mardlin
Section 32 : Wallis,
Gurnett & Huestice
Chapter xx
Mary Ann Wallis & family
The WALLIS name is of particular interest to me. My middle name is Wallis, as it was for my father Fred Wallis BRUSH and my great-grandfather Arthur Wallis BRUSH. It comes from Mary Ann WALLIS who at age 21 married my great-great-grandfather John Thomas BRUSH in 1853. She was a dress-maker. At the time of their marriage they each give the same address - 14 Tachbrook Street, which appears as the WALLIS family home in the 1861 census.
Mary Ann was born on 1 October 1831 and was baptised on 27 November 1831 at Southwark Wesleyan Chapel in Long Lane, Bermondsey,Surrey. She was the daughter of George Gurnett WALLIS and Mary nee HUESTICE who had married in 1830 at St Mary's, Newington.
14 Tachbrook Street; still standing in the 21st century
On 18 April 1853 she married John Thomas BRUSH at St John the Evangalist, Smith Square, Westminster - the Parish church. She is recorded as a dressmaker. Mary Ann's marriage certificate shows her father to be George Gurnett WALLIS, a Dyer, and one of the witnesses to be Mary WALLIS - presumably her mother.
The story of John Thomas BRUSH and the later life of Mary Ann is in Section 29.B of the BFBI. Asthere explained I believe Mary Ann died in 1875.
George Gurnett WALLIS
At the 1841 census George Wallis (age 30-34), a Dyer, and wife Mary (age 30-34) are living at 8 Loughborough Place - a row of terraced houses fronting the Brixton Road in Camberwell, built around 1808-1810. They shared the house with one other family and two single men. George and Mary had three children Mary Ann age 10, Thomas age 5 and Elizabeth age 1. George and Mary are both shown as born within the county - Surrey. The correlation to the later marriage certificate for Mary Ann to John Thomas BRUSH is pretty near perfect.
At the 1842 baptism of daughters Elizabeth and Susannah his address is given as Greys Inn Place, Pimlico and his occupation as a Dyer.
In the 1851 census George, wife Mary, daughter Mary Ann (age 19) and her siblings are at 10 Graham Street in Westminster. This was just a few streets away from the childhood homes of John Thomas BRUSH. I have made a start at exploring the lives of her siblings in section 32.C
(a composite image of the 1851 entry from two pages)
George WALLIS is more specifically identified as a silk dyer and his age given as 46, making his birth date 1804/5. His place of birth is given as Croydon in Surrey in this and other censuses. The birthplace for daughter Mary Ann is given as Bermondsey in Surrey, which is just down river from Tower Bridge.
Graham Street is now known as Graham Terrace. It is about 200m south east of Sloane Square. The census enumerator helpfully, and unusually, included a sketch map of his district. What is shown on that map as Westbourne Street is now Bourne Street. The Wallis home seems to have been the fourth house along from the junction on the north side, roughly where I have added the red shape is. The housing there now is either much restored or a modern recreation of an older style. The street numbering has changed since 1851. No.10 was roughly where no.41 is today. The section of Passmore Street shown on the sketch is no longer there.
At the 1861 census, by which time they are at 14 Tachbrook Street about 1 mile east of Graham Street, George's age is given as 53 - which gives a later birth date of 1807/8. Elizabeth, Susannah, William, James and Henry are still living at home.
At the 1871 census they are still at Tachbrook Street with just one child still at home; Henry age 24 a piano tuner. Plus two boarders. Within the same house but also described as a head of household is Elizabeth Pailthurp[??], widow, plus a grandson Albert. A first thought was that this was George's daughter Elizabeth but she appears elsewhere as the wife of Willim Waring.
At 1881 George is living in the household of his grandson Arthur Wallis Brush with other grandchildren at 2 Eelbrook Gardens in Fulham.
He dies in Q1 1885, age 78 (though actually 77y 11m according to the baptism record) in the Fulham RD and is buried at Brompton Cemetery on March 18th. The place of death is recorded as 9 Moore Park Road, Fulham. He is noted as 'dissent' as opposed to 'church'. Which probably means Methodist. Arthur Wallis Brush was a Methodist Local Preacher.
For a long while I could find no record of his baptism, looking in the period 1805 to 1808. But, given his middle name, it can confidently be assumed that George Gurnett WALLIS was the son of James WALLIS and Hester GURNETT who married in 1803 at St George in the Borough - Southwark, and baptised son James at Croydon in 1805. There were also other Wallis families in Croydon at the same time.
The answer is that although George was born on 5 April 1807 he was not baptised until 1812. This record from the Family History Library is clear and detailed. The 1812 register of St Martin the Fields, Westminster is now available in Ancestry. His younger brother Henry Wallis, born 17 October 1809, was also baptised on the same day. Henry and his descendants are recorded within https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wallis-3282.
George's marriage to Mary Huestice was on 22 March 1830 at St Mary's, Newington in Southwark. Both are noted as 'of this parish' but their banns were called at Saint Mary's Whitechapel in November 1829 indicating that one of them at that time lived in that parish. https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/collections/1623/images/31280_199194-00133?pId=6207559
Huestice
The marriage register shows the witnesses to be Daniel and Sarah Huestice. Both make their mark rather than sign. It seems likely that they were her parents. The name is a rare one and there is a couple of that name at that period. They appear in the 1851 census in the parish of St Mary Lambeth age 60 and 58. Both were born in Lambeth. He was a bricklayer.
They had married on 17 May 1810 at St Martin in the Fields, according to the Banns Register. Sarah was Sarah Holloway and there seems a likely match to a baptism at Newington in 1790. At the same church the following day a William Huestice married Sarah Hayes.
Daniel and Sarah had a daughter Susanna baptised at St Mary's Lambeth on18 February 1821.
The record of Mary's wedding identifies her as a minor, so born after 22 March 1809. The 1851, 1861 and 1871 censuses list her as age 40, 50 and 60 so born 1810/11. There are baptisms of other, later, children of Daniel and Sarah indexed under St Mary Lambeth but Mary Huestice does not show up. One possibility is the entry for Mary Hughes, daughter of Daniel and Sarah, baptised on 4 August 1811.
The register of St Mary's Lambeth shows (a) Daniel Heustice baptised on 18 January 1789, the son of Richard and Mary Huestice.
James & Hester WALLIS
Tracking the WALLIS line back from here is a bit speculative. There is no 1841 census entry for Hester WALLIS and the two most likely James entries in Surrey would both involve him being (a) younger than Hester and (b) having remarried. Both are possible but it is equally likely that both James and Hester had died before reaching age 70.
There is a burial of an Esther Wallis in Southwark in 1820, age 45 with, interestingly, her abode being recorded as St John's Westminster. But this age is a few years out from what is believed to be the birth of Hester GURNETT at Dorking in 1772 to George and Susanna.
In finding marriage partners we commonly make two assumptions; that they are of a similar age and come from a nearby location. Both are of course open to challenge. If we assume James Wallis was baptised within five years either side of Hester and within ten miles of either Southwark or Dorking or Croydon there are multiple candidates. An Ancestry search for Surrey baptisms in the period 1767 to 1777 gives 5 hits for James Wallis and one for James Wallace (net of duplicates). There are plenty more in London and Middlesex. There are just two entries for a James Wallis in Surrey in the 1841 census. Several Ancestry trees suggest a link to Suffolk but I haven't seen any convincing evidence of this.
Next sections: Section 32.B Gurnett and Section 32.C the siblings of Mary Ann