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Section 33
Webb, Freeman & Smedley

33.A
  From Freeman to Webb

Laura Nellie Webb was my paternal grandmother; she married Arthur Wesley Brush in 1922.  Her mother was a Freeman and this chapter begins at the end of the 18th century with John Freeman, the son of William and Mary Freeman of Kenilworth in Warwickshire.

John Freeman is positivly identified from records relating to his son Thomas Freeman and the early censuses.  Thomas's 1858 marriage certificate identifies his father as John and gives his age as 21 which puts his birth as 1836/7. The 1861 census gives his age as 23 which puts his birth as 1837/8 and gives Kenilworth as his place of birth.  There are several Thomas Freeman births and baptisms around this time in the area but only one matching Kenilworth and John. A baptism on 28 March 1838 with the parents identified as John and Eleanor Ann. Based on the ages at later censuses his birth year would be 1798/9.  There is a perfect fit with a baptism of John Freeman at St Nicholas, Kenilworth on 7 September 1798, the son of William and Mary Freeman.  Other children were baptised by William and Mary in subsequennt years.  There is a marriage of a William Freeman and Mary Page on 26 January 1798 at Kenilworth which is a possibility. John's occupation is given in the handwritten copy of the 1858 marriage certificate issued by the GRO in 1984 as "Boat maker (master)" but in the 1838 baptism record he is listed as a shoemaker and in 1851 as a cordwainer. Surely the original 1858 record read "boot maker"

John and Eleanor Ann baptised at least five other children at Kenilworth
Esther on 9 June 1824
Ann on 15 February 1826
Maria Anna on 19 December 1827
Sarah Helen on 3 November 1830
Mary Ann on 6 January 1836

The marriage of John FREEMAN, bachelor of Kenilworth to Eleanor Ann Spraggett of Bishops Itchington at her parish church on 18 March 1823 is a perfect fit to these baptisms. The wedding was witnessed by Richard and Susannah Spraggett. Both parties sign their names. Eleanor Ann had been baptised at Bishops Itchington on 1802, the Daughter of Benjamin Spraggett and Elizabeth nee Over.

In 1841 John - a cordwainer, Eleanor and three children are at Castle End Kenilworth. At the 1851 census John age 52, Eleanor Ann age 50 and son Thomas age 14 , an errand boy, are living at Radford Road in Radford, just north of Coventry.  Also in the household, listed as a son, is a seven year old - the name is hard to read, it looks like Josh Bangerman.  To be consistent with other entries on the page it should have read Joseph Benjamin Freeman and there is a GRO index entry for his birth in Warwick RD in Q1 1844. He is baptised on 17 March 1844 at Kenilworth, when father John is said to be an innkeeper. Joseph marries a Miss Banks in Warwickshire, movee to Lancashire and has a family - which woud ivolve a section all to itself but is too remote for this BFBI study. At 1861 John age 62 shoe maker, Ellen (sic) age 60 Washerwoman, and son Joseph age 18 painter born Kenilworth are in the Holy Trinity parish of Coventry. Joseph appears in several other records At 1871, John age 72 shoe maker is living as a lodger in the household of James Page also a shoe maker at 14 Court 4 (in Gosford Street?) in St Michaels parish, Coventry.

to Ann (THULLIS ?) at Stivichall (a parish just south of Coventry)on 15 (March?)1833. John is identifed as of Holy Trinity parish in Coventry. Ancestry indexes the bride as Thullis but I think it might be Mullins. (There are a few other Freeman entries in the Stivchall records including intriguingly a marriage of a Thomas Freeman to a Mary Elson in 1757. The Elson name reappears in BFBI 150 years later in nearby Berkswell)

Thomas FREEMAN married Mary Eliza HOBBS on 4 April 1858 at Wesley Chapel, Warwick Lane, Coventry. This location reappears in 1892 for the marriage of Thomas Webb and Sarah Hellen Freeman.  The naming of his wife as Eliza is a bit of a mystery.  At her baptism and in later census entries she is Marie (or Maria) Helen.  Her occupation is given as a ribbon weaver, her age as 22. Both give their address as Radford, Holy Trinity parish in Coventry.

After their marriage in Coventry, Thomas and Mary Eliza/Marie Helen move to Staffordshire and have three children.  At the 1861 census they are living, as boarders, at 11 Cambridge Street, Shelton, Hanley, Staffordshire.  Thomas's age is given as 23 (= DOB 1837/8) and his place of birth as Kenilworth.:

Sarah Hellen, born at home, 9 Hall Fold Bilston, Staffordshire on 1 September 1859. The birth certificate identifies the parents as Thomas Freeman, a pork butcher journeyman (which matches the occupation at his marriage the previous year), and Marie Helen formerly Hobbs.  Hall Fold seems to have been on the north west side of Bilston the road to Wolverhampton and close to Ettingshall.

John Thomas, born in Hanley, Staffordshire in or before 1862.  There is a baptism at Shelton (which is right next to Hanley) on 1 June 1862 for John Thomas Freeman son of Thomas and Mary Ellen. Hanley is named in the 1881 census.  His story continues in chapter 33.B

William Henry, born in Coventry in 1866/7.  Coventry is identifed in the 1871 and 1881 censuses. Nothing more is known of him.

Sometime between the conception of William Henry and early 1871 census Thomas Freeman dies.   At the 1871 census Maria Helen Freeman, widow age 33, is living in Coventry with children Sarah Helen age 12 b Bilston, John Thomas age 8 b ?Hanley? and William Henry age 4 b Coventry.

The birth loction of Bulkington, Warks is not what we would expect to see.  A mishearing by an enumerator of Buckingham? Bulkington is a village just northeast of Coventry.

In 1881 they appear as Eliza Helen Freeman, widow age 43 dressmaker, Sarah Helen age 22, b Bilston, John Thomas 19 b Hanley and William Henry 13 bCoventry.

There is a GRO index entry in Q4 1884 in Coventry RD for the death of Mary Ellen Freeman, age 48 (so born 1835/6).

At 1891 Sarah Helen is the head of a household with brother William Henry.  There is a death registration for their mother in Q1 1891.

Sarah was my G2-Grandmother.  She married Thomas WEBB on 16 April 1892 at Wesley Chapel, Warwick Lane in Coventry. Their marriage certifiate shows her as name as Sarah Hellen, a Silk Weaver living at 33 Court, Gosford Street in Coventry.  They had two children, my grandmother Laura Nellie on 15 January 1894 in Leicester and William Bernal (or Burnal?) John on 4 December 1898 in Coventry.  His baptism record on 14 December 1898 says his father Thomas was a painter and gives his mother's name as 'Lellie".  Their address is 1c 8r Hertford Street.(or 1 Court 8 house?)

Burnal is an unusual forename.  It was the maiden name of Sarah's mother Marie Helen of which more below.

At 1901 Sarah is listed as the head of the family, working as a ribbon weaver.  Thomas has disappeared and we have no clue of where he went, or why.  Sarah and the two chidren are living at room 8 in 1 court on Hertford Street Coventry.  Although my grandmother lived with my parents until I was 24 I cannot recall her saying anything of her childhood - which appears to have been fairly grim.  An omission which illustrates perfectly the need to interview elderly relatives while they are still with us.

By the 1911 census Sarah Hellen and Bernal are still living in 1 Court in Coventry but are now in house 3 with three rooms - which they share with a boarder.  Sarah is a silk Weaver at (the/a) silk factory.  Silk weaving had been an important and dominant industry in Coventry for centuries but seems to have been well into its decline by 1900.  The big name who may have been her employer were the Cash family.  My father's notes (take from where?) state that at 1913 they were at 4 court 3 house in Cox street and in 1918 at 3 court 4 Cox street.  Sarah Helen dies at 19 April 1928 (from FWB scroll).

Laura Nellie was not with them in 1911. She was then living as the adopted daughter of Fred and Mary Elson at Meeting House Lane in Berkswell in Warwickshire, assisting in the family business.  There is lots of information about the Elson family in my father's autobiography. How and why she was adopted I am sad to say that I did not know. My father made enquiries of the junior school in Berkswell, where his mother said she had attended school but the admission register began only in 1913 by which time she was 19.  The minimum school leaving age at the time was only 12 ( though attendance to 14 was encouraged)so she might have attended until 1906 or 1908.  Which puts the move from Coventry well before 1911.

While she was at Berkswell she met my grandfather Arthur Wesley BRUSH, who she married in 1922, as covered in the mainline story of the Brush family in chapter xx.x. She died at Berkhamsted on 4 April 1979.

Her brother Burnal became a Salvation Army Officer and married Irene Florence Warriner Vincent in 1926. They had a son Roy in 1927 and a daughter Joy WEBB in 1932, who also became a Salvation Army officer focused on music and reached the UK pop charts with her 1960's group The Joy Strings.

To return to the Freeman story and to the mother of Sarah Helen. She was born in Buckingham in 1836 and baptised as Marie Helen HOBBS. Her baptism is one of the most perfect records a geneologist could hope for and discloses that Burnell was the maiden name of Marie Helen's mother.  At her 1858 marriage one of the witnesses was Edwin Burnell - an uncle? The certificte also records that her father George HOBBS was a printer, deceased.

This extract from the Methodist register of baptisms identifies not only her date of birth and the names of both her parents but also her mother's parents. Plus the name of the surgeon who attended her birth and another relative who was present at the birth.

At 1841 the family is living at Red Lion Row in Buckingham. It includes not just Marie Helen but also an older brother George.

George Burnel HOBBS had received a Methodist baptism in 1832 in Buckingham. In 1851 he was a carpenters apprentice living with Carpenter and Farrier Robert Holt at London Road Buckingham.  He married Sarah Molineux in Ettingshall, Staffordshire and had a daughter Maria Helen Hobbs in nearby Bilston in 1856. Was he the magnet which pulled his sister Maria Helen and her husband Thomas Freeman to Bilston?  Only the use of the Burnell family name enables us to securely make these links from county to county.

And from country to country. John Thomas Freeman, the brother of Sarah Helen emigrated to Australia and also named one of his sons Burnal. Contact has been maintained by my family over the years, and to this day, with one branch of the Australian cousins, descended from Thomas Freeman and Marie Helen nee Hobbs.

TEXT

Taking the story back a generation, the most likely baptism of George Burnell seemed to be 29 Dec 1805 at Hardwick,Buckingham,England, the son of James Burnell and Hannah (FHL FILM NUMBER:919230). BUT.... I cannot find their marriage but