Joshua Fardon - Chapter 21

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Chapter 21 ~ T - Joshua

A small branch, strangely unfocused, with a variety of residences and occupations (no evidence of any blacksmiths here). One daughter did well for herself as a solicitor's wife with servants. With male deaths and only female descendants by the third generation the Fardon name did not survive.

Joshua was born in Ford, in the Temple Guiting parish, and was baptised at the parish church in February 1811. He is probably the Joshua Fardon listed at Cutsdean in 1841, aged 30 and a stonemason. There is no other Fardon in the list, but the record is not specific enough to say whether he was a householder or living in lodgings.

In 1845 he was in Gloucester to marry Martha Walters at the parish church St Mary le Crypt. She was a widow, born probably in Pershore, Worcestershire, and with at least three children aged in 1851 between 10 and 14 and born in Worcester. They moved to Cheltenham, where four children were born - at least one of two in the Pittville area of the town in 1846, and twins in the Leckhampton area in 1848. Two years later the family was in Bushey, Hertfordshire, where a child was born. Then, within seven months, in Birmingham, with Joshua listed in the 1851 census as Joseph. They were still there, at a different address, in 1861. There was at this time another child, nine years old, the record of whose birth at Stafford must be considered doubtful (see Albert below). By 1866 Joshua, and presumably the rest of the family, was in the Tottenham area of London, where he died.

A variety of occupations are attributed to Joshua, stone-mason, baker, former farmer and pork butcher. And "gentleman", for which see under Martha Jane below.

Joshua died in 1866, aged 56, at University College Hospital in the Euston Road area of north-central London. The family, with Martha now head of household but without occupation, was living in St Pancras in 1871, perhaps sharing a house with another family. Her children, other than Richard who had left home, were variously employed. Ten years later they were in Hammersmith, Richard back with them and the oldest, Martha Jane, married and away. Martha was a fishmonger, with two sons similarly described, presumably helping their mother in the business.

Martha died in 1885 in the Islington registration district, aged 72, after which the family seems to have dispersed..

There were six children, the dates here being those of birth registration, except for Albert, which is estimated. Richard and Elizabeth were twins.

*Richard was usually known as Thomas, once Joshua

Martha Jane was the one who climbed socially to become the wife of a professional. living in very comfortable surroundings in south London and with servants. She was born in Cheltenham in 1846, moved with the family to Birmingham, where she was in 1851. In 1861, five years after her father's death and at the age of 16, she had left home and was in service as a nursemaid to the family of a George Smith, presumably looking after the family's children aged 5 and 1. This was at The Bullring, and George Smith was a grocer. His was one of a row of shops including egg merchant, tobacconist and eating-house.

She had rejoined her family by 1871 and was with them at Regent's Park Road in Marylebone, London. She and her sister Elizabeth were working as draper's assistants, perhaps for the next door neighbour who was a draper and funeral director.

In 1876 she had left home and was in Kensington to marry Charles Pease, the certificate showing her living at an address in Shepherd's Bush. Charles was a solicitor, born in Lancaster. Information from censuses and children's birth registrations show that the couple were in Putney in 1877-1885 and Wimbledon in 1887-1901. In each case the address was a named house - Melbourne Lodge, Carlton Road in Putney, and Thornleigh, The Ridgeway (1891) and Lancaster Lodge, Laureston Road (1901) in Wimbledon. At least in Wimbledon the neighbours were professional or retired people with servants, and they themselves had at least one servant. The upgrading of her social status perhaps explains why, in the wedding certificate, she shows her deceased father as "gentleman". Charles was listed as a solicitor throughout, and at least in 1891 as an employer.

Four children are known, two boys, two girls. The two girls had disappeared when the family was last seen in 1901, presumably married. Of the boys the younger was still at school in 1901, the elder was a 23-year-old self-employed architect and surveyor.

Very little is known about Agnes outside the census records. She was born in Cheltenham and her birth was registered there in 1847. She was at home with her family in Birmingham in 1851 and 1861, and in London in 1871 (St Pancras) and 1881 (Hammersmith). Only in the last was she accorded an occupation, that of dressmaker. Thereafter, following the death of her mother and the probably dispersal of the family, she is lost from the records until 1911. That year she was living at an address in Paddington, London, with older half-sister Sarah Ann Walters. Sarah is head of household, with private means, no occupation is accorded to Agnes. She is probably the Agnes Fardon whose death was registered in Uxbridge in 1917 at the age of 69.

This child was registered at birth as Richard but baptised as Thomas, and appears as Thomas, Thomas Joshua or Joshua in all of the subsequent documentation seen except for registration of death and on his death certificate, when he reverts to Richard. For consistency he will be referred to here as Richard.

Richard was one of twins (see Elizabeth below), born and baptised in the Leckhampton area of Cheltenham in 1848. He was at home with his family in Birmingham in 1851 and 1861, but when the family went to London, and after the death there of his father, he left home. Thereafter he lived at a variety of addresses in north and east London, in fact every new record brings a new address. In 1871 he was living as a single householder at an address in Islington and working as a fishmonger. Perhaps he was associated in this with his younger brother Alfred Isaac, who was still at home but also a fishmonger (see below).

For whatever reason he had returned to the family by 1881, now living in Hammersmith. His mother's occupation was now a fishmonger, as was Richard and brother Alfred Isaac, presumably helping their mother.

By about 1886 he was married. The record of the wedding has not yet been found, but later censuses show that his wife's first name and initial were Maria Louisa. She had been born in St Pancras. A child, Elizabeth May , was born to them, the birth registered in Islington in 1887. In 1891 they - father, mother and daughter -were living at an address in Islington, both he and Maria working as employed furriers.

The censuses of 1901 and 1911 saw more addresses. In 1901, he was in a multi-occupation house in Paddington, perhaps a block of flats (there were more than four families at the address, one of them of nine souls). Ten years later his address was in West Ham, at a house shared with another family. On both occasions he was now a house painter/decorator, which seems to have become his permanent occupation as it would also be shown on his death certificate a quarter of a century later.

There is then nothing more until 1925, when he died of heart failure in the north Middlesex Hospital in Edmonton at the age of 76. He was then living at an address in Tottenham, which was in the Edmonton registration district. It is not known how long he had lived in this area, but it is worth nothing that his daughter Elizabeth had moved to Tottenham after her marriage 1905 and was still there when her father died. Richard's widow Maria survived him by twelve years, her death being registered in Hackney in 1937.

There was one daughter, Elizabeth May, who was born in Islington in 1887, She was at home in 1891 and 1901, and in 1906 married Charles Senior who, in the 1911 census, is described as a jointer born in Doncaster, Yorkshire. In 1911 Charles and Elizabeth were living at an address in Tottenham, in the Edmonton registration district in north London. With them were Charles's younger brother Harry, also from Doncaster, and their widowed mother Emily, a Londoner. Later, at least two children are known, Marjorie D M (1915) and Ronald G A (1920), both births registered in Edmonton. Elizabeth herself was next seen in 1925, again at an address in Tottenham, when she registered the death of her father. It is likely, therefore that she spent at least the first 20 years of her married life in the Edmonton district of Tottenham.

The 1911 census attributes four children to the Richard's family, presumably including Eliaabeth May, three of them still living. It could be that the other three were children that Maria Louisa brought to the family, for she is known to have been previously married. But none has yet been detected in the records.

Elizabeth was born twenty minutes after her twin Richard. But unlike her brother she was submitted for baptism only two days after birth, which may suggest that there was some concern over her survival (Richard was baptised five weeks later). She was at home with her family in 1851 and 1861 in Birmingham and 1871 and 1881 in London, on the last two occasions as a draper's assistant (compare sister Martha Jane, above), in 1881 as Lizzie.. But thereafter, with the death of her mother and the apparent dispersal of the family, she is lost from the records. No record of marriage or death have so far been found.

Alfred was born in Bushey, Hertfordshire, and his birth was registered in 1850 at Watford. He was at home on 1851 and 1861 in Birmingham and 1871 and 1881 in London. On the last two occasions he was working as a fishmonger, perhaps in 1871 with his brother Richard and in 1881 as part of a family business. Nothing more has been found. Perhaps he is the Alfred Fardon whose death was registered in Lambeth in 1884 at the age of 34.

A shadowy figure who was seen only in 1861. He was at home in Birmingham that year, as a nine-year old son of the family, allegedly born in Stafford. The list of birthplaces given for the family in this census is quite bizarre, some of them plainly wrong, and thus Stafford must be suspect. In any case the record of Albert's birth registration has not been found. He was not at home in 1871, when the family had moved to London. Perhaps he is the Albert Fardon whose death was registered in Barnet in 1873 at the age of 21.