Maria Louisa Roulson (aka Old Ma Lechmere)

[Dusty Miller]

>>Megan James is of the opinion that Maria's legacy would have been safe from her husbands (post 45 of the thread below). So it's possible that she held the purse strings for the extended family and that Charles in turn inherited something when she died.<<

I saw Megan's posts over in the Mary Kelly section, another great thread.

If Hubby didn't take all the money, I wonder why the, seeming, downfall from Sion Sq. to Tiger Bay coinsided? Another bloody mystery!!!

[Gary Barnett]

For all the scores of Lechmere related threads, this is the first one in donkey's years that actaully has new (to me at least) information and is civil!

Re: The Crootes, the Potton crowd featured quite a bit in the local papers.

Thanks for the fascinating Potton Croote stuff, Dusty. I'm sure you know that one of them, Jesse, a dodgy horse dealer, hooked up with Kate Eddowes' cousin in Wolverhampton. He had earlier married a Wolverhampton woman in Islington, where his brother (Richard or Robert?) was a manure dealer. And a few streets away the Tomkins mob lived and worked, initially in the manure trade, then later as horse-slaughterers. In fact, Henry Tomkins's dad was convicted of stealing horse fat from John Harrison (of Harrison, Barber fame) and hiding it in a manure heap. As a result he spent some time in Coldbath Fields prison before moving his family to Manchester.

I'm off to Clerkenwell today and hope to get some pics of the prison site (Mount Pleasant).

You're right about the 'mystery'. In 1887, CAL's family were described as 'v. decent' by Charles Booth's researcher. Was that status achieved on a carman's wages alone?.

But to get back to Maria, I suspect she may have kept in touch with some of her Lechmere in-laws after John Allen did a runner, though that's little more than a guess based upon one of her several occupations in later life. (Possibly no more than a coincidence, as may be the Croote/Tomkins links.)

[Dusty Miller]

There was some talk a while back about the possiblity of Chuck and family living in houses owned by his wife's rels. So, he may have climbed a minor social ladder with their help.

Hope the weather is better there than here for your trip, it's winter down under at the moment and bloody cold and windy by Aussie standards.

[Gary Barnett]

There was some talk a while back about the possiblity of Chuck and family living in houses owned by his wife's rels. So, he may have climbed a minor social ladder with their help.

Hope the weather is better there than here for your trip, it's winter down under at the moment and bloody cold and windy by Aussie standards.

That's interesting. Where was that discussed - here or Casebook?

It was pi**ng down virtually all day yesterday, but so far so good today.

[Gary Barnett]

Is this Tom (50H) getting duffed up in 1864?

From the Morning Advertiser 2nd Feb., 1864:

[ATTACH]17869[/ATTACH]

Ed Stow has confirmed that Thomas Cross’s badge number was 50H.

[Gary Barnett]

I’ve just discovered that on the 1891 census both of Maria’s sisters were recorded as ‘living on own means’ in Hereford.

That may have been as a result of their husband’s’ endeavours, or it may have been that they were still receiving income from their father’s estate.

[Gary Barnett]

I’ve been looking into John Allen Lechmere a bit recently. He’s quite an interesting subject and I’ve formed an idea of his character - possibly inaccurate, but hey ho!

In July, 1843, he opened his business in Bye Street, Hereford and announced his arrival in the Hereford Times, claiming to have had ‘long experience in London, Cambridge &c.’

[Gary Barnett]

By June, 1845, JAL had moved to ‘more commodious premises’ in St Peter’s Street and had reinvented himself as an ‘Anatomical Boot Maker’

The text here isn’t very clear, so I’ll transcribe it in the next post.

[Gary Barnett]

JOHN LECHMERE ,

ANATOMICAL BOOT-MAKER,

ST. PETER’S-STREET HEREFORD,


Most respectfully acquaints the nobility, Clergy, Gentry, and the Public generally that he has REMOVED to more commodious premises, situate in ST. PETER’S STREET (as above), IMMEDIATELY OPPOSITE THE OLD BANK, where, he trusts, that by the practical knowledge he has obtained in every branch of the trade, by several years’ experience in the first manufactories of the English and French capitals, by a determination to employ none but first-rate workmen, by using none but the very best materials, and by pledging himself, in all orders he may be favoured with, to adhere strictly to punctuality and dispatch, to still receive a continuance of that marked encouragement he has hitherto enjoyed, and which, with pride, he begs leave most gratefully to acknowledge.

J.L., having made the construction of the human foot his particular study, and having a regular and ready supply of patterns of every newly invented fashion, Parisian, &c., &c., earnestly requests of Ladies and Gentleman, who have been in the habit of sending their orders to London, to favour him with an early call, and inspect the choice specimens of goods completed, and, at present, under hand, which, he is positive, cannot be excelled for neatness, excellence, and elegance, by any house in the kingdom.

J.L. also respectfully calls the notice of the Fashionables to his much admired LIGHT SUMMER DRESS BOOTS AND SHOES, made from the newly manufactured articles famed for pliability, elasticity, and for its prepared chemical properties, which render Corn and Plaster and Chiropodists unnecessary; also to his much-admired and approved HUNTING AND RIDING BOOTS, ANKLE BOOTS &c., &c.

APARTMENTS TO LET, FURNISHED OR UNFURNISHED.

St. Peter’s-street, June, 28, 1845.

[ 7057.


From the Hereford Times 5/7/1845

[Gary Barnett]

One thing I find interesting is that in 1843 JAL makes no mention of having gained experience in Paris, but a year or so later (as early as Nov., 1844) he is claiming to have.

[Gary Barnett]

A reminder of the info in the OP of this thread might be useful here:


Notices from The Hereford Journal

13th May, 1846:

(Marriages)

May 7, at Wormbridge, by the Rev. D. D. George, Mr. J. A. Lechmere, St. Peter's-street, Hereford, to Maria Louisa, youngest daughter of Mr. Thos. Roulson, Whitfield Lodge, in this county.


29th December, 1847:

(Deaths)

Dec. 19, at the Lodge, at Whitfield, in this County, Thos. Roulson, aged 57, the faithful servant of E. B. Clive Esq., and his family for above 35 years.


26th April, 1848:

(Deaths)

April 20, at her residence, East-street, in this city, aged 61, Charlotte, the widow of the late Thomas Roulson, of Whitfield Lodge, in this county, whom she survived by only four months.

[Gary Barnett]

This advert, again from the Hereford Times, gives some idea of the house in which the newly married couple set up home.

[Gary Barnett]

This advert, again from the Hereford Times, gives some idea of the house in which the newly married couple set up home.

I would imagine that the Lechmeres occupied the shop and the first floor accommodation, the ‘four comfortable chambers over’ being the furnished/unfurnished rooms JAL let out to paying guests.

Quite a cosy, respectable little set-up, but, as we know, it wasn’t to last.

[Gary Barnett]

JAL’s business had gone under by April, 1847 and a month later his premises was occupied by Mrs Maclean, a stay and bonnet maker.

JAL presumably moved his family to London for a period, where Charles would be born in 1849, but less than two years later Maria returned to Hereford and obtained employment as a straw bonnet maker - possibly working for Mrs Maclean? JAL is nowhere to be found until the mid-1850s when he surfaces with a new family in Northamptonshire.

At what point did Maria hook up with Thomas Cross, who was little more than a boy when they married, and why would the couple have left Hereford with its family connections to set up home in one of the worst areas of the East End - Tiger Bay?

A glance at TC’s service record might be interesting. When did he join the Met? Did he give them his correct age or lie about it as he seems to have done on his marriage cert?

[Gary Barnett]

So it seems the wheels came off JAL’s business in early 1847. It’s interesting that his estate was assigned to a Herefordshire currier and a London leather merchant. Amos Kibble was the London man and he was based in St Martins Lane, not far from where Charles Lechmere would be born in 1849. I wonder if JAL moved to London in order to supervise the disposal of his goods and do a bit of ‘anatomical boot-making’ to keep the wolf from the door? Perhaps he had worked for Kibble previously.

Help in the form of Maria’s legacy from her father probably kicked in in 1848/9, but it seems the marriage may have foundered shortly afterwards, if her appearance as head of the household in Blue School Lane on the 1851 census is any guide.

Society being what it then was, whatever the terms of Thomas Roulson’s will, JAL would probably have felt that he had a claim on his wife’s legacy. Perhaps that was why she’d returned to the familiar surroundings of Hereford, where the Rev Archer Clive could have offered some protection against a marauding JAL.

Was he, as a result of both his business failure and his complicity in the death of the drunken PC, persona non grata in the cathedral town?

https://www.jtrforums.com/forum/the-...echmere-trivia