Hello all.
William KNOTT is my elusive great-great-great-grandfather. All I know of him is from the birth certificates of my great-great-grandfather and his brother, his marriage in what was not his home parish, and a single mention on the 1851 census. His birth, death and whereabouts at the time of the 1841 census are largely a mystery to me.
Frustratingly, William only appears for certain on one census, and so his recorded birthplace of Dover, Kent, and assumed birthdate of 1793, are only known from his self-reported details in 1851, more than half a century later. Knott is a common enough surname in east Kent, and William is probably the most common male name in the first half of the 19th Century. I have found no baptism of a William Knott in Dover in 1793, but there are baptisms of a William Knott in St Mary's parish, Dover on the 8th October 1797, the son of a William and Mary Knott, and again on the 6th May 1798, also the son of a William and Mary Knott. On the outskirts of Dover at Whitfield, a William Knott was baptised on the 8th November 1795, yet again the son of a William and Mary. Our William may well be one of these three births.
William married Caroline Wells on 30th March 1817 at St Margaret's church, Rainham, Kent. The Rainham registers are poorly preserved, but both parties appear to have been previously unmarried, and both declared they were residents of Rainham parish. Although Caroline was illiterate and signed with a cross, William was able to write his own name. The witnesses were William Wells and William Taylor. William Wells was presumably a family member of Caroline's, but William Taylor witnesses several other marriages on the same page, and was probably the parish clerk. It is notable that no member of the Knott family witnessed the marriage, suggesting the possibility that William had moved to the Medway Towns for work, rather than coming as a child with his family.
William and Caroline were in Northfleet, Kent in 1826 for the birth of their son William, and were back in the Medway area by 1836 for the birth of their daughter Jane at Gillingham. I know these from baptisms, but there seem to be other children born before and between, whose baptisms I have not so far found.
On the 1841 census, Caroline is listed with eight children. They are living at the Street, Gillingham. William is not with them. Frustratingly, the 1841 census did not record the relationships between people in a household. The eight children range in age from 2 months to 23 years, and so I think it is possible, perhaps even likely, that the youngest may be grandchildren of William and Caroline.
In 1851 William appears with the family for the first and only time. They are living at 8 Church Street, Gillingham with three children, two of whom were with Caroline in 1841, the other one being my eight year old great-great-grandfather George Knott.
When Caroline appears on the 1861 census at 1 Hillington Square, Gillingham, her given status is 'widow'. But, as you may have guessed, I cannot find a likely death for William, and I cannot find him elsewhere on the 1861 census...
Any thoughts would be most warmly welcomed!
Simon Knott
