Pontypool workhouse records

[Marmaduke 123]

I have a Sarah Ann Hopton aged 7 and an Adeline Hopton aged 8 in the Pontypool workhouse in 1871. I know their father James Hopton had died aged 44 in 1866. Their mother Elizabeth (nee Powell) was his second wife, born around 1842. I have Sarah's birth certificate.

Adeline disappears from the record after 1871, but Sarah Ann is found on each census up to and including 1901, still in the workhouse, although her age varies by a few years each time. I don't find her in 1911, although there is a Bedwelty death in 1947 for a Sarah Hopton aged 85 who may be her.

I think Adeline must have died in the workhouse, although I can't find a burial. I also can't trace Elizabeth in 1871 or after, and I can't believe she would just have abandoned her two children and changed her name. I wonder if she also died in the workhouse?

The Pontypool workhouse records are in Gwent record office. I wonder if there is some kind person who is planning to visit and could check the admission and death records?

Anne

[Mowsehowse]

Sorry I can't help with a search at the records office, but have you tried searching the British Archive with the names??
I have someone in my tree who was found that way as she was put into an apprenticeship after becoming a homeless child.
Good luck.

[Marmaduke 123]

Thanks for your reply mowsehowse, I'm grateful.

I think I have now discovered what happened to Elizabeth and Adeline, thanks to newspaper reports. Elizabeth (or Liz as she appears to have been known) unfortunately figures in several reports as a notorious woman of ill fame, and Adeline her daughter is mentioned in one of them. I also found a second baptism for Adeline when she was in the workhouse at LLangattock in 1879, and  a court case (obtaining money by deception) the previous year.

Not what I expected! I don't know what happened to them later but they evidently didn't die in the workhouse.

Anne