Thanks, Shaun: Ah, of course, it was the Hampshire Advertiser because of the Southampton and P&O connection. All three of our protagonists, Edward Newman, Edwin Charles Sait and Mary Ann Sait (nee Warner) were associated with the P&O, which set up a base in Southampton in 1840 and became the first deep-sea shipping company to use the port. Edward Newman was a steward with P&O in Hong Kong in 1870, Edwin was a chief cook for P&O in the 1860s (according to his 1868 probate) and Mary Warner was, as you say, working in Southampton as an assistant manager at the Docks Hotel, which was part of the P&O Buildings at Oriental Place (is that now Royal Crescent Road?), according to an 1861 census. Edwin and Mary Ann married at Malvern Links, Worcestershire, on November 1, 1864, and had a son, Edwin (not sure when). I had been told by a cousin that Edward married the widow of his friend Edwin and so it seems to have transpired. Edwin died on August 26, 1868, of heart and liver disease at Chichester Villa, Saxon Road, Freemantle. Edwin was born in 1834 so he was about 34 when he died. The interesting thing is that Edward and Mary Ann married at St. John’s Cathedral (not St. Mary’s), Hong Kong, on March 18, 1869 – barely 8 months after Edwin died. Victorian decorum required a two-year mourning period for widows. But it seems practicality triumphed – Edward was approaching 40 and still single and Mary Ann was a widow of about 34 with a son. I am trying now to fill in the gaps in Edward’s early life. The 1851 census shows Edward has left the family home at St. George’s, Bloomsbury. There is an Edward Newman, 19, working as a servant in Lambeth who may have been born in St. George’s Bloomsbury (but the scribbled place of birth on the census document is hard to decipher). At some point, I will have to go to the P&O archives at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich to look for Edward’s and Edwin’s records (which may not exist as they were not officers). Anyway, many thanks again for providing the breakthrough.
