help Needed

[Jsmith9118]

There were memories from my GGFather but I'm not sure what the truth is. I think maybe embarrassment of being abandoned in a time that it was not acceptable.

He told 1 son "His memory of his childhood was of being brought up by three spinster sisters in Bradford on Avon.
He thought he met his mother once in Bradford. He was about four when a woman in furs arrived in a chaufer driven carriage.
He was parked on her lap and she ruffled his hair. Then all the sisters and this woman talked about was money.
When they had agreed what ever they agreed he had his hair ruffled again and she left. He never saw her again.
He ran away when he was eleven to work in the Welsh coalfields and never went back."

He wasn't raised by spinsters but a family. He wasn't 11, he was 17 or 18.

[Milliepede]

Goodness it's a sad story isn't it 

On the 1891 census just up from the Marchants is another Marchant family with a 22 year old single visitor called Annie Davis general servant domestic.  Don't wish to pin anything on her but maybe the mother was close by you never know.  Doesn't help with where the baby was and it usually says "out of service" I've noticed if domestics had been up to anything they shouldn't!

[Jsmith9118]

It's all just so confusing, so many questions and no-one here to help. My GGFather passed away before I was born. Memories filtered down can become altered.

I'll put this Annie Davis on the list to check.

I'm just not sure if he possibly knew her or knew of her, why would he have said about F Thomas, Bristol and her husband? Would a domestic servant have been able to afford all the money given to the family?

[groom]

I've been following this and agree with Milliepede, it doesn't sound as if the Marchants knew his mother. The fact your GGF remembered a woman visiting when he was about 4, fits in with what is said in the letter, doesn't it?

Looking at a money converter, £1 in 1890 is the equivalent to about £110 today, so that is roughly what she was giving them a month. She offered £20 so about £2200 - not servant's wages.

[Milliepede]

Let's not forget the father may have been supplying the money especially if they were together as a couple and he had a decent job.   

Annie is probably nothing to do with the situation, just looking for someone physically close to the Merchant family around the time the baby was born who may have been the mother. 

[Jsmith9118]

If we say for example she had the baby out of wedlock, someone would have known she was pregnant. Is there a place she could have been sent for the however many months she was noticeably pregnant? Even if this were true we still have no idea what village/town/city/county, no where to start looking.

If she was say pregnant out of wedlock by her employer for example, back in those days would the father have been willing to pay to keep the baby secret?

Could they have gotten away with not registering the baby's birth? or even not putting him on the 1891 census?

[groom]

or even not putting him on the 1891 census?

That bit would have been very easy, especially for a very young baby.

[Jsmith9118]

Well my GGFather may never have gone back to Freshford but 1 of his foster brothers moved to Wales and lived with him to join the army. Found on an army record for the brother.