Mary Ann Pratt

[Tuggybear]

I am trying to tie up a loose end and although Mary Ann Pratt is not a direct ancestor she was my maternal grandfather's first wife and her children were, I believe, step half-sisters to my mother.
Mary Ann appears to have been born around 1857. On the census for 1901 she claims to have been born in Wellington, Shropshire but I can't find her in Leicester in 1891. In 1881 I think she is living at No: 4 Court A Friars Causeway, Leicester with her daughters Hannah Pratt Wood (Who I think is Annie Maria Wood who married William Scrimshire in 1898) and Sarah Ann Pratt. (Who was a witness at the wedding of Annie Marai and William) However, on this census she claims to be a widow born in Thurlaston, Warwickshire.
I can't find a marriage for her with anyone named Wood and when she married my grandfather in either 1889 or 1891 (I'm not clear about which date it was.) she married as Mary Ann Pratt. Neither can I find Mary Ann on census returns prior to 1881 nor on the 1891 Census when she may have been Bates.
Any help tracing her whereabouts in 1861/71/91 would be most gratefully received. I probably need to buy the marriage certificate relating to my grandfather's marriage to Mary Ann but am strapped for cash at present having been made redundant so just wondering if anyone can see anything I've missed on the census returns. 

[jennifer c]

When Annie married William Scrimshire the father was left blank on the marriage certificate.

[willsy]

Found 1891

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:WDGP-KMM

Bede Street
Thomas Bates    Head    M    28    Leicestershire
Mary A Bates    Wife    F    34    Leicestershire
Annie M Pratt    Daughter    F    17    Leicestershire
Sarah A Pratt    Daughter    F    12    Leicestershire
William Ward    Boarder    M    26    Leicestershire

looks like her birthplace is Wigston!

Marriage
1889   2   BATES   Thomas   7a   514

[Annie65115]

If you search freeBMD for Mary Ann Pratt b 1856-58 in the counties of Leic, Warwick or Shropshire, there's only 1 hit and that one was actually registered in Banbury!!

[carol8353]

Is this the marriage that you weren't sure of the date?

Marriages Jun 1889   


BATES    Thomas         Leicester    7a   514    

Pratt    Mary Ann         Leicester    7a   514    

[Annie65115]

This is probably the grave, j564 at Gilroes:

BATES   Mary Ann   54   of 64 Bulwer Road Leicester   buried 4-Dec 1909   
BATES   Thomas   74   of 19 Gray Street / City Mental Hospital   Leicester   buried 20-Apr   1937   
MORLEY   Irene Rose   3days of 88 Oxendon Street Leicester   buried 25 Aug 1938   

so that would imply that they are there to be found in Leicester in the 1901/1911 censuses. (edited to add- sorry, you've already got them in 1901)

Is the Morley surname familiar?

[Annie65115]

Births Sep 1938 
Morley    Irene R    mmn Bates    Leicester    7a   359   
 
Deaths Sep 1938
Morley    Irene R    0    Leicester    7a   218   
 
a grandchild?

[Annie65115]

Marriages Dec 1936   
Bates    Doris M    Morley    Leicester    7a   580    

Morley    Horace L    Bates    Leicester    7a   580   

[Tuggybear]

Thanks all for the replies. 

I suppose I was hoping for too much that Annie Maria had named her father on the marriage certificate Jennifer c but you never know. As she married under the surname Wood I assume her birth father acknowledges that he was the father, especially as she was registered under his surname and I don't believe Mary Ann married him.

Thanks Willsy, I'm surprised that Mary Ann may have claimed Wigston as her birthplace. That year is definitely their year of marriage. Thanks for also confirming it Carol18353.

Annie65115, Banbury is somewhere I haven't found mention of yet but I'm hoping that once I obtain the marriage certificate for Mary Ann's marriage to my grandfather it will help me to trace her.

That is most definitely the grave. No idea that Granddad had died in the mental hospital, I do know that the pain he was in drove him to distraction sometimes though. Irene Rose Morley is my baby cousin. Doris was known affectionately and Auntie Doll and for many years I believed she had only one child, my cousin Terry. Eventually mum mentioned that she had given birth to a daughter who lived for only three days. Mum said that everyone, even the midwife, said that Irene was too beautiful a baby to live for long in this awful world. I expect they were trying to comfort my distraught Auntie.
Uncle Horace was a stranger to all of us. He was a milkman for all the time I knew him but rarely had anything to do with family, preferring to spend his time balancing his milk round books and popping down the local for a pint. (He wasn't a drunkard as far as I know, just withdrawn but I do know that by the early 1970s my Auntie was unhappy in her marriage, to the point of wanting to leave her husband.
I believe Thomas' mother, Martha Frearson (possibly Bates) was also buried in this grave, as was my beloved Auntie Ivy in, I think, 1969. So was my equally beloved Grandma, Annie Elizabeth in 1975 less than a year after my darling Mum was buried in a grave on the opposite side of the green to so many of her family.