My black sheep great great grandfather really troubles me.
His wife obtained a judicial separation from him in 1907 (a very rare and unusual thing for someone of their standing in those days) and the case caused such a sensation that it was reported extensively in the local newspapers. The evidence puts a lot of (unpleasant) flesh on the bare bones of the man.
What troubles me, though, is that her evidence to the magistrates includes that "there was a certain matter that he said, if she ever mentioned it to anyone he woudl cut her throat". Charming.
But what WAS that matter?
Fast forward 4 years, the 1911 census. He is living in a boarding house, and reports "one living child". (We KNOW he had one who died in infancy too ... but you can imagine the boarding house keeper saying "hey, William, how many children you got?" and he said "one", so that's what the boarding house keeper put on teh census return.)
HOWEVER ... my great great grandmother was living with the one child still living (my great grandfather). And the census return which HE signed said that she had THREE children still living, one dead.
I have birth and death certificates for my great grandfather and the child who died in infancy ... but the registers contain NOTHING about the other two. So I'm guessing that as soon as they were born my great great grandfather (who was in and out of work due to his drinking, and surely couldn't afford to support four children) took them and left them at teh workhouse door. Or rather ... that's what he SAID he was doing with them.
But did he??
I've got this uneasy suspicion that this was the "matter" referred to in the 1907 court case; and that whilst this is what he told his wife he was doing, it's not what he ACTUALLY did. Because why would giving up children he couldn't afford to support for adoption be SO terrible that he would threaten to cut her throat if she so much as mentioned it?
At the time, though, he was working as coachman and gardener at a rather grand house, and they were living at the lodge.
As gardener he'd have access to burial tools, and to parts of the grounds that nobody but he would ever have reason to dig in.
And I strongly suspect that somewhere in the grounds of that grand house, there are two shallow graves containing the remains of two newborn infants ...
