Hello! I know this thread was initiated a little while ago, so I hope that @sandy_W you're still active on the board! I was wondering if you had any further info on Arthur Moreton, the man who deserted Lionel, Arthur, Herbert, and their siblings?
I've been trying to trace my great-grandfather, Arthur George Moreton (b. 1872? d. 1922), and there's a faint possibility that he may have been the same man as the Luton/London Arthur Moreton.
My great-grandfather first appears in the records we know of marrying his wife (Louisa Smith Buss, b. 1887) in 1915. He was a widower. However, before that, we don't know where he came from. We can't find him on any census pre-1921 with the details we know about him. He also seems to have lied on on the 1921 census about where he was from and on his marriage certificate about his father's name (none of this info checks out with any source I can search, inc. General Records Office).
Assuming he didn't lie about his name, I've traced all the Arthur Moreton's I can with available info, and the strongest candidate that remains so far is the Arthur Moreton, son of George Owen and Mary Ann Moreton and this the man who married Rhoda.
I've traced 'your' Arthur Moreton (Rhoda's widower) to Luton in 1911, living with his sister Gertrude Wood (nee Moreton). After that, I've no idea! If you have any idea about what happened to him, I'd love to hear it!
Other things I found out:
There was an Arthur Moreton, who acted in a play called the Klondyke Nugget between 1899 and 1904, touring the UK. The 1911 census has Rhoda's Arthur Moreton as being a 'comedian' by occupation. It's possible he may be the same one, as his touring coincides with the time he deserted his family. Bit of a guess though!
George Owen Moreton, Rhoda's father in-law, was charged six times with assault for beating his wife. An article in the Leighton Buzzard Observer and Linslade Gazette on Tuesday 12th April 1898, reports that:
"A policeman on duty in Luton on Saturday night was accosted by two little girls, who gave him the startling information that their father was ‘‘ killing mother.”” Happily an investigation ot the matter showed that the children, in their terror, had rather exaggerated the state of affairs. The father was only venting his drunken spite upon the partner of his sorrows and his ‘‘ joys,” and when the constable interfered, he too received a blow in the face. At the Borough Police Court on Wednesday, the offender, George Owen Moreton by name, pleaded for leniency for ‘‘ the sake of his wife and children.’ He had previously been convicted six times for assaults, and the magistrates let him off with a fine of twenty shillings, including costs, or fourteen days’ in default. It is a pity that such fellows should be able to ill-use their wives and children, and then put forward the victims of their brutality as an excuse for lenient treatment for themselves."
Finally, an Arthur Moreton appeared in court in 1949 at age 78, for stealing a packet of tea in Nottinghamshire. He was described as a retired hatmaker from Luton, who had taken to the road as a traveller in the 1920s. I think this is a different Arthur Moreton to the one who left Rhoda as he wasn't a hatmaker (though his family all were), and there is another, younger, Arthur Moreton who was... but again, it's all speculation! Mind you, if the tea-stealer and Rhoda's widower *were* the same person, he couldn't be my great grandfather... so close and yet so far!
