St Ives marriage 1897

[Peter Cornwell]

What superb responses - thank you everyone for chipping in so well. Lots to take in and work through here. Thanks for your input Dundee, but Anna PULHAM is not the Anna (MORGAN) who married George Pope CORNWELL in 1897. I feel that DCB has now identified her as widow Anna CORNWELL who married Ernest Henry DEERING Q2 1911 in Wycombe, Bucks. Thanks to that, we have her birthday established as 4 Feb 1873 but I'm still unable to positively identify her birth registration in the Ely district of Cambridgeshire. Impressive research DCB - thank you most kindly.

I suspect that Queenie is absolutely correct and I will need sight of the marriage certificate to get any further with this but I chanced this posting in case somebody already had the information to hand. Finally, apologies to all for starting some hares running with my original post. It now looks increasingly likely that the elusive Anna MORGAN was not that born in Fressingfield Q2 1840 as I stated. Mea culpa.

[Peter Cornwell]

Well, Annie MORGAN has proved far less complicated than I tried to make her out to be. She was born on 4 Feb 1873 at Sutton, Isle of Ely, where she was baptised on 25 Apr 1875 the illegitimate daughter of Lydia MORGAN. Her mother, Lydia, married widower Joseph GOLDING Q2 1879 in St Ives, Huntingdon, and in 1881 they were living at the Cherry Tree public house in Merryland, St Ives, with 8-year old Annie recorded as GOLDING. By 1891, Annie M GOLDING was working as a serving maid to ironmonger John & Charlotte ULPH and family living at 3 Cromwell Terrace, St Ives, where she was married to the elusive George Pope CORNWELL in Q4 1897.

Four years later, she was a widow employed as a domestic servant to GP Frank FORD & family living at 1 Sunnyside, North Wimbledon and by 1911 she was domestic cook for spinsters Elizabeth PERROTT & Lilla STRONG living at Hazeldene, Wendover, Buckinghamshire. She married gardener Ernest Henry DEERING (born 1889 Wendover) at Wycombe, Bucks. Q2 1911. They settled in Great Missenden sometime prior to 1921. In 1939, Anna DEERING was again a widow living at 1 Forge Cottage, Wycombe Road, Amersham, Bucks. where she died Q1 1953 aged 78 years.   

I now await delivery of the 1897 wedding certificate that I hope will allow me to positively identify her first husband, George Pope CORNWELL. Fingers crossed.

[Peter Cornwell]

George POPE CORNWELL emerges as the illegitimate son of Ann BEARCOCK (1843-1919) & was registered as plain 'George POPE' on his birth Q2 1874 in Little Downham, Cambs, although later employment records have him born on 6 Oct 1874. His mother subsequently married Francis CORNWELL (1837-1916) also of Little Downham in St Mary's Church, Barnsley, Yorks, and this may well have been following their elopement? They returned to Little Downham sometime after Apr 1878 (possiby after the death of both of Francis' parents 1879/80) where young George was raised as a CORNWELL.   

George became an Ag Lab but soon sought better employment and was appointed an Assistant Fireman/Stoker on the railway in Aug 1890 attached to Paddington District until his transfer to Southall in 1895. In 1897 he was recorded working as Assistant Fireman in Huntingdon. There he met Anna MORGAN and they were married in the Free Church, St Ives, on 14 Oct 1897. After marriage they settled in Workhouse Lane, back in Little Downham. Sadly, he died in Brompton Hospital, London, on 27 Dec 1898 of chronic pulmonary TB attended by his wife & was returned to Little Downham for burial in St Leonard's Church on 31 December.

This has been quite a puzzle but I'm happy to have finally identified George's history and hopefully resolved some things for other researchers? Thanks again to everyone who contributed to this thread.