The Mystery of Mary's Parents

Mary Cardell was my great great grandmother. Mary, her husband, Philip  Woolgar and their three daughters, are missing from the 1851 census[i] and no amount of imaginative searching reveals their whereabouts but apart from that, I know quite a bit about her married life. That is, as they say, another story.  I am going to concentrate on Mary and the mystery of who her parents may have been.

On her marriage certificate and the birth registrations for her four children, her birth surname is consistently spelt CARDELL.[ii] The marriage certificate suggests that she signed her own name. Earlier generations may not have been literate, so the name might be rendered differently and my searches have included all phonetically likely variants of the name; C*D*L* seems to cover all eventualities.

A range of documents from her later life suggest that Mary (or at least whoever provided the information to the census enumerator) was convinced that Mary was born in Highgate, Middlesex.[iii] Ignoring the 1841 census evidence, when ages should have been rounded down in any case, the suggested dates of birth from the other sources are consistent. If all ages in the census are correct, then Mary was born on the 4th or 5th of April 1817. It seems probable that she was born between 1816 and 1818.

Other clues are provided by her marriage certificate. This was obtained from the General Register Office in 1983 and is handwritten, so there is scope for transcription errors.[iv] I have however also seen the registers for St. Mary’s Hornsey, where the marriage took place and the details are consistent.[v] Assuming that the marriage information that I have is accurate, Mary’s father was James Cardell, a gardener and the witnesses were a Catharine Cardell and William Groves. There is no indication that either of the fathers were deceased. I know the groom’s father was still alive at the time but I have looked at surrounding entries in the parish register and whoever filled in the register did not make a habit of noting if the fathers were deceased, so we have no way of knowing if James was still alive in 1841.

The obvious first search was in the parish registers for St Michael’s, Highgate and this was carried out by a reputable researcher some years ago. He was however using a transcript of the Highgate baptism registers. Transcripts are now available on FindmyPast and there are no Cardells or variants. The original baptism registers are in London Archives and are available on Ancestry. I have checked these images from 1813-1820; there are no entries for Cardell and variants.[vi] The researcher also checked the births and baptism register of the Highgate Salem Chapel, although the entries in the chapelry registers are sparse. These records are at The National Archives RG4 1131 and I have rechecked this using the online images of the registers at FindmyPast; there is no mention of the Cardell family.[vii]

As Mary claims to have been born in Highgate and she married in Horsey, giving her address as Fortis Green, which lies between Finchley and Muswell Hill, Middlesex seemed a likely county in which to begin to seek the Cardell family. A month after their marriage, Mary and Philip were living in Turnpike Road, Finchley. In what appears to be a separate household within the same house is a two year old, Ann. The squiggle after her surname does not look like the dittos after other names.[viii] Could she be a nurse child, surname unknown? She would have been born before Philip and Mary’s marriage. She does not seem to be a Cardell or a Woolgar.[ix] Mary did take in nurse children later in her life.[x]

I followed up Catherine Cardell, who witnessed Mary’s marriage. Just a month after Mary’s marriage. Catherine was living with her fellow witness, William Groves, as Groves. William’s age was given as forty, also in the household were Ann Groves, aged forty and Thomas Groves aged five.[xi] Attempts to follow up the Groves have proved fruitless. William Groves and Catherine had a child in 1847[xii] and Catherine appears as Groves but unmarried in 1851.[xiii] In 1854, Catherine Groves ‘widow’ married Joseph Fenson, giving her father as James Cardell gardener. Again, this is a parish clerk who did not record if the fathers were deceased.[xiv] Catherine’s records indicate that she was born about 1813 in Highgate but there is no baptism for her either.[xv]

According to the burial register, an Eliza Cardel was buried in Hornsey on the 1st of February 1824, aged four (born c.1820) ‘abode Highgate’.[xvi] She may be another sister for Mary and Catherine. No baptism has been found for Eliza.[xvii]

In addition, a Lucretia Cawdell was buried in Hornsey on the 24th of April 1825, aged fifteen months (born 1824), ‘of Hornsey Road, Islington’.[xviii] A Lucretia Cowdell, daughter of George and Bridget of Hornsey Road was baptised in Islington in January 1824 and with such an unusual forename, surely this must be her.[xix] A possible marriage for the parents is George Cowdell and Bridget Lewis in 1813 in Clodock, Herefordshire.[xx] George is not with Bridget in the 1841 census[xxi] and she dies in 1841.[xxii] They do not appear to be relevant to my search.

In Highgate, in 1813, a James Cadwell married a Mary Ann Gutteridge,[xxiii] who, despite the slight spelling variation, were prime suspects as Mary’s parents. I was tempted to follow Mary Gutteridge further, in the hope that going back a little and then working forward might give me the confirmatory evidence I needed. Mary Ann Gutteridge’s ancestry proved fascinating. I discovered a royal clockmaker, the vicar of a Devon parish very close to where I live, one who was captured by pirates and a Huguenot connection. Add to this a poet and an inventor of an early form of shorthand and I was set to add the most fascinating branch ever to my family tree.

I was heard to say, rashly, ‘I am so sure that this is right I just need a little more evidence.’ I purchased four certificates, I downloaded wills, I looked for and failed to find, DNA matches with the surnames of these putative ancestors. I wrote an eight page rationale considering the likelihood that these people were my ancestors. For days I followed this line when I should have been doing other things but still I hesitated. I reassessed the evidence again and again. Finally, I returned to the witnesses of the Cadwell marriage, who I had initially dismissed as not seeming to be relevant. One had the unusual name of Thomas Knackston (elsewhere Kneckston/Naxton et. al.).[xxiv] It turned out that he married an Ann Gutteridge.[xxv] Surely she should be a relative, probably a sister, of Mary Ann Gutteridge? Via her second marriage,[xxvi] I traced Ann née Gutteridge. She had a sister Mary Ann, who was not the Mary Ann with the exciting ancestry. I sighed and returned to the proverbial drawing board.

The Cadwell/Guteridge marriage referred to a James Cadwell, a blacksmith from Biggleswade, who with his wife Mary Ann, née Guteridge, had completely different children to the ones I was looking for. This family are consistently Cadwells and James is always listed as a blacksmith.[xxvii] Not only had I got the wrong Gutteridge family for Mary Ann but James Cadwell and Mary Ann Gutteridge were not the parents of my Mary and Catherine.

Thankfully, after nearly fifty years of researching, I am by nature thorough and cautious. I was so close to claiming the wrong family as my ancestors. I wonder how many people would have grafted them on to their pedigrees without further thought? I’ll admit that I was very close to doing so. I don’t suppose I will ever find a family as exciting as those who were almost my ancestors. If anyone wants to know about the ancestry of a Mary Ann Gutteridge, daughter of George and Sarah Gutteridge née Mudge, born in Shoreditch in 1783 and probably married not to James Cadwell but to William Rhodes, you know where to come.

If James Cadwell and Mary Ann Gutteridge were not Mary’s parents, who were?

The next step was to look for James Cardells (and all those other variants), in and around Highgate. There was only one possible entry in the 1841 census for Middlesex, a sixty five year old in St. Pancras, together with a twenty five year old Joseph. This James was a journeyman coachworker and seemed an unlikely candidate.[xxviii] Of course Mary’s father could have been dead, or living elsewhere.

I then looked for the deaths and burials of James Cardells in the area, from 1814 until 1841. There were six possibilities, only one of which used the spelling Cardell.[xxix] This James was buried in November 1824 in Southwark, aged 49 (so born c. 1775), of ‘Mermaid Court’.[xxx] Is this Mary and Catherine’s father, James the gardener? Southwark is seven miles south of Highgate, where Eliza was buried in the February of 1824, although, of course, they may not have still lived there at the time. In addition, Mary was back in the Highgate area when she married in 1841. Does a Southwark burial for her father seem likely?

This was all a bit inconclusive, so could I find Mrs Cardell, Mary’s mother? I considered a widowed Maria Cardell who was in St. Pancras workhouse in the 1841 and 1851 censuses.[xxxi] She cannot be found in the 1861 census, when the inmates are listed by initials only. There is no M.C. of the right sort of age. I have also searched with no name, just using her approximate age and the birthplace Worcestershire, to no avail. In any case, rarely are inmates’ places of birth outside of London listed, only birth counties.[xxxii]

Maria was admitted to the workhouse in 1836[xxxiii] and died there in 1861. I have her death certificate, there is no mention of a husband or marital status on the death certificate and the informant, S Deane, was probably a workhouse employee.[xxxiv]

She was Maria Cardwell aged 83 on admission in 1860. The 1861 workhouse census, where she is also Cardwell, suggests she had been in continuous residence for twenty four years, so this ‘admissions’ record’ is probably more of a register.[xxxv] This workhouse would have covered Highgate. Maria was buried in St. Pancras and there is no additional useful information in the burial register.[xxxvi]

According to the 1851 census, Maria Cardell was born in Dudley, Worcestershire[xxxvii] and she could be the Maria Withenbury, who married James Cardall at St. Alban, Worcester, Worcestershire on the 12th February 1798.[xxxviii] Dudley and Worcester are thirty miles apart. In addition, the information that Dudley was Maria’s birthplace may have been provided by a workhouse employee and not be completely accurate.

Elizabeth daughter of James and Maria was baptised December 1798 at St. Albans, Worcester.[xxxix] Annoyingly, I can’t trace her further. I don’t believe she is the Elizabeth who married Thomas Bayliss in Finsbury in 1820.[xl] This marriage was witnessed by a James Cordell but he has a very different signature to that of James who married Maria Withenbury. Of course, Elizabeth could be the sister of Mary and Catherine but not the daughter of James and Maria nee Withenbury.

An Elizabeth Cardell married a Samuel Davenport in 1845 in Newington, Surrey. Her father was James but he was a plasterer, which seems a little far removed from gardening. Crucially though, this Elizabeth was a minor, so under 21 at the time and therefore not the right Elizabeth.[xli] There is a 1827 baptism in Southwark for Elizabeth, daughter of James (a plasterer) and Ann née Bonghurst,[xlii] which is almost certainly the Elizabeth who married Samuel Davenport. It is very likely that James the plasterer died in 1840, aged thirty five.[xliii] He may be another child of James and Maria née Withenbury. I have not ruled out the possibility that he is Mary and Catherine’s brother. There is no likely baptism for him.

Note that the marriage witnesses for James and Ann Bonghurst were William and Elizabeth Bredes/Brades née Hawthorn. There is a Hawthorn Withenbury marriage. Maria’s half-sister, Susanna, married a John Hawthorn in Worcester in 1792.[xliv] Elizabeth Brades née Hawthorn was born in Worcestershire c.1794.[xlv] It hasn’t been possible to identify a suitable baptism for Elizabeth. John and Susanna Hawthorn, do not appear to have an Elizabeth baptised but could she be their child, making Elizabeth Brades and James Cardell half cousins? Interestingly, the Brades call a short-lived son James Thornton Brades[xlvi] and Thornton does have Cardell connections.

A Samuel Cardel was baptised on the 21st of February 1802 in St. Alban’s, Worcester, the son of James and Maria.[xlvii] Samuel cannot be found in the census returns or in the Worcestershire burial indexes[xlviii] however a Samuel Cardall of St. Pancras (no parents mentioned) was buried in September 1805 aged three years eight months at Whitefields (non-conformist) Memorial Church in Camden.[xlix]

There is also Sarah Cardall, born on the 22nd of January 1811 and baptised on the 10th of February, to James and Maria at St Margaret’s Westminster.[l] She married as a minor in 1829 at St. Mary’s Lambeth, to William Thornton, with the consent of Maria Cardall, who also signed as a witness, implying that James was dead by this time. The signature of Maria Cardall the witness is consistent with Maria Withenbury’s signature on marriage.[li]

A Maria Withenbury was baptised in St. Peter’s, Worcester on the 2nd of August 1780, the daughter of James and Elizabeth[lii] but Dudley, where Maria Cardell claims to have been born, is thirty miles from Worcester. The will of James Withenbury, almost certainly Maria’s father, written in 1797, does not mention any children.[liii]

I have checked the surnames of all Marias baptised in Dudley 1776-1780; none marry a Cardell. For a long time, I agonised over a burial of a Maria Cordle on the 11th of May 1834 at St. Nicholas, Worcester,[liv] aged fifty four, who seemed like a rather convenient fit for Maria née Withenbury. I now believe that this Maria is the wife of a William Cordle. They had several children in Worcester between 1803 and 1820; on one baptism Maria appears as Celia Maria. There is a marriage for William Caldwell and Maria Bill in 1803 in Claines, Worcestershire, four miles from Worcester.[lv] I am now happy that the 1834 burial is not Maria née Withenbury.

I investigated the Withenbury family further. Interestingly, if James Cardell and Maria Withenbury are who I think they are, their parents were called, James, Elizabeth, Samuel and Sarah, all of which feature in their possible children. Whilst following up Maria’s half-brother, Benjamin, who emigrated to Connecticut, I found images of his daughter, Louisa Shailor Withenbury, online.