Brazen Hussy or not????

[Wilkes_ml]

Ok, I don't get many black sheep to jump up and down about, but I found this one by chance!

Ann Rufus (half sister of my ancestor) was living with the Wildman family in 1851 census at Camden Walk, Bethnal Green (HO107; Piece: 1541; Folio: 99; Page: 30).

Edmund Wildman was a portrait painter age 40 with wife and 5 children. Ann Rufus was staying with them listed as visitor, a dressmaker. I could never work out why she was staying with them - maybe a friend of the family, I could only speculate.

However, just now, by chance, I found a baptism in the Docklands index:

Francis Rufus/Wilderman bapt. St. Thomas Stepney 27 August 1851

Father: Edmund Wilderman a portrait painter
Mother: Ann Rufus a dressmaker.

a Francis Wildman's birth was registered Sep Q. 1851 at Stepney registration district.

This means Ann would have been about 4-5 months pregnant by the married Edmund Wildman at the time she was staying with the family March 1851!!

I know Ann Rufus married James Owen in 1854 at Bermondsey and died in 1857 at Dartford, Kent (where she was born).

Not knowing what happened to the child, I looked for Edmund Wildman in 1861 and found him, still with wife and 5 children, but also living with them is Frank Rufus aged 10. Relationship to head of household listed as Orphan!

Ann was only 22 at the time she qot pregnant, so now I am wondering was it a consensual conception or was she taken advantage of? I guess I will never know the answer to that one!

I am guessing that Edmund's wife must have known the child was her husbands - otherwise why would they have taken the child in after Ann's death?

Just thought I'd share this story, as I thought it was an interesting find!

[Astoria]

Not a hussey at all, but the man is a cad. :)

[Lesley Robertson]

Ann was only 22 at the time she qot pregnant, so now I am wondering was it a consensual conception or was she taken advantage of? I guess I will never know the answer to that one!


22's not that young, especially in a time when most folk were out to work by 14.
Lesley

[Astoria]

Quite possible Finbar, I wonder if his work survived.

[susan-y]

Interesting story and great investigative work!! I agree, dressmaker|blush| is a tip-off.
Edmund was certainly dipping more than his paint-brush.|oopsredfa
I also wonder if there is a family picture/portrait anywhere,--- I wonder what became of Francis/Frank and ---I wonder if James Owen knew about Francis ?????????????

On the other hand.....
Maybe this was the start of surrogate mothers:)

Sue

[Lesley Robertson]

Edmund seems to have painted at least one famous person - J.M.W. Turner!

I've found the text of a magazine (I think) on the Internet Archive here http://www.archive.org/stream/connoisseur42londuoft/connoisseur42londuoft_djvu.txt

It's a text file, with all the usual formatting and character-recognition problems, but if you use "find on this page" for "Wildman", the 3rd occurrence gives a bit of an account of the work of the Wildman father and son.

It's amazing what they've got on that site!
Lesley

[Wilkes_ml]

Interesting thoughts! I don't think she needed to be a surrogate mother as Edmund and his wife Elizabeth had a small brood ( 5 in total I believe!)

I think it was likely that Ann was actually a real dressmaker. She came from a reasonably wealthy family - her father died only a couple of years after her in 1859, leaving about £600 which was quite a bit at the time. He was the foreman of Hall's Iron Foundry at Dartford, which later became a very successful and well known refrigerator company and then went into avionics(is that a real word?) in the first world war.

I think Ann Rufus may have just got caught up in a bit of a romance along the line, maybe without the wife knowing until the birth of Francis/Frank.

Frank actually survived - a cabinet makers apprentice in 1871 at Mile End Old Town, married with kids in 1891 at Hackney, but widowed and in West Ham work house by 1901.

What has come to mind is the fact that he wasn't mentioned in his grandfather's will (William Rufus left money to all his other children and grandchildren - especially those that were left mother or fatherless)
- so I wonder whether the child was actually kept secret and maybe brought up by the Wildman's from birth.

I'm now on the search for Edmund's death and will!

[Wilkes_ml]

Edmund seems to have painted at least one famous person - J.M.W. Turner!

I've found the text of a magazine (I think) on the Internet Archive here http://www.archive.org/stream/connoisseur42londuoft/connoisseur42londuoft_djvu.txt

It's a text file, with all the usual formatting and character-recognition problems, but if you use "find on this page" for "Wildman", the 3rd occurrence gives a bit of an account of the work of the Wildman father and son.

It's amazing what they've got on that site!
Lesley

Thanks Leslie - I hadn't got as far as googling Edmund!

[Wilkes_ml]

I've just re-checked my notes - William Rufus left £100 to be divided amongst the surviving children of his son William the younger, and he left £20 to his grandaughter Eliza. In addition to the rest of the money that went to a brother and his other children.

Ann was buried on the same day as her 4 month old baby Mary Ann Owen - so I guess it was consumption, or something just as contagious.

[Lesley Robertson]

I've just re-checked my notes - William Rufus left £100 to be divided amongst the surviving children of his son William the younger, and he left £20 to his grandaughter Eliza. In addition to the rest of the money that went to a brother and his other children.

Ann was buried on the same day as her 4 month old baby Mary Ann Owen - so I guess it was consumption, or something just as contagious.

A LOT of women died of post-birth infections in those days - they hadn't discovered the benefits of handwashing between ptients (or even between cleaning the cow's byre and belivering the baby). If mother was ill, there's be little or no milk...
Lesley