Possible illegitimacy and even suicide

[Bess]

Should I be able to see the right hand side of these two marriage records?

[Ambersand]

You need to see this certificate to see how Charles records his origins. Do you have this Certificate?
NSW BDM
666/1867 MAY Charles H marr. CREGG Mary Sydney

I can get that

Ancestry tree is - Johnson Family Tree.

Ancestry London, England Church of England Births and Baptisms 1813 - 1917
21 Mar 1830 Westminster St Martin in the Fields
MAY Charles Henry parents Richard Henry, gent, and Ann Rupert Street

23 Apr 1830 Picadilly St James Westminster born 2 Apr 1830
MAY Frederick parents Richard Henry, a gent, and Ann Rupert Street

Charles Henry MAY, who has not been christened for ....three years?....and with mother Ann to have baby in two weeks....now he needs to be christened......and christenings so close together but not in the same church?

This is correct. We know Richard and Ann went to Corfu where he served as an attache while Sir Frederick Adam was head of the British Protectorate there (I think someone recommended him for his health] Charles Henry was born there as per two entries at the GRO. British Armed Forces & Overseas Births & Baptisms index. Charles Henry May Corfu 1/56 Line 33 He's registered as a Civil birth as Richard wasn't in the army.
Also GRO: Ionian Islands Chaplains returns Births (1818-18640 Page 224 Vol II Line 1
He was baptised when they returned to London hence that gap.
Those two entries in the Public trees are correct.
The man who subsequently became an executor of his will (see below) Thomas Hancock ran a popular dining room at No. 7 Rupert Street for many years. He may have held mail etc for Richard while he was overseas, or/and there could be rooms above he may have rented as well.

How does the inscription on the table relate to your MAY family?

Because he worked for him.

When was the Will written?

19th March 1832 in Torquay Devon

When did Richard Die?

We found a burial notice for him in Torquay for Richard May (Lambeth Surrey now at Torquay) He was living in premises in Crozier St owned by the Lambeth church/Archbishop of Canterbury in 1831 we think as a record attests to a Richard H May being House Steward there. Date 31.3.1832 age 34.

What names for Executors and witnesses?

Thomas Hancock as described above and William Francis Adams, Ironmonger.
The witnesses were the Torquay schoolmaster, John Mare and his wife Mary Yabsley Mare. Haven't researched this. We literally only found the will, death date and age a couple of days ago. Most of the public trees had information we either knew or suspected was incorrect.
Earlier today I found an extract of the will which was a demand by the two named executors for 35 pounds which was granted.

How are beneficiaries named....exactly?

My beloved wife, Anne May (Note the Marriage certificate has her as Ann, the will writer may have just assumed that's how it was spelled) and my son Charles Henry May.
He also left twenty pounds sterling to be paid immediately to his mother, Elizabeth May, of Addington (I suspect she also worked on the estate where he was House Steward. We found a burial notice for an Elizabeth May in Croydon in 1836 which fits.

What did the estate consist of.....how was it distributed....who got what?

He left explicit instructions as to how the money was to be invested. One hundred pounds sterling was to be paid immediately for the maintenance of his son and his wife. The rest was to go be handled by his bankers Messrs Coutts and Co and put into Long Annuities. A sum of fifty pounds was to be set aside should his son want to become an apprentice (he was 5 at the time) he suggested a Cook. Some of the estate was to be sold and proceeds go into the long annuities with the wife and son living on interest until Charles turned 21. If his beloved wife Anne remarried or lived with someone who would maintain her, all her portion of the money should go to his son.
The extract suggested there was only around 570 pounds sterling after the initial funds had been withdrawn and dispersed. No other names mentioned as beneficiaries.

The will also explains that he wasn't christened Richard Henry May, it's just the name he went by. (Wish we'd known that earlier, lol)

[Ambersand]

Should I be able to see the right hand side of these two marriage records?

If you click on the image it should take you to the hosting site where you can see the full thing.

[Ambersand]

As for the relocation. I'm speculating he had consumption and went to Corfu for his health and to Devon for the same reason. While it wasn't until 1850? that the large institutions were purpose built for TB patients, some apparently took rooms there. I've been in touch with the local history association about that. No gravestone they reported.
This begs the question if he was born in 1798, who did he work for between then and 1826/7 when he went to Corfu?
To complicate matters, we have a 1917 memoir written by a possible relative Margaret Pierce (nee Potbury)(she claims to be "a cousin" who worked in the shop for him for six years) no doubt about the employment bit.
Her mother, Mary Ann Potbury (nee May) had a William and Elizabeth May as parents and she was baptised at Richmond in 1805. Her mother had entered service at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton at the age of 12 and ended up working at Windsor castle and died when she was still employed as a housekeeper at Buckingham Palace (all proved by certificates, census and newspaper articles).
However the kinship is not proven yet. Both were orphaned at a very young age. Charles at 13 and Margaret Potbury at 17. It might have been a case of the shared surnames attracting her attention, same Grandmother Elizabeth May "so they must be related"
There is one William and Elizabeth christening a son,Richard, around the right time, but there is also an Elizabeth May having a baseborn son Richard that might fit.
One factor in their favour of being cousins is the concept of having a history of working in those sort of places. We've sent of a request for info from Royal Archives, where there is apparently a card index for employees, but who knows when we will hear back.

[Bess]

The marriage certificate, 1867, is the civil (state) record, being a transcription for the original church record. It is all written in the same hand.....no signatures.

This document is an incomplete transcription. Information about birthplaces, ages, fathers' occupations has not been copied from the church original. This happened for many years in NSW.

This matter of partial transcriptions was known by the BDM registry. By the mid 1890s, a catch up program was started. Using the help of volunteers the original church marriage registers were located from the many churches, and the missing information added as amendment to the original civil register document.

Such marriage certificates are notated to show what information was added retrospectively. Your 1867 document would then have had a stamp to show eg. .....details in column 3, 5 and 12 added 10 Feb 1910. Your civil record was not amended.

The extent to which this catch up was completed was limited by availability of volunteers, access to original church marriage registers....and ultimately WW1 when all labour was directed elsewhere.

You, as the researcher with a copy of civil registration (incomplete transcription) can contact church archives eg Roman Catholic, Presbyterean, Anglican....in NSW to locate the original and get a copy of the complete original.

After that explanation, and because I suspect that the records of the Free Church are hard to locate, I think it would be better to get the next marriage certificate -

424 / 1876 MAY Charles H marr. JACOBS Florence A Sydney

and hope that it is a full transcription.


His name is Richard Henry MAY. What part of this name does he make comment about. I thought it was the Henry name. Can you write exactly what the Will says about the name.

[Ambersand]

“I moreover declare and make known that in all my transactions in the funds or at Banking houses I have used the name of Richard Henry May although Richard May is my proper name and Henry forms no part thereof and I hereby so therefore declare that what ever property I have at any time vested in the name of Richard Henry May belongs to and is the sole property of me Richard May late of No. 1 Crosier Street Lambeth in the County of Surrey and now of Torquay in the County of Devon and that all said property is to be appropriated to the uses as specified in this my last Will and Testament.“

As to complete BMD details, I will have to check emails that may have them already. And I will work out how to resize them! Sorry about that.

[Bess]

I read this to mean that, for the purpose of identifying his property, he thinks / knows that he used the name Richard MAY, and is wanting to avoid problems that might attach to matters after his death.

I thought that he might have been clarifying his use of the name Henry, which would hardly be worth mentioning........unless it was the name of the HENRY family,and he wanted to clear any suggestion of his association with another family.

Charles Henry MAY uses the name WALTHAM as given name for a son, born Sydney. Is this name from the TRIPP or MAY family?

[Bess]

Using Ancestry New South Wales Assisted Immigrant Passenger List 1828 - 1896

"John Gary" arrived 25 Nov 1852 Sydney Single Females

POTBURY Margaret age 19 domestic servant
Native Place: Windsor Berkshire
Parents: Gregory and Mary Anne (both dead)
Religion: Wesleyan
Read and Write: Both
Relations in the Colony: None

For reference, on the same page, a passenger names a relative who is 2nd cousin.

I suspect that Margaret PEARCE nee POTBURY, and your Charles Henry MAY are distantly related.

Margaret would have known that Charles Henry MAY was in Sydney.

[Ambersand]

Using Ancestry New South Wales Assisted Immigrant Passenger List 1828 - 1896

"John Gary" arrived 25 Nov 1852 Sydney Single Females

POTBURY Margaret age 19 domestic servant
Native Place: Windsor Berkshire
Parents: Gregory and Mary Anne (both dead)
Religion: Wesleyan
Read and Write: Both
Relations in the Colony: None
For reference, on the same page, a passenger names a relative who is 2nd cousin.
I suspect that Margaret PEARCE nee POTBURY, and your Charles Henry MAY are distantly related.

Margaret would have known that Charles Henry MAY was in Sydney.

We have her memoir written in 1917.
“ With a feeling of disgust I retraced my way and after passing the Post Office which was on the
same side as the present one, though a much inferior building I came to a long white washed building,
standing in a small paddock and seeing a good sized coach with several mounted Police round I asked
what building that was and was told the New South Wales Bank and that Gold escort had just come in
from the west, bringing in the gold from Turon and other places. I remained at my friends’ place about a
fortnight when the mistress came to me and said,
“There is a new shop opened in Hunter Street and would you go there on a message for me?”
Of course I consented and going two doors below Pitt Street I came to a freshly opened shop, and
my astonishment on going in, found it was taken by a cousin of my own, a Mr C.H. May, who with his
wife and family had just come from England, having a business in London and starting in Sydney. You
may be sure meeting was very cordial and I went and stayed with them for about six months.”
Now we’re trying to find if they were indeed cousins or two young people in a strange land whose grandmothers were both called “Elizabeth May”.
After that stint of six months she went to a Bathurst to a job for a while, then Charles Henry wrote a letter asking her to manage his new store. Which she did for six years.
Note on the passenger info (thanks for that) she had no relations in colony and when she relates the story many years later, she refers to him as a cousin. Not cousin Charles.

[Ambersand]

But it’s funny how significance of phrases don’t strike you at the time. “having a business in London.”
Charles came into his inheritance in 1848, around the time they married. I need to check directories to see if he did open a business there.
We have an address in 1851 Census when he lived with his wife and two of her brothers/step brothers, one of whom came out to Australia with them.