Reuben Thomas Marlow (1855-1936) and Annie Ayling (1859-1895).
My 2nd great-grandparents.
Reuben Thomas Marlow was born in 1885, probably in the Hampshire village of Wickham. Several census records instead suggest Portsmouth, but this was the area where he spent much of his childhood and where several of his siblings were born. His parents were Reuben Thomas Marlow Snr and Mary Frost Adams.
Census records list the family in Portsea, Hampshire, and for some years Reuben Snr was a stoker in the Royal Navy. By 1871 Reuben Jnr was working as a shop boy at a baker’s but at some point he moved north to Middlesex and settled in Acton. On 6 July 1880 he married Annie Ayling at All Saints Church there. She was born in about 1859, the daughter of tailor James Ayling and his wife Sarah Ann Chadwick. Census records suggest that Annie came from Chelsea, Middlesex, but I’ve found no birth record for her.
The couple had several children while living in Acton and Reuben worked as a labourer and bricklayer. Annie died young in 1895 and the following year he married Mary Ellen Donnelly, who came from Ireland and was likely born in around 1872 according to the 1901 census. They had a daughter but Mary also died young, in 1903, from a tetanus infection then known as lockjaw. The Chiswick Gazette of 23 January 1903 reported on the inquest held after her death, during which Reuben suggested that Mary liked a drink but was not an habitual drinker. However, some days before her death she had been taken into custody by the police for drunkenness after being found lying in the street with an injury to her thumb. Mary explained that the injury was the result of her falling on a broken bottle but the post mortem discovered she had also received two fractures to the thumb. Mary had not talked about being assaulted so doctors came to the conclusion that her thumb was fractured when someone accidentally trod on it while she was lying drunk. The wound became infected, leading to her death. The police told the court her death was not suspicious.
Reuben married for a third time in 1907. His new bride was Elizabeth Ann Jones, who came from Jersey in the Channel Islands and was born in around 1879 according to the 1911 census. They had a daughter. Reuben was still labouring at the time of the 1921 census, when his family were living in Bakers Lane, Ealing, but he would die a grim death in January 1936.
The West Middlesex Gazette of 22 February 1936 reported that he had suffocated in a fire, the result of a paraffin lamp that had, most likely, exploded. An inquest heard that Reuben – a helpless invalid according to the paper – had been at home in Orchard Avenue, Southall, when his bed lamp set his bed clothes alight and filled the downstairs room with smoke. His wife Elizabeth told the hearing that she had put Reuben to bed and gone to bed upstairs. The following morning she smelled smoke and her daughter Ella had run in to the room with a wet towel covering her mouth to open the window. She found her dad dead. The chief fire officer in Southall said an exploding lamp was the most likely cause of the fire, which had also caused burns to one of Reuben’s arms.
Reuben and Annie’s children were:
- James Marlow (1880-1931), my great-grand uncle. Born in Acton, Middlesex, James married Ellen Machell in 1901 and had several children with her. They lived in and around Wallington and Beddington in Surrey but by 1911 James had emigrated to Western Australia. Ellen and the children followed the following year. James became a farmer in Northam WA. He died at Merredin Hospital in Western Australia on 2 November 1931.
- George Marlow (1882-????), my great-grand uncle. Born in Acton, Middlesex, George was baptised at All Saints in South Acton on 24 September that year. By the 1901 census he had followed his father and was working as a bricklayer’s labourer. I suspect he was the George Marlow who emigrated to Canada via the port of Liverpool in 1905, arriving in the city of Montreal on 1 September that year. I’ve yet to confirm this.
- Reuben Thomas Marlow (1884-1885), my great-grand uncle. Born in Acton, Middlesex, Reuben was baptised at All Saints in South Acton on 27 December 1884 and buried just days later on 3 January.
- Annie Eliza Marlow (1885-1970), my great-grand aunt. Annie was born in Acton, Middlesex, on 19 October 1885 and baptised at All Saints in South Acton on 6 December. She married Alfred William Steward in 1904 and went on to have several children with him while continuing to live in and around Acton Green. Alfred, who was born on 28 February 1876 in Rotherhithe, London, was serving as a private with the Scottish Rifles at the time of his marriage (although at this point in the Reserve). He joined up in 1895 – after four years with the reserve militia of the Middlesex Regiment – and was posted to India for five years. He then went to South Africa, the latter in 1902, and saw action in the Boer War. He was awarded the Queen’s South Africa Medal with a Transvaal Clasp. By the 1911 census he was working as a platelayer for the London & South Western Railway and the family was living at 106 Rothschild Road, Acton Green. A record of medal awards in the First World War mentions several Alfred William Stewards, including one serving as a sergeant in the Rifle Brigade, but whether these are the same man is unclear. In 1921 the family was at 31 Anholmes Road, Acton, and by 1939 Alfred was describing himself as a Lengthsman on the railway, which was someone with responsibility for a particular stretch of track and keeping it in working order. Alfred’s death was registered in Willesden in 1954, Annie’s in Brent in 1970. The couple had three children:
- Alfred George Steward (1905-1976). An electronics engineer by trade, he married Lily Rowland in 1929 and had two children with her. The couple lived in Acton but Alfred died at the Royal Masonic Hospital in Hammersmith, according to an obituary in the Acton Gazette of 13 January 1977. Lily lived until 1976.
- Annie Elizabeth Steward (1909-????). Annie married clerk Leslie George Gittins in 1932. He died in 1980 but I’m unsure about Annie’s death – it may have been in 1961 in Hertfordshire.
- Arthur Steward (1911-1979). An instrument maker, Arthur married Bertha Ware in 1941 and had two children with her. The couple lived in Acton but Alfred died at the Royal Masonic Hospital in Hammersmith, according to an obituary in the Acton Gazette of 13 January 1977. Lily lived until 1976.
- Elizabeth Marlow (1887-1973), my great-grandmother. She married into the Wheatland family after being widowed by war.
- Sarah Ann Marlow (1890-????), my great-grand aunt. Born in Acton Green, Sarah Ann appears in the census records until 1911 but I’ve not been able to trace her with any certainty after this.
Reuben’s child with his second wife Mary Ellen:
- Kathleen Frances Marlow (1899-????), my great-grand aunt. Born in 1899 in Acton, Middlesex, she was baptised on 1 April 1900 at St Alban’s at Acton Green. She was clearly a troubled child, perhaps the result of her mother dying when she was just a toddler. The Acton Gazette of 4 June 1909 reported an horrendous case in which she was bought before the Acton Police Court for seemingly being beyond the control of her parents. Reuben told the court that she frequently absconded and would, when sent on an errand, frequently spend the money. Asked whether he had tried to control her, he said he’d beaten and caned her (as was normal at the time). A representative from the local education committee said that two years previously Kathleen had been found by her schoolmistress to be covered in bruises, which Reuben said was the result of one of the punishment sessions but also the fact that she had fallen over. Kathleen’s stepmother had tried to get her put in a home temporarily while she was pregnant, but this was not permitted. The court told Reuben that he needed to better control his child. By the age of 17, Kathleen was described as of no fixed abode after being charged with stealing £1 4s 6d from her employer. She declined bail rather than having to go home, as she feared being ill-treated by her stepmother, and was eventually bound over on the understanding she would be taken into a home. I’m not sure what happened to Kathleen after this.
Reuben’s child with his third wife Elizabeth:
- Ella May Marlow (1908-????), my great-grand aunt. Born in 1908 in Acton, Middlesex, Ella also got into trouble periodically. The West Middlesex Gazette of 18 December 1926 reported that she had been put on probation for stealing 5s from an RSPCA inspector. She borrowed the money saying she needed it to travel while studying to become a nurse, and at the same time asked him to give a talk to her Girl Guides troop at a Wesleyan Chapel. When he turned up, there was no such meeting! It appeared that Ella, who described herself as a music teacher, was good at making up stories, with police testifying to the court that she was telling one about training to be a detective. Her father claimed she was a good girl at home… Three years later the same newspaper, in an edition dated 29 June 1929, reported on a similar case in which she’d tricked an optician out of 5s, this time claiming to have lost her purse after buying an expensive pair of glasses from him. The court heard from the local vicar, who said the family were of good character, and from Reuben, who said that Ella was a good girl and that he would work to prevent any similar incidents. Arthur Holland, to whom she was engaged, described her as a “thorough christian” and claimed to have attended various religious meetings with her for “social uplift”. Despite the court hearing of the previous case from 1926, Ella was again put on probation for 12 months. She married Arthur just months later at St Saviour’s Church in Ealing, on 18 September, and was recorded with him on an electoral register for Uxbridge in 1931. She was staying with her parents on the night her father Reuben died, as revealed in the inquest reported above. After that, I’ve not been able to trace her.
Sources: BMDs and census at Ancestry.co.uk, Findmypast.co.uk. British Newspaper Archive titles as mentioned in text. Military records from the National Archives.