Reuben Thomas Marlow (1831-1903) and Mary Frost Adams (1827-1888)

Reuben Thomas Marlow (1831-1903) and Mary Frost Adams (1827-1888).
My 3rd great-grandparents.

Reuben came from Portsea and Buckland, part of the city of Portsmouth in Hampshire. Later naval records put his date of birth as 10 November 1831, which doesn’t match some other records, but he was certainly baptised on 4 December that year at St Mary’s in Portsea. His parents were George Marlow and Jane Parsons. George was an agricultural labourer and according to the 1841 census was not a Hampshire native.

Reuben first went to sea in 1848 and it appears his service was in the merchant navy. He appears to have returned to work on land in 1849, and the 1851 census described him as an agricultural labourer living at home with his family in Arnaud Terrace, Buckland. On 30 March 1853 he married Mary Frost Adams at St Mary’s in Portsea and went on to have a number of children with her in the 1850s and 60s. Mary was born to bricklayer Adam Adams and Jane Webb on 17 November 1827 at Crocker Hill near Fareham, Hampshire. She was baptised at the Wesleyan Chapel in Gosport on 21 June 1829 but again in the Church of England at Wickham, Hampshire, on 4 October 1847. By 1851 she was working as a servant in Titchfield.

Reuben signed up for the Royal Navy in 1855 and served a stint as a stoker on HMS Centaur, a paddle frigate that was sent to the Baltic during the naval operations of the Crimean War against Russia. The Baltic campaign involved a blockade but also shelling of Russian territory. Reuben received the Baltic Medal for being a part of the war.

On the night of the 1861 census, he was serving as a stoker on board the 91-gun HMS Algiers in the Corfu Roads while Mary was at home with their children at Coburg Street, Portsea. Ten years later he’d returned to civilian life and the family were at Wellington Place, Portsea, Reuben working as a labourer. However, the Marlows then migrated north to Acton in Middlesex and in 1881 were lodging with the Cox family at Evelyn Village, Acton Lane. Mary, however, died in January 1888 and was buried on the 28th of the month at St Mary’s Acton.

Reuben was living with family in Ealing in 1891 and on 1 August that year married widow Mary Cox at St John’s in Northfield. By this point he was working as a gardener. In 1901 the couple were living in Rothschild Road, Acton, but Reuben died in 1903 and was buried at Acton Cemetery on 7 October. Mary came from Potton in Bedfordshire but I’ve yet to locate a birth or death record for her, although census returns suggest she was born in around 1835.

Reuben and Mary Frost’s children were:

• Jane Hawford Marlow (1853-1937), my 2nd great-grand aunt. Jane was baptised on 6 November 1853 at All Saints Church in Portsea, Hampshire. Her unusual middle name may be a reference to ancestors I’ve yet to locate. Her dad wouldn’t have been around much during her childhood because of his service in the Royal Navy. By the 1871 census she was working as a laundress, still living at home. However, in 1874 she married Walter Taylor miles away in Bristol. Perhaps she’d gone for work and met him there? He was a carpenter by trade, born in 1854 to wheelwright Henry Taylor and his wife Rebecca and was brought up in his early years around Crouch and Wrotham in Kent. However, they then moved to Camberwell, Surrey, and Walter was recorded there in the 1861 and 1871 censuses, working as a labourer at the time of the latter. After their marriage, Jane and Walter must’ve lived in Wales for a time as their youngest child’s birth was registered in Neath in 1877 but how long they lived there is unclear. Their next child’s birth was registered in Acton, Middlesex, in 1879. They raised there family in the Acton area and by 1891 were in Ealing. Walter had switched jobs to become a turncock for the water industry. This was someone who managed water flows in a district and it was a job he would hold down for the rest of his working life. Ten years later they were in Old Brentford, Middlesex, and Jane was listed as a wardrobe dealer, but by 1911 she’d become the manageress of a lodging house at 324 High Street, Brentford. Walter died on 2 February 1931, his address given as 25 Pears Road, Hounslow, Middlesex. He was buried at Ealing and Old Brentford Cemetery on 6 Febrary. Jane was buried alongside him on 20 December 1937. Their children were:
  • Henry Taylor (1877-????). Henry was born in 1877, his birth registered in Neath, South Wales. However, census returns suggest the family were living in Margam and Maesteg, a few miles from Neath atthe time. The family were back in Middlesex a few years later. In 1901 the census noted that he was a plumber but I’ve not traced him beyond this.
  • Walter Taylor (1879-1917). Walter was born in Acton, Middlesex, and followed his father by working for the local water board, both as trenchman and turncock. In 1901 he married Edith Alice Stillwell and raised a family. In the First World War he served with the Royal Engineers 520th Field Company and rose to become a 2nd Corporal. He was killed in action on 8 December 1917 and his name is listed on the Cambrai Memorial, Louverval. The Commonwealth War Graves noted him as the husband of Edith Alice Taylor, of 18 Johnson’s Place, Lupus Street, Pimlico, London.
  • Thomas Taylor (1880-????). Thomas was born in Acton, Middlesex, and became a plumber. He married Florence Louisa Jeffs of Stoke Newington in 1916 and was a soldier at the time. He survived the First World War and the couple were recorded in Middlesex in 1939.
  • Edwin Henry Taylor (1882-1931). Edwin was also born in Acton, Middlesex, and married Alice Louisa Monk in Old Brentford in 1903. He worked for the water board as a pipe jointer and hammerman while Alice brought up their children. He died in 1931.
• Reuben Thomas Marlow (1855-1936), my 2nd great-grandfather, who served in the Royal Navy for many years.
• Sarah Marlow (1863-1893), my 2nd great-grand aunt. Sarah came from Portsea, Hampshire, and grew up in the area. The 1881 census listed her as a laundry maid living with her sister Jane and family in Acton, Middlesex, and she then married furniture dealer Edward Braley on 22 December 1889 at Turnham Green in Middlesex. Born in 1866 in nearby Hammersmith to drayman William Braley and his wife Mary, Edward was baptised on 20 January 1867 at St Peter’s, Hammersmith. A daugther was living with them at 12 Hogarth Place, Chiswick, Middlesex, at the time of the 1891 census, when William was described as a general dealer. Sarah died young and was buried on 15 July 1893 in Chiswick, Middlesex. Edward married again, his bride being widow Elizabeth Emily Norris (nee Lane). The ceremony was held on 15 March 1896 at St Saviour’s Church in Shepherds Bush, Middlesex. The couple ran a laundry together from their home in Wendell Road, Shepherds Bush, which was one of the roads in the area at the centre of a large laundry trade. He died on 22 January 1922, his address given as St Peter’s Square, Hammersmith, Middlesex. Elizabeth lived until 1935. Sarah and Edward had two children:
  • Ethel Mary Braley (1891-????). Born in Chiswick, she was employed in the family laundry business as a young woman. She married Reginald George Banke in 1914 but then disappears.
  • Edward Baxter Braley (1892-1925). Born in Chiswick, Edward also worked in the family business and then went on to run his own laundry with his wife Kate Ellen Hearn. They married in 1913 and settled in the Shepherds Bush area, raising their children. He died after the motorcycle he was riding was hit by a tram in Shepherds Bush in 1925. His wife, who was in a sidecar, was injured. An inquest reported in The West London Observer of 1 May heard that Edward died minutes after arriving at hospital but had been knocked unconscious by the collision.
• Emma Mary Marlow (1865-1952), my 2nd great-grand aunt. Emma was born in 1865 but not baptised until 14 September at St Mary’s in Portsea, Hampshire. She grew up in the area but by 1881 was working as a servant for a family in Acton, Middlesex. Emma then married labourer Albert Frederick Clarke on 27 October 1888 at All Saints Church in South Acton. He came from Oxfordshire, where his birth was registered in 1866, and he was baptised on 30 March in the village of Ducklington to labourer John and his wife Anne. However, Albert died young in 1901 and was buried in Chiswick on 24 August. Two years later Emma married Alexander Draper, who was apparently born to a Shetland Islands-born woman called Eliza Smith in Brisbane, Australia, in 5 July 1871 according to some records. Eliza then cropped up in the 1881 census with Alexander and her other children in Ealing, Middlesex, married to a Charles Baker. In the 1911 Census Emma was recorded living in Chiswick with several of her children and working as an ironer at a laundry, but Alexander was missing. He was in Canada in 1914, where he signed attestation papers with the Canadian Expeditionary Force on 22 September – soon after the outbreak of the First World War. He initially signed as Alex Baker before later correcting the record to what he said was his true name of Draper. Emma was living with her stepmother and son George at 7 Sussex Place, Old Brentford, Middlesex, at the time of the 1921 Census – the same year that she finally joined Alexander in Canada. At that point he was living at 184 Lippincott Street, Toronto. By 1931 the couple were living at 30 Minto Street in the city, Alex listed as a labourer. He died in a Toronto hospital on 18 March 1947 from pneumonia and emphysema. Emma died in 1952 and was buried at Richmond Hill Presbyterian Cemetery in Ontario. Emma and Albert’s children were:
  • Alfred Frederick Clarke (1890-1892).
  • George Frederick Clarke (1895-1961). Born in Acton, Middlesex, George stayed at home with his mother until 1921, when they were living in Brentford. For a time he worked as a shop assistant but was out of work by the 1921 Census. He was still in Brentford in 1939, now widowed and working for the gas board. He had married Florence Hannah Johnson in 1923 but she died young in 1929. He died in 1961 and was buried in Ealing.
  • Edward Clarke (1897-????). I’ve not been able to trace him with confidence after his 1911 Census appearance with his parents.
  • Ethel Rose Clarke (1899-1967). Ethel married labourer Thomas Judd in 1921 and raised a family but he died in 1946. It appears she married again, according to a note in the 1939 Register, but she was buried with her first husband as Ethel Judd in Ealing in 1967.
• Eliza Marlow (1869-1924), my 2nd great-grand aunt. Eliza was born in 1869 and grew up in Portsea, Hampshire, and Acton, Middlesex. She married soldier Herbert Stillwell in 1888. He was born on 23 March 1864 in Chiswick and baptised there on 1 December 1872 to painter George Stillwell and his wife Henrietta Spring. In 1882 Herbert signed up for service with the Royal Fusiliers (City Of London Regiment) as a private, the papers noting he was a labourer with brown hair and blue eyes and measuring 5ft 7ins tall. At one point he rose to the rank of Corporal but was then demoted for being absent without leave for a day! In 1885 he left for Egypt to serve his stint in the Mahdist War, which had been raging since 1881 between an Anglo-Egyptian force and the Mahdist Sudanese led by Muhammad Ahmad bin Abdullah, who called himself the Mahdi. Herbert took part in the Suakin campaign, which was being beseiged by the Sudanese. He was back on British soil by June of that year but the war itself would linger on until 1899. For his efforts, Herbert was awared the Egypt Medal with a Suakin 1885 Clasp and the Khedive’s Bronze Star, awarded by Khedive Tewfik Pasha of Egypt. The year of his marriage saw him moved to the army reserve and he joined the Metropolitan Police as a constable on 13 January 1890. Eliza and Herbert already had two daughters by the time of the 1891 Census, which found the couple in Hurley Road, Kennington. Ten years later and in 1911 they were north of the Thames in Warwick or Warwickshire Road, Stoke Newington. Herbert retired from the police on 18 January 1915 and by 1921 the couple had moved a short distance to 18 Jenner Road. Eliza died on 16 June 1924. Herbert’s death was recorded in Lambeth, now South London, in 1933. Their children were:
  • Henrietta Frost Stillwell (1889-1974). Henrietta married Charles George William Fryer in Clapton in 1915. He’d served in the Royal Navy as a teenager and then in The King’s Royal Rifle Corps during the First World War. The couple divorced in 1919 and Henrietta married Charles’ older brother Edward Henry Fryer, an upholsterer, in 1921. They were living in Lambeth in 1939. Edward died a year after his wife.
  • Edith Alice Stillwell (1891-1985). Edith married Frank Harold Carter in 1914 and the following year he started war service in the Royal Navy. In 1918 he moved to the RAF. He survived the conflict and in 1921 they were living in Hackney with two children. At some point they emigrated to Australia and records show them in Frankston, Victoria, from the 1950s onwards. Frank died in 1981 aged 89. Edith lived even longer, dying in 1985.

Sources: BMDs, census and other records at Ancestry.co.uk, Findmypast.co.uk, Familysearch.org. British Newspaper Archive (titles in text). Military records at National Archives. Greater London Burial Index. National Archives Met Police record MEPO 4/344/185