Reuben Thomas Marlow (1855-1936) and Annie Ayling (1859-1895)

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 and emigrated to Western Australia with his family. Read their story here
  • George Marlow (1882-1958), 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. He settled in Ontario and died in 1958.
  • 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 1885.
  • 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 Brentford, Middlesex, on 25 December 1904 and went on to have several children with him while continuing to live in and around Acton Green. Alfred was born on 28 February 1876 in Rotherhithe, Surrey, to parents Alfred, a labourer, and Sarah. He had served as a private with the Scottish Rifles before his marriage. He joined up in 1895 – after four years with the reserve militia of the Middlesex Regiment – and was posted to India for five years from 1897. 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. He left full-time service in 1903 and was in the army reserve by the time he married Annie. At the 1911 Census, the family was living at 106 Rothschild Road, Acton Green, Alfred was working as a platelayer for the London & South Western Railway and Annie was keeping house. 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 were 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) was born on 6 October 1905 and baptised at St Mary’s in Paddington, Middlesex, on 26 October that year. At the 1921 Census, when he was living with his parents in Acton, Alfred was listed as a toolmaker. He married Lily Rowland in Middlesex in 1929, settled in Acton and raised children with her. The 1939 Register listed him as an inspector of machine products. Alfred died at the Royal Masonic Hospital in Hammersmith on 26 December 1976, according to an obituary in the Acton Gazette of 13 January 1977. This stated that he’d worked for the engineering firm Evershed and Vignoles for 40 years and enjoyed photography and model engineering. Lily died in 1996.
    • Annie Elizabeth Steward (1909-????). Annie was born on 1 January 1909 and married clerk Leslie George Gittins in Middlesex in 1932. The 1939 Register placed them in Wembley, Middlesex, when he was described as a chief clerk and works cashier. I’m unsure about Annie’s death – she was still cropping up in the electoral roll for Wembley in 1965 although she was by then living away from Leslie. He died on 15 January 1980 in Staines, Middlesex. I suspect their marriage had broken down and that Leslie remarried.
    • Arthur Steward (1911-1979) was born on 1 January 1911 and grew up in Acton. The 1939 Register listed him as an instrument maker, and he was living at home with his parents. Arthur married Bertha Ware on 28 June 1941 at Newton Avenue Baptist Church, Acton, and together they had a family. The couple lived in west London. Arthur died on 10 January 1979, his address given as South Harrow. Bertha died in 1982.
  • 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. Sarah was baptised on 20 April 1890 at St Alban’s, Acton Green, Middlesex. At the 1901 Census she was living with an uncle and aunt in Kensington, Middlesex, along with several of her sisters. This, perhaps, was in response to the difficulties in the family caused by the deaths of her father’s wives. I’ve not been able to trace her with confidence after this.
  • Mary Ann Shepard Marlow (1892-1974), my great-grand aunt. Mary Ann was baptised on 17 July 1892 at St Alban’s, Acton Green, Middlesex. At the 1901 Census she was living with an uncle and aunt in Kensington, Middlesex, along with several of her sisters, perhaps in response to the difficulties in the family caused by the deaths of her father’s wives. The 1911 Census showed Mary Ann living and working in Kensington as a servant. She married Sidney Armstrong Cann at St Mary’s in Stamford Brook, Middlesex on 12 July 1915. He’d been born on 27 December 1887 to Henry Armstrong Cann, a gas fitter, and his wife Fanny, and baptised on 1 April 1888 at St John’s in Hammersmith, Middlesex. Mary Ann and Sidney had five children but the 1921 Census showed Mary Ann with her daughter Olive visiting a couple in St Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands, while her husband was with his mother back in London. The couple lived in Coningham Road, Shepherd’s Bush, a district in Hammersmith, for much of their lives. Sidney worked for London Transport in various jobs over the years, as a porter, ticket collector and cleaner at a number of underground railway stations including Notting Hill Gate. His record noted that he had had to seek compensation from the company after being injured while ejecting a drunken sailor from a train in 1909, an incident that resulted in him being off work for a month. Electoral rolls placed them in Coningham Road until their deaths – Sidney in 1973 and Mary Ann in 1974. Their children were:
    • Sidney Cann (1916-1917). Both his birth and death were registered in Hammersmith.
    • Olive Mary Cann (1918-1972). Olive was born on 17 May 1918 and baptised a few days later on 2 June at St John’s in Hammersmith. She married James Henry Honey, who was born in Notting Hill, on 29 March 1941. He was a warehouseman but joined the Leicestershire Regiment of the British Army not long after his wedding. However, later in 1941 he was transferred to the Army Catering Corps and then in 1943 the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and their clerks and storemen’s division. He was in France and Germanys from 1944 to 1946. The couple lived in and around Hammersmith but Olive died in 1972 and her funeral was held at Acton Cemetery on 15 September. James died in Powys, Wales, in 1988.
    • Margaret Ella Cann (1919-1919). Margaret was baptised on 13 June 1919 at St Mary’s in Stamford Brook, Middlesex. I suspect she was the infant whose death was registered in nearby Kensington the same year. This is because Margaret’s sister Olive was referred to as the only surviving sister at Stella’s wedding (see below).
    • Stella Marguerite Cann (1923-2016). Stella was born on 27 February 1923 and baptised on 1 April that year at St Mary’s in Stamford Brook, Middlesex. She married Scotsman Ian William Kennedy, who served in the RAF during the Second World War, on 4 August 1945 at Stamford Brook. They too lived in and around Hammersmith after the war, Ian dying in 1996. Stella lived to a grand age, dying in Hertfordshire in 2016.
    • Edward William Llewellyn Cann (1925-????). Edward was born on 18 October 1925 and baptised on 20 Decmeber that year at St Mary’s in Stamford Brook, Middlesex. He married Kathleen O’Connell locally in 1952. I’m unclear what happened to them after their wedding.
  • Nellie Marlow (1894-????), my great-grand aunt. Nellie was baptised on 25 March 1894 at St Alban’s, Acton Green, Middlesex. At the 1901 Census she was living with an uncle and aunt – George and Sarah Shepard, in Kensington, Middlesex, along with several of her sisters, perhaps in response to the difficulties in the family caused by the deaths of her father’s wives. She was still with them in 1911, now working as a domestic servant. By 1921, however, she was listed as George and Sarah’s, adopted daughter. Whether this was an official adoption is not known but clearly the situation at her father’s was such that she no longer lived there or saw Reuben as her father. At this point in her life she was a cashier for the Express Dairies company. Later in the year, on 25 December 1921, she married Alfred William Weatherley at St Saviour’s in Hammersmith, Middlesex – with George Shepard as one of the witnesses. Reuben’s name was included as her father. Nellie, though, was now calling herself Ellen. Alfred was the son of Alfred William Weatherley Snr and his wife Caroline. He’d been born in St Pancras, Middlesex, on 11 November 1895 and baptised in the parish church on 5 January 1896. He served as a sapper in the Royal Engineers during the First World War and was a Lance Corporal based in Gillingham, Kent, at the 1921 Census. At the time of his marriage, though, he was listed as a fitter. Alfred signed up again with the Royal Engineers on 25 October 1937, now in his 40s. Details of his service are sparse but he died on 4 March 1943 at the Horton Emergency Hospital in Epsom, Surrey, suffering from an adonema of the trachea (a usually benign tumour of the throat). He’d been receiving hospital treatment for the condition since the previous year. His address was given as 76 Limbury Road, Luton, Bedfordshire, but he was buried at Brookwood Military Cemetery in Surrey. I’m unclear what happened to Nellie/Ellen.

Reuben’s child with his second wife Mary Ellen:

  • Kathleen Frances Marlow (1899-????), my great-grand aunt. Born in 1899 in Acton, Middlesex, Kathleen was baptised on 1 April 1900 at St Alban’s at Acton Green, Middlesex. She was clearly a troubled child, perhaps the result of her mother dying when she was just a toddler and the frequently changing dynamics in the household. The Acton Gazette of 4 June 1909 reported a disturbing case in which she was bought before the Acton Police Court for seemingly being beyond the control of her parents. Her father Reuben told the court that Kathleen frequently absconded and would, when sent on an errand, frequently spend the money she’d been given. Asked whether he had tried to control her, he said he’d beaten and caned her (as was not unusual at the time sadly). 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 Elizabeth had tried to get her put in a home temporarily while she was pregnant, but this had not been permitted. The court told Reuben that he needed to better control his child. Kathleen was living with her father and stepmother at the 1911 Census but the Star newspaper of 27 January 1912 reported that she’d been sent to a reformatory after a hearing at Brentford in Middlesex. The court heard that she’d stolen money from her stepmother, ran away from home, and told neighbours that she was beaten by her stepmother. By the age of 17, she 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 but at the time of the 1921 Census she was working as a domestic servant, listed as a visitor at a house in Kensington. In the 1930s she was included on electoral rolls at Barrowgate Road, Turnham Green, Middlesex. I’m not sure what happened to her afterwards but she may have been the resident of Hastings in Sussex who featured in electoral rolls in the 1960s and who died there on 15 October 1971.

Reuben’s child with his third wife Elizabeth:

  • Ella May Marlow (1908-????), my great-grand aunt. Born in 1908 in Acton, Middlesex, Ella was with her parents in the censuses of 1911 and 1921. She clearly had a talent for music as newspapers around this time occasionally reported on her success at the piano (Ealing Gazette 5 August 1916 as an example). But she also got into trouble with the law. 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. Arthur died suddenly on 16 June 1935, discovered by Ella at the family home in Southall. The West Middlesex Gazette of 22 June 1935 noted that death was by natural causes and that no inquest was needed. She was staying with her parents on the night her father Reuben died, as revealed in the inquest reported above. After that, she cropped up on electoral rolls into the late 1930s around Uxbridge but I’ve not been able to trace her subsequently. She may have remarried in around 1938.

Sources: Birth, marriage, death and burial records including civil registrations from the General Register Office, census returns, military, travel and other records at Ancestry.co.uk, Findmypast.co.uk and familysearch.org.
British Newspaper Archive, titles in text.
Military records from the National Archives.
Family memories.