marian alice mallandain + frederick rickards
Marian Alice was born on 12 April 1864 in Aldershot, Hampshire, the daughter of Charles Mallandain and Mary McLean. Her family moved many times during her childhood as her father was transferred from regiment to regiment. When Marian was fourteen, her father retired from the army and the family settled in London, first in Newington and then Islington in north London.
Marian married Frederick Arthur Rickards in West Ham in early 1888. Frederick was born in Bethnal Green and baptised at St John in Hoxton on 26 July 1863, the son of Richard Rickards and Fanny Hills.
It is not known why they married in West Ham as Frederick was from Bethnal Green and was still in the east end at the time of the 1881 census. Frederick was working as an Umbrella Maker alongside his father and continued in the trade for most of his working life.
They settled in Walthamstow after their wedding and their first son, Frederick Edgar, was born there on 3 February 1889 and baptised at St Stephen on 31 March. In 1891, the young family was living at numbers 10 & 11 Leytonstone Road and Frederick was working as an Umbrella Maker. His younger brother, Albert, was also living with them and his occupation was listed as Umbrella and Hatters Shopman so he may have been working with Frederick.
Their second son, Walter Albert, was born in 1894 but his birth record has not been found. Two years after Walter’s birth, Marian died leaving Frederick a widower with two young children. In 1901, Frederick was living alone at 327 Leytonstone Road and still working as an Umbrella Maker. The census notes that the address was also a shop so it seems that Frederick made and sold umbrellas from his own shop. His twelve year old son Frederick was living with his widowed mother, Fanny, on Roman Road in Bethnal Green while youngest son Walter was living next door at 325 Leytonstone Road with his uncle Albert and his aunt Lillian. Albert was also running an umbrella shop and his sister was working with him as a shop assistant so the shops may have been a combined family affair.
Frederick eventually remarried to Charlotte Rode, nee Hart, in West Ham in late 1907. Charlotte was born about 1864 in the parish of St George in the East and married German national John Dietrich Rode in Mile End on 17 July 1887 and they had one daughter, Emily, born in 1888. John was a tailer and Charlotte was working as an Umbrella Maker in 1891 which may explain how she and Frederick met. John Rode died between 1891 and 1901 when Charlotte was first listed as a widow in the census. She was living at 42 Sutton Street in St George in the East, along with several boarders, and working as a Trouser Maker. Her daughter was not living with her and has not been found elsewhere in the census but the records show that Emily died in 1902 aged only fourteen.
In 1911, Frederick and Charlotte were living at 33 Connaught Road in Leytonstone and his two sons were once again living with him and working in the family shop. On the census, Charlotte noted that she had never had any children, none living or deceased, which is strange considering the previous censuses show that she did indeed have a daughter.
Frederick Edgar married Mabel Grey in West Ham in 1913 and they had three children. Their first daughter, Glady Marion, was born on 30 September 1913 followed by sons Raymond in 1916 and Kenneth in 1920.
Walter married Martha Ann Elizabeth Morley in West Ham in 1919 and they had three children, one daughter and two sons.
Frederick died on 5 September 1927 at the London Hospital in Whitechapel and left an estate valued at £2096 to his two sons. Charlotte lived until she was 92 years old and died in Stepney in 1957.
The family endured a scandal when Frederick Edgar was convicted of conspiracy to commit an insurance fraud in November 1934. The charge related to several fires at Frederick’s umbrella shop on Fore Street in 1930 and 1931 and the primary witness in the case was a Miss Lillian May Barnes who was reported to be Frederick’s mistress. She began working in the shop in 1927 and at the time, Walter, his wife and his step-mother were also working in the shop but by 1929, they had left as a result of a quarrel which may have been related to Frederick’s relationship with Lillian. The shop had been left to both brothers in their father’s will with a condition that they provide Charlotte with an allowance but due to the ongoing family dispute, Walter and Charlotte petitioned to have the partnership dissolved with Frederick continuing to run the shop on his own.
It appears the business was not doing well and Frederick started the fire to obtain the insurance money valued at £1500 and after the payout, he opened a second shop on City Road where the second fire occurred. It was alleged that Frederick stocked the new store with cheap materials and fraudulently created invoices to inflate both the value and size of the stock in the shop and this is bourne out by the fact that the second insurance claim totalled almost £13 000. During Miss Barnes’ testimony, it also came out that Frederick was the father of her illegitimate son born in 1933 and that she had to take out an order to force Frederick to pay maintenance.
After all the evidence had been presented, the jury deliberated for just over an hour before returning a guilty verdict and Frederick was sentenced to six years’ penal servitude at Wormwood Scrubs prison. There is no information on what Frederick did after he was released from prison or if he ever reconciled with his wife or family. Mabel Grey died in Anglesey, North Wales in 1961 and Frederick in Conwy, Caenarvonshire in 1971.
Walter and his family also left East London and settled in north Wales. Walter died in Colwyn Bay in 1966 and his wife, Martha Morley, died in Rhyl in 1979.