mary ann mallindine + benjamin fosh
Mary was born in the family home in New Inn Yard, Shoreditch on 14 July 1829 to James Mallindine and Hannah Edghill. Her mother is believed to have died between 1833 and 1841 and although the family circumstances are not known, 12 year old Mary was not living with her father or any other family member when the census was taken in 1841. There is a possible match for her in the Bethnal Green Workhouse but whatever the situation, it seems clear that Mary’s childhood was far from ideal.
She does not appear in the records until 30 May 1852 when she married Benjamin Fosh at St Philip, Bethnal Green. Benjamin was born on 13 October 1831 to Benjamin Fosh and Mary Ann Toye and when he was baptised at St Leonard, Shoreditch on 6 November, his family was also living in New Inn Yard. His father was a Weaver and Benjamin was also working in the trade, but as a Horse Hair Weaver, when he married. Both Mary and Benjamin were living at 4 Nelson Street when they married but neither one has been located in the 1851 census.
Their first daughter, Mary Ann, was born prior to their marriage in the early months of 1849 and when her birth was registered in Bethnal Green, it was under the name Fosh so Mary and Benjamin must have presented themselves to the registrar as a married couple. They had a second child before their marriage when son Benjamin was born in Shoreditch in the first few months of 1851 but later that year, on 13 December, their two and a half year old daughter Mary Ann died at their home at 13 Virginia Row. They moved to Nelson Steet, first living at number 4 and then number 60, where their son James were born on 14 December 1852. Son Isaac was born in the spring of 1855 but once again, the birth of a child was followed by the death of another when three year old James died on 7 September at 3 Collingwood Street.
The family moved back to New Inn Yard and Benjamin was working as a Military Sash Maker when son Samuel was born on 6 May 1858. Samuel was baptised at St Leonard, Shoredtich on 23 May and this is the only baptismal record found for any of their seven children but only six months later, Samuel died. Mary Ann was born in the spring of 1860 and the following year, the family was recorded in the census at 15 Old Bethnal Green Road. In the intervening years, Benjamin changed jobs and was working as a General Dealer which was a general term for individuals who sold any variety of goods from shops, market stalls, carts or even door to door.
Mary gave birth to their seventh child, Catherine, in the summer of 1864 but only four years later, she died on 16 June at the family home at 15 Minerva Street aged just 39 years. She left four surviving children — Benjamin aged 17, Isaac aged 13, Mary Ann 8 and Catherine 4 years.
On 18 September 1870, their eldest son Benjamin married Martha Maria Huggett at St Peter in Bethnal Green. He was living at 6 Minerva Street at the time and working as a Blacksmith as was his father who also appeared as a witness. Two weeks after the Fifth of November celebrations, Benjamin Fosh of 3 Old Bethnal Green Road was summonsed to the Worship Street Court along with seven other shopkeepers to answer charges of ‘selling fireworks to boys and others apparently under the age of sixteen years’. The newspaper report noted that the ‘magistrate remarked that he looked upon the letting off of fireworks by boys as an intolerable nuisance’ so it was no surprise that all but one of the shopkeepers were found guilty and Benjamin was ordered to pay a fine of 10s.
Neither Benjamin nor any of his children have been located in the 1871 census but some returns for Bethnal Green including those from Minerva Street were lost or destroyed. On 7 July 1874, Benjamin Sr remarried to Eliza Jones at St Thomas in Stepney.
In the spring of 1874, young Benjamin’s wife Martha died at the age of 23 leaving behind two children, 2 1/2 year old Martha Mary Ann and six month old Benjamin Joseph. Six months after Martha died, Benjamin married a second time to Eliza Dettone at St Peter’s Church in Bethnal Green and the register notes that he was still working as a Blacksmith but had moved to 34 Green Street while Eliza lived at 2 Red Lion Street. The marriage register also noted another change to his father’s occupation as Benjamin Sr was listed as a Confectioner for the first time.
Isaac married Harriet Gill on 28 March 1875 at St Matthew Bethnal Green and at the time, they were both living at 24 Middleton Street which just south of his family’s home on Minerva Street. Isaac was working as a Blacksmith but his father’s occupation was back to being a Weaver.
Mary Ann married James Joseph English at St John in Poplar on 2 August 1880 and her brother Isaac and sister Catherine were with her as witnesses. James was a Brass Finisher from Meads Place while Mary Ann was living at 301 Wick Road in Hackney but after their wedding, they settled in rooms in a house at 3 Rayner Street in Hackney and James began working as a Gas Fitter.
On 13 December 1880, Benjamin Sr died at the Mission Hospital in Bethnal Green but there is no further record of his second wife Eliza. His eldest son Benjamin was still living on Green Street, along with his second wife and daughter Martha, and working as a Fruiterer & Confectioner. His eight year old son Benjamin Joseph was living in Camberwell with Henry and Sarah Winwood but it is not known why he wasn’t living with his father or what the relationship was between the Winwoods and the Fosh family but as Henry was also working as a Fruiterer, they may simply have been friends.
By 1881, his brother Isaac was also working as a Confectioner although it’s not known if they were working together or simply in the same trade. Isaac and his wife Harriet were living at 112 Goldsmith Row in Shoreditch along with their two surviving children, Benjamin and Harriet, as well as a lodger named Frederick Holmes which coincidentally is the name of one of the witnesses to their wedding. Their first son, Isaac Frederick, was born on 18 April 1876 at 17 Nile Street in Bethnal Green but died later that same year.
Benjamin and Mary Ann’s youngest daughter Catherine was only 17 year old when she married James Cope on 13 January 1881 at St Thomas in Bethnal Green. She was living at 3 Squarry Street but as there is no such street name, this may refer to Squarries Street which was off Bethnal Green Road to the east of St Matthew’s Church. James lived nearby on Canrobert Street and worked as a Marble Mason. They had three children — Catherine Susan, James William and Joseph — but four years after their marriage, Catherine died in Bethnal Green only months before her 21st birthday. By 1891, James was in a relationship with Elizabeth Wilkinson and they went on to have several children together but there is no record of them ever marrying.
In 1891, Benjamin and Eliza were still living on Green Street and both of his children were back living with him. He was working as a Fruiterer, likely selling fruit at a local market stall, and his son was also working with him. They later moved to Globe Road and he continued in the trade as a Greengrocer but by 1911, they had moved to Hackney and in a departure from his usual work, Benjamin was working as a Builder’s Labourer. It appears as if both Benjamin and Eliza were illiterate as a neighbour completed their census return for them; the form noted that they had been married for 30 years but never had any children. Benjamin died in Bethnal Green in 1928 aged 77 years.
Isaac and Harriet had seven children but only five survived infancy. In 1891, the family of seven, plus lodger Fred Holmes, occupied four rooms in a house on Carr Street in Limehouse and Isaac continued to work as a Confectioner but the following year, Isaac was diagnosed with a mental illness and confined to the London County Lunatic Asylum at Banstead in Surrey where he remained until his death on 5 February 1895.
When the next census was taken, Harriet was living on Vernon Road in Bow with three of her five surviving children. Also listed in the household was her three year old daughter Ethel but as she was born after Isaac’s death, she was most certainly illegitimate although her birth registration, under Ethel Ross Fosh, gives some indication of her father’s identity. In 1911, Ethel was living in the household of William Ross, a 67 year old Fish Porter, and his 39 year old son Albert at 588 Old Ford Road in Bow. No other members of her Fosh family were with her and although she was listed as a Boarder, it seems a bit too coincidental that she would board with a family of that same name.
Mary Ann and her husband James had eleven children and all but one survived infancy. By 1891, they were back on Wick Road in Hackney with their five children and James’ mother, Eliza English, all sharing four of the six rooms in the house. They were still there ten years later, along with nine children, but by 1911, they had moved to 7 Bentham Road where the family of ten occupied five rooms. James was still working as a Gas Fitter and their older daughters were all employed in factory work making boots and dresses. After their children left home, James and Mary Ann remained in Hackney; James died in 1938 and Mary And and her daugther Rosina moved back to Wick Road and shared a house with daughter Beatrice and her husband Sidney Dukes. Mary Ann, the longest surviving child of Benjamin and Mary Ann, died in Hackney in 1952 at the age of 92.