sarah tustian
Sarah was the second of nine children born to Thomas Tustian and his wife Mary Sheppard. She was born on 20 August 1784 at the family home on Betts Street in Ratcliffe but shortly after, the family moved a few streets south to Pennington Street where they lived for the next twenty years.
On 16 July 1825, forty-one year old Sarah married George Giles Mallandain at St Mary at Hill in Eastcheap. George was five years younger than Sarah and lived in Prince’s Square which was just north of her family home on Pennington Street. It is not known why they married in Eastcheap when they lived so close to their home parish church of St George in the East.
Sarah and George lived in Prince’s Square for the next fifteen years before moving to Peckham in 1840 and finally to Brighton following George’s retirement from the Bank of England. George died in Brighton in 1861 and Sarah died, aged 82 years, on 10 August 1867.
john tustian + sarah price
The Tustian line has only been traced as far back as Sarah’s grandfather, John, with little known about his birthplace, parents or any other family members. The earliest records for the Tustian name appear in the Church of England recrods in Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Oxfordshire however, John first appears in the public records in Canterbury, Kent on the occasion of his son John’s birth on 3 December 1732. The birth was recorded in the registers of the local Quaker Meeting House in nearby Folkestone and notes the mother’s name as Elizabeth. Little John died one month later and was buried at the Friends Burying Place in Canterbury — which likely referenced the walled Quaker burial ground near the intersection of St Dunstan’s and Forty Acres Road. On 5 March 1734, Elizabeth gave birth to their second child, Mary, but five months after her daughter was born, Elizabeth died and was buried in the same cemetery as her son.
After Elizabeth’s death, John married Sarah Price and they had as many as 15 children but the marriage record has not been found. A note in the Meeting House register lists the birth dates of all their children as well as an explanation as to why they were entered in bulk rather than at the time of their birth:
‘From John Tustian’s misconduct that brought on his second marriage (with Sarah Price, daughter of [blank] Price and of Mary his wife of or near Loose in the County of Kent) out of unity with friends: the registering of their children passed unnoticed for years; but some time before his removal to Bristol; it was agreed by our monthly meeting that an account thereof be procured and brought in which was accordingly done and ordered to be registered’
The entry is not dated but appears between a record from 1765 and one from 1775 but confirms that John and Sarah eventually married though whether in Canterbury or Bristol is not known. The term ‘out of unity with friends’ meant that John married someone outside of the Quaker faith and he would have to satisfy the members of the Meeting House that he intended to remain a Quaker. It is not clear whether the misconduct relates to his marriage outside the Quaker faith or some other act. The notation in the register was likely the result of John’s marriage coming to light. Their children were all born in Canterbury but only seven survived infancy including William born in 1735, John in 1738, Sarah in 1741, Frances in 1747, Thomas in 1748, Lydia in 1751, and Elizabeth in 1756.
John worked as a Master Joiner and Cabinet Maker and in 1758, he took on Edward Ketcherhall as an apprentice. Three years later, their fifteenth child, Maria, died in Canterbury aged only nine months and this is the last record of the family in Kent. There is no record of when they moved to Bristol or any record relating to their time there but within a few years, they left Bristol and settled in East London.
Their eldest son William was living in the Minories near the Tower of London when he married Sarah Baldwin at the Devonshire House Meeting Place in Houndsditch on 31 May 1764. His mother was listed as one of the relations in attendance and William, like his father, worked as a Cabinet Maker. William and Sarah had two children: Sarah was born on 5 July 1767 but died four days later and Mary was born on 18 November 1769.
In the 1760s William appears in a number of taxation records in Moses and Aaron Alley off the High Street in Whitechapel where he occupied a yard, shops and two houses. When he died on 18 January 1795, he was living on Mile End Road. His daughter Mary never married and when she died on 19 January 1837, she was living at 41 Mile End Road and working as a Shopkeeper.
John and Sarah’s son, Thomas, married Mary Sheppard on 10 July 1782 but at the established church of St Dunstan in Stepney rather than in a Quaker Meeting House. Lydia married Joshua Cotton at St Dunstan’s on 15 January 1792 but no records relating to John and Sarah’s other surviving children have been located.
John died, aged 90 years, in East Smithfield in the parish of St Botolph Aldgate on 14 March 1790 and was buried one week later in the Dissenter’s Burial Ground in Whitechapel. He was pre-deceased by his wife, Sarah, on 12 January 1786 and she too was buried in Whitechapel. Her address at the time of her death was listed as the New Road in the parish of St George’s, which likely referenced the parish of St George in the East that included Ratcliff.
thomas tustian + mary sheppard
Thomas was born in Canterbury, Kent on 12 December 1748 but moved to London with his family in the early 1760s and settled in the East End, initially in Stepney and later in Ratcliff. Thomas married Mary Sheppard at St Dunstan in Stepney on 10 July 1782 even though his family remained within the Quaker faith.
Their first child, Maria, was born in 1783 followed by Sarah who was born on 20 August 1784 at the family home on Bett’s Street near the Tobacco Dock in Ratcliff. The family moved to nearby Pennington Street where they rented rooms in a house owned by the London Dock Company and there they remained for the next twenty years. Daughter Priscilla was born in their new home on 5 October 1785 and her birth, like her sister’s, was recorded in the registers of the Ratcliff Monthly Meeting House and witnessed by Ann Tustian and Sarah Sheppard. The entry includes a note that the ‘parents are not in membership’ but obviously other family members were and felt it was important to have the births recorded. Priscilla’s birth record is also the first time that Thomas’ occupation is listed — as a Mathematical Instrument Maker who often specialized in navigational instruments such as sextants, telescopes and compasses.
Thomas’ mother died in January 1786 and nine months later, they suffered another loss when their eldest daughter, Maria, died of a fever on 13 September aged only three years; she was buried in the Dissenter’s Burial Ground in Whitechapel four days later. Six months after their daughter’s death, Mary gave birth to a fourth daughter, on 1 March 1787, and they named her Maria as well. After four daughters, Thomas and Maria had a run of three sons: John was born on 7 December 1788, Thomas was born on 1 March 1790 but died of convulsions eleven days later, and finally Elisha Thomas who was born on 21 August 1791.
Lydia was born on 17 May 1793 but they lost another child when Elisha died of smallpox aged 3 years on 14 December 1794; he was also buried in the Dissenter’s Ground in Whitechapel. On 5 July 1797, Mary gave birth to their ninth child but sadly their daughter was stillborn and she was buried the same day at Whitechapel.
Mary Sheppard died on 26 May 1803, aged 49 years, and was buried in Whitechapel five days later and at the end of the year, on 8 December, her ten year old daughter Lydia also died. Of their nine children, only three — daughters Sarah, Priscilla and Maria — are known to have survived to adulthood while son John may have survived but no records have been found to confirm his date of death.
After Mary’s death, Thomas moved to 2 Prince’s Square off the Ratcliff Highway and continued to work as Mathematical Instrument Maker. He took on at least one apprentice, William Kaye, on 17 March 1807. His daugther Sarah married George Giles Mallandain, who also lived in Prince’s Square, on 16 July 1825 but three years later, seventy-nine year old Thomas died and was buried in the church yard of St George in the East near his home.
His daughter Priscilla never married but remained close to her sister Sarah after her marriage and lived with her and her husband until her death in Brighton in 1855. Maria married Henry Welsford, a Comb Maker, at St Dunstan, Stepney on 6 April 1839 but they did not have any children. They remained in the area after they married and lived on the Ratcliff Highway for the next twenty years. Henry died in 1859 and Maria followed two years later; she was buried in Victoria Park Cemetery on 8 October 1861.