The Seagroves of Greenwich
Maria Harrison (born in Greenwich 1860) and Thomas Seagrove (born in Greenwich 1854)
Maria Harrison and Thomas Sugrue, as was his Irish surname before he changed it to Seagrove, were from troubled families of some infamy in Greenwich. Both lost a parent to the dreaded tuberculosis. Both had parents in prison. Both families were in the papers for scandalous reasons. Both Maria and Thomas, as children, spent time in the workhouse. They tried to make good of a new life together, but had enough challenges of their own, with scandal and prison and the workhouse, yet again.
Maria née Harrison was of small stature, only 5ft 2, and she had jet black hair which hung in curls, alabaster skin, twinkling eyes and beautiful features. This is a description of her that I do love, as given to me by the elders of the family. She was born and bred in Greenwich, London, south of the Thames river, a Taurean, born 2nd May 1860, baptised in St Alphege church. Her mother Eleanor had died of tuberculosis while Maria was still young and thus much of her childhood was disruptive without stability and proper care. Her father John William Harrison didn't cope so well with the loss of his dear wife and was not able to be a strong enough single parent for his daughter, for his getting into crime and spending time in prison and his instability of mind which would also see him in a psychiatric hospital. While growing up Maria spent time in both the Greenwich workhouse and a special boarding school for pauper children.
Poor young Maria was five years old when her mother Eleanor died, who had been deteriorating for nine months from tuberculosis while pregnant, both she and her baby dying. Of all the eight children created by Eleanor and her husband John only two survived, Maria and her older brother Philip, he being three years older than her and the two of them always being close. Although of the poor classes the family had been doing relatively well by the time of Maria's birth, having acquired a greengrocer shop in the small Hog Lane and even being able to afford a servant girl in those days. At that time life must have seemed fine and promising. Both Maria's grandfathers were mariners, heroes of the nation for the sea battles they had fought in. Greenwich was a pleasant settlement south of the Thames with a grand park to roam around and play in.
1861 Census Greenwich, London
7 Hog Lane, Old Woolwich Road
(situated right at the end of the lane beside an unoccupied house)
John William Harrison, age 34, greengrocer, born Greenwich, and Eleanor Caroline Harrison, wife, age 26, born Greenwich
Children are Caroline, aged 7; Philip, aged 3; and baby Maria, 11 months (this was our ancestress)
Servant girl: Ellen Messer, age 15, born Greenwich
7 Hog Lane, Old Woolwich Road
(situated right at the end of the lane beside an unoccupied house)
John William Harrison, age 34, greengrocer, born Greenwich, and Eleanor Caroline Harrison, wife, age 26, born Greenwich
Children are Caroline, aged 7; Philip, aged 3; and baby Maria, 11 months (this was our ancestress)
Servant girl: Ellen Messer, age 15, born Greenwich
But then, yes, all crashed when Maria's mother Eleanor, at the age of 33, contracted tuberculosis, a fateful disease which was slaying many people in the community at the time, including all of Maria's aunties and uncles, bar one uncle Joseph Barton who had emigrated to Australia. The greengrocers shop was thus abandoned and life for the family took a tumble and never recovered. At the time of Eleanor's death they were living at 2 Crown Court and it was the neighbour from 1 Crown Court, Mary Ann Ballard, who attended to Eleanor in the very last moments of her life. Likely little Maria was hustled into another room by her older siblings, to avoid seeing the worst that befell their mother, but nothing could cover her from seeing her fathers pain which he handled so very badly, in and out of spells of mental imbalance, and in and out of prison and the workhouse too. I fancy that his parents would have been a support for the children, but within two years they had both died as well. And there was aunt Christian, who herself died of tuberculosis but a year after her sister Maria. One grandfather had been long dead already and granny Hannah, who one time had been a nurse at the Greenwich Hospital, had long moved into the slums of central London.
By the age of 11 Maria was in the workhouse, the reason being that she was destitute on account of her father going to prison, he having a six month sentence for attempting to steal a tonne of iron on his barge from a wharf on the other side of the river Thames. After two days in the workhouse, Maria was sent to the Sutton school way outside London, a village boarding school where all Greenwich pauper children who'd ended up in the workhouse were to be educated.
Maria remained in the Sutton school for as long as her father was in prison. Just prior to his release she was returned to the Greenwich workhouse, with again a note that she was 'destitute', then on the following day she was allowed to go 'home'. Maria's father in these days worked as a fisherman and waterman on the river Thames. Life was a struggle though and after but two months of them being together, just three days after Christmas, Maria was again described as being destitute and was sent back to the workhouse. A week later her father joined her in there. In mid February father and daughter left the workhouse together, Maria now being 12 years old. But before long both would be back.
Maria married her beloved red haired Thomas Seagrove, who was of Irish descent, at Christ Church in Greenwich, on xmas day of 1879, when she was 19 and he was 25: Thomas Seagrove, a fisherman, and Maria Harrison, both of Newmarket Street. Both fathers, listed as James Seagrove and William Harrison, are said to be fishermen. Witnesses to the wedding were Maria's only surviving brother Philip Harrison and his wife Emily.
Thomas Seagrove, also like Maria, came from a disrupted and dysfunctional background, born and bred in Greenwich too, but to an Irish immigrant family. It took me a long time to work out Thomas's real parentage, because he had changed his birth name from Sugrue to Seagrove and as can be seen, even on the official marriage certificate his fathers name and occupation were fabricated. Thomas's father was not really James Seagrove a fisherman, but Bartholomew Sugrue a builders labourer. This was an ancestry that Maria and Thomas preferred to disconnect from, because the Sugrue's had built up an infamous reputation, one of stealing and neglect, prison and the workhouse, which had even been reported in the newspapers. So this couples new life together was a chance for a clean break.
So a little I shall talk of Thomas's childhood before we progress. Thomas's parents Bartholomew and Catherine were both Irish, from the same part of Ireland, the scenic and beautiful County Kerry, although it was only in Greenwich that they chanced to meet and marry one another, Bartholomew already having married another Irish lady first, whom he had a daughter with. Tragically this first wife Ellen died of Asiatic cholera only a couple of years into their married life. And so it was that Bartholomew Sugrue found himself another wife, young Catherine Sheehan. Thomas was their third child and the first boy. Although it was legal to register ones children's births, this the family did not do and it was years before I managed to find a baptism for Thomas, in the Roman Catholic church of our Lady of the Sea, revealing that he was born on February 24th, which would make him a Pisces. Thomas was red haired and maybe that was so for much of the family.
Thomas can be seen at the age of seven in the 1861 Census as living with his family at 4 London Court in Greenwich:
Thomas Sugrue, age 7, born Greenwich
Bartholomew and Catherine Sugrue are his parents, Bartholomew's profession being a labourer (he was a builders worker), both having been born in Ireland. Fellow siblings are Mary, 9, Hannah, 8, James, 5, Catherine, 2 and John, 1 - all born in Greenwich. An Irish labourer lodges with the family, John McCarthy a 35 year old widower.
The family lived in the Greenwich peninsular, a landscape of marsh and cottage gardening, along with other Irish settlers.
Thomas Sugrue, age 7, born Greenwich
Bartholomew and Catherine Sugrue are his parents, Bartholomew's profession being a labourer (he was a builders worker), both having been born in Ireland. Fellow siblings are Mary, 9, Hannah, 8, James, 5, Catherine, 2 and John, 1 - all born in Greenwich. An Irish labourer lodges with the family, John McCarthy a 35 year old widower.
The family lived in the Greenwich peninsular, a landscape of marsh and cottage gardening, along with other Irish settlers.
Thomas's family was also somewhat dysfunctional, with parents that liked too much the booze and who had a pauper lifestyle. The children sometimes got in trouble for stealing and the worst time of all for this was in 1866, a tragic year for the family, firstly with Thomas's mother and his sister Hannah being sent to prison for stealing a purse of money in a cape shop, and then during the time of their mother being incarcerated one of Thomas's brothers, five year old Edmund, became so sick that he died, as it was said, from 'neglect', a situation sensationally reported on in papers all over the land. Really the lives of young children were always precarious in such times. But their situation was indeed very humble, sleeping together on the floor with but rags for covering, something for Victorian society to frown upon and condemn. The other children, on account of this story, were removed from their father and put into the workhouse. Thomas was eleven at this time. As soon as his father could, he got his children out of the workhouse and back home, a jury having to clear him first in having from neglect contributed to his sons death. So the family had an awful reputation on account of such things and when Maria was courting with Thomas she was the one to insist he change his surname before she would marry him, from Sugrue to Seagrove.
Thomas and Maria thus married and went on to have eleven children, one of whom would die. Maria's beauty, of her jet black hair, she passed onto most of her daughters, which maybe suggests foreign ancestry, or gypsy ancestry, or at the very least Irish origins, like for Thomas. My DNA shows that I have not only British ancestors, but also 11% Mediterranean DNA, and even more outlandishly there is 3% DNA from central Asia, through which there had run the old silk road. Thomas was observed to be devoted to his family, making sure that Maria and the children never went short of whatever they needed, for which he in turn expected the house to be kept spotless. There is more to this story the deeper I delve. The family was really quite as dysfunctional as both sets of their ancestors, messy and unconventional. The clean up act was adopted in later life only. Thomas worked hard on the Thames river and out at sea, sometimes being away for long periods. He had his own boat and would row out onto the Thames, as a mariner, as a fisherman and later as a waterman and lighterman, following the career of Maria's father actually, rather than the building trade of his own father. In those days the Thames river was London's main thoroughfare and was filled with every type of craft. As a lighterman Thomas would have carried loads from the ships to the quays and as a waterman he would have carried passengers. Travel on the river had been for centuries the cheapest and quickest, and even the most pleasant form of transport, even for long journeys down to Gravesend and up to Windsor. Thousands of boats plied the river, carrying passengers from bank to bank or up and down the tideway. The cry for 'Oars' would be called out from the river steps and piers. Thomas was licensed by the Corporation of Trinty House, rather than the traditional Waterman Company, and this is because he did not apprentice when young, like most people, but was an ex mariner taking up the work of a waterman in later life while in his 40's. There are no registers surviving from the time when Thomas enrolled.
When still a fisherman, Thomas would have fished for the local Greenwich specialty, whitebait, which was very fashionable to eat. The whitebait made their appearance in the Thames in late March or early April, and all through the summer immense quantities were being consumed by visitors to the different taverns at Greenwich. The chief of these taverns were the Ship, the Crown and Sceptre, and the Trafalgar.
Every year the family would depart London to join in with the hop harvesting, along with tens of thousands of other Londoners. They would travel down to the Kent countryside and pick the hops, remaining for 4 to 6 weeks in September, this being their equivalent of a long holiday away from the big city.
'If you go down hopping, Hopping down in Kent,
You'll see old mother Riley
A putting up her tent,
With an ee-aye-o, ee-aye-o, ee-aye-ee-aye-o.'
'If you go down hopping, Hopping down in Kent,
You'll see old mother Riley
A putting up her tent,
With an ee-aye-o, ee-aye-o, ee-aye-ee-aye-o.'
Thomas and his family changed addresses several times in Greenwich, as was quite the way for poor tenants. When Thomas married Maria at Christ Church they were already residing together in Newcastle Street.
The family chronological life, in census's and other relevant dates:
1879 - Living in Newcastle Street
1880 - Living at 4 Chester Street, when their first child, my ancestress Mary Ann Maria was born
1881 - Census reveals they are at 2 Chester Street
Chester Street has now been renamed to Banning Street.
1881 Census Greenwich
2 Chester Street
Thomas Seagrove, age 27, fisherman, born Greenwich, and Maria Seagrove, age 20, born Greenwich
Daughter Mary Ann Seagrove, age 5 months, born Greenwich
Alice Jaffray, visitor, age 13, born Deptford
(Alice was Maria's cousin, her granny being Christian who was a sister to Maria's mother Eleanor)
1879 - Living in Newcastle Street
1880 - Living at 4 Chester Street, when their first child, my ancestress Mary Ann Maria was born
1881 - Census reveals they are at 2 Chester Street
Chester Street has now been renamed to Banning Street.
1881 Census Greenwich
2 Chester Street
Thomas Seagrove, age 27, fisherman, born Greenwich, and Maria Seagrove, age 20, born Greenwich
Daughter Mary Ann Seagrove, age 5 months, born Greenwich
Alice Jaffray, visitor, age 13, born Deptford
(Alice was Maria's cousin, her granny being Christian who was a sister to Maria's mother Eleanor)
It was in 1881 that Thomas's mother, Catherine Sugrue, had a stroke which paralysed half of her body. Thomas's sister Catherine the younger, who was married to Joseph Read, took her mother into her home at 9 Queen Street and looked after her, but there was no real recovery and that same year Catherine died. As for Thomas's father, Bartholomew, he had for long been in and out of the workhouse, no longer managing to make a living.
1882 - Living back at number 4 Chester Street, the time of which a second child is born, a boy named Thomas Philip Seagrove.
Feeling for his fathers predicament with a life too long lived in the workhouse, Thomas took his father Bartholomew out from there and into his own home, taking care of him and helping him to sort his life out. Bartholomew found work once more in the building trade and for some years lived with his sons family. As for Maria's father, John Harrison, he was still making a mess of his own life, in this year being accused of stealing eight corn sacks found to be in his possession, for which he was remanded, but then was freed as nothing could be proved in this regard.
Feeling for his fathers predicament with a life too long lived in the workhouse, Thomas took his father Bartholomew out from there and into his own home, taking care of him and helping him to sort his life out. Bartholomew found work once more in the building trade and for some years lived with his sons family. As for Maria's father, John Harrison, he was still making a mess of his own life, in this year being accused of stealing eight corn sacks found to be in his possession, for which he was remanded, but then was freed as nothing could be proved in this regard.
1883 to 1885 - Living at 9 Kitson Terrace, where Thomas lived when becoming a waterman. A son James was born when they lived here, in 1883, and another son Philip William in 1885. The reusing of the name Philip was not only in honour of Maria's one surviving brother Philip, but also their grandfather Philip Barton who had been in many sea battles, including the Battle of Trafalgar.
In 1885 Bartholomew, Thomas's dad, resorted once more to the workhouse, his health deteriorating, he having fallen over a wall by the Thames river, and not only that, he had himself now contracted tuberculosis. In the autumn of 1886 he died in the workhouse coughing up blood.
1887 - Living at 15 Conley Street, this being the year in which son Ernest was born, it being noted that Thomas Seagrove was a waterman. In 1888 a daughter Mabel Caroline was born, not baptised until the spring of 1891. The middle name of Caroline was given in honour of Maria's mother Eleanor Caroline.
By 1888 it was to be seen that all was not well for Thomas's sister Catherine and her husband Joseph Read. Catherine worked in a lead factory which had already poisoned many women workers and was gradually poisoning her too. And meanwhile her husband Joseph was losing his mind, it being in this year that he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. He claimed to be Jack the Ripper. And maybe Catherine believed it to be so too, as a white powder was often in his food, making a bitter taste in his mouth, which he had been complaining about. Lead powder from the factory, one may consider. As to his obsessive belief that he was Jack the Ripper, it was so indeed that in the year of 1888 the Ripper had done his killings, which ended in just the month before Joseph was put in the asylum.
1891 to 1897 - Living at 7 Braddyl Street, this being when Mabel Caroline was baptised, at the same time as a new baby boy called John Thomas. Their father Thomas Seagrove says he works as a fisherman in these latest records.
In 1891 Maria's father, John Harrison, was sectioned into a psychiatric hospital at Barming Heath, from where originated the word 'barmy' for people who have lost their minds. It would be interesting to access his records some day to find out all the particulars of his case.
1891 Census Greenwich
7 Braddyl Street
Thomas Seagrove, age 36, fisherman, and his wife Maria Seagrove, age 30, both born in Greenwich
The children are Thomas, 10; James, 9; Philip, 7; Ernest, 6; Mabel, 4; and John, 2, all born in Greenwich
7 Braddyl Street
Thomas Seagrove, age 36, fisherman, and his wife Maria Seagrove, age 30, both born in Greenwich
The children are Thomas, 10; James, 9; Philip, 7; Ernest, 6; Mabel, 4; and John, 2, all born in Greenwich
It was in 1891 that Thomas's sister Catherine finally succumbed to the lead poisoning at Pontifax's Millwall Lead Works. She herself had described this to be 'killing work'. She'd had the most dangerous work in the factory 'in the stoves', gathering white lead carbonate from the boiled lead metal. So it was that at the age of 33 she died of lead poisoning.
In 1892 a daughter was born to Maria and Thomas named Emily Maude. Thomas Seagrove was back to working as a waterman. In 1894 a daughter was born named Rose Harriet, and in 1896 a son Charles Edward was born.
1897 - Living at 33 Idenden Cottages, Blackwall Lane (formerly known as Marsh Lane), East Greenwich, these being 50 newly built cottages.
As I have seen from a description of the Idenden cottages, each cottage was two storey, with four small rooms, including a reasonably sized kitchen and a good garden, created for working class people. The location on the Greenwich peninsula was not so ideal though, as this was no longer an area of cottage gardening, but was booming all over with industry, which surrounded the cottages on three sides with marshy land opposite. These cottages were demolished eventually, the site to thereafter be occupied by industrial premises.
In the spring time of 1897 Maria and Thomas's son Philip, who was aged 12, had an accident while working (child labour) in contractor Mr Christian's Millwall Iron works, by which his fingers became crushed, for which he was admitted to and treated for ten days in the Dreadnought Seamens Hospital. The standards must have been pretty lax in the iron works as he was not the only lad to end up wounded in this work.
In the summer of 1897 Thomas Seagrove is in the paper for having recovered a dead body from the river of a 14 year old boy called William Tinsley who had drowned while swimming with a friend in the Thames. The police had come along and ordered him and other swimming lads to get out of the river. But rather he went deeper in and getting out of his depth drowned. A lighterman, George Sweetlove, had tried to save the lad but in this he had not been successful. It was three days later, on a Friday morning, that Thomas Seagrove recovered William's body.
1897 to 1900 - Living at 7 Wellington Place, Old Woolwich Road
Something shocking befell the family in 1898 when they were at Wellington Place, which was that Maria Seagrove was shamed in the papers and sent to prison for two months hard labour, all for her children being scruffy and her house in a bad way. Note was made also that the children were not being sent to school for which issue had already been made of this with Thomas Seagrove, for him being the father of the home. Unlike other mothers being outed at the time Maria was not an alcoholic, nor did she have a violent husband, but it was enough for the authorities that her house was 'filthy' and her children 'dirty' and in 'rags'. Even it was said that the 'stench in the house was enough to knock one down'. The 'rooms were horribly dirty and the stench unbearable' and it was the first time in years that such ' a fiilthy family' had been seen. Although dirty, the children were well nourished and healthy. The oldest daughter, Mary Ann (my ancestress), defended her family, she then being around 18 years old, saying the children were washed every day and it was 'clean dirt', ie. from playing outside and enjoying rough and tumble. And Thomas Seagrove said he gave money to his family of 30 shillings a week but was not around so much as his work was at sea and all along the Thames. The authorities were brutal in this matter, the children having to go to the workhouse, while their mother was two months in prison having to do hard labour, even though she had a baby to care for. I am sure she felt immense injustice for the punishment lauded out to her and her dear ones, that which made a situation far worse and traumatic even rather than helping.
In the summer of 1897 Thomas Seagrove is in the paper for having recovered a dead body from the river of a 14 year old boy called William Tinsley who had drowned while swimming with a friend in the Thames. The police had come along and ordered him and other swimming lads to get out of the river. But rather he went deeper in and getting out of his depth drowned. A lighterman, George Sweetlove, had tried to save the lad but in this he had not been successful. It was three days later, on a Friday morning, that Thomas Seagrove recovered William's body.
1897 to 1900 - Living at 7 Wellington Place, Old Woolwich Road
Something shocking befell the family in 1898 when they were at Wellington Place, which was that Maria Seagrove was shamed in the papers and sent to prison for two months hard labour, all for her children being scruffy and her house in a bad way. Note was made also that the children were not being sent to school for which issue had already been made of this with Thomas Seagrove, for him being the father of the home. Unlike other mothers being outed at the time Maria was not an alcoholic, nor did she have a violent husband, but it was enough for the authorities that her house was 'filthy' and her children 'dirty' and in 'rags'. Even it was said that the 'stench in the house was enough to knock one down'. The 'rooms were horribly dirty and the stench unbearable' and it was the first time in years that such ' a fiilthy family' had been seen. Although dirty, the children were well nourished and healthy. The oldest daughter, Mary Ann (my ancestress), defended her family, she then being around 18 years old, saying the children were washed every day and it was 'clean dirt', ie. from playing outside and enjoying rough and tumble. And Thomas Seagrove said he gave money to his family of 30 shillings a week but was not around so much as his work was at sea and all along the Thames. The authorities were brutal in this matter, the children having to go to the workhouse, while their mother was two months in prison having to do hard labour, even though she had a baby to care for. I am sure she felt immense injustice for the punishment lauded out to her and her dear ones, that which made a situation far worse and traumatic even rather than helping.
Another article on this matter was in the papers which is harder to read. In this article not only were the children's ages listed, but their names as well: James, aged 14, Philip, aged 12, Ernest, aged 11, Mabel, aged 9, Maud, aged 5, Rose, aged 3, and Charles, aged 1. This was a knock down for this family whose name change from Sugrue to Seagrove had been for a fresh new start, away from the scandals of Maria's and Thomas's own childhood situations. Life was changing and uniform standards being imposed, now that this was the Victorian era, society becoming more regulated and more uniform, children to be well scrubbed and schooled and houses to be like museums, fine enough for the monied classes who simply employed teenage servant girls to do all that for them in such labour intensive times. At that time, a whole bunch of mothers were being outed as neglectful, with all their children's names and ages listed in the papers and their domestic problems revealed and judged. Some of the mothers were alcoholics whose husbands beat them, but not all.
For my family, the children, not being paraded off into school lessons, were out playing and getting dirty, because that's natural, that's what children do when left to their own devices, not shoved into institutions. The children were happy, healthy and free. But they were poor and wore rags. And no fuss was made of the housework. They were a from a struggling, pauper, Irish peasant background, with maybe even some element of gypsy, making some token adjustments to society, but not entirely. Society, though, had it's own agenda, that all shall be made ship-shape, and if that involved putting a pregnant mother into prison, subjecting her to hard labour, and carting her children off to the workhouse, then so be it. And so families were disturbed all the more, traumatised, the beloved mother taken away, and the children stolen. On the same day as Maria Seagrove was judged and sent to prison, so was another local lady, Mary Baker of Deptford, on account of one of her neighbours, Fanny Miller, having complained about her children's clothes being torn and ragged and for them being dirty, as if they had not been washed in a long time. For this Mary got three months hard labour, one month more than our Maria, her worse circumstance being that, on account of her husbands violence, she had taken to drink.
For my family, the children, not being paraded off into school lessons, were out playing and getting dirty, because that's natural, that's what children do when left to their own devices, not shoved into institutions. The children were happy, healthy and free. But they were poor and wore rags. And no fuss was made of the housework. They were a from a struggling, pauper, Irish peasant background, with maybe even some element of gypsy, making some token adjustments to society, but not entirely. Society, though, had it's own agenda, that all shall be made ship-shape, and if that involved putting a pregnant mother into prison, subjecting her to hard labour, and carting her children off to the workhouse, then so be it. And so families were disturbed all the more, traumatised, the beloved mother taken away, and the children stolen. On the same day as Maria Seagrove was judged and sent to prison, so was another local lady, Mary Baker of Deptford, on account of one of her neighbours, Fanny Miller, having complained about her children's clothes being torn and ragged and for them being dirty, as if they had not been washed in a long time. For this Mary got three months hard labour, one month more than our Maria, her worse circumstance being that, on account of her husbands violence, she had taken to drink.
Yet another newspaper article about the matter, a brief one, smugly said 'It is satisfactory to know that neglectful mothers meet with something like adequate punishment when they are brought up to answer for their sins at Greenwich Police Court... Maria Seagrove of East Greenwich was sentenced to two months hard labour. This prosecution was instituted by the National Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Children.' I would say this was more of a witch hunt and resolved nothing, other than to cause poor families yet more suffering.
In that same year of 1898 a baby daughter was born, to be named Ellen, in honour of Maria's mother Eleanor.
In that same year of 1898 a baby daughter was born, to be named Ellen, in honour of Maria's mother Eleanor.
A year later, in 1899, Maria was again prosecuted for her scruffy lifestyle and this time her prison sentence would be longer, for four months, rather than two. She was still not sending her children to school, letting them play and do as they wished. Her home was again said to be in a filthy state, the floor of her house being caked with dirt, which was pointed to as the cause of two of the children having sore heads. The children had only gone to school, it was said, when their mother had previously been in prison. Because she had been prosecuted for this same thing before Maria was punished with more severity. A second newspaper article pointed out that the bedroom was in a filthy state and that Maria had eleven children. Only one child had a bad head, Maria had pointed out and it was because of his teeth and nothing to do with the state of the house.
For Thomas, changing his name from Sugrue to Seagrove, specifically to disconnect from past scandal and public damnation, errors of the parents had been repeated, and embarrassingly all eyes were upon them. For which it is understandable that he would afterwards insist that clean home and family had to be the way, even down to his sons shoes being daily polished.
In 1889 Maria's father, John Harrison, died from cancer of the tongue. Philip's wife, Emily, who was John's daughter in law had been looking after him in his final weeks and was with him when he died.
Maria ended up with another spell in prison, this time the reason not being specified, or at least I haven't found any specifics on this as yet, other than that in 1900 Maria Seagrove and all her children had to resort to the workhouse, on account of being 'destitute'. Was Thomas at sea for a long time therefore and the family having no means to survive at this time? Maria Seagrove had some ailment, note being made that she was put into the infirmary with one of her children. The other children were sent to the very same school for the poor, the Sutton school way outside London, which Maria as a child herself had once been in. Something Maria then did at this time got her put back into prison. But I know not what. She got a longer sentence this time, around eight months, and her littlest children would have been with her in the prison. One of her boys tried to escape from being sent to the Sutton school, Ernest that is, but he was caught and sent back there. All this I have pieced together simply from brief workhouse notes, and maybe I will find more to embellish on this at a later date.
1900 - 16 Billingsgate Street
1900 11th April - Maria Seagrove and her children were in the workhouse for a while on Woolwich Road:
April 11th, a Wednesday, at 9 in the evening, admitted to the workhouse was Maria Seagrove, age 40, and her children Ernest, age 11, Mabel, age 10, John, age 8, Maud, age 6, Rose, age 5, Charles, age 3, and Ellen, age 1 and a half. Maria is the wife of Thomas Seagrove, a waterman, address 16 Billingsgate Street, religion Church of England, cause of seeking relief is that they are destitute, admitted by Mr Biggell
1900 - On April 17th on a Tuesday at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, Maria Seagrove, age 40, is moved to the infirmary with one of her children, Charles, aged 3
1900 May 2nd - Ernest Seagrove, age 11, is again admitted to the workhouse, alone at half past six on a Wednesday afternoon. In the notes it is said that his mother is in prison. On that same day, in the morning, the other children were already there in the workhouse, including it seems Ernest, and they were discharged at ten that very morning and sent to a school for workhouse children out at Sutton, a school their mother had herself once been in, that is Maria, age 10; Maud, age 6, Rose, and Ernest, age 11, though a cross is then put by him, and John, age 8. It appears that Ernest had escaped on being removed to the school and that afternoon was found and returned to the workhouse.
1900 May 23rd - On Wednesday at ten in the morning, Ernest Seagrove, aged 11, along with many other children, was discharged from the workhouse and sent to Sutton School.
1900 December 4th - the children were sent from the Sutton School after many months there, admitted back into the Greenwich workhouse, at 6.45 in the afternoon, not yet allowed to go home due to no parents being at their home. The children are Ernest, 11, Maria, 10, John, 8, Maud, 6, Rose, 5 and Charles, 4 (this last name being afterwards crossed out though). On the same day, just an hour later, their mother came to take them home, at 7.50 in the afternoon, all aforementioned children, including Nellie, age 3, but with no mention now of Charles (as he was likely already with his mother).
1900 11th April - Maria Seagrove and her children were in the workhouse for a while on Woolwich Road:
April 11th, a Wednesday, at 9 in the evening, admitted to the workhouse was Maria Seagrove, age 40, and her children Ernest, age 11, Mabel, age 10, John, age 8, Maud, age 6, Rose, age 5, Charles, age 3, and Ellen, age 1 and a half. Maria is the wife of Thomas Seagrove, a waterman, address 16 Billingsgate Street, religion Church of England, cause of seeking relief is that they are destitute, admitted by Mr Biggell
1900 - On April 17th on a Tuesday at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, Maria Seagrove, age 40, is moved to the infirmary with one of her children, Charles, aged 3
1900 May 2nd - Ernest Seagrove, age 11, is again admitted to the workhouse, alone at half past six on a Wednesday afternoon. In the notes it is said that his mother is in prison. On that same day, in the morning, the other children were already there in the workhouse, including it seems Ernest, and they were discharged at ten that very morning and sent to a school for workhouse children out at Sutton, a school their mother had herself once been in, that is Maria, age 10; Maud, age 6, Rose, and Ernest, age 11, though a cross is then put by him, and John, age 8. It appears that Ernest had escaped on being removed to the school and that afternoon was found and returned to the workhouse.
1900 May 23rd - On Wednesday at ten in the morning, Ernest Seagrove, aged 11, along with many other children, was discharged from the workhouse and sent to Sutton School.
1900 December 4th - the children were sent from the Sutton School after many months there, admitted back into the Greenwich workhouse, at 6.45 in the afternoon, not yet allowed to go home due to no parents being at their home. The children are Ernest, 11, Maria, 10, John, 8, Maud, 6, Rose, 5 and Charles, 4 (this last name being afterwards crossed out though). On the same day, just an hour later, their mother came to take them home, at 7.50 in the afternoon, all aforementioned children, including Nellie, age 3, but with no mention now of Charles (as he was likely already with his mother).
1901 Census Greenwich
11 Billingsgate Street
(living in 4 rooms)
Thomas Seagrove, age 45, waterman, has a barge, and wife Mary Seagrove, age 41, both born in Greenwich
Children are Mary, 13; James, 12; Percy, 11; Elizabeth, 9; Margaret, 7; Joseph, 6; Maud, 5; Rose, 4; Charles, 3, and Ethel, 1
Some of these names and ages appear to be incorrect, although some names may be nicknames or middle names, but maybe anyway they were not quite being honest with the census people.
11 Billingsgate Street
(living in 4 rooms)
Thomas Seagrove, age 45, waterman, has a barge, and wife Mary Seagrove, age 41, both born in Greenwich
Children are Mary, 13; James, 12; Percy, 11; Elizabeth, 9; Margaret, 7; Joseph, 6; Maud, 5; Rose, 4; Charles, 3, and Ethel, 1
Some of these names and ages appear to be incorrect, although some names may be nicknames or middle names, but maybe anyway they were not quite being honest with the census people.
In the autumn of 1902 Maria and Thomas's oldest son, Thomas Philip, was mentioned in the papers in what was titled 'The Usual List' of people recently charged with being either drunk, disorderly or using obscene language. The younger Thomas was then aged 20, living with his family at 11 Billingsgate Street, Greenwich, for which he was fined 7 shillings or five days in prison if failing to pay that.
1903 to 1909 - Living at 40 Marlborough Street
1903 to 1904 - a daughter Susan Lilian is born, but she dies the following year while still a baby
1903 to 1904 - a daughter Susan Lilian is born, but she dies the following year while still a baby
In the spring of 1907 there was shock in the family for the murder of a family friend called Robert Choat, who was the father in law of two of Maria and Thomas's sons. Their son James married Susan Choat in just the year previous to this, in 1906, and son John would marry later to Susan's sister in 1913, Annie Rebecca Choat. Robert Choat was a night shift gas worker in his 40's. On the fateful day he had gone to the Epsom races and was returning by train when he got into a quarrel in his carriage with a well known boxer, Pedlar Palmer, reputed as being a champion of the Greenwich marshes, who knocked him unconscious by two punches to the side of the face. He died at Purley Station, having been removed from its train onto the platform. The Epsom Derby back then was a big event for the gypsies to meet up at, both watching the races and entertaining the crowds, there being fortune tellers, dancers, flower sellers, musicians, acrobats and stilt walkers. Pedlar Palmer, alias Thomas Palmer, denied he had hit Robert Choat, although it was witnessed that indeed he had. He protested that he had merely shaken the old man, out of annoyance at Roberts inclination to 'jig and dance'. Robert had got the train to Epsom in the morning, wishing his wife to accompany him, but she could not, as she had to work. He was with various friends at the races though, with whom he spent much of the day, but he and his pal Frank Pierce, meant to be returning on the train together, had got separated, for which they'd ended up in different carriages. Robert was known to be a big man, nearly six foot, hard working, steady and generally sober with a great interest in sporting matters. Among his children, six of them, was said to be Mrs Seagrove (that is Susan who was married to John) of 3 Gibson Street, East Greenwich and Annie, who was at that time aged 15 and was living with an aunt at Gravesend. Pedlar Palmer was sentenced to five years in prison. Pedlar Palmer had previous convictions and was a pub nuisance and a terror in the east end.
There are some beautiful photos from around this time of the seasonal hop picking families, as was the way of the Seagroves, who came down every year from London. Not that there are any names of who any of these people may have been, but it gives a good idea of the adventurousness of these times and the fun experience that it was overall.
In 1908 Maria and Thomas's oldest child, daughter Mary Ann Maria (my ancestress), who had been working as a head chef in an elegant hotel in central London, married her middle class beloved, D'Auvergne Bane, at the Old St Pancras church. She was five years older than him and he was from a military colonial family which had lived a while in Barbados. Their story was the much touted one in our family of a gentleman running away with the maid. They made their new life together far away from London at the seaside at Dovercourt, though regularly would come and visit Mary Ann's parents in Greenwich.
1909 to 1936 - Living at 40 Lassell Street. This was actually where they were already living at 40 Marlborough Street, but the name of the road had been changed.
More fabulous hop picking photos, these ones being from 1910:
1909 - Son James Seagrove, aged 26, of Lassell Street, got into a little of trouble, as reported in the paper, for his getting into an altercation with a beerhouse keeper on the same street, Arthur White who lived at number 26. Arthur had refused to serve James, for which he returned half an hour later throwing stones and by this breaking a biscuit jar and a glass shade.
1911 Census Greenwich
40 Lassell Street, East Greenwich
(living in 4 rooms)
Thomas Seagrove, age 57, waterman PVA Wrecking Department for the Port of London, born East Greenwich
Maria Seagrove, wife, age 51, born East Greenwich
Married for 31 years and have had 12 children, one of whom has died
The children are:
Ernest, age 23, labourer at old iron works, born 1888; John, age 19, waterman PVA Surveying Department for Port of London, born 1892; Maud, age 17, domestic servant disengaged, born 1894; Rose, age 15, domestic servant disengaged, born 1896; Charles, age 13, at school, born 1898; Ellen, age 12, at school, born 1899, all born in East Greenwich
40 Lassell Street, East Greenwich
(living in 4 rooms)
Thomas Seagrove, age 57, waterman PVA Wrecking Department for the Port of London, born East Greenwich
Maria Seagrove, wife, age 51, born East Greenwich
Married for 31 years and have had 12 children, one of whom has died
The children are:
Ernest, age 23, labourer at old iron works, born 1888; John, age 19, waterman PVA Surveying Department for Port of London, born 1892; Maud, age 17, domestic servant disengaged, born 1894; Rose, age 15, domestic servant disengaged, born 1896; Charles, age 13, at school, born 1898; Ellen, age 12, at school, born 1899, all born in East Greenwich
1913 Son John Seagrove married Annie Rebecca Choat, sister of his brother Jame's wife Susan, these being the girls whose father had been killed while returning from the Epsom races by a boxer Pedlar Palmer.
1916 April 14th - Of four of the Seagrove sons who were at war, one of them, Ernest, a private of the Cornwall Light Infantry, 7th Battalion, died of war wounds, aged 28, in France/Flanders, buried at Mijssenthoek War Cemetery
1917 Daughter Mabel Caroline Seagrove married in Poplar to a Greenwich man Charles Blake and that very same year they had a daughter Emily Rose. Mabel's sister also married in this same year to her Greenwich beloved Arthur Pittman, the marriage lasting only a year on account of Arthur also being a casualty of the first world war.
1918 - Maria Seagrove becomes a voter, a step forward for all British women
1920 All was not going well in the marriage between daughter Mabel Caroline and Charles Patrick Blake, this can be ascertained from Mabel in this year having to resort to the Greenwich workhouse, in the records of which her address is given as her parents house at 40 Lassell Street, rather than her husbands address at 17 Newcastle Street. The cause given for being admitted into the workhouse was that she was 'deranged'. In the springtime, she was admitted to the Bexley Mental Asylum, being released from there into the workhouse in the autumn of that same year. Maybe this was of a hereditary nature as her grandfather John William Harrison had also spent time in a psychiatric institution out at Barming Heath. Mabel and Charles did work things out together as later it is seen they were living together once more at 17 Newcastle Street and another daughter was born in 1924 named Edna Beatrice.
In 1920 the widowed daughter Maude whose husband had died fighting in the first world war married a man called Charles Frederick Wentworth and they had a son the same year, duly given the same name as his father Charles Frederick.
1921 Census Greenwich
40 Lassell Street
Thomas Seagrove, age 67 years and 3 months, retired salvager hand of Port of London authority of Leadenhall Street
Maria Seagrove, wife, age 62 years and 1 month, domestic home duties
Children are Philip, age 36 years and 2 months, labourer at Waddell Street, East Greenwich; Rose, age 25 years and 11 months, a paper sorter at Bowates Water Block, Wall Lane; Charles, age 23 years and 11 months, labourer at United Ships Building; and Ellen, age 21 years and 9 months, paper sorter at Bowates Water Block, Wall Lane
40 Lassell Street
Thomas Seagrove, age 67 years and 3 months, retired salvager hand of Port of London authority of Leadenhall Street
Maria Seagrove, wife, age 62 years and 1 month, domestic home duties
Children are Philip, age 36 years and 2 months, labourer at Waddell Street, East Greenwich; Rose, age 25 years and 11 months, a paper sorter at Bowates Water Block, Wall Lane; Charles, age 23 years and 11 months, labourer at United Ships Building; and Ellen, age 21 years and 9 months, paper sorter at Bowates Water Block, Wall Lane
In 1923 daughter Ellen married her lover, a Greenwich man Thomas Tanner.
1926 - Death of Maria Seagrove at the age of 66, on 9th March, living at 40 Lassell Street, wife of Thomas Seagrove, a waterman. Present at the death was married daughter ME Wentworth of 40A Bellol Street. Maria died from chronic bronchitis.
1935 and 1936 Electoral registers for 40 Lassell Street shows Thomas Seagove, having the vote here, and his grown up children Philip and Rose
1937 28th January - Thomas Seagrove, who had outlived Maria, died at home at 40 Lassell Street, at the age of 82, of heart failure, pneumonia and influenza, a retired waterman and lighterman. His death was reported by his daughter Rose Seagrove, also of 40 Lassell Street.
1944 4th August - The grown up Seagrove children Thomas Philip Seagrove, Philip William Seagrove and their sister in law Susan Seagrove (that is Susan née Choat the wife of John), all tragically died together when their houses, which were next door to one another at 4 and 5 Beverley Mansions, Church Street, Greenwich, were bombed by the Germans during the Second World War. They were all taken to the Miller Hospital, a place for civilian casualties, and there died, all on the same day, 4th August 1944.