The Children of John Newbon

Ellen Newbon

John Joseph Newbon, John and Ellen’s eldest son, was born at 41 Sutton Street, Lambeth, in the parish of St John, Waterloo – he was just 3 months younger than King Edward VII, whom he outlived by 5 years. Like many streets in the Waterloo area, Sutton Street no longer exists, but it was roughly on the site of the Royal Festival Hall. The railway was introduced to the area from the 1840s and within a few years the main line to Charing Cross (across the Hungerford Bridge) passed directly over Sutton Street. At the north end of the street was a long row of wharves and industrial sites on the Thames. It can never have been a pleasant area in which to live, but by the middle of the 19th century it must have been considerably worse.

All but one of John and Ellen Newbon’s 8 children survived to adulthood, their youngest daughter Diana Nancy (named after one of John’s sisters) being the only to die young. Their 3 surviving daughters (who were also their 3 eldest children) all married in the mid-1860s. The marriages of Jessie and Henrietta Ann (who became known simply as Ann) are, however, difficult to track down because their names have been mis-recorded by the General Register Office: Jessie’s surname when she married Nicholas Shilling in 1865 is listed as ‘Newton’ and Henrietta Ann, when she married Frederick Warner in 1865, is listed as ‘Ann Nuboon’!

Of John and Ellen Newbon’s 4 sons, John Joseph Newbon moved furthest from the family’s home in Southwark when he and his family went to live in Earlsfield, London SW17. The 3 younger sons by contrast lived all their lives in the Walworth area of Southwark – indeed, almost all of John and Ellen’s grandchildren were baptised at the church of St John, Walworth. All 4 sons were ‘carmen’ by profession (i.e. carriers of goods); John Newbon, a tailor, was thus the last member of his family to have served an apprenticeship in a skilled trade. It is sad to note that 3 of his grandsons died in the First World War.

The marriages of John and Ellen’s 2 youngest children (Walter Augustus and Thomas Cary) are, like their two eldest sisters’, somewhat mysterious. No record at all seems to exist of the marriage of Walter Augustus Newbon and Mary Ann Tinsley, so it is unclear whether they never in fact married or if their marriage was somehow indexed incorrectly. Walter and Mary Newbon had 11 children, of whom 8 (6 sons and 2 daughters) lived to adulthood. Two of their sons died in the First World War: Arthur Henry Newbon died in 1918, just 4 days after his cousin Walter Ernest Newbon and his death is recorded at the Haverskerque British Cemetery in northern France; his younger brother Frederick Ernest Newbon was killed in 1917 and is buried at the Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery in Flanders. The first census on which Walter and Mary appear as a couple living together was that of 1881, when they were living at 20 Aylesbury Road, their home for a number of years; this was in the same area in which Thomas Cary and Eliza Newbon lived and just south of Charles Henry and Lydia Newbon’s home. In 1891 Walter and Mary can be found at 19 Thrush Street, Newington and in 1901 at 35 Theobald Street. At his death in 1919 (at the age of 68) Walter was living at 129 Union Road, The Borough, a mile or so north of Walworth; Mary Ann Newbon died 6 years before her husband.

When Thomas Cary Newbon married Eliza Tinsley in 1902 they were both in their early 40s, their youngest surviving child was 11 and their eldest was 26 and already married herself! Thomas and Eliza married at St Luke’s Church, Bermondsey, giving their address as 126 Grange Road. When Thomas died in 1909, however, they were once again living in Morecambe Street, Walworth, where they had been living in 1898, albeit not in the same house. It is easy to understand why Thomas and Eliza were not keen to be married in the parish in which they spent most of their ‘married’ lives (St John, Walworth) and to whose vicar they had been presenting themselves as Mr and Mrs Newbon at their children’s baptisms for over 20 years. Of their 10 children, 3 died young.

The first census on which Thomas and Eliza appear together is that of 1881, when they were living at 35 Villa Street, Newington. In 1891 they were at 33 King and Queen Street (immediately next to the Newington Arms pub) and in 1901 they were living at 9 Morecambe Street.

Thomas Cary Newbon was the first of John Newbon’s sons to die - at his death in 1909 he was aged 56. His widow Eliza outlived him by 25 years and was killed at the age of 80 in a tragic accident when she was knocked down by a tram in Newington. It seems highly likely that Mary Ann and Eliza Tinsley, the wives of Walter Augustus and Thomas Cary Newbon, were sisters.

John Joseph Newbon and Elizabeth Eliza Holloway were married on July 17th 1870 at the church of St Mary, Newington. At the time both were living at 8 Crampton Street, Lambeth, and it was in Lambeth that all of the couple’s children except their youngest child Jane Charlotte were born. The family was registered at 57 Cardigan Street, Lambeth on the 1881 census and presumably moved to Earlsfield between this date and Jane’s birth there in 1884. In 1891 they can be found on the census at 5 Boyce’s Cottages, Garratt Lane, and this area was thereafter home to members of the Newbon family for over a century.

Of the 7 children born to John Joseph and Elizabeth Eliza Newbon, 2 died in infancy (a son named John Joseph after his father, and a daughter Louisa). Their one surviving son Walter Thomas thus grew up with 4 sisters: Elizabeth Ellen, Ann, Emma and Jane Charlotte (Jennie).

John Joseph Newbon’s removals business can be found listed on several maps and in two photographs from around 1900. Boyce’s Cottages, where he lived and where his business was based, were simple workers’ cottages, which were owned by a Mr A. E. Boyce. They were situated roughly on the site of the present-day Earlsfield Police Station – on November 1st 1912 the lease was bought from Mr Boyce and a Mrs E. E. Hardman, and it was presumably then that the cottages were pulled down. The photograph above, probably taken during the 1890s, reveals that John Newbon actually occupied two of the cottages, as a sign advertising his business – ‘carman and contractor[,] furniture carefully removed’ – can be seen above both properties, which were presumably rented. (Where no.1 Boyce’s Cottages was situated is a mystery, since the row contains only 4 houses!) The Newbon family had a close association with Boyce’s Cottages – at the time of her marriage in 1897 Ann Newbon gave her address as 4 Boyce’s Cottages; in 1900 Emma Newbon’s husband Henry Bartlett’s address was given as 2 Boyce’s Cottages on their marriage certificate; and at the baptism of Walter and Rhoda’s daughter Ethel in 1901, their family address was also given as 2 Boyce’s Cottages.

John Joseph Newbon most likely moved the short distance from Boyce’s Cottages to 498 Garratt Lane (slightly closer to Earlsfield) in 1906 or 1907, for this was the address he gave when he registered his wife Elizabeth’s death in 1908 – 498 Garratt Lane was also Jennie Newbon’s address when she married Michael Henry George Hall in 1910. Shortly after this John Newbon moved again, this time to 558 Garratt Lane (the other side of The Leather Bottle pub), and these premises display the name ‘J. NEWBON – REMOVALS’ on an awning in the photograph above, which probably dates from around 1911. We must assume that the front room downstairs functioned as a shop, while the family lived in the rest of the property. In 1912, four years after Elizabeth’s death, John Joseph Newbon married for a second time; his second wife was a widow, Emma Smith (formerly Brightwell), of about five years his junior. Emma’s family can be found many years earlier on the 1871 census at 57 Cardigan Street, Lambeth - curiously this was the very same house in which John Joseph and Elizabeth Eliza

On their marriage certificate of 1868 the name of Charles Henry Newbon’s wife is given as ‘Allediot Mummery’, but thereafter she seems to have been known solely as ‘Lydia’. Charles and Lydia may well have lived all their married lives at one address: 64 Barlow Street, Walworth, just to the west of the Old Kent Road. Although they must have become emotionally attached to this house, it was not a spacious home – the censuses show that they shared the house with several other families and that they actually occupied only 3 rooms. The couple had 6 children (2 boys and 4 girls); one further daughter died in infancy. The 1901 census shows that the families of two of their daughters Rosina and Jessie were the other occupants of 64 Barlow Street at this time. Charles and Lydia’s youngest child Walter Ernest Newbon died at the Somme in 1918 during the First World War; his death is recorded at the Pozieres Memorial there. Charles Henry Newbon died the following year. He and John Joseph had the longest lives of John Newbon’s sons – both died aged 73. Lydia Newbon died at her home at Barlow Street in 1934; she was 74.

Ellen Newbon married Henry Collins Mann at the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields in 1863 and their 6 children were born in Marylebone, where the family can be found on the 1871 census. Henry Collins Mann was born in St Albans and, like his father-in-law John Newbon, was a tailor. By 1881 Ellen and Henry had moved to Soho, and their children, although still young, were by this time following a range of professions: Henry is listed as a printer, George a dentist and Frank an artist. Their youngest son was only 1 day old on census night; he was christened John Joseph after Ellen’s brother, but unfortunately died the following year. In 1891 Ellen and Henry can be found living in Walworth, south of the Thames, in the very house (49 Merrow Street) in which Ellen’s father John Newbon had died 9 years before. Ellen is listed as a ‘tailoress’ in 1891, her eldest son Henry a compositor and her 3rd son Frank as an artist and photographer. In 1901 Ellen and Henry can be found in Trafalgar Street, Newington, very close to the families of several of Ellen’s siblings. The house in which Ellen and Henry were living was shared by three families, with the Manns occupying three rooms. Henry is listed as a ‘tailor and sewer, working at home’; all their children had left home by this time. Henry died in Lambeth in 1908, aged 69, but it is not known when Ellen died.

The Children of John Newbon (1813-1882)

Jessie Newbon

Henrietta Ann Newbon

John Joseph Newbon

Charles Henry Newbon

Walter Augustus Newbon

Thomas Cary Newbon

Henrietta Ann Newbon seems to be have known almost interchangeably as ‘Henrietta’ and ‘Ann’. For example, at her marriage to Frederick Warner in 1865 she is listed as ‘Ann’, but 6 years later on the 1881 census, when the couple were living in Newington with their eldest child, she is ‘Henrietta’; at this time Frederick is listed as a ‘marble polisher’. In 1881, still in Newington, she is once again ‘Ann’. Henrietta Ann cannot be found on any later censuses and she may well have been the Ann Warner who died in Southwark in 1898; it would then seem highly likely that Frederick remarried in 1900 and can found on the 1901 census with his new wife Mary. It is interesting to note that several of the children of Henrietta Ann and Frederick Warner have names found elsewhere in the family: their daughter Eliza Elizabeth Warner, for example, may well have been named after her aunt Elizabeth Eliza Newbon, wife of John Joseph. It is almost certain that Henrietta Ann and Frederick’s daughter Ann was the Annie Henrietta Janet Warner who in 1903 went on to marry Thomas Cary Newbon, the son of Ellen’s youngest brother, who would thus have been her first cousin.

Jessie Newbon married Nicholas Shilling, a shoe-maker by profession, in Camberwell in 1863. The couple can be found on the 1871 census with their 5 eldest children, living with Jessie’s father John Newbon and her brother Thomas Cary Newbon at 2 Ewhurst Street, Walworth. In 1881 they were living at 1 Grantham Place, Newington, which on the census appears immediately next to Merrow Street, where John Newbon was living at the time. In 1891 Jessie and Nicholas are still at Grantham Place, with their two youngest children, very close to the home of Jessie’s sister Ellen at 49 Merrow Street. Nicholas died in 1895, aged 56, and Jessie can be found in 1901 living in Bermondsey with her youngest son Albert; she is listed as a ‘mantle finisher’. It is not known when Jessie died.

Born:	June 24th 1836 (Lambeth)	Died:	After 1901
Spouse:	Henry Collins Mann (c.1839-1908)
Children:	Ellen Louisa Mann (1864- ), Henry Albert Mann (1865- ), George Frederick Mann (1867- ), Frank William Mann (1868- ), Alfred Edward Mann (1870- ), John Joseph Mann (1871-72)

Born:

1838 (Lambeth)

Died:

After 1901

Spouse:

Nicholas William Shilling (c.1839-1895)

Children:

Jessie Henrietta Shilling (1864- ), Nicholas William Shilling (1866- ), Ellen Maria (Nelly) Shilling (1867- ),

Rosina Eliza Shilling (1869- ), Maud Louise Shilling (1870-1874), Florence Beatrice Shilling (1872- ),

Edward Alfred Shilling (1873- ), Walter Henry Shilling (1875- ), Maud Louise Shilling (1878- ), Albert Reuben Shilling (1882- )

Born:

June 24th 1840 (Lambeth)

Died:

Spouse:

Frederick Warner (b.1847)

Children:

Frederick Warner (1866- ), Jonas Walter Warner (1871-1938), Ann Warner (1875- ), Eliza Elizabeth Warner (1877- ),

Charles Warner (1883- )

Born:

February 21st 1842 (Lambeth)

Died:

May 15th 1915 (Wandsworth Common)

Spouses:

Elizabeth Eliza Holloway (c.1845-1908)

Emma Smith, formerly Brightwell (d. after 1914)

Occupation:

Carman

Children:

Elizabeth Ellen Newbon (1871-1935), John Joseph Newbon (1873-73), Ann Newbon (1874-1936),

Walter Thomas Newbon (1876-1940), Emma Newbon (1879- ), Louisa Newbon (1881-1881),

Jane Charlotte (Jennie) Newbon (1884-1969)

Born:

August 21st 1845 (Lambeth)

Died:

October 17th 1919 (Camberwell)

Spouse:

Lydia Mummery (1850-1924)

Occupation:

Carman

Children:

Lydia Newbon (1869- ), Rosina Newbon (1872- ), Charles Henry Newbon (1875-1941), Jessie Newbon (1877- ),

Alice Louisa Newbon (1881- ), Ada Maud Newbon (1883- ), Walter Ernest Newbon (1884-1918)

Born:

July 20th 1850 (Lambeth)

Died:

June 15th 1919 (Camberwell)

Spouse:

Mary Ann Tinsley (c.1854-1913)

Occupation:

Carman

Children:

Walter Augustus James Newbon (1874-1933), George Newbon (1877-1943), Rosina Newbon (1882- ),

Arthur Henry Newbon (1883-1918), Charles Newbon (1885- ), Maud Louisa Newbon (1886-1886),

Emily Ethel Newbon (1888- ), John William Newbon (1890-1890), Frederick Ernest Newbon (1891-1917),

Alfred Richard Newbon (1892-1973), Herbert Frank Newbon (1894-98)

Born:

1852, Southwark

Died:

September 28th 1909, Southwark

Spouse:

Eliza Tinsley (c.1855-1934)

Occupation:

Carman

Childr en:

Eliza Newbon (1876- ), Thomas Carey Newbon (1877-1946), James Newbon (1881-1933),

Daisy Louisa Newbon (1883-1884), Arthur Henry Newbon (1884-1952), Ernest Alfred Newbon (1887-1964),

Florence Edith Newbon (1889-1942), Louisa Agnes Newbon (1891- ), Albert William Newbon (1894-1895),

Lilian Victoria Newbon (1898-1899)

Boyce’s Cottages, Garratt Lane, Earlsfield in about 1890. Signs for John Joseph Newbon’s removals business can be seen on two properties
at either end of the row. A woman, possibly Elizabeth Eliza Newbon, can be seen in the front garden looking towards the photographer

Garratt Lane in about 1911 (above) and at the start of the 21st century (below). The Newbon removals business can be seen at no.558 (above)

Newbon were living 10 years later in 1881. The Newbon and the Brightwell families may well have got to know each other in Lambeth and remained on friendly terms thereafter; or it may be that many years later, when John and Emma met once again, it was this connection that sparked the relationship that developed between them. It is interesting to note that by marrying for a second time late in life John Joseph Newbon was following in his father John’s footsteps.

By the time of his second marriage John Newbon had changed the nature of his business and his shop, for on his marriage certificate he styled himself ‘master greengrocer’. He died in 1915 (8 months after the start of the First World War), at the age of 73. He was buried in the same grave as his first wife Elizabeth in Wandsworth Cemetery, Magdalen Road, Earlsfield. The grave can still be found today, although in a slightly decayed state.

John Joseph Newbon’s children all married and had children of their own: his only son Walter married Rhoda Matilda Marshall in 1896 and the couple had 13 children; John’s eldest daughter, Liz, who owned a farm at Worcester Park, Surrey with her husband William Stannard, died in 1935, aged 64; his second daughter, Annie (Mrs Walter Harwood), lived at Maskell Street, Lower Tooting, close to Walter’s home at Turtle Road; she died in 1936, aged 61, two years after her husband; John’s third daughter Em (Mrs Harry Bartlett) lived at Mitcham - it is not known, however, when she or her husband died; after the death of Jennie Newbon’s first husband Harry Hall in 1915 (at the age of only 33) she married secondly Walter Laccohee and they moved to Hertfordshire with Jennie’s 2 sons - Jennie died at Hatfield in 1969, aged 85, 9 years after her husband.

Liz and Bill Stannard (above) at their farm at

Worcester park, Surrey

Annie and Walter Harwood (below)

Walter and Rhoda Newbon with two of Walter’s sisters, Jennie and Em. This photograph was taken after the wedding of Walter and Rhoda’s daughter Sadie on January 29th 1938

Jennie Laccohee (back row, far right) with

her husband Walter (seated, far right)

and two sons Ron and Harry

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