17^th MAY - GEORGE MANSELL & ELIZA ANN LLEWELLYN

Back on the 28^th April I wrote about the birth of an ancestor who had always interested me. Today is the anniversary of his second marriage to my G-Grandmother Eliza Ann LLEWELLYN.

George and Eliza married on 17^th May 1874 at the Stockton Registry Office. It was the second marriage for George whose first wife, Elizabeth OGRAM had died four years previously. The only surviving child of this marriage, William James, was being raised by his grandparents William and Elizabeth MANSELL.

A family story passed down to a second cousin in Stockton, Pam LEWIS, was that Eliza had fallen in love with George who was the foreman at the iron works where her father was employed. She apparently married him against her parents wishes and she and George had run away together to get married. I find this story unlikely. For a start, they would hardly have eloped to the nearest registry office. Secondly, Eliza’s older brother David had married George’s younger sister Martha only two years earlier so the families already knew each other.

The first of George and Eliza’s 7 children was born the year after they married; my grandfather Ivor James in October 1875. It was three years before their next child arrived; a daughter Eliza Ann; and then another daughter, Rhoda Louise, was born in 1879. This fledgeling family was enumerated in 1881 living on Thorpe Street where they would remain all their married life.

Ten years later and their family was almost complete with the arrival of three more children. George was still working at the mill and young Ivor had already entered the workforce. At this time, children from the age of 5 through to 13 received an elementary education and we see on this 1891 census that Eliza Ann had completed her school years but was not yet employed. Rhoda, George, Tom and Lillie (Lily) however, are still listed as scholars.

This was the last time the family was all documented in the same place. George and Eliza’s final child, Annie Maud was born the year after census and George died in 1895. He was buried at the Oxbridge Lane Cemetery in Stockton on 16^th December 1895.