Ponds, Pooles, Tanners - finding the connections between various pub landlords of London and Essex

From a young age, I knew that my great great Grandfather, William Pond, above, had been a pub landlord at the back end of the 19th Century. The story handed down within the family was that he'd he lost his licence following a complaint about a drunk and disorderly. Not quite sure if it was absolutely like that - but the Butchers Arms team were indeed in court in October 1902, accused (unsuccessfully) of permitting drunkenness on the premises. William was just into his 80s by then, and it looks as though the front of house was now run by his daughters Kate and Elizabeth, as shown in this report of the hearing in the Essex Newsman.

Soon after this hearing, William did indeed pass the licence on to his nephew Edward Thomas Pond, and moved to Croydon to live with his widowed daughter Lucy Carter; Kate and Elizabeth went with him. William died in 1904, and returned to the Dengie Peninsula in his coffin to be buried in Stow Maries churchyard.

William's Ponds and related families featured a good proportion of publicans, mixed in with the seedsmen and bakers. William's brother-in-law, William Poole, was landlord of the Saracens Arms at Runsell Green, Danbury. Cousins, the brothers William and Jonathan Tanner, had a pub each in Provost Street, Hoxton, and those establishments were a training ground for another pair of cousins and future publicans, John and Samuel Pond. William's uncle, Izaac Pond, was a publican in Canewdon, on the Southend side of the River Crouch; two of his daughters married publican cousins - Sarah Ann in 1853 to Jonathan Tanner, and Susannah in 1857 to John Pond. All this is commendably set out in more detail and scope by Adrian Taylor's POOLES, PONDS AND TANNERS and the licensing trade, on the London pubs site.

William Tanner, Jonathan Tanner, Izaac Pond and John Pond are all buried at London's first Commercial Cemetery at Kensal Green

One element worth adding to Adrian's survey of the Pond/Poole/Tanners publican dynasty is how the wider family stepped up after Jonathan Tanner's wife, Sarah Ann, died in 1867. In 1871, their youngest children, Fanny and Mary Ann were billeted at Brooks Farm, Woodham Ferrers, with their parents' cousin Mary Ann Gilbert Pond and her husband William Poole, plus daughter Kate, and William's mother Susannah; on the same farm were my great great grandparents William Pond (brother of Mary Ann) and his wife Lucy (William Poole's sister), and younger daughters Kate and Elizabeth.

Fanny and Mary Ann stuck together and in 1881 were working for a drapers and living in the same lodgings in Brixton, Surrey.

Fanny Tanner then became John Pond's housekeeper in Deptford. Mary Ann Tanner married William Elvidge in 1884, and their eldest daughter, Mary Eleanor Fanny Elvidge, lived in John Pond's household and, after John died, with Fanny as her companion in Carshalton, Surrey.

Sarah Ann Tanner (the eldest daughter) stayed with her father and acted as his housekeeper until after he was adjudged bankrupt in spring 1880, being shown on the 1881 census in Deptford with her "out of business" father. In 1891 she is with William and Mary Ann Gilbert Poole in the Saracens Arms in Danbury, and she "boarded" with that family unil Kate Poole died . This information solved a family mystery - a woman known as "Sally" was in some pictures of the Pooles in the 1900s/1910s, but nothing was known about her beyond that. The census records of course solved the mystery.

In Danbury about 1910: Back row Kate Poole, Lucy Carter nee Pond (William Pond's eldest daughter), Walter Joseph Carter; Front Row Sarah Ann "Sally" Tanner, Mary Ann Gilbert Poole nee Pond, Hilda Lucy Carter.

Having pulled all this together by putting together various pieces of the jigsaw without a top of the box picture to guide me, I finally noticed that Mary Tanner nee Pond (the sister of Izaac Pond, mother of William and Jonathan Tanner, and aunt of John Pond, Samuel Pond, William Pond and Mary Ann Gilbert Poole nee Pond) was living next door to William and Mary Ann Gilbert Poole on Danbury Common at the time of the 1861 census, and it was Mary Ann who was the informant shown on her death register entry in 1864.

It's always worth checking on the neighbours!

You mean you might not be who you say you are?

The advantage (or disadvantage) of putting your family history research on the web is that any mistakes are there for all to see. Or they might not be a mistake after all!

In September 2005, Genes ReUnited introduced a new facility called Hot Matches. This generated potential matches in trees held by that site. One of them was for Frank Baker (my great grandfather) b 1857 Basford Nottinghamshire, a journeyman carpenter and joiner. I was on to it like a shot, suggesting that the contact look at the family history website I had just set up, for more information.

I then received a very nice message via my Visitors Book from Sheila saying that Frank Baker b 1857 etc was her great grandfather and that he had married someone completely different - a widow called Priscilla Harlow – in Clerkenwell in 1889. And that we must be cousins.

I had "inherited" this area of research from a cousin of my Dad's who had, in the 1980s, trawled through Nottingham records. There had been family discussions about the fact that no marriage certificate could be found for our Frank and Annie Langridge.  My mum (my dad was no longer with us) was explaining this to me and my future wife, who, laughing, said “you mean you might not be who you say you are?”.  Unlike my mum, I laughed too.

So when Sheila contacted me, quoting her great grandparent’s marriage register entry, I did seriously wonder if my dad’s cousin had got it all wrong. 

I consequently set off in pursuit to see if I could find another Frank Baker, born circa 1857 from the Nottingham area – there were indeed two of them: the Frank we thought was our man born in Carrington, Basford (parents John Baker and Phebe Woodward), and the other born in 1858 in Radford (parents Thomas Baker and Harriet Timms). If we were wrong about great grandfather Frank then I needed to look into the Radford one.

And I did extensively – and I started to feel it wasn’t him when I found he’d married a Mary Stevenson, and this feeling grew stronger when I discovered they had moved to Scotland, and he in fact died in Pollokshields, Glasgow in 1922.  

The one thing we could be sure of was that our Frank Baker died in Croydon in 1929 at the former workhouse infirmary.

So that meant I was back to where I started from. There was a possibility of course that the Frank Baker in a relationship with Annie Langridge was the same man as the Frank Baker who had married Priscilla Harlow, and he had led a double life, with 7 children shared across his two partners.  Intriguing, exciting, a bit fanciful, but not impossible! 

In the 1901 census there were two Frank Bakers, working as journeymen joiners and/or in the building trade born in Nottingham circa 1857, in the London area - at 26 Millman Street, Holborn with Priscilla and two daughters, and at 31 Strathmore Road, Croydon with Ann and five children. 

Frank and Priscilla 1901 census

Frank and Annie 1901 census

In 1891 there was just one such Frank Baker – with Pricilla and daughter plus Priscilla’s daughters from an earlier marriage at 10 East Street Holborn; Annie, described as married, was on her own at 36 St Hughs Road in Penge with her three eldest surviving children.

Frank and Priscilla 1891 census

Annie Baker 1891 census

So that’s where I had got to when the 1911 census was published: my known grandfather, Frank Baker, was at home at 265 Whitehorse Road, Croydon with Annie and their two youngest children. 

Frank and Annie Baker 1911 census

However the other Frank Baker was missing, leaving Priscilla with her two daughters at 21 Orde Hall St WC (Holborn).

Priscilla Baker 1911 census

But the 1911 census was the first England & Wales census where the householder completed the form and signed it.  So I could compare Frank’s signature on the census form with that on the marriage register.  Very similar!

Frank Baker writing  comparisons: Top witnessing Louisa's marriage 1911, under that his signature on the 1911 census form, then his completion of the 1911 census form, and, at the bottom, the signatures on the marriage register entry when he married Priscilla 1889

About five year’s later I did a DNA test and one of the descendants from Priscilla’s relationship with Frank was not only a match with me but also with two of my Baker second cousins in Australia. Further matches followed to reinforce the connection.

This outcome of course asked more questions, such as how did he get away with it? 

We do know that he described himself as a widower when he married Priscilla, so I would assume that’s how he introduced himself to her. That would also give him cover to visit his kids with his late wife (no doubt being "looked after by relatives" in Croydon) and also not contribute massively to the household fund with Priscilla (she appeared to be working as a Tailor all through this period).  And as a journeyman carpenter and joiner (and as a builder's foreman) he had “licence” to follow the work and stay away from home, close to where the latest job was.  But all the same this was a significant deception which could well have blown up on him; for example Frank’s second child with Priscilla, Annie, was baptised on the same day as Annie’s fifth child with Frank, Dorothy, was born.

His eventual bolt-hole was with Annie in Croydon.  The last documented contact I have been able to find with Priscilla’s side of the equation was when Frank was a witness at daughter Louisa’s wedding in May 1911 to William Steadman.  

Frank Baker making Propellors during the Great War

During the Great war he made aeroplane propellors in a works near Croydon Airport, and he and Annie lived in Brocklesby Road, South Norwood, Frank dying in 1929 at the Croydon Infirmary (formerly the Workhouse) in Eridge Road.  Annie moved to Pemdevon Road, Broad Green, Croydon, close to her eldest son (also Frank) and died in 1936.  

By 1921 Priscilla and family had moved away from Holborn to the Pentonville Road area, where she lived in the household of her younger daughter and her husband, plus her elder daughter and her children – Louisa had remarried, to Sydney Charles Goodall, after William Steadman died in unform (missing in action November 1916).  Priscilla later moved out to New Barnet where her daughter Annie lived, dying there in 1935 and identified as "widow of Frank Baker" on her death certificate.

The DNA matches I and my Frank Baker/Annie Langridge cousins have with the descendants of Frank Baker/Priscilla Aldridge via the children of Louisa from both her first and second marriages sealed the deal that, as Sheila suggested back in 2005, we were indeed cousins. I'm sorry that I took so long (about 15 years) to get there!

Oh Susannah! Or is it just Susan, or Sarah even? Pinning down my 3 x great grandmother - but is she that once or twice?

Lockdown and other pandemic restrictions gave me a bit of an opportunity to ponder some niggling brick wall issues.

It might look like I have gone out on a bit of a limb in interpreting data to show that the Susannah Poole who died on 5 Oct 1874 was the mother of 6 children variously named Stephens/Stevens and Pool/Poole (and two who were named both).  But hear me out!

Kate Poole with her grandmother Susannah, Danbury 1860s

I'll work backwards-ish.  Just to set the scene, Mrs Susannah Poole, widow, had been living in Danbury (1861) and Woodham Ferris (1871) with William and Mary Ann Gilbert Poole, and their daughter Kate; the census recorded that she was born in Rettendon.  In 1851 and 1841 she had been living in Woodham Ferris. Mr James Poole died in 1826 and was buried in Woodham Ferris (20 Jun 1826). She died 5 Oct 1874 in Danbury, aged 89, recorded as widow of James Poole, labourer, and was buried at Woodham Ferrers 10 Oct 1874.

James Pool(e) married Susannah Stevens, a widow, 24 Feb 1822 at Holy Trinity, Southchurch.  James, a carpenter, and Sarah (sic) Poole had two children baptised in Woodham Ferrers - Lucy (bap 7 Apr 1822) and William (bap 12 Mar 1826). 

Lucy Poole (who was my great great grandmother) married William Pond 12 Apr 1848 at the Bethel Chapel, Woodham Ferrers showing her father as James Poole, carpenter, and witnessed by a Samuel Pond (assumed to be William Pond's brother born 1819), and Hannah Raison (assumed to be Hannah Stevens/Pool, who married William Raison - see below).

William Poole married Mary Ann Gilbert Pond (William Pond's sister) 11 Oct 1855 at Chelmsford Register Office, showing his father as James Poole, carpenter, witnessed by John Pond (assumed to be another of the Pond brothers born 1826), and Lucy Raison (assumed to be daughter of the above-mentioned Hannah Raison).

On 1 Aug  1819, a James Poole was baptised at Southchurch to James (a Labourer) and Susan Poole. When this James married Mary Ann Lotes on 1 May 1846 at Baddow Independent Protestant Chapel, he named James Poole, carpenter, as his father, and the witnesses were William Poole and Lucy Poole.

On 4 Aug 1816, a Mary Ann Pool Stevens was baptised at Woodham Ferris as illegitimate daughter of  Susannah Stevens.  When she married Thomas Belcher on 23 Nov 1838, as Mary Ann Stevens, at All Saints Purleigh, she named James Stevens, carpenter, as her father, and the witnesses were a Samuel Carter [no connection yet established] and Lucy Poole.

On 9 Jun 1814 at St John the Baptist, Danbury, a Hannah Poole was baptised, daughter of James, a Carpenter, and Susan.  The timing fits with a Hannah Stephens marrying William Raison at Woodham Ferris on 24 Oct 1833. Witnesses were a William Baycock [no connection yet established] and Mary Stephens (assumed to be the woman baptised Mary Ann Pool Stephens).  Hannah and William Raison had one daughter Lucy, baptised Woodham Ferris 28 Jun 1834, and she married a Robert Scott on 4 Jun 1856 at Woodham Ferris, witnesses being William Pond (presumed the one who was husband of Lucy Poole) and Mary Ann Gilbert Poole (wife of William Poole).

On 10 Sep 1809 at St John the Baptist, Danbury, an Elizabeth Stevens was baptised, daughter of James and Susan Stevens. When she married William Carter at All Saints Purleigh on 19 Jun 1832, the witnesses were a James Smith [no connection yet established] and Hannah Stephens (assumed to be the one who married William Raison the following year).

The register which documents the baptism of Elizabeth Stephens showed the mothers' maiden names in brackets.  Of course hers is indistinct - I first read it as James.  A search of baptisms at Rettendon comes up with Susannah Staines (a good match with the written record) - baptised 1 Aug 1786, daughter of John Staines and Sarah (Rivers).

I can't find a marriage between Susannah Staines and a Stephens/Stevens.  Was he actually Stevens or was he Pool in disguise?  There is a James Stevens who married an Elizabeth Hack 16 Feb 1795 at St John the Baptist Danbury, but no obvious deaths for either in the period between 1795 and 1810.  For Elizabeth the "local" candidate burials were either too young (1800 Chelmsford Cathedral) or too old (1805 Danbury or 1807 Rettendon). There were no local candidates for James.

So it is feasible that the first of the six children was fathered by a James Stephens, but the evidence of the remainder points to James Pool(e) being the father. Here's all that in diagram form:

One last tit-bit.  When Elizabeth Carter nee Stephens registered her 5th child Samuel in 1842 (the first child she had registered under the new system), her maiden name was recorded as "Poole".  The next child, Emma in 1844, was recorded as "Stevens". 

So why the inconsistencies in naming?  Elizabeth Carter could easily have responded to the registration clerk's question about maiden name, by saying what her mum's name was (and in 1843 she was Susannah Poole).  In the case of the "illegitimate" Mary Ann Pool Stevens , Susannah may have felt she couldn't call her Pool(e) because someone in officialdom (Parish Priest or Parish Clerk for example) recognised her as Stevens/Stephens. 

And why was Susannah recorded as "Sarah" when Lucy and William were baptised at Woodham Ferris? Not least she was Susannah or Susan in the census's of 1841-1871. As her mother was called Sarah that again might have been the cause of confusion.

These may be completely off the wall suppositions, but the evidence that the woman born Susannah Staines was mother of each of these six children is quite strong. And it gives an interesting twist on how Susannah's grand-daughter via Lucy Poole, Lucy Pond, might have been tipped off by Susannah's daughter Elizabeth's family that Elizabeth's enterprising son, Henry Carter, might have been able to offer work or lodgings to a young relative in the thriving metropolis of Croydon, Surrey

If Susannah Staines is my 3 x great grandmother not only via Lucy Poole, but also via Elizabeth Stevens, it means Henry Carter and his wife Lucy Pond would have been first cousins or first step-cousins. Crumbs.

Tracing Annie Langridge and her antecedents

Every family tree researcher hits a brick wall of some sort, which requires a bit of devious thinking to get round.  One of the first  blockages I had to get around felt more of an assault course at the time - finding out the family background of my great grandmother Baker – Annie Langridge. This post reproduces, with minor adjustments to make it read right, a post from 2008 on my old Rootschat-hosted family history website.

Most photos of Annie Langridge (with husband Frank above) are as indistinct and as fuzzy as information about her

A cousin of my dad's did some pre-internet research about 40 years ago, and was unable to trace a marriage certificate for Frank and Annie. But she did find a birth certificate for Ann Langridge, born 1861, Croydon, daughter of Charles and Elizabeth Langridge.

What we did know was that in the effects of Annie's son, my grandfather Frank Baker #2, there were cemetery receipts for the people we assumed were Annie's parents - Fred Langridge and Amy Langridge. There were also "in memory" cards not just for the aforementioned Amy Agnes Langridge, but also for the wonderfully named Theophilus Taylor.

Because we couldn't find a marriage certificate for Annie and Frank Baker #1, all this led to a bit of conjecture (amused, in the case of my then wife, who repeatedly suggested that I might not be who I claimed I was).

This was compounded by the knowledge that there was some form of family dark secret. Frank #1 and Annie's youngest son, Fred, had overheard his parents discussing some issues in hushed tones one night. And then after Frank #1 had died, Annie apparently confided in a young girl who used to visit her, but the exact nature of the secret was unclear. The latter affair was played down as the ramblings of an insecure old lady – and any knowledge of what the indiscretion was has gone to the respective graves of Annie, my grandfather, and my great uncle Fred.

Frank Baker #1 was missing for the 1891 census; was he away doing some work, or had they fallen out? Would he have been a bigamist if he had married her? He would have been only in his early twenties when he got together with Annie, but he was a journeyman carpenter, starting out in Nottingham, so who knows what could have happened on the way to Croydon? (All this will be covered in another blog post).

In terms of Annie's parentage, we'd established that in 1871 and 1881 she was living with Frederick and Amy Agnes Langridge – listed as their daughter and only child. Indeed, Frederick, Amy and Annie lived at 4 Windmill Bridge, Croydon in 1881, and in 1885 that's where Frank #1 and Annie lived when my grandfather Frank Baker #2 was born. But no luck in the 1861 census. But the Ann Langridge born to Charles and Elizabeth Langridge was there in the 1861 census, but not in 1871, 1881 etc. Had Frederick and Amy adopted this child?

In order to find out if there was a trace between Charles Langridge and Fred Langridge, we needed to find out more about Fred's background. The 1871 to 1901 census's said he was born in Wrotham, Kent, around 1835.  So off I go to the Kent County archives – and returned empty handed in terms of a Frederick Langridge baptism in the 1830s in Wrotham, and no evidence of an appropriate Langridge family in the 1841 census in Wrotham. There was also no trace of a marriage of Fred Langridge in Croydon or similar to an Amy up to and including 1861.

I then made a breakthrough on the origins of Fred. It took the 1851 census to find the link. It now appears that Frederick was born in Worth, Sussex (Baptised March 1836), but his younger brother, William was the one born in Wrotham - in 1842. 

By this time I was convinced that the Ann Langridge born to Charles and Elizabeth Langridge was an entirely different Ann Langridge. Not least it was my great grandmother Annie who registered Frederick's death, and the cemetery certificates for both Fred and Amy were in the shoebox of family papers. As far as I could tell there was no obvious family link between Fred Langridge and Charles Langridge, who was born in Croydon circa 1832.

I'd originally assumed that Theophilus Taylor was a brother to Amy Agnes (Langridge). But I couldn't establish a link through Census and IGI research. So I guessed he must have just been a close family friend.

But having waded through the 1861, 1851 and 1841 census's for an Amy Agnes "X" born in Croydon about 1835-1845, I had pretty well given up hope on tracing Amy Agnes (Langridge) to her time before Fred. I remembered the Theophilus Taylor information, and thought I'd have one last try down that avenue. I decided to trace Theophilus's wife, Caroline. 

I established her maiden name was Coleman from the Free BMD records, and then sought a baptism for Colemans at Croydon Parish Church on the IGI. Bingo! Up popped not just Caroline (parents William Coleman and Ann) but also Amy Agnes Coleman (parents William Coleman and Ann), baptised 5 years earlier, plus lots of other Colemans too - sadly half of them didn't appear to survive infancy. Then I checked the Free BMD data for a marriage of an Amy Coleman and Bingo again there was a marriage to Fred Langridge in Croydon in 1863. Had it been there all along? Maybe not, I'm sure I'd checked, but this still raised a query about when Annie their daughter was born, supposedly in 1861 ie before Amy and Fred married..

As anything to do with Annie Langridge and her family/antecedents is clearly not straightforward, I drew a blank on the 1841 and 1851 census for William and Ann Coleman and their children. This was particularly disappointing for 1851 as I also had Amy and Caroline to search on. I then recalled that in the 1871 census, Caroline and Theophilus Taylor had an Ann Ford B 1811 Croydon, and described as "Mother", living with them. This was not Theophilus's mother, so could it be Ann Coleman, mother of Caroline and Amy Agnes? 

As the baptisms of Amy and Caroline's siblings appeared to stop in 1850, I searched for Ann Ford in the 1851 and 1861 census. Another Bingo moment! Here in 1861 was Ann Ford and daughters Amy Ford (19), Caroline (14) and Ann (2 months), with a chap, subsequently untraceable (with any certainty) in other census's, called Cain Ford, living in Croydon Old Town. But there is a death for Cain Ford in Southwark in 1868. And a check of the IGI brought up a baptism in 1861 in Croydon of Ann Coleman, daughter of Amy Coleman. Cue for a quick run around the room, punching the air!

So after all this, there were new doubts as to whether Frederick Langridge was the father of Annie Langridge. But she would have viewed him as her father. 

Subsequent research revealed:

• Amy Agnes Coleman registered Annie as Ann Coleman, not Ford, at her birth in 1861. No father was shown on the birth certificate. 
• Annie Langridge was baptised as Ann Langridge (as opposed to baptised as Ann Coleman, which she was in 1861) on 12 September 1869 at St James Croydon.
• Amy's mother's maiden name was Baines, according to Amy's 1842 birth certificate. 
• In the 1851 census, Ann Coleman (William must have by then died) was recorded, at Pitlake, Croydon, as Ann "Coulsdon", widow, along with children William, Henry, Amy and Caroline. [That Enumerator made other mistakes too - for example, round the corner he had mis-recorded Thomas Bransden, the Smith/Farrier.]
• It is unlikely that William Coleman and Ann were actually married - an Ann "Been" married William Cain Ford on 28 March 1853 in Croydon. On her death certificate, Ann was described as widow of Cain Ford, Labourer. Her death was reported by her daughter, Amy Langridge.

About 10 years after doing all this work, I discovered that I had DNA matches with people descended from Fred Langridge's family. Maybe he was Annie's father after all (or more intriguing, may be one of his brothers was her genetic father!)

What's this all about, then?

This blog has been started as a companion to my TNG family history website Baker-Carter Family History . That site has the data, but sometimes you just need to dig below that data.

Is my research accurate? I wouldn't bet my house on it, but it is presented in good faith and is based on the best interpretation of the data available to me. So this blog is the opportunity to illustrate what I considered when I made those interpretations.

The blog will also delve into the paths my research has taken - whether it be delight, surprise, or even a touch of shame.