Your Stories
My Search for Ancestors 2nd May 2007
Family History
Alfred Baron Tennyson was the son of Reverend George Clayton Tennyson and Elizabeth ffytche.
Elizabeth ffytche was the daughter of Reverend Stephan ffytche who was the vicar of Louth in Lincolnshire.
Close to Louth in South Elkington in 1881 was Thorpe Hall owned by John Lewis ffytche whose wife was Susan Skipworth from Moreton Hall in South Kelsey.
Susan's father was George Skipworth, Chairman of the Board of Govenors of Caistor Union Workhouse.
In two letters to Alfred Tennyson, John Lewis ffytche addresses him as "my dearest cousin". So Elizabeth ffytche may have been John Lewis's aunt.
John Lewis ffytche died in February 1902 at Freshwater I.O.W. close to the home of Tennyson.
My father's mother, Mary Jane Kennington (born in South Kelsey) was seventeen years old and living on Thorpe Hall Farm with her uncle and aunt, Tom and Mary Jane Haywood (nee Parker).
In 1883 Mary Jane Kennington was a domestic servant and became pregnant.
The Haywoods moved from Thorpe Hall Farm to a farm in Humberstone.
Mary Jane Kennington moved with her parents, William and Abigail (nee Parker) to Loughborough in Leicestershire where she gave birth to a daughter, Annie. Name of father, unknown.
This made me wonder that if the father was one of servants or a farm labourer, there would have been some sort of shot-gun wedding and nothing more would have been said. But the fact that they all moved away as they did, could there have been some bigger scandal involved?
Mary Jane eventually married Herbert Stead in 1900, when she was pregnant with my father.
My father always referred to Annie as auntie and I'm sure he believed that to be true and that William and Abigail brought up Mary Jane and Annie as sisters.
From
David Stead
23 Tewkesbury Close
South Tottenham
LONDON
N15 6SJ
Elizabeth ffytche was the daughter of Reverend Stephan ffytche who was the vicar of Louth in Lincolnshire.
Close to Louth in South Elkington in 1881 was Thorpe Hall owned by John Lewis ffytche whose wife was Susan Skipworth from Moreton Hall in South Kelsey.
Susan's father was George Skipworth, Chairman of the Board of Govenors of Caistor Union Workhouse.
In two letters to Alfred Tennyson, John Lewis ffytche addresses him as "my dearest cousin". So Elizabeth ffytche may have been John Lewis's aunt.
John Lewis ffytche died in February 1902 at Freshwater I.O.W. close to the home of Tennyson.
My father's mother, Mary Jane Kennington (born in South Kelsey) was seventeen years old and living on Thorpe Hall Farm with her uncle and aunt, Tom and Mary Jane Haywood (nee Parker).
In 1883 Mary Jane Kennington was a domestic servant and became pregnant.
The Haywoods moved from Thorpe Hall Farm to a farm in Humberstone.
Mary Jane Kennington moved with her parents, William and Abigail (nee Parker) to Loughborough in Leicestershire where she gave birth to a daughter, Annie. Name of father, unknown.
This made me wonder that if the father was one of servants or a farm labourer, there would have been some sort of shot-gun wedding and nothing more would have been said. But the fact that they all moved away as they did, could there have been some bigger scandal involved?
Mary Jane eventually married Herbert Stead in 1900, when she was pregnant with my father.
My father always referred to Annie as auntie and I'm sure he believed that to be true and that William and Abigail brought up Mary Jane and Annie as sisters.
From
David Stead
23 Tewkesbury Close
South Tottenham
LONDON
N15 6SJ
David Stead