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The Mystery of Adeline Howcutt |
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On 8 June 1875, a young woman signed the register
as “A Howcutt” and gave her full name as Adeline Howcutt when she married
William Robotham. The wedding took place at the parish church of St Peter
& St Paul, at Aston, some two miles north of the centre of Birmingham.
William was a butcher aged 29 years and it was Adeline’s 21st
birthday. [1] The couple stated they were batchelor and spinster and that
both lived in Aston - William at Villa Street and Adeline at Lozells. William and Adeline’s life together is
well-documented. In 1881, they were living at 31 Pershore Road, Edgbaston
with their son William (aged 5 and born at Birmingham), a visitor and a
servant. The visitor was Thomas Luckcock, a butcher who had been born at
Priors Hardwick. By 1891, the Robotham family had moved to
Richmond Hill Road, also at Edgbaston, and William was described as a cattle
dealer and farmer. There was still only the one child in the family, this
time being recorded as William E Robotham aged 15. [2] The number of resident
servants had increased to two. In 1901, William and Adeline were again
recorded at the farm at Richmond Hill Road, on that occasion with one
servant. On 2 September 1909, William was one of the large
number of mourners at the funeral of Alderman Thomas Hall Hunt, a former
mayor of Lichfield, who was his brother in law. Amongst the wreaths was one
“With love and sympathy from Adeline and William Robotham”. [3] The most recent census that can be consulted is
that taken in 1911, when William and Adeline occupied a 9-room house called
“Nevada” at Farquhar Road, Edgbaston. [4] The others present on that occasion
were 6-year-old Arthur Lesley Robotham, who had been born at Kings Heath,
Worcestershire and was described as William’s grandson, and a servant. The
return states that William and Adeline had been married for 35 years and that
they had produced only one child – a person who was still alive. William Robotham, was 78 years old when he died
at Barnsley Hall Mental Hospital near Bromsgrove on 30 May 1924, leaving effects
worth Ł1997.18s.5d. Probate was granted to Thomas Luckcock, a meat salesman,
and Herbert John Loveridge, an incorporated accountant. The 1939 population register records Adeline
Robotham as an old age pensioner, one of the numerous inmates of Erdington
House. [5] Her death at the age of 84 was registered at Birmingham in the March
quarter of 1940. Who
was Adeline’s mother? It is Adeline’s life before her marriage that
makes the mystery.
Each of the census returns that were taken at
10-yearly intervals from 1881 to 1911 states that she was born at Priors
Hardwick, a parish about six miles from Southam, Warwickshire with a
population of 303 people in 1851. However, neither the 1861 or 1871 census
for England and Wales contains an entry indexed for “Adeline Howcutt”, even
allowing for spelling variations and regardless of the birthplace reported. During the 1850s, the parish register for Priors
Hardwick records these two baptisms of children with the christian name
Adeline or a similar one:
It is through exploring the history of the
Prestidge family that we are able to establish that William Robotham’s wife
was indeed the daughter of Selina Prestidge. On 23 May 1823, William Prestage of Priors
Hardwick married Sarah Wright at Boddington, which is just the other side of
the county border in Northamptonshire. Their first two children were baptised
at the same church in 1824 and 1826. In due course, the couple moved the
three miles to Priors Hardwick, where five more of their children were
christened between 1828 and 1837. A further two children are identified in
the 1851 as their youngest offspring, although they do not appear in the
baptism register for the parish. Amongst the seven children who were born at
Priors Hardwick were:
At the time of the 1861 census, Sabina and her
6-year-old daughter Adeline were living at Church End, Priors Hardwick in her
parents’ household. Mary A Prestige had by then moved to a farm at Stivichall
where she was working as a house servant; the age (20) and birthplace that
were stated provide positive identification. In 1864, Sabina married John Luckcuck at St Mary,
Warwick. They had returned to Priors Hardwick by 1871, when the family living
with them included two young children, but not Adeline. By that stage,
Adeline was 16 years old and had found her way to 11 Victoria Street in the
parish of All Saints, Birmingham, where she was living with Edward Henson and
his wife Mary A. Both Adeline and Mary were recorded as having been born at
Priors Hardwick and Adeline was described as Edward’s niece. The relationship
is clarified by the record of the marriage of Edward Henson and Mary Ann
Prestidge, which took place at St Martin Birmingham on 10 October 1864. This
confirms that Mary Ann’s father was William Prestidge. Her age, given as 25
in the 1871 census, is only a few years adrift from her birth registration in
1842 and the age of nine that was reported by her parents in the 1851 census. When Edward Henson completed the census form, he
did not give the name of his niece as “Adeline Prestidge”. By the time it had
been copied into the surviving enumerator’s schedule, the name was written as
“Adeline Howatt”. In view of the surname that Adeline gave when she at her
marriage, there can be no doubt that “Howatt” is a mistake for “Howcutt”. Who
was Adeline’s father?
Often, when a child’s birth or christening record
does not include the name of the father, the information cannot be found
elsewhere. However, when she married in 1875 Adeline stated that her father was
“John Howcutt, publican”. Only three adults with the name “John Howcutt” were
alive in England in the middle of the 1850s. There is no record of two of
them (a shopkeeper at Leicester and a groom at Brixworth) having ever been a
publican or any personal connection with the area around Priors Hardwick. The
third John Howcutt is a much more plausible candidate as Adeline’s father. The
census held on 31 March 1851 describes him as a greengrocer lodging at Farm
Street, Harbury – a village some ten miles from Priors Hardwick. However, at
the time of his marriage in the same summer, his occupation was recorded as
an innkeeper. [6] But John the innkeeper was not an appropriate man
to be Adeline’s father in other respects. On 12 June 1851, he and Ann
Mitchell made their marks in the parish register when they married at
Harbury. Their son William John was christened privately at Leamington on 7
July 1854, John being described as a servant living at Clemens Street. The
child was buried at Harbury in September of the same year, aged 3 months. Adeline
was born 31 days before William John was baptised, indicating that the two
children – apparently with the same father but different mothers - were
extremely close in age. John was recorded as a widower when the 1861
census listed him as a waiter living in at the “Eagle” public house, 4
Althorpe Street, Leamington Priors. [7] He died later in the same year and
was buried at Harbury on 8 November. Despite extensive searches, no record
has been found of the death of his wife, either before or after John expired,
or of the marriage of any Ann Howcutt who could have been his widow. A
possible explanation for this could be that John and Ann parted company
before he died and Ann simply adopted another surname. John Howcutt of Harbury signed his will on 17 September
1861. He was described as a gentleman when it was proved in February 1862 by
Michael Winkley, his uncle and executor. John’s effects were worth under
Ł100. Clearly, when Adeline named John Howcutt as her
father in 1875, she was referring to a specific, not an imaginary,
individual. If she was simply seeking the respectability of a father’s name
when her real father was unknown, there was nothing to be gained by choosing
a person with an unusual name; the only advantage of naming John Howcutt if he
were not her father was that he was dead and so could not contest the claim.
The most likely explanation is that Adeline was the child of an affair
involving John Howcutt and Sabina Prestidge and that this may have been
linked with the apparent disappearance of his wife. But we cannot be sure. Notes [1] Birth
date confirmed by the 1939 population register. [2] The
birth of William Edward Robotham was registered at Birmingham in the March
quarter of 1876. He may well have been the same person as William E Robotham
whose marriage to Mary Z Bettinson was registered at Kings Norton in 1916.
The birth of that couple’s son Reginald E was registered at Kings Norton in the
September quarter of 1918. [3] “Lichfield
Mercury”, 3 September 1909, page 8, column 3. [4] Farquhar
Road leads off Richmond Hill Road. At the end of the 19th century,
both roads were in the course of development for large houses on substantial
plots. [5] Erdington
House was a hospital that had previously been the infirmary of Aston Union
workhouse. [6] It
is not known which of the Harbury inns John ran. [7] “The
Eagle Inn” was recorded as a beer house as early as 1837. It was granted a
full on-licence in August 1856 and did not finally close until 1959. |
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