Associated Line AL5 - The Read Family 1775 - 1901

This branch line merges with the Hall  branch line (AL6) which then joins the Main Ancestral Breach Line through Albert W Breach (b. 1872) and Helen L R Hall (b. 1873) (Generation Ten). 

Click here to return to Generation Ten - Albert W Breach and Helen L R Hall 1872 - 1960.

Click to view main ancestral chart.

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Hertfordshire Map

The Read family lived in the Furneux Pelham area of Hertfordshire.

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Read, Reed or Reid?

I found records for this family using a combination of all three spellings. So to avoid confusion I have chosen to use the most prolific spelling found, 'Read' for this post.

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First Branch Generation

AG1 - Henry Read and Sarah Thurgood 1772 – 1864

Henry was born in 1778 in Furneux Pelham, Hertfordshire. He worked as an agricultural labourer and lived in Church End / Street Furneux Pelham. He married Sarah Thurgood (b. 1772) (daughter of Francis Thurgood and Grace Malyon) on the 21st of July 1799. They had seven children as follows:

1. Grace (b. 1799)
2. Henry (b. 1802, d. 1862))
3. Mary (b. 1804)
4. James (b. 1807)
5. George (b. 1809) Further details below.
6. John (b. 1812) John carries the ancestral line down. 
7. Susan (b. 1815)

Sarah died in 1850.

By 1861 Henry was living with his son John at Pheasant Hall, Furneux Pelham, and at eighty three he was described as a ‘pauper’. He died on 17th February 1864.

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Second Branch Generation

AG2 - John Read and Mary Hilton 1807 – 1874

 

John was born in 1812 in Furneux Pelham, the son of Henry Read (b. 1778) and Sarah Thurgood (b. 1772). He was an agricultural labourer according to the census returns I have, however, on his daughter Susan’s marriage certificate she describes him as a shoemaker, a fact I have not been able to verify.

John married Mary Hilton (b. 1807) (daughter of John Hilton and Sarah Bent) on the 11^th of February 1833 in Great Hormead, Hertfordshire, and they lived at Pheasant Hall near Furneux Pelham. Pheasant Hall is marked on an old map and looks like a large estate; there appeared to be around three families resident there, all agricultural labourers, so it may have been a farm. John died in 1880 and Mary died in 1874.

John and Mary had eight children as follows:

1. Henry 1833 - 1917

The eldest son of John and Mary Read was born in 1833 and worked as a farm labourer. He died in 1917.

2. Sarah Grace 1835 - 1903

Sarah was born in 1835. She died in 1903 in London.

3. Eliza 1837 - 

Eliza was born in 1837. No further verifiable  records were found.

4. George 1840 - 

George was born in 1840 and worked as a farm labourer.

5. Thomas 1842 -

Thomas was born in 1842. No further records were found.

6. Nathan 1844 - 

Nathan was born in 1844. 

7. William 1847 -

William was born in 1847. No further records were found.

8. AG3 - Susan 1852 - 1894

Susan was born on the 15^th of June 1852 in Furneux Pelham. The youngest daughter of John Read and Mary Hilton.

In the early 1870's Susan worked as a housemaid and schoolroom maid in the household of famous historian and novelist James Anthony Froude (1818 - 1894), at number five, Onslow Gardens Kensington, London, where there is a blue plaque displayed in his memory. She gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, Helen Lavinia Read in 1873. 

She moved to Cornhill in Northumberland where she became a nurse. She later married Peary Hall in 1876. Her daughter Helen Lavinia took on the extra surname of Hall after her mother married.

Susan had a further four children with Peary, before passing away at the age of forty two in 1894.

Peary (or Percy, as he sometimes appears on records) was still a Police Constable on the 1901 census. He died in 1929 at the age of seventy three in Thirsk, North Yorkshire.

Click here to continue to the Hall family - Associated Line AL6 - the Hall Family 1815 - 1901.

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Laura or Susan?

Looking for the mother of Helen Lavinia Read proved to be rather confusing. Below, I give an account of the difficulties that arose and how I solved them.

When I obtained Helen Lavinia Read’s birth certificate I saw that her mother was named Laura Susan Read. As no father was named on the certificate this was all I had to go on.

The certificate stated that Laura was working in London in 1873 when Helen was born, so the obvious next step was to check the 1871 census to see where Laura Susan was then. I soon discovered that there was no such person as Laura Susan Read in the whole country! I tried to find Laura Read but none were listed in London so I tried Susan Read and found Susan ‘Reid’ in service in Kensington, London. Her age matched up with records I had for her when she married Peary Hall (The Hall’s were researched first) so I decided she was the Susan I was looking for. I noted that she was born in Furneux  Pelham in Hertfordshire, which is very near to Buntingford where Peary’s wife Susan said she was born on the 1881 and 1891 censuses. This meant I could now look back at earlier censuses to find her family.

I was still confused by the ‘Laura’ on the birth certificate so while I was looking for early censuses I looked for both Laura and Susan separately. I found two related families in Furneux Pelham named Read, one had a daughter called Susan who was born in 1852, and the other had a daughter called Laura who was born in 1853, who turned out to be cousins. I sent for both birth certificates to confirm that neither of them possessed both names (they didn’t) and decided to research both families.

I am quite confident that the Susan Read above is Helen’s mother; it certainly isn’t Laura as proved by looking at her family below.

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George Read (below) was the brother of John Read (from the first Branch Generation, above).

George Read and Jane Pryor 1809 – 1881

George was born in 1809 in Furneux Pelham, the son of Henry Read (b. 1778) and Sarah Thurgood (b. 1772). He married Jane Pryor (b. 1817 of Great Hormead) on the 2nd of August 1835 in London. 

George and Jane lived at Great Hormead when the 1841 census was taken. The family then moved to Furneux Pelham by the time their third child was born in 1844. John worked as a master shoemaker employing two men in 1851.

By 1871 the family had moved to Hill Cottage in nearby Barleycroft End. George died in 1879, while Jane moved to Cambridge to live with her daughter Ada until she died in 1898. 

George and Jane had eight children as follows:

1. Susan 1834 - 1862

Susan was born in 1834 in Great Hormead. It may be the case that Susan was illegitimate as she was born a year before Jane's marriage to George. 

2. Emily 1841 - 

Emily was born in 1841 in Great Hormead.

3. Mary Ann 1844 - 

Mary Ann was born in 1844 in Great Hormead. 

4. Jane 1847 - 

Jane was born in 1847 in Furneux Pelham. I found that Jane was missing from the 1851 census of her parents so I carried out a separate search and found that she was with her cousin John Malyon (b. 1826) (son of William Malyon and Sarah Greenhill) in Chipping Buckland, Hertfordshire on census night.

5. William 1849 - 1917

William was born in 1849 in Furneux Pelham he became a boot maker. William died in 1917 in Essex.

6. Charles 1851 - 1892

Charles was born in 1851; he became a boot maker. Charles died in 1892.

7. Laura 1853 - 1928

This is the Laura Read who was the subject of the confusion surrounding Helen Lavinia's mother. I searched her story as thoroughly as I could and found that she could not be Helen’s mother at all.

Laura was born on the 4^th of June 1853 in Furneux Pelham. She became a teacher and married Alfred James Howard (b. 1852) in 1878.

By 1881 they had moved to Lambeth, London and Alfred worked as a boot maker.

The 1891 census found the couple in Sutton, Surrey with Alfred ‘living on his own means’. They had a nephew staying with them, William R Lawrence (b. 1871), a boot maker’s assistant.

By the 1901 census they had moved to Ipswich in Suffolk and Alfred was described as a property owner. They had a niece staying with them, Dorothy Mace (b. 1894) who was the daughter of Laura’s sister Ada (see below).

Laura and Alfred didn't have any children of their own. Laura died in 1928, and Alfred died in 1932, both in Ipswich, Suffolk.

Of course the question remains, why did Susan Read call herself 'Laura Susan' on her daughter's birth certificate? Maybe it was to preserve her anonymity as she had given birth to an illegitimate child. Or maybe there was another reason. I guess this will remain a mystery. 

8. Ada Jane 1863 - 1934

Ada was born in 1863 in Furneux Pelham. She became a dressmaker before marrying James Mace (b. 1859, in Ardleigh, Essex) in 1889 in Epsom, Surrey. Dorothy (as mentioned above) was the middle child of three - Wilfred (b. 1892), Dorothy (b. 1894), and Elsie (b. 1900).

James died in 1916 in Hendon, Middlesex, and Ada died in 1934 in Welligborough, Northhamptonshire.

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Family Tree

 

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Alison Vainlo 2022