Family of

George Edward Partleton (1814-1866)

The children of George Edward Partleton and Frances Jackman were born on the road. Wherever the travelling company of actors were on the day, that's where the babies came into the world.

Through it all, we know that Frances has to continue performing on stage even at times when she was 8 months pregnant.

Here's a map from an earlier web page... birthplaces of the children:

George (1834 Chipping Norton),

Catherine (1835 Newport Pagnell),

Edward Charles (born 1837 Bedford, died 1838 Bromsgrove),

Helen (born April 1839 Uxbridge, died July 1839 Northampton),

Edward Frederick (born 1840 Bedford),

Frances Helen (born 1841 Northampton).

So, let's deal with the children one at a time:

George Henry Partleton (1834-1862)

Little George was born while the Jackman Company was in Chipping Norton in 1834 and was very quickly brought into the family business of acting, taking child's parts on stage.

But his role was more than just being part of a provincial touring company, because in a letter written from the Kings Arms, Leighton Buzzard on February 28, 1841, George Sr. reveals that: "Charles, Hartley, and Mr. and Mrs. Jackman have been to London from here. I should like to have gone with them if my pocket was not so low. George [Partleton Jr] is going to play Tom Thumb for our benefit. Very well he sings the songs thou I say it that ought not to say it."

So George Jr., who is still only six years old, is appearing on the London stage.

Six months later we see George Jr, 'Master Partleton', on the bill at the Marefair Theatre, Northampton. He is now 7 years old and is playing the part of 'Petit Mathew':

Henry Jackman, young George's granddad, was by now the manager of the aforementioned Marefair Theatre at Northampton. Below is the only surviving photograph of the frontage of this theatre where George appeared. The picture is from the early 1900s, after it had been converted to a corn merchants. Note "YE OLDE PLAYHOUSE" to the right of the front door.

Despite the fixture of the Marefair theatre, the Jackman company, and George Partleton Jr, continued a tradition of travelling. In the census of 1851, seen below, we see George, now aged 16, living with his grandfather and grandmother, Henry and Frances Jackman in Augustine Street, Northampton. This is just one year before the death of old Henry Jackman:

The next we see of George Henry Partleton is a full ten years later, the census of 1861. He is staying at the White Lion Inn on a road known as Sheep Fair in Rugeley, Staffordshire, located between Derby and Walsall. George gives his profession as violin player:

This is the only photo I could find of Sheep Fair.

I think the White Lion Inn is a little further up the road. The building still stands (Nos 16-18) but it's no longer a pub.

Being on the road and lodging in pubs may not have been a good lifestyle for our George, because sadly, two years later, he dies of 'Chronic Delirium Tremens'; I guess in modern terms we would call it alcoholism:

George's occupation is given as 'Strolling Musician'. The informant is the publican of the White Lion, George Barker, who also can be seen in the above 1861 census.

The age given on the certificate is incorrect: by his birth record, George is only 28 and has predeceased his dad by four years and his mother by forty-five. One can only imagine the reaction of George Partleton Sr. and Frances Jackman upon hearing of the death of their only son. George Jr. was unmarried and had no children. Consequently, though there are many descendants of George and Frances, none of them have the surname Partleton.

The next child born to George and Frances is Catherine Louisa, their first daughter:

Catherine Louisa Partleton (1835-1893)

Catherine was born in November 1835 while the Jackman Company was in Newport Pagnell.

There is no evidence that she went on stage like her older brother but it's quite possible, indeed probable. Certainly we have evidence that all of George Partleton's children received rigorous musical training, and that they travelled around the countryside with the Jackman company.

Consequently we don't see anything of Catherine's early life. In 1857, Catherine married Edward W Wheeler, a Road Surveyor's Clerk - a nice solid respectable Victorian profession. Below we see them in the 1861 census:

If we look carefully, we notice that they are living next door to Catherine's mum and dad, George and Frances Partleton. And we see that Catherine has had her first baby, George Edward Wheeler - named after his Granddad George Edward Partleton.

Catherine ultimately has six children:

George E Wheeler 1858

Louisa Frances Wheeler 1861

Henry J Wheeler 1864

Catherine Wheeler 1867

Ellen Wheeler 1870

Clara Lucy Wheeler 1872

Catherine died, aged 58, in 1893.

In 1901 we find Catherine's daughter Catherine Wheeler, living with her dad and sister at 26 Broad Street, Banbury:

Catherine's dad Edward Wheeler is now employed as the cashier at the Co-Op store on Broad St. Below we see the former Co-Op building on Broad Street as it looks today:

It is apparent when researching the lives of George Partleton and his family that many of them were zealously religious. Thanks to Judith Bennett, who contacted the Partleton Tree, we know that In the early 1900s, Catharine Wheeler became headmistress of Blackwood Hills Mission School, one of a string of schools of an evangelistic church established in the Devon Countryside in the mid 1800s. You'll find it in the red circle in the map below:

Here's Blackwood Hills Mission at Bishopswood, in the pretty Devon countryside, where Catharine taught. [thanks to Judith Bennett for this and the other photos of Catherine Wheeler]:

This is one of those rare instances where we can actually see the person we are talking about. In this fabulous photograph we find headmistress Catharine, granddaughter of George Partleton, on the right of the picture, with her pupils at Blackwood Hills Mission School in c1917:

In 1914 Catherine had married widower Frederick Sumption who had four daughters and a son by his first marriage, to Elizabeth Coles. Catharine's stepdaughter Ivy Sumption is in this photo, the second girl to Catharine's right, unfortunately obscured by damage. The little girl marked with a cross is our correspondent Judith Bennett's mum Florence Audrey Kate Saturley (1911-2005) - Frederick Sumption's granddaughter.

Headmistress Catharine was already 47 when she married Frederick and they had no children. In the charming photograph below, we see the country wedding of Ivy Sumption, Catharine's stepdaughter, in the year 1927. Catharine is second from the right. Next to her is her husband Frederick Sumption:

Finally we have another marvellous picture of Catherine and her class from a few years earlier, c1911. Catherine is the formidable-looking Edwardian lady in the centre of the picture.

Edward Charles Partleton (1837-1838)

Edward Charles was christened on 6 September 1837 while the Jackman Company was in Bedford, at St Paul's Church, which we see below in an 1803 engraving and in a 1900s photograph:

Edward died the following July, 1838, the death registered in Bromsgrove.

Born, christened, died, buried. Between the dates of his short life, all we have are pictures of the churches.

He was buried in the church of St Stephen, Redditch (below) on 22 July 1838.

Helen Partleton (1839-1839)

Helen's startling tale has been briefly told already, under the 'In their shoes' page of George Partleton (1814 -1866).

But we have more information which we can present here.

We have already seen the article printed in the Northampton Mercury of September 1839:

However, in the book Theatre Unroyal by Lou Warwick (1924-1989), the author unearthed more information on p145-146:

Lou Warwick (in 1973) appears to have seen the actual inquest documents, though Northamptonshire Records Office say that they no longer have any inquest records from the period.

Matilda Branston can be found still living in Wellington Street in the 1841 Census, as 'Matilda Branson'... her father is Richard Branson. She appears to have been aged between 10-15 years old at the time of Helen's death.

The coroner was George Abbey, part-proprietor of the Marefair theatre and a close acquaintance of the Jackmans and the Partletons. This makes him a highly unsuitable candidate to conduct the inquest, and he would certainly not be allowed to carry it out today; it would have to be an independent person. But probably in Victorian times this would not have been regarded as such an important issue.

Edward Frederick Partleton (1840-1841)

In September 1840, while the Jackman Company were again in Bedford, Frances gave birth to another boy, and the parents again decide to call the child Edward despite their earlier son of this name who had died in 1838. Edward was christened, like his namesake, at the church of St Paul, Bedford, seen in the photographs above.

Six months later, from Northampton, at the end of March 1841 we read news in a letter by George Partleton of little Edward Frederick... "The baby is very ill and Mrs. P. [Frances] and Miss P. [Catherine, aged 5] have got a bad could [sic]."

Like his older brother of the same name, Edward did not survive to see his first birthday and died in the spring of 1841. Thanks to Karen Welbourne we know that he was buried at the church of St Mary, Aylesbury (below) on 22 May 1841.

Frances Helen Partleton (1841-1935)

Frances was born in Northampton in the fourth year of Queen Victoria's reign and lived long into the modern era, finally passing away in 1935, aged 93, never having married. This makes her the longest-lived person born of the surname Partleton.

Frances lived her life with her mother: we see their journey together through six decades of censuses. Below we see them together from 1851 to 1901:

1851: Frances is just 9; her first census:

1861: Frances is now 19; still a 'Scholar':

1871: George has died; Frances is now 29, living with her mother an two sisters at Queen Street. Frances Sr. is a Teacher of Piano. Young Frances is now a Governess. They are bringing in some income by letting their spare room as lodgings. Their lodger is the Rev. George A Allan, Curate of Banbury, and his wife Emily:

1881: Frances is 39; now 'Formerly Governess'. Their address is 51 Queen Street (near to Box Hedge where Frances grew up):

In 1887 we know that Frances Helen and her sister Harriet Mary invested in some shares in the Great Western Railway.

1891: Frances is now 49. She and her mother are still at 51 Queen Street and are again operating their home as a small private lodging house. They a have servant, Clara Gillett aged just 14, and their sole lodger is Laurence E Arden, the Curate of Banbury. Frances has a job as manageress of a cake shop:

1901: Frances is now 59; housekeeper of the lodging house. The lodger is still Laurence E Arden, 'Church of England Clergyman':

The Church of England church in Banbury is St Mary's Church; the location of this can be seen in a map further down this web page, and this is where Laurence Arden is practising. Below we see St Mary with its unusual pepperpot design. Presumably both Frances Partletons attended, since their lodger is the curate/vicar, but even if they didn't, it would be a very familiar local landmark to all the Partletons living in Neithrop, Banbury in the 1800s. Below we see St Mary's photographed in 1878:

The photograph above is taken from the viewpoint of the purple arrow in the map below:

Here's the church seen from the yellow arrow:

In the foreground of the next photo, taken from the south of the church, is the famous Banbury Cross where, according to the nursery rhyme, one should ride a cock horse to see a fine lady upon a white horse.

Below we see Betts's Cake Shop of 86 Banbury High Street in 1878... is this the cake shop of which Frances was the manageress in the 1891 census?... it's just round the corner from her house...

Frances Partleton Sr [nee Jackman] died in Banbury in April 1907 aged 93. Frances Jr also died aged 93 having lived a long, long time past the 1901 census, but this is where the story runs dry. She finally died in 1935 in Billericay, Essex, thought it is not clear how the journey of her life took her there.

Harriet Mary Partleton (1844-aft1901)

By 1844, George Partleton and Frances Jackman have finished their roaming and have settled down in the district of Banbury which was known as Neithrop; this is where their fourth daughter, Harriet, and all their subsequent children are born. Below we see Harriet aged 7 in the 1851 census:

Their address is Back Lane, off Castle Street, circled in red in this map of Banbury:

It's on the right, unlabelled, in the map of Banbury of 1891:

More information can be seen on the modern map:

Moving on to the 1861 census below, we see Harriet, a scholar, now aged 17. The family has moved to 'Box Hedge', modern Boxhedge Road on the new map. In the old map, it is not named, but we can see that it is just a small row of cottages bordering the countryside.

In 1871, Harriet, now 27, is still living at home with her widowed mother and sisters. Their address is Queen Street (Queen's Road on the modern map). Harriet is a governess as is her older sister Frances :

Harriet's job as a governess is about to take her on an adventure, to Scotland - Forgan, Newport, Fife, near Dundee, and this is where we find her in the Scottish census of 1881:

Above we see Harriet living with her sister Lucy Barrett (nee Partleton); she is working as governess for Lucy's four baby children. The database has her as Castleton, and her age wrongly as 57 (she's 37) but there is no question that this is our Harriet.

We know that by 1890, Harriet has returned to Banbury, because it is there, aged 46, that she is married to Edward J Norton, a widowed cabinet maker. Edward is Banbury-born but has been making his living for some years as a cabinet maker in the Liverpool area.

In the 1891 census we find Harriet and Edward Norton are living in Crosby, a seaside town on Liverpool Bay:

Harriet gives us a nice surprise when we note that her occupation is 'Toy Dealer'.

By 1901, we find another surprise; Harriet has moved on in her career and is now running an employment agency for domestic servants:

Harriet Norton nee Partleton passed away in 1928 in West Derby, a suburb of Liverpool.

Clara Partleton (1846-1847)

In 1846, George and Frances Partleton have their fifth daughter, Clara. Clara was christened on 05 June 1846, but sadly, in October 1847 she passed away aged just 1 year old.

Lucy Partleton (1848-aft 1919)

On 16 June 1848, Lucy Partleton was christened at Banbury. Her early childhood in Banbury can be seen above as she grew up with her big sisters Harriet, Frances and Catherine.

The central library at Oxford (Westgate) holds an original document of a performance by Lucy: 16 and 17 December 1867, Banbury Academy: Programme of Entertainment, with Miss Lucy Partleton. Lucy is only 19 at the date of this performance. Banbury Academy was a Presbyterian church school.

In the 1871 census we see young Lucy aged 22 as a 'Teacher of music and dancing':

It's been possible to track the kids through all these censuses thanks to the amazing records held by Ancestry.co.uk. If you're inspired by this website to seek out your own British ancestors as I have done, click here.

Three years later, in 1874, Lucy is married to Henry Barrett, at St. Philip's church Battersea, as we see in their marriage certificate below:

Henry's address is given as 41 Freke Road Battersea [crazy name!], near to Clapham Common. This is by coincidence no more than 500 metres from where the author of this web page was born.

A clue identified by Jennifer Eggleston is that this Battersea venue might signify an elopement. Both Henry and Lucy are wholly born and bred in Oxfordshire but yet they choose to go all the way to London for their marriage, and it is witnessed by Lucy's sister Harriet Mary Partleton. Freke Road is the home address of Henry's brother Thomas Barrett who also witnesses the marriage:

In the certificate above, Henry Barrett describes himself as a clerk, but he is to have a varied career. In 1881 we discover that - supportive of the elopement theory - Henry and Lucy have moved to Newport during 1876/1877. Not Newport in Wales, but Newport on the East coast of Scotland, in the parish of Forgan, opposing Dundee across the river Tay, just a few miles from the famous St Andrews Golf Course:

This modern map is misleading because there was absolutely no road bridge in the 1870s and 1880s when Lucy was living in Newport-on-Tay. At that time, Newport was the busy ferry station taking travellers north to Dundee.

Nor was there a functional rail bridge because of the famous Tay Bridge Disaster, a catastrophe witnessed at close hand by Lucy.

The first rail bridge had been completed in February 1878, but during a violent storm on the evening of 28 December 1879, the centre section of the bridge, known as the 'High Girders', collapsed, taking with it a train that was running on its single track. More than 75 lives were lost.

Here's the bridge after the collapse:

The following map show just how closely Lucy will have seen what had happened; Newport is less than a mile from the rail bridge, looking directly across to it:

Lucy and Henry observed the entire construction of the second bridge which was started in 1881 and completed in 1887, on the same route as the original.

Here is Lucy's census record of 1881:

Henry Barrett is running a tobacconist shop on Newport High Street. Lucy is continuing to give music and dancing lessons.

Here are some pictures of Newport-on-Tay from the 1800s

Boat Road:

High Street

In the following photo we see High Street, Newport-on-Tay:

One of the above shops is the Barrett's tobacconists!

Newport-on-Tay, Dundee is a long way from Banbury - again this might be a pointer that Lucy and Henry eloped. And as noted above, Lucy has brought her elder sister Harriet along to act as governess for her children.

So we move on to 1891 and we find Lucy and Henry have moved clear across Scotland to Glasgow, Cathcart:

They are both now Teachers of Music. By their children's places of birth we can deduce that they moved to Cathcart in 1889. An interesting feature of the Scottish census is that it tells us that Lucy and Henry live in a house which has five 'Rooms with One or more Windows'.

In the 1890s, Lucy shows her versatility by having a piece of her music published in sheet music which someone bound into a book:

No, I'm not selling the book here, but you can find it on the internet, price 60 dollars US. Plus postage costs from Canada. The title 'Crawford Priory' comes from the name of a well-known country house in Fife, built in the gothic style, which was about ten miles from Newport where Lucy had lived in the 1880s. It is located in Springfield which can be seen in the map of Dundee above.

Here's a picture of Crawford Priory. I think we can safely presume that Lucy must have visited it and was suitably impressed to write a tune about it:

Crawford Priory still exists but now is a ruin.

So we move on to the 1901 census:

They are still in Cathcart. Henry's occupation is quite incongruous for a former music teacher and tobacconist; he is now a coal merchant. I presume this job did not actually involve lugging any sacks; judging by the neighbours' occupations, this is quite a posh area. Their house now has seven 'Rooms with One or more Windows'.

1901 is usually the date at which information dries up a bit, but in Lucy's case, we have more, because Scottish records are in some ways more accessible than English ones.

In 1902 we see Lucy's son Harry George Barrett (1876-1953), an electrical engineer, being married to Jemima Orr in Greenock:

Other information we glean from the above marriage certificate is that Henry Barrett is now retired from the Coal Merchant business.

The next bit of information comes in the form of the marriage of Lucy's fourth son, Percy Edward Barrett (b1882), a shipping manager, in 1919 to teacher Agnes Glover Hunter:

From the above it is fair to assume that Lucy is still alive. The parents in the marriage in the top row of this certificate are declared to be 'deceased', but Lucy and Henry are both not.

Another fragment of info we have of Lucy's children is the death of the aforementioned Harry George Barrett (now an 'Electrical Company Manager) in 1953:

Above we see that Harry has been married twice and has a daughter, Lucie P Barrett, whose married name is Wotherspoon. Unsurprisingly both of Harry's parents Henry Barrett and Lucy Partleton have passed away. (Lucy would have been 105 in 1953). Harry's address is given as 'Goatfell View', Brodick.

Brodick is on the Isle of Arran, circled on the map below:

If you're wondering why Turriff is circled, it's because this is where the author of this web page lives, and where this website is being created at this very moment, from an old farmhouse in the Scottish countryside. Strange but true. I just stepped outside and took this picture of it, literally 10 seconds ago:

Ah, the wonders of the internet.

But to get back to Lucy's son Harry: he may have been living on a remote Scottish island, but the internet can still furnish us with a picture of the house where he was living, Goatfell View:

And to get back to Lucy Partleton, where is she amongst all this Scottishness? Well, we know that although her children reside in Scotland, Lucy returned to England because it is there that she passes away in the 1920s.

Lucy's husband Henry Barrett died in Mascall's Lane, Brentwood in 1936, reported by his eldest daughter Clarine Lucy Barrett (b1879), as we see below (thanks to Jennifer Eggleston for this cert):

Clarine Lucy Barrett's birth certificate is shown here, born on new year's day 1879:

We have a little entertaining anecdotal information about Clarine Barrett (a music teacher like her mother Lucy Partleton and grandfather George Partleton), preserved in a letter provided by Jennifer Eggleston (Clarine Barrett is a cousin of Jennifer's grandmother). The letter was written by Jennifer's mother regarding a visit to Clarine in the wartime summer of 1942:

We went to see Mummie's cousin [Clarine Barrett] first, got there at about one. Diplomacy prompted the time of our arrival - lunch!!! I told you, didn't I, what an ultra religionist she was. Well, our first shock came - no grace before or after lunch, then she accepted a cigarette & smoked it down to the last puff, very amateurishly tis true, but nevertheless she smoked. When I was powdering my dear little nose in her bedroom, she says, 'I must change my dress, this one is terribly old fashioned.' I just about managed to keep my face straight, but she she asked us to see if we could get any henna as her hair is a bit grey; well, I nearly collapsed on the spot. The greatest shock of all came when Mary showed her photos of Gerard & I photos of some Air Force chap I know named Bob, & she said, smiling all over her face, 'I've got a sweetheart too, we're getting married next year.' She's older than Mummie, so Mummie says; mind you she's very pretty & only looks about forty.

At the time of the letter, Clarine was 63! Her 'ultra religionist' views might be associated with her grandmother Frances Jackman (see Frances Partleton above) who for many years provided lodgings for Church of England Clergymen in Banbury.

Soon after the above letter, in November 1942, Clarine is married to her sweetheart Caleb Lodge in Romford:

Clarine Barrett was still alive in 1956 when she made out her will aged 77 in which she mentions her sister Florence Madeline Walker [nee Barrett] (b1881) who is still living in Glasgow.

...Ok, we still have two children of George Partleton and Frances Jackman to record for posterity:

William Partleton (Apr 1852 - Jul 1852)

Little William was born in Banbury and died soon after as a baby, cause of death not known.

Alice Caroline Sophia Partleton (1854 - 1857)

Alice was born on 30 April 1857 and died in October 1857 aged just 3 years old, cause of death unknown.

By the time Alice dies, Frances Jackman is 43 years old, and there are no more children of George and Frances.

It's been a long journey through the lives of the children and grandchildren of George Partleton and Frances Jackman. They leave no living descendants bearing the name Partleton, but many and varied descendants with other names.

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