So one of the main reasons for starting to write these blog posts, besides sharing what I have found with family members, was the hope that distant cousins out there in cyber space would find it and contact me. It finally happened! I got an e-mail back in September from my mother-in-law’s 3rd cousin in England!
He is descended from Jane Lawder. My mother-in-law is descended from Jane’s brother James. I knew James had 4 sisters and 1 brother, but I wasn’t sure what happened to any of them, if they came to the US like James did or if they had all stayed in England. Well we don’t know what happened to Patrick or Mary, but the 3 other girls apparently all stayed in England.
One of the rather interesting things is that it appears that two of the girls went by different names than their birth names.
Teresa was apparently called Jessie by her family. She married John James Fisher. I already knew she had married him.
Florence Jenny was called Jane. I had her listed as Jane from census records. She married Henry Collingwood Fisher the brother of Teresa’s husband John.
Annie Florence married Thomas Chambers.
I have written a previous blog post about the Lawder family at https://myfamgen.com/2017/05/19/the-lawder-family-from-england-actually-they-were-irish/.
Here’s the new information that I was told by the cousin in England. Some of it is very tragic.
On the 1891 census Edward Lawder and his wife Mary Farrall were living in 20 Greenside Road, Shepherds Bush, London with their daughter Annie Florence and their son-in-law Thomas Chambers. Thomas was a theatre treasurer in Manchester and then moved to London to work at the Lyceum. (I have confirmed that Mary died in 1891 and Edward died in 1895) Annie and Thomas had split up by 1896. In 1896 Annie died at her Greenside Road address. She took in lodgers and one, a midwife, was allowed to have her ex-convict son stay with her. Unfortunately, when his mother was away he became insolent and difficult and on January 20, 1896 he murdered Annie while some of her children were home from school for dinner. (It was actually what we would call lunchtime) The murderer was arrested and convicted insane and sent to Broadmoor. After this the children were found families to live with. Financial help was given by Sir Henry Irving, the famous actor, because of his links with Thomas Chambers and the Lyceum. The Chambers family have disappeared except for the eldest son who emigrated to California. (I know Thomas, the eldest son, did for a time live with his uncle James Lawder in Middletown, New York in June of 1890. I am not sure how long he stayed there and I haven’t yet located him in California.)
To read more about Annie’s tragic murder you can read the transcript of the trial at https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t18960224-254-offence-1&div=t18960224-254. Some of her children testified.
Meanwhile Florence Jenny Lawder was called Jane Lawder (Jane Lander in the marriage registry). She met her husband Henry Collingwood Fisher in Manchester probably through her sister Theresa (known to her family as Jessie) who married Henry’s brother John James Fisher. Henry and Jane probably followed John back to London. The Fisher family originates from Paddington. They had one child Florence Maude Josephine Fisher (known as Maudie) on January 31,1884 in London. They both worked in restaurants and catering. Tragically Jenny died on June 23,1886 from alcohol poisoning. Then in January 1887 Henry died from similar circumstances. Maudie went to live with her aunt and uncle in Yorkshire and eventually returned south to marry a rather dour bank clerk and they had three children –Jean, Evelyn, and Arthur who was an RAF bomber command crew member and was killed over Berlin in 1943.
Jean and Evelyn never knew about their grandparents’ misadventures with booze and believed that Jenny was murdered by a madman who ran into their house in Shepherds Bush and that Henry had died of a broken heart soon after. If only they knew the real story and the amazing murder connection with their grand-aunt.
Jenny and Henry are both buried in Hanwell Cemetery whilst Annie and the Lawders are buried at St Marys Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green (but there are no visible headstones).
Theresa Lawder married John James Fisher in 1873 and by 1881 they were living in Chelsea with their three daughters Adelaide, Florence Evelyn, and Mabel Theresa, and one son Edward Fisher. Their income was from the Court of Chancery (very Dickensian) which came about because of John’s mother’s death and inheritance disputes. There is another interesting family mystery which is that John had illegitimate children with a Welsh woman called Elise (or looked after Henry Collingwood Fishers illegitimate child/children), but that hasn’t been solved yet. Adelaide never married and died in Sussex in 1961. Mabel Theresa died in 1959 in Wandsworth. Florence Evelyn married James Davis who died in Western Australia in 1912. Edward went to Canada and married Mabel Slater and had three children Edward, Richard and Eilen. John James Fisher died in 1902 of heart failure in London. At the time he was a licensed victualler – more alcohol. (I had to look up the definition of victualler – a person who is licensed to sell alcoholic liquor) Theresa lived until 1944 and died in Wandsworth at the age of 94!
John James Fisher’s death certificate has his wife’s name is listed as Elise, not Teresa, so that whole story about him having illegitimate children with a woman named Elise sounds plausible. The poor Lawder sisters didn’t have much luck picking husbands. If Annie’s hadn’t left her and their children, she probably wouldn’t have been murdered.
And as exciting as this person contacting me through my blog was, another of my mother-in-law’s 3rd cousins, who also lives in England, contacted me because she found my tree on Ancesty. Stay tuned for my next blog about what I found out from her.