All the following were bankrupted at some point in their lives. Sources and far more information on individuals is available on the Gidley One Name Study website Gidley One Name Study.
1. The only woman in the list is Elizabeth Gidley, a dressmaker of Dover Street, Piccadilly, London, in the early 1820s. There are two possibilities for her. One is Elizabeth Gidley, daughter of Robert Gidley and Elizabeth Hill, born in Shoreditch, London, in 1773. Robert was a native of Rattery, Devon, so is found on the Dean Prior tree. Elizabeth married William Slaughter in London in 1823, her residence being given as Leamington, Warwickshire. Did she make a fresh start there? Elizabeth died in Southampton in 1854.
The second possibility is Elizabeth Gidley, daughter of John Gidley and Elizabeth Davis. They are on one of the tiny London trees, with no clue as to their origin. John Gidley was a tailor, buried in Marylebone in 1815. He was of sufficient standing for his vote to be recorded in a Westminster poll book. Elizabeth was christened in 1789 in St James', Piccadilly, and possibly buried in 1849 in St Clement Danes in London, but her age in the burial register is several years out from her christening date.
2. Thomas Gidley, a journeyman butcher, of Chipping Ongar, Essex. Between December 1852 and September 1853 there are insolvency petitions at Chelmsford County Court. He was imprisoned in Chelmsford gaol for insolvency, but finally discharged from custody, there being no detaining creditor. Probably not unconnected with the insolvency, he also appeared in court in 1852 for appropriating funds (£31 16s 6d) from Chipping Ongar Odd Fellows Society, of which he was a member, for his own use. The case was thrown out because of confusion regarding his permission to store the money. He worked as a journeyman butcher for a family member, Miss Gidley, possibly a sister, also of Ongar. He may have been the Thomas Gidley of Glemsford, Suffolk, charged in 1858 with trespassing on land at Borley, Essex, in search of game. He was fined £3 6s, in default 2 calendar months' imprisonment. Thomas died in 1859.
3. Thomas' brother Gustavus Gidley also went bankrupt. A button manufacturer, he was bankrupted twice, in 1833 and 1835. His addresses were given as Wood Street, Cheapside, London, and Cateaton Street, London. Unfortunately he also managed to get his father, John Gidley of Ongar imprisoned for bankruptcy too. In 1841 Gustavus was a [commercial] traveller and in 1851 an india rubber manufacturer. He died in Liverpool in 1863.
4. John Gidley of Chipping Ongar. Father of Thomas and Gustavus. Described in the newspaper report as an elderly gentleman, his occupation had been Surveyor of Taxes for Ongar for over 30 years, having been previously in the Excise and brought up a large family. Expecting a superannuation of over £70 p.a. for his long service, he had guaranteed his son Gustavus' order of £300 worth of goods from Messrs Knight and Holdsworth for his son's manufacturing business. Gustavus' bankruptcy meant that only a dividend was paid. The court in 1835 gave judgment that John Gidley had guaranteed the order without reasonable means of payment and sentenced him to 5 months ' imprisonment. He died in 1845. He did indeed have a large family of 12 children, but many did not survive him. No fewer than six died in their 30s or early 40s, two died abroad (one in the Crimea), and one died as a child. Most were unmarried.
5. Another, younger, Gustavus Gidley, a share broker and bill discounter, became insolvent in 1855, Based in Torquay, Devon, he was born in Throwleigh, Devon. His tangled financial arrangements amounted to great misconduct, according to the judge, after Gustavus implicated his brother John Gidley, who denied any involvement with him. He had already passed all his property to his parents in Throwleigh, who agreed to pay £350 into the court within a week. The landlady of the lodging house where he lived occasionally, Sophia Vilet or Viret, was also in the habit of lending him small amounts of money, which she said were always repaid. In fact in 1857, after his release from prison and when his bankruptcy was finally annulled, Gustavus married Sophia. They had no children. His parents, George and Mary Gidley, were dealing at the same time with another son, William Gidley, imprisoned for larceny by a servant in 1856. George was a cooper and landlord of the Royal Oak in Throwleigh.
6. James Gidley of Chagford, Devon, applied to be discharged from bankruptcy in 1836. No further details of his bankruptcy, but he was described as a butcher, tallow chandler and beerhouse keeper. He was in Christow, Devon, working as a butcher in 1841. His finances had recovered for him to be a farmer of 43 acres in Christow in 1851, but was a pauper in the local Poor House in 1861. Having moved back to Chagford by 1871, he died there in 1873. His son William made regular appearances for various misdemeanours at Exeter Quarter Sessions.
7. Thomas Gidley, late of Buckfastleigh, Devon, yarn spinner and woollen manufacturer, was an insolvent debtor confined in St Thomas Gaol, Devon in April 1825. No further details, but in 1841 he had returned to woolcombing in Buckfastleigh, and in 1851 he was a wool sorter in Horrabridge, Devon. He died in the Tavistock area in 1861. His only son, Samuel Hawkins Gidley, emigrated to Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, where he was also a wool sorter in the woollen mills and was described as an exemplary man.
8. John Gidley of Drake Street, Plymouth, Devon, a grocer and tea dealer, then of Devonport, a grocer's shopman, applied to be discharged from bankruptcy in April 1827. There are 2 candidates for him: one because of his address and the other because of his occupation. John Gidley of Ashburton, who died in 1853 was described in his newspaper death announcement as a grocer and tea dealer, though there is no evidence he ever worked in Plymouth. Hhis official death certificate describes him as a woolcomber, which tallies with the 1841 and 1851 censuses.
The other candidate is John Gidley, buried in Plymouth in 1828, the year following the bankruptcy appeal, of Drake Street. He was the son of Thomas Dingle Gidley, a son of Bartholomew Gidley the spendthrift and his third wife, born when his father was over 80. John Gidley's wife Rebecca had died in 1826 after less than two years' marriage and John followed her in 1828, aged only 27.
8. Richard Gidley was imprisoned in Plymouth Gaol for debt in 1831. He owed £5 1s 5d plus £7 1s 8d costs. He was probably one of the Richard Gidleys, father and son, carpenters of Egg Buckland, Devon. The father was born in 1776 and died in Egg Buckland in 1845. The son was born in 1804, emigrated to Baltimore, USA between 1833-1839 and died on Prince Edward Island, Canada in 1883.
9. Nicholas Gidley was insolvent in 1848 in Totnes, Devon. He had assets of £6 12s 71/2d. He had various jobs throughout his life (1807-1881): sailor in the Royal Navy, then in 1841 landlord of the King William IV in Totnes (which possibly led to the bankruptcy), in 1851 a baker in Totnes, in 1861 a woolcomber in his native village of Buckfastleigh, Devon, then a final move to the woollen industry in Yorkshire where he died.
10. Finally, there is Gidley Lewis, who is one of the few Gidley descendants in the maternal line on the Gidley One Name Study website. His bankruptcy in 1828, when he was a straw hat manufacturer and dealer, led eventually to his transportation to Van Diemens Land. According to his defence at the Old Bailey in 1835, the pressing demands of his creditors led to his paying out £4 or £5 more than his salary. His wife was ill and he eventually stole silk, damask, veils and handkerchiefs from his employer and pawned them. As a warehouseman and traveller with what were described as respectable connections, he had easy access to the materials. He was sentenced to14 years' transportation to Tasmania, where he was given conditional pardons in the 1840s and eventually died there in 1873. He was the son of Frances Gidley and Edward Lewis, a haberdasher, and was born in Southwark, London, in 1792. Frances was a daughter of Robert Gidley of Honiton, Devon, and a sister of Jasper Maudit Gidley who fought in the American Revolutionary War on the American side.
