Most of the Gidleys seem to have been a pretty sober lot, with a few exceptions, of course. One whose presumably rare excesses turned tragically sour on him was John Gidley of St Pancras, who met an unpleasant end through his own recklessness. I quote from the following account in the Morning Chronicle of 4 Apr 1833.
Coroner's Inquest - Dreadful Accident
Yesterday an inquest was held at the Five Bells Tavern at New Cross before Richard Cartter, Esq., the Coroner for Surrey, on the body of Mr John Gidley, aged 38 years, who met his death under the following afflicting circumstances.
It appeared in evidence that the unfortunate deceased was a pork butcher, residing in Brewer St, St Pancras.On Monday last he left home in a horse and chaise cart for the purpose of proceeding to Greenwich to receive his pension, he having served for many years at Gibraltar. After he had received his pension he went to several public houses, and at length he became quite intoxicated, and in that state he departed towards home. In passing along New Cross he whipped his horse into a full gallop, and in endeavouring to pass through a gate, the off wheel came in contact with the post, and the unfortunate man was thrown out to a distance of seven yards, and falling upon his head, his skull was much injured but not fractured; the blood, however, flowed from his mouth and nostrils in torrents. He was picked up immediately and carried to the house of Mr Law, the surgeon, where he died in about 10 minutes. Upon examination it was found that his death was occasioned by a rupture of a blood vessel upon the lungs.
The deceased was a married man and has left four children.
The Jury returned a verdict of Accidental Death.
So which John Gidley was this? He was quite easy to identify, with the Gibraltar clue. (Pictured is the dry dock at Gibraltar, but at a much later date than when John worked there). I believe his parents were Bartholomew Gidley and Mary Manning who married in 1793 in Ashreigney, Devon. John was their oldest child. Their second son, Bartholomew, was a smith at the Royal Dockyard in Plymouth, and has descendants, at least in the female line. Their third son, Thomas, a carpenter, was an early emigrant to Canada where he founded a family in Exeter, Ontario. At least two daughters, Mary and Wilmot, followed their oldest brother John to London, where they both married. But firstly John married at the age of only 20 (in 1815 at Stoke Damerel) Mary Maria Treweeke. His occupation at that time was a carpenter, and when a child was born in 1820 he was a "house carpenter in the Dockyard". But John's oldest son, another John, was consistent in claiming his date and place of birth as Gibraltar in 1818, so some time between 1815 and 1820 John senior must have served in the Dockyard there, little knowing it would be the eventual cause of his death.
As stated in the newspaper report, John and Mary Maria did indeed have four children - John in Gibraltar, two daughters Emma and Mary Maria in 1820 and 1824 in St Dominick, Cornwall, and another son in about 1826, Thomas. It seems that Mary Maria died soon after Thomas's birth, as she was buried in St Dominick that year. Thomas was never too sure where he was born - it varied in the censuses between St Dominick, St Pancras (London) or even Lambeth (Surrey). It was probably about that time that John moved his family to London (did his sisters accompany him to help?), and became a pork butcher. When their father died in 1833 the children's ages ranged from 15 to 7.
It was a surprise to me that John was a married man, having evidently remarried. Searching the marriages for any available John Gidleys between 1826 (when he was widowed) and 1833 (his death) I found the only possibility - John Gidley, widower, married Ann Gillatt, spinster, at St George's, Bloomsbury, in October 1831.
So what happened to the family after the tragedy? The family didn't seem to pull together very much, or maybe the financial circumstances were against them. By 1841 I can't find the oldest son, John, who probably never left London, but the other three children had returned to their Cornish roots, possibly supported by their mother's family for a while. The two girls are living together in Fore St, Callington, with the older working as a dressmaker. The younger son Thomas is possibly of no occupation in the Talbot Inn, Lostwithiel. Their stepmother Ann remained in London, working as a female servant in her brother Isaac's wine merchants' in Piccadilly, Westminster, where she continues to live until at least 1851. She must have been about 10 years older than her husband, so perhaps she didn't have the resources to cope with bringing up his young family.
The younger sister, Mary Maria Gidley, died unmarried in Cornwall in 1851 in her 20s, the same year as her sister Emma married Frederick Smith in Dover registration district. This couple then vanishes and I can find no further trace of them in England & Wales censuses.
John Gidley, the oldest son, however, managed to train as a printer's compositor and lived for many years in Islington until he died in 1884. He had two wives, Elizabeth, by whom he had no children, and a second wife, Sarah nee Strong, by whom he had a daughter, named after his mother, Mary Maria Treweeke Gidley. Sadly, this name brought no luck again, as Mary died as a young woman, a few years after her marriage. Sarah already had other children, by a previous marriage, who adopted the name of Gidley, and there are descendants in the female line.
Thomas Gidley, the younger son who wasn't too sure where he was born, has provided me with a few problems. It seems he married Ann Barnard in York in 1852, but by the 1861 census his wife is Mary Ann, born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1837. They have a baby daughter Eliza. Is first wife Ann the Annie Gidley who died in York, although not until 1863? (May 2013 update: no, this is another Annie Gidley, married to William Gidley from a completely different family, although, strangely, her address is given as Beedhams Court, Skeldergate, which is where Thomas and Mary Ann are living in 1861 and 1871). There's no sign of Ann in the 1861 census. Thomas has become a fishmonger in Skeldergate. In 1871 and 1881 things still seem to be going well for Thomas, and there are three more daughters (one died as a baby). Thomas has been employed as a groom and as a newsagent. By 1891, however, this second marriage had evidently failed. It actually only took place in York in 1880, by which time their oldest daughter Eliza was 20 and married herself, but I imagine it proves that Mary Ann and Ann, the first wife, were not one and the same person. In 1891 Thomas describes himself as a fish hawker and widower, and has moved to the other side of the River Ouse in York. He died in 1896. Mary Ann describes herself in 1891 as a widow, head of the household, in a working nurses' home in York. In 1901 she is a charwoman and by 1911, the year before her death back in her native Tyneside, she is a boarder with a family in York.
What happened to their daughters? I don't know their ultimate fates, but it seems likely they all emigrated. Two married in York, but there is no trace of the younger pair after 1901, and of the first couple nothing after their 1876 marriage. The unmarried daughter doesn't seem to have married or died in England & Wales.
In 2007 I heard of a descendant of Mary Maria Treweeke Gidley, daughter of John Gidley the printer in Islington, who was researching this particular Gidley family. Michael Brimacombe traced the birth details of the children of Sarah Strong's first husband, who were Mary's half siblings.
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