I recently took advantage of the electronic certificates supplied by the GRO before February's price rise and applied for 9 death certificates for Gidleys I couldn't identify from GRO index records. They were mainly from the earlier years of registration, although the latest I wanted was from 1883.
Of the 9 certificates I received, two were for the same person, and only five cleared up their identity. Of the others, some left tantalizing clues, whilst others continued to defy identification.
N.B. I can't be certain of the archaic medical terms used for cause of death, some of which were difficult to decipher.
Those identified:
1. Ann Gidley, died 8th November 1852, of 8 Clarence Road, Kentish Town, wife of Robert Gidley, a stamper in the Stamp Office, Somerset House. Cause of death was paralysis of the heart after one hour's illness. However, this was struck out and another death certificate was issued on 24th December 1852 on the coroner's instructions; this time death was attributed to extravasation of blood in and upon the brain, by natural causes.
Ann was aged 56, and had only been married to Robert Gidley for ten years. She was born in Potterne, Wiltshire and was buried there. She has a gravestone in the churchyard. They had no children. Robert was born in Dartington, Devon in 1802, the son of Henry Gidley and Elizabeth Diggins, of the Dean Prior branch of the Gidleys. He survived his wife for over 25 years and died in 1879. The occupation he followed is described in Wikipedia as follows:
The Stamp Office had the task of applying an impressed duty stamp to various specific items to show that the required duty had been paid. For example, up until 1855 (when the relevant duty was abolished) every newspaper produced in the country had to be brought to Somerset House to be stamped.
I imagine Robert and Ann's life must have been reasonably comfortable.
2. Sarah Gidley, died 23rd February, 1866, aged 75, of 29 Arlington Street, Islington, widow of Robert Gidley, livery stable keeper. The cause of death was effusion of serum on the brain, following information from a coroner's inquest held on 1st March 1866.
Sarah was aged 75, and her identity is clear, but her husband's less so. There are three candidates (cousins, in fact) for the Robert Gidley with a wife Sarah living on London Wall. He left a will after his death in 1830, and there are a couple of printed mentions of his livery stable at the White Horse Inn, Warrick Lane, where he was also a publican. He was also comfortably off (for those days), with shares in the Gas Company, and a life insurance policy with Hope Assurance, both of which his "dear wife" inherited. She was also the executrix of his will, so presumably a competent woman, used to financial dealings. I think she was his second wife, and they were married in 1823, only seven years before he died, aged 63 in 1830. There are three Robert Gidleys born between 1766 and 1768, all, I think, on the Dean Prior tree, and the most likely candidate looks like the Robert christened in St Martin in the Fields,Westminster, in June 1767, son of Robert Gidley and his wife Margaret.
Sarah herself survived her husband for over 35 years, living with her nephew Robert Stead in two censuses and at her death, and with her niece Elizabeth Newth and her family in another census.
3. Mary Searle Gidley, died 8th October, 1842 at 55 Harrison Street, Grays Inn Lane, St Pancras, aged 24. The cause of death was consumption.
She was the first wife of John Gidley, whose occupation - compositor - on Mary's death certificate enabled me to place her. John has been mentioned in a previous blog post, that of 19th January 2013, where I outlined the family of John Gidley, killed at New Cross in South London after being thrown from his horse. He had been drinking after collecting his naval dockyard pension. Mary Searle Gidley's husband, John the compositor, was his oldest son, born in Gibraltar in 1818. I had found two wives already for this John, but couldn't find an entry for him (and presumably his first wife Mary) on the 1841 census. Having an address on the death certificate in 1842 of 55 Harrison Street I endeavoured to trace them there in 1841 but no luck. Nor can I find a marriage for them. I imagine Mary's maiden name was Searle, as the informant for her death was a Jane Searle, a whole week after the death (rather a long time). I wondered if that was Mary's mother, and if John and Mary were living with her in 1841, but again, no luck finding them. I suppose it's possible they never officially married, hence the surname Searle being included in her death registration, which was a little unusual.
John Gidley went on to have two more wives, one daughter, and stepchildren who took the name Gidley. See the 19th January 2013 blog post.
Tentative identification:
4. Samuel Gidley, died 24th December 1840, at 66 Castle Street East, All Souls Marylebone, London, a mariner, aged 49. The cause of death was asthma. The informant was Mary Elizabeth Rowland, apparently a neighbour.
Very little to go on, as he died before even the 1841 census and was evidently not living with any family. I have tentatively identified him as the Samuel Gidley of Marldon, Devon, born on 12th December 1792 and christened in Marldon on 30 December 1792. That would make him actually 48 and not 49, but ages at death are notoriously unreliable and there has been no other trace of this Samuel Gidley. Marldon is only a few miles from Paignton and therefore close enough to the coast for Samuel to have gone to sea. His parents were John Gidley (one of the
Eighteenth Century Three John Gidleys Problem, see the blog post of 9th April 2015) and Mary Gale. Samuel was the oldest child, doesn't seem to have married, and had three sisters. So this particular Gidley branch would seem to have died out in the male line. Samuel was buried in St Marylebone.
The burial ground was consecrated in 1733 and between then and the early 1850s more than 110,000 burials took place. Some burials have been recorded to a depth of 14 metres. The site was cleared of headstones in the 1880s and is now Paddington Gardens.
5. Elizabeth Gidley (registered as Giddley), died 5 July 1849 at St Marylebone Workhouse, a servant, aged 55. The cause of death was ?arachnities and effusion on the brain.
The informant was a workhouse official, so Elizabeth evidently had no handy local family. The workhouse and infirmary register on Ancestry lists her occupation, status and address on admission as a single servant, of 16 North Street, Marylebone (with the bald entry of "discharge - dead").
There is an Elizabeth Gidley who fits this bill exactly. She was christened in Bovey Tracey, Devon in March 1794, so her age fits perfectly. She was the daughter of John Gidley and Elizabeth Purday, another of the Eighteenth Century Three John Gidleys Problem (blog post of 9th April 2015). I had previously seen no further trace of this Elizabeth, but it is interesting that of her siblings, two (sister Mary and brother George) also moved to London, where they died in Poplar. Their brother John is the most likely candidate for the John who married Elizabeth Facey and emigrated to Australia.
I'm fairly happy that this is the correct Elizabeth Gidley.
The four who remain a mystery:
6. Ann Gidley. died 30 August 1850, of 12 South Street, Marylebone, aged 63, wife of William Gidley, a labourer. Cause of death was ascites. The informant was Sophia Bradshaw, of the same address.
Seems simple on the face of it, but I can't identify William and Ann with any certainty. There is a possibility that she was Ann Prosser, who married William Boyne Gidley of the Shoreditch branch of the Gidleys in 1822 in St Martin in the Fields, Westminster. If so, she was about 11 years older than her husband. A daughter, Ann Caroline Gidley, was born to this couple in 1823. She married Walter Smith in October 1850 in St Marylebone, Her father William Boyne (sometimes recorded as Bowen) Gidley manages to evade all the censuses. His final official record was his probable death in 1866 in St James' Westminster. His occupation on the 1822 marriage certificate was grocer, so had he fallen on hard times to be described as a labourer?
7. Jane Gidley, died 18 February 1838, of 5 Ogle St, Marylebone, aged 77. Cause of death was decay of nature. The informant was Jane's daughter, Ann Grimes.
Also seems straightforward, but not so. Jane died before the first census where names were recorded, but I hoped to find her daughter Ann Grimes. I had found her marriage to William Joseph Grimes in 1823 in St Anne's, Westminster, but there was no trace of Ann in 1841 or 1851. It seems that William Joseph Grimes may have died in 1832. Possibly Ann had remarried. There is a marriage reference for an Ann Grimes in September 1841 in St George's Hanover Square, London, but I couldn't trace a matching husband to search for her in later censuses, so that was a dead end. A marriage certificate for her on Ancestry with her father's name recorded would have helped to solve the mystery.
A possible candidate for Jane Gidley is Jane Matthews who married William Gidley in Marylebone in 1798. If he is the William who died in St Pancras in 1809, then she would have been 12 years older than her husband, so this is not at all certain. They had three children christened between 1799 and 1806, but none was called Ann. Possibly her christening was not recorded, or one of the daughters' names (Mary and Lucy) was mis-recorded. The small London Gidley families of the late 18th and early 19th century are all problems.
Ann Grimes cannot be the Ann Gidley christened in 1791 in St James' Piccadilly, as her parents were John Gidley and Elizabeth Davis. But one of these Ann Gidleys in Marylebone had an illegitimate son, George Gidley, in 1813. He died in 1835 and was buried in St Marylebone.
8. John Gidley, died 3 May, 1843 at the Asylum, Plympton St Mary, Devon, aged 27, a labourer. Cause of death was epilepsy. The informant was the surgeon at the asylum.
John was therefore born about 1816. However, I have been through all the John Gidleys born that year and they are all accounted for elsewhere.
If we make the year of birth slightly more flexible, there is a John Gidley christened in November 1817 in Plymouth, son of Henry Gidley, a mason of Hows Lane, and his wife Ann Symons. Nothing further was known of John. He may have been in the asylum a very long time. If this is the correct John, then his father, Henry Gidley who married Ann Symons in Plymouth in 1816, was possibly christened in 1795 in Rattery, Devon. There were three more children for Henry and Ann. The oldest, Henry Gidley, born in 1819, died in 1850 at Graig Coal Pit, Aberdare, Glamorgan, Wales. A sinker by occupation, he was accidentally killed by falling down the pit. Another brother, Edwin, christened Thomas Edwin in 1822 in Plymouth, married Sarah Colliver in 1848. They had Gidley descendants in the Plymouth area till the 20th century. The last child of Henry and Ann was a daughter, Emma Matilda Gidley who married John Phillips in 1847 in Plymouth.
9. Eliza Gidley, died 19 August 1883 in Bethnal Green Workhouse, a washer [laundress], aged 50, of 56 Old Ford Road. The cause of death was carcinoma and the informant was the Master of the Workhouse.
2021 Update: I've found her. She was born Eliza Anna Miller in Mile End, London, in 1833, and married Joseph Gidley in 1862 in Shandon, near Cork, in Ireland. In 1881 she was a widow of no occupation, living in Bethnal Green. Her husband Joseph Gidley had died in 1868. He was the son of George Gidley and his wife Jane nee Davis who married in Plymouth in 1827, but actually fit on the Chudleigh tree. Joseph served in the Royal Artillery and was obviously stationed in Ireland when he married. There was a large garrison in Cork. Joseph and Eliza had no children.
