Mary Ann Budgen – my 2nd great-aunt.
Born in 27 August 1863 in Worth, Sussex, Mary Ann Budgen was baptised on 4 October that year at St Nicholas’ Church. Her parents were Thomas Budgen and Maria Dolamore.
At the time of the 1881 census she was living at the 123-acre Hazel Grove Farm in Abbots Langley, Herts, described as the niece of farmer John Toovey and his wife Anne. Mary married Frederick John Lunnon on 18 October 1890 at St Mary’s in Watford – he’d been born in Kings Langley, Herts, in 1863.
After their marriage, Mary Ann and her commercial traveller husband went to live in Harrow, Hammersmith and Chiswick but they were clearly struggling to make a living, as a report in the London Evening Standard of 14 February 1895 made clear. Frederick, of 82 Coningham Road, Shepherd’s Bush, and now described as a jeweller, was charged with being the bailee of two watches belonging to Charles Dixon, having unlawfully disposed of them.
The report went on: “It appeared that the watches had been entrusted to the care of the prisoner to repair by Mrs Dixon, who gave information to the police as she was unable to recover them. Detective Sergeant James of the T Division… asked the prisoner what he had done with the two watches. He replied: ‘I am very sorry to tell you I have put them away for bread.'” He told the policeman that he’d been unable to get a job and was in great distress, had a wife and three children. The report continued: “It was true that the prisoner was in great distress, there not being any fire in the room and only one piece of bread for all of them… Witness commiserated with the family in their distressed condition and temporarily relieved them out of his own pocket.” The magistrate thanked the officer for his kindness and said he could deal with the case for unlawfully pawning, but he would not do so under the special circumstances. Instead, he gave Lunnon, who’d already recovered one of the watches, a month to return the other. In the meantime, he ordered that the family should receive assistance from the poor box.
I don’t know what happened after the hearing as there’s no follow-up report. However, in the West London Observer of 23 February 1895, Frederick published a personal ad thanking all those who had kindly assisted him during his recent distress. He called out Sergeant James in particular for the help he had given his family. They later moved to Newbury in Berkshire, where Frederick worked as a watch repairer and they lived for some years in Market Street.
He signed up with the Royal Berkshire Regiment at the outbreak of the First World War but he was discharged through ill health in September of 1915.
The couple had eight children who survived into adulthood, all but one girls, but the 1911 census showed that four other children had died. Frederick died in 1932. The 1939 Register shows widowed Mary Ann living with her single daughter Millicent in Newbury. Mary died in 1953.