Mary Ann (or Marian) Symonds (1791-1867) and Ralph Newby (????-1881).
My 4th great-grand aunt and uncle.
Mary Ann – or sometimes Marian – was born just a few months after the marriage of her parents – James Symonds and Frances Ann Witchingham – in 1791. She was baptised at Holy Trinity & All Saints Church in Winterton, Norfolk, on 20 February that year.
Mary Ann married Ralph Newby at St Margaret’s Church in Lowestoft, Suffolk, on 27 December 1812. He came from Martham in Norfolk and while a baptism record has not been found, other documents point to his birth being between 1888 and 1893. Other Newby children were baptised in the village around this time.
Ralph was a widower. His first marriage, to Lydia George, took place at Winterton on 3 April 1810 but I’ve found no death record for her. There’s some confusion over Ralph’s working life too. A merchant seaman record dated 1845 in Great Yarmouth stated that he first went to sea in 1818 and was born on 25 December 1794, as well as the fact that he had dark brown hair, brown eyes and stood 5ft 9ins tall. However, the 1851 census recorded him as a wheelwright living in Row 130 in Yarmouth with his family. The 1861 census described him as a fisherman and by this point he was living in the Fishermen’s Hospital almshouses in the town with his wife. In 1871 he was still living there but as a wheelwright. My suspicion is that Ralph worked at sea but supplemented his income when not by making or repairing wheels.
It’s likely that he was the Ralph Newby who, with his son Robert and various others, was sentenced to six months hard labour for smuggling tobacco. The Lynn Advertiser of 30 October 1847 reported that they were on board the vessel Nancy heading towards Lowestoft when it was boarded by crew of the revenue cruiser Royal Charlotte. They found 3.5 tons of tobacco, which was described by the paper as one of the largest seizures made in a long time. All of the men pleaded guilty.
Mary Ann died an horrifically painful death from scalding in Great Yarmouth in February 1867 and the Norfolk Chronicle of 2 March 1867 reported on the inquest. Held at the Coachmaker’s Arms, it heard that Mary Ann was a long-time resident of the Fishermen’s Hospital almshouses and was in good health, if a nervous woman. On the Friday in question, another resident had opened her door suddenly and in fright Mary Ann had fallen against the fireplace. In the process she’d knocked a pan of boiling water over herself, which caused severe scalding from her neck down to the back of her knees. She died the following morning as a result of her injuries. The death was recorded as accidental and Mary Ann was buried in Great Yarmouth on 26 February. Ralph died in 1881 and was buried on 25 January, his address given as Row 97, Great Yarmouth.
The couple had a number of children:
- Mary Ann Witchingham Newby (1813-1899) was born in Winterton and married sailor John Brown Bristow in 1837. They had children but he died young in 1847. She never remarried and later worked as a charwoman, beatster and nurse maid in Great Yarmouth. She died there in 1899.
- James Newby (1815-????) was also born in Winterton but it’s possible that he was the seaman James Newby sentenced at the Great Yarmouth Sessions on 2 September 1835 to seven years transportation to Australia for stealing shoes. Documents revealed he’d been sentenced in 1833 to a year in gaol for another larceny offence. He arrived in New South Wales in 1836 on board the Susan and received his Certificate of Freedom on 30 March 1843. I’ve not traced him further. Note that he was one of several James Newbys born in Norfolk around the same time but census records after James’s transportation have accounted for them.
- Jane Elizabeth Newby (1817-????) was born in Great Yarmouth, usually went by the name Elizabeth and married local man John Turner in 1843. He was a cooper and his work took the couple and their children to Northfleet in Kent for many years. Later they moved back to Norfolk and settled in Norwich. He died in 1902 but I’ve yet to find to find a date for Jane’s death.
- Robert Green Newby (1826-????) was also born in Great Yarmouth and married Eliza Bowles, who came from the town, in 1845. They had a family and he worked as a fisherman. In 1847 he was sentenced to six months hard labour for smuggling with his father (see above) while the Yarmouth Independent of 17 May 1862 reported that he narrowly avoided prison for assaulting his wife, who appeared in court in bandages. Another case of domestic violence was brought in 1871, when he was fined 10 shillings (Norfolk Chronicle 27 May 1871). The 1881 census showed him living in Hull, Yorkshire, claiming to be a widower and Eliza as a widow back in Yarmouth. It sounds like the couple had separated. Eliza died in the Yarmouth workhouse in 1903. Robert could be the man who died in Hull in 1895 but proof is hard to come by.
- Ann Symonds Newby (1831-????) came from Great Yarmouth and married Ormesby-born fisherman James Bland there in 1854. He was shown as the master of several vessels in the census returns of 1871 and 1881 but both then become hard to trace.
- Edmund Newby (1836-????) was baptised in Beccles, Suffolk, and cropped up in census returns for 1841 and 1851 (listed as Edward in the latter). I’ve not traced him further.
Sources: BMDs and census records at Ancestry.co.uk and Findmypast.co.uk. Norfolk Family History Society. British Newspaper Archive (titles in text). New South Wales Archives.