A Mystery to try the best Lovelock sleuths |
James Lovelock was born in 1845 in Shalbourne, Wiltshire, the second child of nine in the family of Joseph Lovelock and Harriet Martin. All nine were born in Shalbourne but Joseph and Harriet apparently never presented any of them for baptism.
James was recorded at home with his parents in the 1851 and 1861 Census Returns, latterly as a Carter working on one of the many farms in the neighbourhood. But James obviously wanted to see more of the world, so by 1871 he had moved to Lambeth in South London.
The Census Return for that year that includes James’s household is full of errors, or perhaps a series of misleading statements. Firstly James is recorded as being born in Lambeth. The lady, Maria, recorded as his wife was supposedly born in Hungerford in Berkshire. Shalbourne lies about 3 miles south-west of Hungerford and before 1895 half of the parish lay in Berkshire and half in Wiltshire. It would seem that the Enumerator made a mistake and transposed the birthplaces of James and his wife.
James and Maria had a son Joseph with them, aged one, and the GRO Online Index of Births shows that this is Joseph James Lovelock, born in the July-September quarter of 1869. The index also provides Joseph’s mother’s maiden name of Beldon.
How strange, then, that the next person listed in the 1871 Census Return is John Hyatt, said to be James’s father-in-law. If he was, it is curious that the GRO records at Free BMD have no entry for the marriage of a James Lovelock to a Maria Hyatt, or a Maria Beldon, nor, indeed, of any Lovelock-Hyatt marriage. Furthermore, there seems to be no trace of John Hyatt or his wife Ann in either the 1851 or 1861 Census Returns.
By 1881 James and Maria had moved to 110 Union Street in Southwark. Their family had grown to include William, Eliza Ann and Lucy. William was registered as John William, mother’s maiden name Beldom, but the birth registrations of Eliza and Lucy both apparently presented Maria’s maiden name as Beldon.
Some time after the 1881 Census James and Maria parted company. If that was due to Maria’s death then that was not registered in the names of Lovelock, Beldon or Hyatt. We know that they separated as James married Eliza Winn on 31 August 1890 in the church of St Mark in Walworth in South London. James declared himself to be a bachelor, so unless he lied he and Maria had obviously never married, despite being together for at least 10 years.
Eliza Winn had married a William Preston in 1871 and had been widowed by the time she married James. She still had four children from the previous marriage with her when the record of her and James was taken in 1891. There had been a son Alfred born to her and James around October 1890 who died within two months, but they had another son David John in October 1891, by which time Eliza was 45 and very nearly beyond child-bearing age for the times.
But what of the family that James had left behind? None of them appear under the names Lovelock or Beldon in the 1891 Census, and there is no record of Maria marrying using any of the three possible surnames of Lovelock, Beldon or Hyatt. Joseph James resurfaced in 1892 to marry Alice Musto. They died in 1947 and 1941 respectively.
John William seems to have emulated his parents. In 1901 he was recorded living as man and wife with a Nellie at 22 Gaywood Street in Southwark, but there is no GRO marriage entry at Free BMD to account for the arrangement. He resurfaced in 1905 to marry Joannah Taylor when he declared himself a bachelor which, with the lack of an appropriate death entry for a Nellie Lovelock, suggests that he and Nellie were also never married. However, neither he nor Joannah appear in the 1911 or 1921 Census, nor in the 1939 Register, and there are no death registrations that match their births.
But now to another mysterious element of this anecdote. Eliza Ann and Lucy make no apparent appearance in any online database after the 1881 Census – no deaths, no burials, no marriages, no other Census entries. Vanished from the face of the earth. We know that’s not possible, but how did the pair of them come to avoid any brush with officialdom for the rest of their lives? Did they, together with their mother perhaps, adopt another surname? If so it seems that we are unlikely to ever find out the truth.
Is this the best Lovelock Family Disappearing Act ever?