Stephen and Robert Lovelock |
It is a well-attested fact that it was common for eighteenth century families to use the same set of Christian names in generation after generation. The Lovelocks were no exception to this 'rule', which has led on many an occasion to all kinds of speculation and not a little confusion. Another naming feature, where the Christian name is not so common as, say, John and William can also give rise to some interesting suggestions. Both situations feature in the following discussion.
Richard Lovelock of the Lieflock Line born in 1706 married Elizabeth Pyke on 22 September 1729, according to our current opinion. Their four sons included Stephen, baptized at Easton, Wiltshire on 5 July 1730 and Robert, baptized at Easton on 12 March 1735.
Stephen married Mary Elford on 22 October 1750, but Mary was buried at Easton on 7 August 1765. It has been suggested that Stephen then departed from Easton for London and was the groom in the marriage to Jane Davis that took place at St Leonard, Streatham, Surrey on 12 December 1765. Some possibly pertinent facts are that: at the marriage to Jane Davis husband Stephen was recorded as a widower; there are no earlier records in our data of a Lovelock in Streatham; and there is no record of the burial of a Stephen in Easton. However, there was apparently another Stephen Lovelock in South London around the time of the Streatham marriage, for Anne the daughter of Stephen and Jane was baptized in St Mary, Lambeth on 9 May 1764. If Anne was actually the daughter of Stephen Lovelock and Jane Davis they must have lied about being married, or at the very least have concealed the fact that they were not; but also, if Anne was the daughter of the couple married in Streatham in 1765 Stephen must have abandoned Mary Elford some considerable time before she died if he was indeed the man born in Easton. That does seem a plausible scenario if Stephen was somehow kept informed about matters at Easton and, whilst he and Jane had no compunction about hiding their unmarried state in order to get their daughter baptized, they dared not involve themselves in a bigamous marriage whilst Mary still lived.
One noticeable matter concerning the marriage of Stephen and Mary is that their first child, Bety, was baptised just under 10 months after their marriage, son John was baptised 23 months after Bety, son William 35 months after John, and then no more. Mary was clearly a fecund young lady, so why would there be no further children? Maybe there were, but all were still-born, or maybe following William's baptism Stephen abandoned his Easton family.
And then again - maybe he did not. Maybe he left for London in order to find better employment and somehow sent money back to Easton to support the family until they could join him. We know they never did, but is that a scenario we can dismiss? If Mary eventually decided that London was not for her and the children, could that be why Stephen took up with Jane Davis?
We should also consider Mary's situation if Stephen abandoned her following William's baptism. With three children under 7 could she have supported them and herself, or would she have been forced to seek parish relief? If she did the Guardians should have pursued Stephen to force him to meet his legal obligations. That would have been nearly impossible if he had used a false name in London, but obviously if he was the man who married Jane Davis he did not.
Stephen Lovelock and Jane Davis had a son Stephen baptized in Streatham on 6 July 1766 and it has been suggested that he, the son, was the man who married Elizabeth Jones on 19 October 1800 in St Mary, Lambeth and became the progenitor of what we call the Lambeth-Australia-New Zealand Tree. The flaw, if it is one, in that argument is that when Stephen the son was buried in Southwark on 10 February 1837 his age was recorded as 65, indicating a birth in 1771 or 1772. Un-certificated ages are not always accurate, of course, but a difference of 5 or 6 years may suggest that this was yet another Stephen, perhaps the father of Anne if that man was not the one born in Easton. Furthermore, Stephen and Jane Davis had three more children, according to our present opinion - Sarah was born on 25 June 1771 and baptized on 11 July 1771, Richard was born on 9 December 1773 and baptized on 31 December 1773, both baptisms taking place in Holy Trinity, Clapham, whilst James was born on 31 May 1777 and baptized in St Leonard, Streatham on 8 June 1777. That does leave a gap between Sarah and Richard long enough for another Stephen to be born, whose birth or baptism records we have not discovered.
The discussion above does of course suggest that Stephen and Jane were quite mobile, albeit within a comparatively small geographic area, but there is no evidence to show that he was by any stretch of the imagination a man of means and so probably moved with his family from one lodging to another depending on where he could find work. The baptisms suggest the following residences: Lambeth 1764, Streatham 1766, Clapham 1771, Clapham 1773, Streatham 1777. All south of the River Thames. But there is also the record of the baptism of Mary the daughter of Stephen and Jane Lovelock in St Martin in the Fields on 26 April 1768 - did they venture north of the river for a brief spell? There is otherwise a 5-year gap in the series of baptisms which seems unlikely, although naturally there could have been a still birth or two in that period. Even earlier than all of these baptisms was that of Thomas Charles 'the son of Stephen by Jane' who was born on 26 October 1761 and baptized in St Margaret, Westminster on 17 November 1761. Could Stephen Lovelock and Jane Davis have been living together for over 4 years before they married? But if those 1761, 1764 and 1768 baptisms involved a different Stephen and Jane our data contains no record of their marriage.
It seems likely that Stephen and Jane eventually moved back to Lambeth, for there were burials at St Mary, Lambeth on 2 December 1790 of a Stephen and on 27 Jan 1811 of a Jane, both apparently residing in Fore Street at the time of their deaths. Even in the later nineteenth century Fore Street was not a very salubrious address as this photograph of 1860-1865 shows.
What we do know about the Stephen who married Elizabeth Jones is that they had at least seven children, the sixth of whom they named Robert, born on 2 December 1814. He was one of the five Lovelocks that were transported to Australia, he married Jane Currie on 26 September 1847, and they named the first of their sixteen children Robert. Obviously not wishing to break with tradition that Robert, having married Bridget Baldwin in 1876, named his first son, born in 1882, Robert. We have no record of this Robert marrying, so the tradition seems to have ended there.
Returning to Easton and to that Robert baptized on 12 March 1735, we know that he married Mary Wilks on 7 January 1777 and that their son John was baptized on 22 August 1779 and buried on 25 November 1801, but that is the extent of our knowledge of the family. There was a burial of a Mary Lovelock in Easton on 10 September 1790 who might have been Robert’s wife, although since no age at death was quoted she could alternatively have been the daughter of Edward Lovelock and Ann Pyke who was baptized in 1780.
Now we turn to the Wiltshire-Cornwall Tree. The progenitor is Robert Lovelock who married Jane Taye in Budock, Cornwall on 15 October 1815. The marriage entry records Robert as being from ‘Eaton’ in Wiltshire, which it is presumed is a reference to Easton as there is no Eaton in Wiltshire. The Budock Parish Register records that at his burial on 23 July 1830 Robert had achieved the age of 80, indicating that he was born in 1749 or 1750.
Alas, there is no baptism entry in Easton to match that suggestion, nor anywhere else in Wiltshire. But it would surely be an unlikely claim for Robert to have made if it was not true?
But whose son this Robert could be is by no means obvious from the Easton data we have.
However, we do know that Robert had married prior to 1815 – on 2 February 1807 to a widow named Mary Downing (we do not know her maiden name). They had a son Robert, baptized on 4 October 1807 and buried on 23 April 1809.
So the question to which we would dearly like the answer is ‘Does the repetition of the names Stephen and Robert point to the Lambeth-Australia-NZ and the Wiltshire-Cornwall Trees being in fact branches of the Lieflock Line?’