Author: Shelly

I had a fun mystery today. I’m researching a man named John Henry Morton (or Moreton) Hall. He married Clara Basquill, daughter of James Basquill and Annie Dale.

John was born in 1899 in Stockport. His father was John Henry Hall, but I didn’t know his mother’s name. Looking him up in the GRO index, I found his mother’s maiden name was Benfold.

Then I looked up the family in the 1901 census and found him with his parents, John and Emma Hall, and a younger sister, Ethel.

Totally straightforward, right? But wait. Here’s the marriage register for John and Emma, dated 30 Jan 1902. Over two years after son John Henry Morton was born, and a year after the 1901 census.

Both of them had been previously married. I found Emma’s first husband, James Spedding. His death was registered in December quarter 1901. The 1901 census was taken on 31 March. James was still alive then, and in fact living with his and Emma’s surviving male children, while Emma was living with John Hall, their son, and her daughter with James Spedding, Ethel.

It looks like James Spedding and Emma Benfold separated sometime after the birth of their last child, Ruby, in 1896. In 1899 Emma had a son with John Henry Hall, and by 1901 was living with him as his wife despite them not being married. Yet. Emma seems to have remarried as soon possible after James Spedding’s death.

None of this is shocking in 2023, and I would guess it wasn’t actually too shocking to the Victorians of 1900 England. I think there was likely a lot more of this going on than we may realize. We just aren’t good at putting these sorts of things together, if the numerous incomplete and just plain incorrect Ancestry trees for this family are anything to go by.