Lost Contact; The Funnell Sisters

My great grandmother was Alice Funnell. She was born in 1880, in Brighton, Sussex. She was the oldest of three sisters, and I believe they had a strong bond, possibly formed by the death of their mother, when they were young, and then solidified when their father remarried a woman who was not keen on raising someone else's children. Their subsequent lives, and the following generations lead the Funnell sisters to live their lives at different ends of England, and their descendants at different ends of the earth. But thanks to modern genealogy tools, that contact is no longer lost.

Brighton Pavillion, the royal seaside home.

Mary Jane Vinall (my 2x great grandmother) was a Brighton girl. She was one of several generations who lived in the St Peter's ward of Brighton, Sussex, not far from the Brighton neighbourhood known today as North Laine. North Laine is now considered a bohemian, cultural quarter of Brighton, but back in the 1800s this area was considered a slum neighbourhood, and a far cry from the gentile parts of town that drew the wealthy to Brighton. Mary Jane was the daughter of Henry Vinall (a painter, who I wrote about in 'Health' week), and Jane Munro, a laundress (who I wrote about in one of my first posts, 'Origins'. Mary Jane was the youngest child of 8, born to Henry and Jane, in 1856. Her next older sister, Louisa, who I believe played a major part in Mary Jane's daughter's lives, was born just two years earlier in 1854.

Mary Jane Vinall married Joseph Funnell, a miner, on 29th September 1878, at St Peter's church, Brighton. Mary Jane's address at the time of their marriage was 4 St Peter's Street, and Joseph's was just a stone's throw away, at 14 New England Street. They were definitely a local pair! Joseph's father was Jesse Funnell, a gardener, and his mother was Caroline Pierce, the daughter of Alfred, a labourer. These were solid, working class people, who would have lived in small cramped conditions, with poor sanitation, on meagre earnings. Their lives would have been markedly different in all manner of ways from my Money ancestors, who lived in Brighton at the same time, and who I recently wrote about in my two 'Most' posts.

St Peter's church, Brighton

Two years after their marriage, and at the age of 24, Mary Jane and Joseph welcomed their daughter Alice (my great grandmother) to the world. Born on 18th September 1880, at 37 Queens Gardens, Brighton, Alice was to be the eldest of the three sisters. By the time of Alice's birth Joseph was working as a railway labourer, presumably at the nearby Brighton Railway Station, which was built in 1840-41. Whilst this work may have offered a more reliable wage, it was likely just as dangerous; there was no such thing as Health and Safety in 1880!

When Alice was 2 years old, her sister Louise arrived. The small family were, by now, living at 4 St Peter's Street, with her parents, Henry and Jane Vinall, and brother Charles, and sister Louisa. Mary Jane, Joseph, and Alice had moved here prior to 1881, and were listed as residing at the address in the census of that year. Number 4 was not a large house by any means. The terraced houses on St Peter's Street are still standing, and I would guess that it is a traditional '2 up/ 2 down', workman's cottage, meaning that inside there would likely have been a couple of rooms on the ground floor, and a couple on the floor above. Not much room for 6 adults and 2 infants.

Two years later the family were living at 7 Park Crescent Road, Brighton, and it was in this family home that the youngest of the three sisters was born. Margaret Funnell was born on 2nd November 1885, when her oldest sister Alice was 5, and Louise, the middle child, was 2. 

Mary Jane conceived a fourth child, but this time her pregnancy did not progress as it should. On the 16th April 1888, at the age of 32, Mary Jane Funnell died, as she miscarried her child. Going by the death certificate, and after consulting some medical friends, it seems likely that Mary Jane suffered from a DIC (disseminated intravascular coagulation) as a result of her miscarriage, which caused her body to go into shock, in turn causing convulsions. This would be a rare domino effect of conditions today, but in the 1800s it may have been more common due to poor nutrition, or lack of antibiotics. Mary Jane's three young daughters were motherless. Alice was 7 years old, Louise was 4, and little Margaret was just 2 years old.

Mary Jane Funnell's death certificate

Less than a year later Joseph, the girls' father, remarried. With three daughters to care for he would have needed someone, to help look after them while he went out for work. Joseph married Sarah Jane Marshall at the Brighton Register Office, on the 11th March 1889, when Joseph was a labourer, and Sarah Jane was a laundress at the Albion Hotel. The Albion Hotel was one of the most famous hotels in Brighton, and the building that previously stood on the same ground was part of the reason why Brighton, and British seaside towns had become so 'en vogue' in the Regency era. 

The Royal Albion Hotel

Richard Russell was a physician, and Sussex native. He encouraged his patients to bathe and drink seawater, and built Russell House on the seafront at Brighton in the mid to late 1700s. Russell House was where Dr Russell lived, and ran his treatment centre. The back doors of the house opened out onto the beach where bathing machines would enable his patients to get in and out of the sea in a modest fashion. The Albion Hotel became the Royal Albion in 1847, and towards the end of the 19th century the hotel was in decline, eventually closing for renovations and refurbishment in 1900. It seems that Sarah Jane was working at the hotel when the glory of this once beautiful building was definitely fading. 

Sarah Jane may have been happy to leave the hard work of laundress at the decaying hotel, but according to reports from fellow descendants of the sisters, she was not particularly happy about mothering the little girls. In 1891, Joseph, two of his daughters, Alice and Louise, were living with the 'wicked stepmother', at 4 Hastings Road. I've been unable to locate Margaret, who would have been 6 years old at the time of the 1891 census of England. Perhaps little Margaret annoyed Sarah Jane too much and she was sent away, although I've not found her with any of the Vinall or Funnell extended family. Perhaps her being omitted was an enumerator error. 

Traditional tales, like Cinderella describe strained relationships in blended families.

In the following census report Alice had left the family home, to work as a general servant for a local wine merchant. In the same census I have been unable to locate Louise, or the step mother Sarah Jane, but it seems likely that Margaret and Joseph were living at 89 Carlyle Street, where Joseph was recorded as a 'navvie', which was a slang term for a labourer working on a railway construction.

So, for those two decades it's hard to know what was happening with the three sisters, and how they fared. Things begin to become clearer as we journey through the next decade. In 1909, my great grandparents married at All Souls, Brighton. They lived at 23 Warwick Street, and William Edgill, my great grandfather, was a cook. Warwick Street no longer exists; some of the houses were pulled down in the 1930s as a slum clearance measure, and the entire neighbourhood was redeveloped in the 1960s.

Louise was the next sister to marry, shortly before the 1911 census. She married a wonderfully named tobacconist, called Havelock Desire Turner, from Harrow. At the time of her marriage to Havelock Louise was working as a maid servant at the St Clere Estate, near Sevenoaks in Kent. By the time of the 1911 census Louise was still working at the St Clere Estate, as a laundry maid, alongside her younger sister Margaret, as yet unmarried, and also employed as a laundry maid. St Clere is a large estate, and Georgian country house in Ightham, near Sevenoaks in Kent. The property was owned by Sir Mark Edlman Collet, in 1911; the son of an earlier governor of the Bank of England. 

The St Clere estate is often used today, as a film location.

In the 1911 census, Alice and her husband of 1 year, William, were working together below stairs, at a house near Winchester, called The Firs, Twyford. William was the cook, and Alice was the house parlour maid, for the family of Harry Merrill Colebrook, and 'importer of foreign corn'. They had one child together, but she was not living with them. Their daughter Mary Margaret Louise Edgill, and 11 month old infant, and 'nurse child' was living with the Hurdle family, at #2 St Peter's Street, Brighton, just next door to Alice's aunt Louisa Vinall (older sister to Mary Jane). It struck me, when I found the record, that Alice had named her first born child and daughter for her mother, and two sisters, and that the child was entrusted with her aunt, and neighbours, while her and William were working in service.

Margaret had her big day later in 1911, when she married Joseph Stoker Varey, an estate labourer from Ulleskelf, Tadcaster, Yorkshire. They married at Kirkby Wharfe parish church on the 28th October 1911. Margaret's address recorded on the marriage certificate was 'Brancaster' which is in Norfolk, and I've tried to figure out how Margaret, a maid from the south of England, ever met an estate labourer in Yorkshire. The best I've come up with is that perhaps Margaret travelled with the Collet family, as sometimes staff did, for a stay at an estate in the Tadcaster area. Not far from Kirkby Wharfe is an estate called Grimston Park, which could fit the type of estate the wealthy family might have visited, bringing an entourage of staff. That said, I've not located a big fancy house in Brancaster, Norfolk, and cannot account for her address there. How they met remains a bit of a mystery, but met they did!

Grimston Park, near Tadcaster. Possibly the estate where Margaret and Joseph met, when working in service there.

Alice and William went on to have 3 more children; William Nicholson Edgill, Edith Alice Edgill, and James Ernest Edgill. Before 1913 they moved to Sutton where William had a job as a cook at Banstead Lunatic Asylum; you can read more about his story here. Alice was a home maker and stay at home mother, as were most married women in that era. 

Louise and Havelock welcomed their first child in June 1911; two months after their marriage. Lillian Mary was born in Brighton, when her parents were living at 4 St Peter's Street, with Louise's aunt Louisa. Their first three children (all daughters) bore the names of the important women in their lives; Lillian Mary, Janet Alice, and Margaret Louise. Louise and Havelock did not remain in Brighton, and when they had their second daughter, Janet Alice, they were all living in Wembley, on Lancelot Road, and  Havelock, no longer a tobacconist, but was working as an insurance agent instead. By 1915, the family had moved again, to Sandringham Road, Willesden Green, where Havelock was a store keeper (yet another job change!). At this time Margaret Louise, daughter #3 was born. They went on to have a further four children, all boys; Frederick George, William Frank, Arthur Henry, and Anthony Francis.

Meanwhile in Yorkshire, Margaret was equally busy, birthing a child pretty much every two years; Joseph Charles (1912), Olive Betty (1914), Doreen (1916), George Francis (1918), Richard Stoker (1920) and John Thomas (1923). The year after, in April 1912, their aunt Louise died in Brighton, at the address that had been home to several generations of Vinalls, since at least 1851. Alice had been with her at her passing, and was the person who registered Louisa's death.

Louisa Vinall's death certificate

The 1921 census showed how all three women continued with household duties and  raising their children, each in their own corners of the country. Alice lived with her children and husband William, now a mental nurse at Banstead Mental Hospital, at 34 Kings Road, Belmont. Louise was still on Sandringham Road, Willesden Green, with her family. At this time Havelock was still a store keeper, but also had yet another job; a motor engineer for the New Engine Company, at Willesden Motor Engineers. Margaret was in Ulleskelf, Tadcaster, Yorkshire with her family, where Joseph her husband was a general labourer.

The first of the sisters to die was my great grandmother, Alice. She died on the 12th February 1934, at her home on Kings Road, Sutton, from cancer. She was 54, and her children were between the ages of 24 and 12 at the time of her death. Her youngest daughter was 19 at the time, and with her older sister by then married, it fell to her to run the house, and care for her 12 year old brother. William, Alice's husband, died in 1938, just four years later, from tuberculosis. 

At the start of WWII the National Register of 1939 was taken, and it's records show the surviving sisters continuing to live in their chosen home towns. Louise was living in Willesden, at 11 Strode Road with Havelock, now working as a laundryman. Her two youngest daughters (Lillian, and Janet), and her three eldest sons (Frederick, William, and Arthur) were at home with her and Havelock. Margaret Louise had married earlier that year, and the baby of the family, Anthony Francis was living in Northamptonshire, possibly as a 13 year old evacuee.

Margaret was living with her husband Joseph, who was working as a road man for West Riding County Council. Her two adult sons Richard Stoker, and John Thomas were living with them, at The Old Hall, Tadcaster, and were working as nursery men, growing tomatoes. Their eldest son, Joseph Charles, was working as a railway man, and living in the Tadcaster railway cottages, with other people named Varey, possibly relatives. Doreen had also married, and was living nearby to  her parent's home, in Tadcaster. I have been unable to locate George Francis Varey in the 1939 Register. Olive, known to all as Betty, had married, and was living in Willesden with her husband; a short half hour walk from her aunt Louise's home.

Just over a decade after the war ended, Margaret died. She passed on the 19th March 1956, in Ulleskelf, Yorkshire. She left behind her husband Joseph, and adult children. She was 70 at the time of her death.

The gravestone for Margaret and Joseph Stoker Varey, at the Methodist Chapel graveyard, in Ulleskelf, Yorkshire.

Louise died at the age of 82, on the 19th March, 1965. Her husband Havelock had died in 1952, when Louise was 68. All seven of her children survived her. 

When I started the task of researching and documenting our family tree I knew nothing of these sisters, and their lives, and neither did my family. We knew lots about other branches of our tree, but this branch was a complete mystery. These women, the three sisters, their mother, and her sister, stood out to me as a tightly bonded group of women, and I felt somewhat sad that those connections had been lost by the distance of geography and generations. A few years ago I took an Ancestry DNA test, given to me by my wonderful husband for Christmas. One of my first couple of 'matches' was with a pair of women who are descendants of both Louise and Margaret. We have shared research, and emails, and have hoped for a real life meet up at some point. But with one of us living in Australia, another in Canada, and the third in England, it seems like we are further flung than our ancestors, the Funnell sisters. We can but hope, but in the meantime we can enjoy a virtual connection, and thank the internet gods for social media!

#Edgill

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Russell_(doctor)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Albion_Hotel#

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1043366?section=official-list-entry

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17.6&lat=50.82045&lon=-0.12849&layers=168&b=ESRIWorld&o=0

https://www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk/topic/warwick-street-brighton

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimston_Park