Hello! I hope you are having a good day. Thank you for being here and taking the time to read this blog post. I hope you find it entertaining and educational! In today’s post I am going to be telling you all about my 4th Great-Grandmother, Eliza Lewington.
Eliza Lewington was born to Sarah Durbage and William Lewington on the 28th April 1816 in Kingsclere, Hampshire. She was the first born child of Sarah and William. She had two sisters, Maria and Esther, and three brothers, Thomas, Charles and Joseph.
On the 3rd of October 1836, Eliza married a man named John Sims. They married in the presence of a man named John Rolfe and Eliza’s sister, Maria. Eliza and John Sims had their first and only child together in 1838 named John Sims. His baptism was registered in Kingsclere, however there is a note to say he was privately baptised in Salisbury. It also notes that his father was a pauper living in a Union Workhouse. John Sims senior passed away very soon after his son’s birth. He died at the workhouse in Salisbury.
Sometime in 1841, Eliza’s sister, Maria, had an illegitimate daughter named Harriet. On the 1841 census, which doesn’t tell you how people are related, Eliza was living next door to her parents and siblings. She is named as Eliza Sims, living with John Sims and Harriet Sims. I always just assumed Harriet was the daughter of Eliza and John, until I found her baptism record. Maria went on to marry at the end of 1841 and he took Harriet in as his own.
Eliza remarried in 1841 (seems to be a very busy year for the two sisters!). She married a man named John Rolfe, the same man who was a witness to her first wedding. Together, they had 5 children; Henry, Mary Ann, Elizabeth, Sarah Ann and Thomas. Here are the family, including John Sims, living together in Kingsclere in the 1851 census:
Something you may notice is that John Sims is noted as being the ‘son-in-law’ to the head of the house. This is something you will commonly see in census records as they tended to use ‘step’ and ‘in-law’ interchangeably. When I first saw a record for one of my ancestors that said ‘sawyer’ on, I of course read it as lawyer. I was so impressed that my ancestors were lawyers, but sawyers makes much more sense! After all, they lived in Kingsclere Woodlands.
Something I just thought I would mention, as it has just happened again, is why I take so long to write these blog posts. Although I am busy with my studies and genealogy work, I find whenever I start writing these blogs I end up down a rabbit hole. I constantly go back and check my tree, then I notice things so I start to investigate them and then I don’t end up finishing the blog. I have tried many times to write a blog about all the illegitimate children of this branch of my tree, but I always end up down a rabbit hole!
Anyway, as I was getting the 1861 census for Eliza, I noticed Sarah Ann is missing from it which is quite peculiar, considering she would have been around 12 when it was taken. I will look into this, perhaps she was staying with one of her brothers when it was taken or they just simply forgot to add her to the list of people in the household. Here is the rest of the household in the 1861 census:
You will notice that the family now have some lodgers living with them. I haven’t investigated this thoroughly yet, it is something I am hoping to look into at the Hampshire Record Office, but I believe most of my ancestors living in Kingsclere were paupers who often lived in workhouses.
Here is Eliza in the 1871 census:
By 1871, all the birds had fled the nest. Louisa is Eliza’s Granddaughter, the daughter of Eliza’s daughter Elizabeth. Elizabeth gave birth to Sarah Louisa Rolfe when she was around 16/17 years old. Sarah’s father is a man named James Dowling. He was a sawyer and was around 30 years old at the time of Sarah being born. Sarah was registered as Sarah Louisa Dowling, but her name was changed to Rolfe when she was baptised. Interestingly enough, Sarah appeared in the 1871 twice.
I looked into so many different theories, thinking maybe James had a daughter called Sarah prior to marrying Elizabeth, but he didn’t. I looked into there actually being twins, Sarah AND Louisa, but this wasn’t the case. As Louisa is listed as Eliza’s ‘daughter’, I looked into her potentially having another daughter but this wasn’t the case. The only thing that makes sense is that she maybe visited her Mum and Grandmother in the same day.
Here is Eliza in the 1881 census:
As you can see, the household has filled up a bit. Quite the variety of people too! Let me talk you through each person. The easiest to explain is Thomas Bastin, the same boarder from 1861. We then have Sarah L Rolfe aged 17, of course this is Sarah Louisa. Finally noted as Eliza’s Granddaughter on the record. We have William G Rolfe, aged 9 months. He is Eliza’s Great-Grandson. As you have probably guessed, William was Sarah’s son. I do not know who his father is. However, shortly after this, Sarah got married to a man named George Holley who took in William as his own. The pair had 12 children together!
Finally, there is Ellen Lewington, Eliza’s niece, who is aged just 1 years old. I started to look into who Ellen was, looking at all 4 of Eliza’s siblings, and eventually determined she was the daughter of her brother Charles. Charles was a member of the Royal Chelsea, and in his time of serving, he spent some time in Ireland. In Ireland, he met Hannah Stanton. The pair married in 1862 and moved to Kingsclere together. Hannah sadly passed away in 1880, shortly after having Ellen. I decided to try and look into what happened, and I came across some news articles…
This newspaper article talks about an inquest into Hannah’s passing, which they rules to be down to natural causes, but also add that it could have been prevented if her husband, Charles, had paid for the doctor. This newspaper article also tells me something very interesting, that I didn’t know before. It states that Hannah’s midwife was her sister-in-law, Eliza Rolfe.
Finding out this information made a lot of sense, it made things add up. Eliza had often taken in children who needed it. I don’t believe she was a midwife in a professional sense, I don’t think it was something she was paid for. However, I do believe it was something she did to help women in her family and her community.
In 1883, Eliza sadly passed away after suffering from gangrene of all extremities.
Looking back at Eliza’s life, I think it is very easy to see it was quite extraordinary. Very commonly in these times, people didn’t even get to meet their Grandchildren, nevermind their Great-Grandchildren! She loved, and she lost, she cared and she took in, she truly did so much. Women often get lost in history, especially in family history research, so being able to find out all these details about her has been an honour and I am so proud to say she is my 4th Great-Grandmother.
I believe that she also had trained her daughter, Sarah Ann Butler, to be a midwife, as she took in children who needed it too. She looked after my 2nd Great-Grandmother, Jane, during her pregnancy in 1894. To come from a line of such strong, inspirational women is amazing and I love learning more and more about their stories each day. Eliza truly lived an amazing life and she has been one of my favourite ancestors to learn about. The day I found out she was a midwife was a truly amazing day!
Eliza is buried in Kingsclere, and I intend to go visit her grave at some point. She did so much for so many people in her life, she deserves to be remembered, even if it is over 140 years since her passing.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this post, I hope you found it interesting and educational! Please feel free to leave comments and let me know what you liked, or didn’t like about this post. Feel free to ask any questions you may have too and I will try to answer to the best of my ability.
Have a great rest of your day,
Jessica Jean
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