Richmond family history update - the tragic tale of Mary Ann Richmond

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't read Richmond Unchained, this article gives away some of the details of the Richmond family as outlined in the book and my continuing research ...

Yesterday I examined new evidence relating to my research into Bill Richmond's family. These findings revealed details about Bill's daughter Hannah, her likely marriage and a baptism record for her possible daughter named Rose. If these connections can be firmed up, then Rose could become the first confirmed grandchild of Bill Richmond to emerge from my 12-year study into his life, times and family.

Today I present another possible candidate to be a grandchild of Bill's - namely one Mary Ann Richmond, who features in two articles from the Leicester Chronicle newspaper which I have recently discovered.

Aside from her surname, Mary Ann caught my attention for two reasons. Firstly, her Christian name is the same as Bill's wife, suggesting she may have been named after her grandmother. Secondly, both articles I found about her make mention of her ethnicity, with one referring to her as a "mulatto" and the other describing her as a "woman of colour".

The timescale of the articles - which appeared in 1838 and 1843 - fit with the general chronology of Bill's family as we know it. In the second article Mary Ann is described as being 19 years old, which means she would have been born around 1824. If she was indeed related to Bill then that would make her a possible daughter of Bill's son William, baptised in 1797, or Henry, who was baptised in 1813 (but could have been born a few years earlier).

Although Bill and his family seem to have been based in London from the mid-1790s until his death in 1829, the apparent Leicester residence of Mary Ann Richmond does not preclude her from being a family member. Bill's son Henry, for example, ended up in the Midlands at some point, with an 1841 newspaper report I have found - the latest reference I have to Henry's life - suggesting that he was living in the environs of Birmingham, which is only 40 miles, incidentally, from Leicester.

The first article I found about Mary Ann Richmond dates from 14 October 1837. The article describes how Mary Ann, along with one Maaia Fowkes, got into trouble with the law for attempting to spend a fake half-sovereign coin, an offence for which the pair were remanded in custody, but presumably later freed.

Sadly, this was not Mary Ann Richmond's only brush with the law. Six years later a heart-rending article in the Leicester Chronicle described a particularly sad development in her life. Charged alongside a 23-year-old named Eliza Savage with receiving a shawl stolen by one William Vesty and "knowing [it] to be stolen", Mary Ann faced the full wrath of the crown court on 17 October 1843.

This report identifies Mary Ann as being just 19 years of age and a "woman of colour", also noting that she could neither "read nor write". Presumably due to poverty, it is also claimed that Mary Ann "had no lawyer to speak for her" in court. She was therefore forced to defend herself, which she did "with much vehemence",  at one stage accusing one of the prosecution witnesses of being a "lying villain".

Despite Mary Ann's protestations, and an admission on the part of the journalist present at the proceedings that the "evidence against Richmond" was "not so strong as against Savage", she was found guilty and sentenced to ten years' transportation.

Unsurprisingly, given how strongly she had protested her innocence, Mary Ann greeted the news of her punishment with dismay and distress, as did her co-accused Savage, who had been sentenced to transportation for life.

"The severity of the sentence almost rendered the women frantic," reads the report. "The woman Richmond exclaimed: "I did not know! I did not know! Oh, Vesty, what have you done for me?" ... it was with great difficulty either of them could be removed from the bar."

Regardless of whether she was related to Bill Richmond or not, the vivid and disturbing glimpses we gain of Mary Ann Richmond's life from these two articles speak eloquently of the harsh attitudes towards theft and the unforgiving judicial attitudes faced by many people living in poverty. 

Once Mary Ann was transported, most likely to Australia, who knows what her fate was, although the following passage, from the documentary A Short History of Convict Australia, paints a bleak picture of existence for female convicts at this time: 

"Women made up 15% of the convict population. They are reported to have been low-class women, foul mouthed and with loose morals. Nevertheless they were told to dress in clothes from London and lined up for inspection so that the officers could take their pick of the prettiest ... Until they were assigned work, women were taken to the Female Factories, where they performed menial tasks like making clothes or toiling over wash-tubs. It was also the place where women were sent as a punishment for misbehaving, if they were pregnant or had illegitimate children ... Other punishments for women included an iron collar fastened round the neck, or having her head shaved as a mark of disgrace. Often these punishments were for moral misdemeanours, such as being ‘found in the yard of an inn in an indecent posture for an immoral purpose‘, or ‘misconduct in being in a brothel with her mistress’ child‘ ... As women were a scarcity in the colony, if they married they could be assigned to free settlers. Often, desperate men would go looking for a wife at the Female Factories."

I will endeavour to find out more about Mary Ann, and her possible link to Bill Richmond, if I possibly can.

If you have any information about Bill Richmond's ancestors or family, no matter how small or anecdotal, please email me at lgw007@yahoo.com

With thanks to researcher Kristina Bedford, whose website can be reached here.

Richmond family history update - Bill's granddaughter found?

Artist Trevor Von Eeden's imagining of Bill and Mary Richmond's wedding

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't read Richmond Unchained, this article gives away some of the details of the Richmond family as outlined in the book's final chapters ... 

Those of you who have read the final chapters of Richmond Unchained will know that Bill's wife Mary tragically ended up living a poverty-stricken existence in and out of the St Martin's workhouse, before dying there in 1858.

The fate of Bill's children and grandchildren is something of a mystery though. We know that his son Henry attempted, unsuccessfully, to launch a boxing career of his own, losing two contests and getting in trouble with the law, before disappearing from the public record in the early 1840s.

However, very little indeed is known about Bill's other children. Baptism records located by my researcher Kristina Bedford during the long process of working on Richmond Unchained suggested five possible Richmond children. The shakiest candidate was one Charles Richmond, baptised on 2 January 1792 in Wakefield, who was possibly buried in  St Andrew's in Holborn on 12 April 1807.

More conclusively, Bill and Mary had a daughter, Hannah, who was baptised on 28 September 1795; a son, William, who was baptised on 6 August 1797 and the aforementioned son, Henry, and a daughter, Betsy, who were both baptised on 24 May 1813. All these baptisms took place at St Andrew's.

Apart from what we know of Henry, brief references to Bill's children and grandchildren in reports of his funeral in 1830 and a mention in the St Martin's workhouse documents of Mary leaving the workhouse to "nurse her daughter", extensive research has turned up no further information about Bill's children and grandchildren.

Until now!

While searching through a set of newly scanned periodicals in the British Newspaper Archive at the weekend, an item caught my eye from the Evening Mail, a London-based newspaper, dated Wednesday 22 October 1828.

The article featured an account of a court case in which two men were accused of having robbed a Chelsea pensioner. According to the report, one Ann Humphreys, a "woman of colour" and "the daughter of Richmond, the pugilist",  was called to the stand as a witness.

The Evening Mail reference to Richmond's daughter

Does this reference allude to the existence of a possible fifth (or sixth?) offspring of Bill Richmond? Or could 'Ann' have been used as a diminutive version of Hannah? 

Further investigation, thanks again to Kristina Bedford, has revealed that the latter is the more likely interpretation, for Kristina has succeeded in discovering details of a marriage between one Hannah Richmond and Robert Humphryes on 8 October 1821, again at St Andrew's.

 

The marriage record of Robert Humphryes and Hannah Richmond

If this marriage record does refer to Bill's daughter then it represents an important step in the long journey of trying to eventually trace any living ancestors of Bill Richmond.

Devoted followers of pugilism will, of course, find their ears pricking up at the mention of the surname Humphryes (also spelt, with little consistency it seems, as Humphries or Humphreys), for it was the surname of one of the sport's brightest stars of the late 18th century, namely Richard Humphryes, who thrice fought the great Jewish pugilist Daniel Mendoza.

Little is known about the pugilist Humphryes, who died in either 1799 or 1800, but one of the witnesses on the marriage record of Hannah and Robert is, tantalisingly, also listed as being named Richard Humphryes. Could this Richard perhaps be the pugilist's son? And Robert his brother? It is pure speculation, of course, but considering the pugilistic circles in which Bill Richmond mixed, it is not inconceivable that his daughter might have married a member of another great boxing family. 

The trail doesn't quite end there either.

As well as the above marriage record, Kristina Bedford has also discovered a possible baptism record that might very well be describing one of Bill Richmond 's grandchildren.

A girl named Rose Humphryes, whose parents are listed as Robert and Hannah Humphryes, was baptised at St Andrew's on 20th July 1823. We discover a little more about the family on this record, for Robert's occupation is listed as a glass cutter, while the family residence is listed as 20 St Martin's Street - bang in the heart of London's pugilistic community - it being the same street on which the Fives Court and Bill's old pub, the Horse and Dolphin (no. 25), were located.

Rose Humphryes' baptism record

Much of the above is speculative at the moment, of course, and needs further investigation and reinforcement. But it may well prove an important step in finding out more about the family of the world's first ever black sporting superstar!

It's a big IF, but if any modern-day relatives of Bill Richmond could eventually be traced then maybe I would be in a position to test my theory, via DNA testing, that Bill's father was the Reverend Richard Charlton and that he is therefore related to the iconic Elizabeth Bayley Seton, Richard's granddaughter and the first ever American-born citizen to be canonised by the Catholic church. 

If you have any information about Bill Richmond's ancestors or family, no matter how small or anecdotal, please email me at lgw007@yahoo.com

Researcher Kristina Bedford's website can be reached here.