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| 1813 Fashions in a happier day |
A year ago, I knew of my 4x great grandfather William Hardman only that he was father of John Hardman, Cap'n of the Mizzen Top, and three more children, all by his wife Elizabeth, and all baptized at St Swithin Worcester, England. Earlier this year, I found six more of his children, the names of his parents (James Hardman and Mary Symonds), and siblings who were baptized in Hereford. I discovered much about the family around him, but very little directly about him; even his baptismal record appears mis-spelled as William Hoardman.
Recent communication with Greg McLean, having come across Hardmans on his excellent genealogical website, sent me back into the historical record. The following life history of William Hardman includes the Hereford and Worcester baptisms from England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975, the marriage and Somerset baptisms are from FreeReg.org.uk, 1841 England Census through ancestry.com, and the deaths of William and Elizabeth from google searches which found newspaper transcripts.
William Hardman was baptized 23 Jan 1792 at St John the Baptist, Hereford, the fourth child, and third son, of James Hardman and Mary Symonds. By the time he was six years old, one of his younger brothers had died, and three more brothers had been baptized in Hereford.
Our next record of him is his marriage to Elizabeth Willis, dated 15 March 1813 at St John the Baptist, Gloucester. The FreeReg index is not a complete transcript, but it does contain much of the useful information that can be gleaned from the original document. In this case, there are just the two names and a note that the marriage was after banns. As there are no witnesses recorded, perhaps this is the record of banns itself, and the marriage solemnized somewhere else. One or other of the couple must have resided in Gloucester for this to be the case.
A baptism 18 April 1814 at St John the Baptist, Hereford of William, son of William Hardman and Elizabeth is probably their eldest son. This is by no means certain, although a William Hardman of the right age and place of birth is living in Worcester in 1851 and 1861, wife Susan. They must be William Hardman and Susan Mitchell who were married in Worcester 28 Jul 1844. I have sent off for the GRO marriage record to find out more about the father of the groom.
There follow three baptisms of their children at St Mary the Virgin, Bathwick near Bath, Somerset. In each case, the address is Grove Street, and William's occupation is Tailor.
Mary Hardman bapt.16 Feb 1816
Elizabeth Hardman bapt. 22 May 1818
Eliza Hardman bapt. 3 May 1820
Between the last of these baptisms and the end of 1821, the family moved to Frome, Somerset, where there are three more baptisms at St John the Baptist - the entries in England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975 give the church as Holy Trinity, Frome, but St John the Baptist is the parish church and this is shown on the FreeReg index. In all three baptisms the address is given as Cheap Street. In the first two, William is still a tailor; in the third he is a fruiterer, indicating a change of occupation.
Jane Hardiman [sic] bapt. 17 Nov 1821
Ann Symons Hardman bapt. 28 Apr 1824
Matilda Hardman bapt. 27 Mar 1826
On 30 Apr 1826, the burial of Elizabeth Hardman, age 8, is recorded at St John the Baptist, Frome. The father's name is given as John, but the address is Cheap Street. I have no indication of another Hardman family in Frome at this time, so I believe this to be a mis-transciption of Wm., and therefore a record of William's daughter Elizabeth, born in Bathwick, about 1818.
Shortly after this, the family moved again, this time to Worcester, where William and Elizabeth had four more children baptized at St Swithin.
James Hardman bapt. 30 Nov 1827
Thomas Hardman bapt. 11 Oct 1829
John Hardman bapt. 5 Sep 1831
Elizabeth Hardman bapt. 9 Aug 1833
Elizabeth Frances Hardman married 1. John Green Winter in London 1850, describing her father as William Hardman, Provision Mercht., and 2. Alexander McDougall in Glasgow 1887, describing her parents as William Hardman, General Merchant, and Elizabeth Hardman ms Willis.
John Hardman's date of birth on his service record is 13 Aug 1831. On the certificate of his 1865 marriage to Amelia Hatt, his father is described as William Hardman, Provision Dealer.
Ann Symons (also known as Simmonds) Hardman made a declaration of identity in Port Adelaide, New South Wales 1887, stating that her parents were William Hardman, Provisions Merchant, and Elizabeth his wife (formerly Willis). She listed her siblings as: William, Mary, Elizabeth, Jane, herself, Matilda, James, Thomas, John, and Eliza. Interestingly she has the siblings who survived childhood in birth order, except for switching Elizabeth and Eliza, although she did indeed have an older sister Elizabeth who had died as a child when Ann was two years old.
A Provision Merchant or Dealer is a food seller, so William appears to have diversified from selling fruit to selling food. Of his time in Worcester, Pigott's Directory lists him by 1835 as Cheesemonger and Bacon Dealer of the Shambles, Worcester. His oldest son at this time was 21 years old, and he had nine others between the ages of nineteen and two years.
Tragedy struck on 12 April 1836, when his wife died. This is reported in the Worcester Journal of 21 April that year among the deaths:
April 12 aged 41 Elizabeth, wife of Mr. William Hardman, Shambles,
Worcester; lamented by her family, and much respected by all who
knew her.
The family continued to live in the Shambles, where we find them in the 1841 England Census. The ancestry.com indexes them as "Harriman", which is why I hadn't found them sooner. My strategy to find the census return for the Shambles, Worcester was to make a google search for "1841 Census Shambles Worcester" (without quotes). This found a family history page with the name and age of another individual living in the Shambles, who I then found in the 1841 England Census enumerator books using the ancestry.com search engine. Having found this return, I went household by household through the neighborhood until I found the Hardmans:
William Hardman 45 Bacon Factor N[ot born in Worcs.]
Jane Do 15 N
Ann Do 15 N
Matilda Do 14 N
James Do 13 Y[es born in Worcs.]
Thomas Do 11 Y
John Do 9 Y
Elizth Do 7 Y
Missing are William, Mary and Eliza. The latter turns up married in the next household, the evidence for which we will see:
Stephen Wilks 20 Carpenter Y
Eliza Do 20 N
Their marriage is indexed in FreeBMD Marriages:
Stephen Wilks and Eliza Hardman Dec(Q4) 1840 Droitwich 18 299
I had found the newspaper article reporting Elizabeth's death among the results of a google search for "William Hardman Shambles" without quotes. The result was a computer generated transcript and a link to a pay to view the original image. The following came from a similar source with slightly different search terms. The Worcester Guardian 5 Mar 1842 carried the following death notice:
Feb 26, aged 50, Mr. William Hardman, of the Shambles, in this city
This would correspond to the FreeBMD Death Index:
William Hardman Mar(Q1) 1842 Droitwich 18 226
In the case of the Worcester Guardian, the computer generated transcript was very long, and I had to read through many articles before I came to the death notices (which is what the search had picked up). However, in perusing the Worcester news of March 1842, I found a detailed description of William Hardman's last moments:
MELANCHOLY
SUICIDE — On Saturday morning, about nine o'clock,
Mr. Hardman, a bacon and
cheese factor, & c., residing in the Shambles,
shot himself with a gun,
near Porte Fields Farm, in the parish of Claines,
about two miles from this
city. Deceased was in his 51st year, and has left
a numerous family. An
inquest was held the same evening by Mr. Hughes,
at the Virgin's Tavern, when
the following evidence was adduced:
— Thomas Bennett, of Claines, labourer: I
was loading thorns in a field of
Mr. Edward Tills on Saturday morning, a little
before nine o'clock. I saw
the deceased standing in the road between
Worcester and the Virgin's Tavern.
I did not see where the deceased came from.
The first I saw of him, he was
standing in the road. I did not perceive that he
was doing anything, nor did I
see anything in his hand. I saw him suddenly
fall, and at the same time heard
the report of a gun. I saw the smoke from the
gun when deceased fell. No one
was near him at the time. I afterwards went to
him. I found him lying on the
side of the road; the gun was about two yards
from him — it was a single-
barrel gun. The deceased's head was blown to pieces,
and his brains about the
road. — William Hudson: I keep the turnpike-gate
leading from Worcester
to the Virgin's Tavern. I heard the alarm and went up.
I found the deceased as
described by the last witness. Mr. E. Corles, of
Worcester, solicitor: I was at
Mr. T. Brampton's on business, this morning. On
ascending the hill near
Jones's farm, I heard a gun; I continued up the road,
and found the deceased
as already described. — Mr. Ledbrook, of Worcester,
surgeon: I saw the
deceased this morning. I found a circular wound above the
ear — a gun-shot
wound — which had carried away the whole substance of the
brain. The
cranium was shattered all to pieces; he must have died instantly.
I have no
doubt the deceased shot himself, regarding the nature of the wound,
and the
gun being found near him. — Stephen Wilks, of the Shambles, joiner: The
deceased was my father-in-law. I saw him yesterday. He was quite well. The
deceased was used to go out with a gun, hedge-popping. I am not aware of
anything to have caused the deceased to have destroyed himself. — This was
the
whole of the evidence; and the Jury returned a verdict "That the deceased
shot himself, being at the time of unsound mind." — The unfortunate
deceased
was buried on Tuesday afternoon at St. Helen's Church; and an immense
concourse of spectators assembled on the occasion.
And there we leave him to rest.
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