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Tovey (and Brown)

ChrisM

Super Moderator
Staff member
My mother's father and mother were not the luckiest of parents.

George Thomas Tovey (1871-1949) married Rebecca Brown (1871-1945) in 1891. In 1894 they were living at Back 239 Great Colmore Street where Rebecca gave birth to a son, also named George Thomas. This little boy died of acute pneumonia and cardiac failure just one month after his second birthday. After my mother's birth, three years later, a further daughter was born in 1901. It seems that the family were then living at Back 74, Main Street, Aston (actually Sparkbrook). Again aged only two, this little girl died on 20 April 1903 at Queen's Hospital, the cause of death being shock following head injuries after having been run over by a cart. An inquest, conducted by Isaac Bradley, Coroner for Birmingham, was held two days later on 22 April when a verdict of "Accidental Death" was returned. A further daughter had been born in 1902. The two surviving children did later compensate a little for the early loss of their two siblings: the final daughter lived till 83 and my mother achieved a remarkable 96.

The marriage did not survive these tragedies. In around 1904 or 1905 it collapsed and the two little girls went their different ways to be brought up. This is a picture of my mother at around this time, probably in the garden of her grandmother at Knowle where she spent the rest of her childhood.
FEM1906or7web700.jpg

The cause of the breakup is unknown but may of course have been linked to the earlier tragedies. Rebecca was known to have had some predeliction for "the sauce bottle" but whether that occurred as a result of the loss of her children, or was even an indirect contributory cause to their death, we shall never know. Rebecca was thereafter effectively written out of the family history book. My mother always denied her existence to us, her own three children. As far as we were concerned, she was dead and I always assumed that this occurred as a result of childbirth. So we were brought up lacking a beloved and indulgent "Grannie". After my mother's death in 1996 it came as something of a shock to find that our grandmother had lived on until 1945, an even greater shock to learn that mother and daughter had maintained regular contact up until WW2. The parents never divorced.

I'm wondering if any member can advise me where I might find further information about the little girl's tragic death, i.e contemporary newspaper and inquest reports. I assume that all this information resides in the Birmingham Library but is there likely to be any online source of information?
 

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hi chris a fascinating and sad story thanks for sharing it with us...you are lucky in the fact that you have the exact date of the little girls accident with the cart so i would suggest looking on the british newspapers archives site there may well have been a report on it...if you do go down the road of looking for it at the library you will have to search the papers yourself..i am not subbed at the min to the newspaper archives but i think mike it so if he spots this he maybe able to take a look

lyn
 
Chris
I have looked for Rebecca Brown in the Birmingham papers on the newspaper archive. The Birmingham papers are not complete, but only 3 hits came up, one much too early, one in 1918 where a Rebecca Brown , housekeeper, Shuckburgh, Warwickshire in was left some money, and another where , almost certainly the same one died, but this was 1939, so could not be yours. The search facility is not 100% accurate, as it relies on machine reading of the texT, but nothing else came up. 1903 is a year that does not include any Birmingham papers in the archive unfortunately, but on the offchance that something was in papers outside Birmingham, I searched in the period 2 weeks before and after the death in 1903 in all papers for surname Brown and Birmingham, but this also did not turn up anything.
So afraid that the library is the only solution as far as i know, though hopefully they will add the between wars papers soon to the archive. If/when that occurs then i will note it on the forum
 
hi mike you probably still wont find anything but the chris gave no first name for the little girl run over by the cart..rebecca was the girls mother..as you say i think the only option left to chris is to visit the library and i dont envy him that task:rolleyes:
 
I agree that it is not a prospect to look forward to. when I searched I thought, from seeing other reports that the mothers name might be mentioned in the report.
 
That's a great photo to have. I've had some luck find snippets online but it is luck. Searching through the newspapers at the library isn't fun but you have an accurate date so that's a big plus.
 
Looking at the census and death I think the girl's name was Clara Elizabeth Tovey.
 
Many thanks to everyone for your interest and effort with regard to all this. And abject apology for providing insufficient information at the outset. Yes, MWS is correct. The little girl's name was Clara Elizabeth Tovey, born 7 February 1901 and died 20 April 1903.
 
The inquest reports are available in the archives room at the library but you need to contact them first.
Janice
 
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