• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Woodward & robinson, horton or orton

Eyesofblue54

proper brummie kid
I have William Woodward b. 1868 in Spondon, Derbyshire who later moved to Aston, Warwickshire.
He originally was married to a Sarah J. (possibly Bates) and later was to have married Alice Hannah (Robinson) Orton or Horton. The latter marriage would have been after 1906 but before 1910.
Alice had two sons from a previous marriage and then her first husband died. She then married William Woodward. They had two more sons while in the UK, born in 1908 and 1909 and then they emmigrated to Canada in 1910.
I have looked everywhere for a marriage for William and Alice. She was listed as Woodward on the Ships list in 1910 along with all 4 boys. I also do not know if there was a proper adoption of her first two boys as they were going by the Woodward name. Their names were Leslie Ernest Orton or Horton and Dennis William Orton or Horton. I think the proper name was Orton but it shows sometimes as Horton.
These two boys always went by Woodward after coming to Canada.

Also, if anyone can confirm that his first wife was Sarah Jane Bates from Derby, Derbyshire,, I would appreciate it as well.

Any help would be wonderful.

Kathleen from Canada :notlooking:
 
Sarah Jane BATES married William WOODWARD 1 Qtr 1891 at Aston Vol 6d Page 526

Maurice :cool:
 
I am wondering whatever happened to Sarah. She was with William in 1901 census and he was having a child with Alice in 1908. Did she die or did they just separate and/or divorce? Was that very common in those days?
 
There's no death of a Sarah (Jane) WOODWARD or Sarah (Jane) BATES in Warwickshire between 1901 and 1910. Or similarly in Derbyshire.

Of course, newspapers of that era record a number of unknown persons whose bodies (unidentified) have been recovered from canals and other such places. You may or may not ever get to know the answer to that one. Or she may have just left the area. Not a rare enough name to make a search practical, I'm afraid.

Divorce didn't become anything like commonplace until after 1923.

Maurice :cool:
 
My guess is that they didn't marry, though bigamy was certainly not unknown. My great aunt married bigamously in West Bromwich (though she lived in Aston) and I think lack of education played a part. Although her husband had deserted her, he was still alive when a cousin asked her to sleep with him. In all innocence she told my grandmother that she thought it would be alright if they married first! She was never found out and I have both marriage certificates and her first husband's later death certificate.

Prior to 1923 the only grounds for a woman to divorce her husband was something criminal such as rape. In 1923 the law changed to allow adultery to be used. From 1937 such things as drunkeness were added to the list of reasons for divorce.

Maurice :cool:
 
This is very informative. Thank you. I am learning something as we go here. The women of today, do not realize what our female ancestors endured. Not that I believe that we should all be divorcing for just for the sake of it. It is amazing that is not all that long ago that things changed. Thank you for the history lesson.
Kathleen
 
Here is Alice's first marriage
Married June 1/4 1902
Orton David William Birmingham Vol 6d page 9
Robinson Alice Hannah Birmingham Vol 6d page 9
and this could be her second
[SIZE=+1]Married Jun 1/2 1907 [/SIZE]
HORTON Alice Ann Aston 6d 533
As there are only three names on the page, if George married Jane then this could be your Alice.
BIRBECK George Frederick Aston 6d 533
HALL Jane Aston 6d 533
If getting the marraige cert you can say you only want it if William Woodward is the spouse
 
Thank you very much. I will look into this and hopefully it will be who I am looking for. Is it common for Hannah to be listed as Ann?
Kathleen
 
Names that had variants like Hannah, or Elizabeth were often changed to shorter names as in the case of Hannah to Annie/Ann, or Anne and used on Census, Marriage cert's and death cert's back then even if on a birth cert' it said Hannah, or whatever . Mainly because people often could not write themselves, or read so whoever filled in the cert' , or form spelt the names the way they thought, or what they heard it is also common with spellings of Surnames too. Good Luck
 
Well, I do not believe that is my Alice as I went through the records and there is no William Woodward on the same page. So it is back to the drawing board again. It is kind of odd there are only 3 people listed on the listing though. But I went through the rest of it and he is not there. Thank you for your help though. I appreciate the effort.
 
Back
Top