A family of Ferris’??

 My first quandary is what is the plural of Ferris? My next quandary is why did 30-something John Kent Ferris leave beautiful Exeter in Devon (such yummy sliced meat) for dirty mean London some time before 1794? Perhaps the sliced meat had not yet been invented.

He was a shoemaker and settled in the parish of St Martin in the Fields parish in the not very prestigious City of Westminster. Still a rural place at the time, I believe Westminster was on the rise as Parliamentary buildings were there.

His first wife died just two years after their marriage, perhaps in childbirth as there were no children baptized. The second was our ancestor Susannah Busby sometimes called Eve. Their first child was named William, born in 1799 in Holburn parish just streets away from my London hotel. Quite a few named streets from our Ferris time in London can not be found on todays’ maps. With three large railways stations sprawling over an area immediately to the north of Holburn and Finsbury - I think that Victorian engineers bulldozed them away. Were bulldozers invented by then?

John’s middle name of Kent was a vital clue as it distinguished him from other John Ferris (plurals) in the same part of London. He died in the Covent Gardens workhouse, having buried three wives although his last marriage lasted 26 years. Where did his middle name of Kent come from? It was his mother Sarah’s maiden name.

William Ferris was born in 1799 and had one brother John and two sisters named Susan. He worked as a French Polisher, as did his three surviving sons. The eldest of these was William Henry Ferris who was transported to Van Dieman’s Land in 1843, and continued this career in Melbourne.

William was born in the Lying-in-Hospital for Married Women on the non-extant Endell St, Holburn. Famous for being the first maternity hospital for the wives of tradesman, it was opened in 1749. Women entered in the last few weeks of pregnancy if they had a letter of recommendation. So records of the hospital are more than a baptismal record. 

I believed the building was gone, often confusing it with the Lying-in hospital on City Road which was demolished. 

Bugger I missed the chance to visit it - blame jet lag.

French polishing is a technique for giving wooden furniture a high gloss finish by applying thin coats of shellac mixed with denatured alcohol and rubbing it a lot with a pad soaked in various oils. It is used on antiques these days. I doubt it paid well. William may have been the boy imprisoned for larceny (theft) for six months in 1812 when he was possibly still too young to be an apprentice - although the criminal records states he was 16 though William was actually 13. There was a boy of 12 on the same page.

Nevertheless, he did not continue a life of crime, or was never caught again, and so married Sarah Hutchings in December 1824 in Shoreditch, Tower Hamlets. Exactly to the day one year later William Henry Ferris (the convict) was born. Ah, this child was born in the City Rd Lying-in-Hospital!

Image held in the City of London Archives- free preview image

William had six siblings: Lazarus (who could not rise from the dead before the 1841 census), another John Kent, a Charles Daley, only sister Mary Eliza, Thomas Kent and Alfred James. John Kent and Thomas Kent died as children only a month apart in 1838, John was eight but little Thomas was just a few months old. I suspect a contagion.

DNA

The Ellison family, which includes us McGuiness’ folk as well, have dozens of  DNA matches to descendants of Charles, Mary Eliza and Alfred: including  Dr Adrienne Puckey, a New Zealand doctor who has shared DNA results with me. I will hopefully provide more details later. It’s time for our walking tour of Dublin.